Does Cecil ever actually respond to questions posed via the Ask the Master link on the front page? It’s suggested there that other avenues (GQ, for instance) may be more fruitful. So what are the odds? Is the email address given simply an express route to Cecil’s waste-paper bin? Does he actually read the questions himself? Does he get many through this channel? Inquiring minds need to know.
The vast majority of the questions Cecil answers come from mail sent to that link. The mail is screened to determine if it’s a question previously asked, or too close to a prior question to be worth answering, or if the question is interesting enough. Then we sort the questions into bins and Cecil decides which ones he wishes to work on. Sometimes, more often now than before, Cecil also tackles questions asked in GQ and other forums where no one has a really good answer. Questions which are interesting but not ones which Cecil wishes to answer are sometimes “farmed out” to the SD Staff.
Unfortunately, Cecil only tackles an average of just over one question a week, and receives upwards of 20-30 mails per week, so the backlog keeps growing.
Una,
For the Straight Dope
When does he anticipate that he will get all caught up?
Soon.
It’s taking longer than he thought.
And many thanks, Una; I’m minded to pop a question to the Master myself in that case, once I find one worthy of him.
In the year ∞, Cecil will have been asked ∞ questions and will have answered ∞ of them, so he will be caught up.
Note: Take ∞ here to mean Aleph Null, which I can’t figure out how to write here.
Several years ago I received an email stating that one of my questions was being used in the column. The question as published was attributed to someone else and was very similar but not exactly that same. I assumed that at least two of us wrote similar questions and received the email.
Yes, that happens frequently. Sometimes as many as 20 or more people will ask the same question. What we try to do in terms of attribution is attribute the first person who sent in a “complete” question. That is, if the first mail received is “What is it with nuclear energy?” and the second person sends in “Is it true that nuclear energy is having a Renaissance?,” we would probably use the second question and attribute that person. However, since the general topic was addressed, Dex would have sent a mail to others who wrote in.
Una,
For the Straight Dope
The column in question was this one: Did John Dillinger really die outside the Biograph Theater? - The Straight Dope
I can see why my specific question wasn’t picked. I asked specifically about Dillinger as written in the Encyclopedia of Crime. In it they stated matter of factly that Dillinger was not killed in front of the theater. The explanation is that Nash was one of the authors and it was his pet theory. But the question that was answered allowed Cecil to talk about Dillinger’s dick.
For one of my Staff Report answers, I included both letters, just to point out how the first one didn’t actually contain any questions. Of course, Staff Reports, being online-only, have a bit more flexibility for that sort of thing than the main column, which must fit within a certain number of inches on the newspaper page.
??
Huh. I figured you guys would choose the letter with the most entertainingly plaintive and inane language (with sufficient detail), so that Cecil could lay down the scorch.
Cecil once responded to me via a Ouija board.
I can’t remember how I first stumbled across this place, but I did submit a question to Cecil and remember getting some sort of standard response along the lines that he was very busy and would I like to submit my question in GQ instead? I followed the advice and got some good answers, but then a couple of years later my question got used as a column after all. So the system seems to work fine.
Ha, that’s nothin- while talking to God, God put me on hold so He could answer Cecil’s call. 
I got one answered.
http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20100513.php
Part two
http://chicago.straightdope.com/sdc20101104.php
I wish they’d integrate the Straight Dope Chicago Archives into the main SD Archives.
Ha, that’s nothin- Cecil once put God on hold so he could take my call.