I don’t do this much myself but I can understand the temptation.
Do you ever find yourself browsing other message boards and seeing a particular question come up and thinking to yourself:
Hmm…I’m sure I saw that question answered in straight dope just the other day
so over you go to SD to find the relevant thread.
once you find it, you realise that the question has been answered by someone in the thread in a much better way than you could have ever hoped to do yourself.
so you take a quick furtive glance over your shoulder to check no ones looking and you just cut and paste the best SD answer to the other message board - taking all the credit for yourself!
I know you could link to the SD as a cite and stuff but then you’d have to get into a big explanation of what the SD is and stuff which would be a drag. It’s easier just to c&p an answer
I know you shouldn’t really do this, copyright and all, (and I don’t tend to do it much myself) but the implications of this are quite astounding
you can just appear on a message board somewhere dispensing wisdom about any topic they care to name, you’ll be worshipped like a god…until they meet you in real life and then the whole image gets blown away as they discover you’re really just a regular dumbfuck like everyone else.
But until they meet you personally and your cover is blown, you’d be like a one-man SD, you’d be worshipped. You’d be known as “The Guy Who Knows Everything”. You could start your own online religion maybe.
Yes, I’ve done that quite recently. At the temp board Zyada posted some excellent suggestions on what to do if you’re thinking about a divorce. Shortly afterwards, my wife mentioned to me “this lady here (at an internet site my wife was reading) says her husband is abusive”, so I looked up Zyada’s post and my wife e-mailed it to the lady.
There are other message boards outside of the Straight Dope “family” of boards (Una’s, Opal’s, um…the “Downunder” board that I can never remember the name of…)?
What do they talk about when all the smart people are here?
Do you have cites for Una, Opal, and the Aussies? I’m looking for contact with a few more smart people, and google isn’t helping me find the right Una.
Thanks
This is the only board I belong to. Well, I had to become a member of an xbox site so I could get some game help, but it would be hard to find relative information to plagiarise.
I like hanging around Dopers Downunder, and have the link as the first messageboard on my “Favourites” list, because it has a different flavour from any of the others, including SDMB. They’re a great bunch down there – or, in my case, just across the ditch!
No kidding, Ice Wolf. I thought I only had time for the SDMB before the Long Dark Days post hacking. However, I found I liked the people at the other boards too. :eek:
Woo. You remember back when life was normal? Can you remind me, too?
Actually, I followed TheLoadedDog an’ the other Aussies to G’Dope/Dopers DownUnder ages ago (forget how long, it seems like years, now). They put up with me there. I get to laugh a lot. And I’ve always liked 'em.
Just don’t tell 'em, 'kay? They’ll think I’m a sook.
