# Can we firmly state that Straight Dope Community is more educated than any other internet community? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 28, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415 "2012-11-28T23:14:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![taskmgr.exe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@taskmgr.exe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taskmgr.exe)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/1 "2012-11-28T23:14:31Z")
What basing it upon, can we say that? Is it just an impression that I got? Cite? Is it arrogant to say that? ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/2 "2012-11-28T23:18:18Z")
What would be the purpose in doing so? Bragging rights? Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/3 "2012-11-28T23:19:23Z")
> [@taskmgr.exe](#): > > Is it arrogant to say that? Yes. Regardless of whether it’s true, it’s certainly arrogant. It also happens to be false, I’m certain, based on the existence of the Stack Overflow community and a number of other special-purpose web fora that are filled primarily with domain experts. Quora is another example of this. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/4 "2012-11-28T23:20:16Z")
How arrogant are we ---
**Author:** ![janeslogin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/df788c/32.png) [@janeslogin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/janeslogin)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/5 "2012-11-28T23:21:31Z")
There are many discussion groups almost everyone is post graduate educated. Lingua Franca, Language Log, those sorts of places where there just one or two posts and a dozen comments every day. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/6 "2012-11-28T23:21:39Z")
“Any other internet community” is a very big tent, and I know far to many well-educated morons to ever consider education in and of itself to be something worth bragging about. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/7 "2012-11-28T23:23:02Z")
[In this poll from last year](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=608711) with 307 people responding, over 81% had a four year college degree or higher. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/8 "2012-11-28T23:25:41Z")
Not with me here dragging down the average! ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/9 "2012-11-28T23:41:09Z")
I think the great thing about the SDMB is the _breadth_ of knowledge to be found here. Sure, there may be other communities with a high number of graduate degrees, but I’m betting those communities are more narrowly focused in particular fields. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/10 "2012-11-28T23:46:28Z")
More pretentious maybe. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 28, 2012, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/11 "2012-11-28T23:54:51Z")
Unanswerable in General Questions. MOved to IMHO. **samclem** , Moderator ---
**Author:** ![taskmgr.exe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@taskmgr.exe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/taskmgr.exe)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/12 "2012-11-29T00:15:17Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Unanswerable in General Questions. MOved to IMHO. > **samclem** , Moderator Oh crap. IMHO again ☹ ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/13 "2012-11-29T00:19:57Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > Unanswerable in General Questions. MOved to IMHO. > **samclem** , Moderator > [@taskmgr.exe](#): > > Oh crap. IMHO again ☹ IMHO isn’t exile. Many reponses in IMHO are factual. This assumes that your OP wasn’t trolling. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/14 "2012-11-29T00:34:56Z")
I don’t belong to any other communities, and don’t really care much about the education of members here, or anywhere really. Oh, sure there are very intelligent and focused people of various disciplines here, but there are a lot of people who are very social, street-smart and life-smart. It’s super to be able to get a factual answer on everything from rocket science, to law, to medicine, to electronics, to car repairs here, but there are maybe a dozen or so people who I really admire who just know exactly what to do in any given situation, and who give the wisest advice to everyday problems you can imagine. So, education isn’t everything, and the balance here is really inspiring. If we could all get together for a party it would be a lot of fun. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/15 "2012-11-29T00:45:03Z")
Average of the Internet, yes. But I’m sure there are self-selected communities where the PhD ratio is higher than here. So the answer to the OP’s question is almost certainly no. ---
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/16 "2012-11-29T00:56:27Z")
**Yoyager** is correct, IMHO. The breadth of knowledge available on this board might be a better metric. After all, formal education is not everything. I certainly feel like this a remarkably intelligent group of folks, and I have been to many different places on the Internet. The group is self-mocking when someone gets too pretentious and yet notices when a post is cogent and useful to the topic. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/17 "2012-11-29T01:47:46Z")
I hope not. Humanity needs smarter than us. ---
**Author:** ![Shade](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2bfe46/32.png) [@Shade](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shade)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/18 "2012-11-29T02:03:09Z")
I think SDMB has a laudable devotion to, well, finding the truth in unusual situations, which is certainly rare. But it seems unlikely it’s more educated, than, say, [arxiv.org](http://arxiv.org), which is used primarily by practising research mathematicians and theoretical physicists to publish papers (but I think counts as a “community”). ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/19 "2012-11-29T02:10:25Z")
You can’t firmly state anything. Even among the professional boards, can you really say that an online community of astrophysicists is smarter than the particle physicists? or the high energy guys? ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2012, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415/20 "2012-11-29T02:46:52Z")
Arrogant but true. I love many things about the Dope. One of them is the juxtaposition of deep/shallow, broad/narrow, and profound/lame topics. For example, you will see questions about complex technical, historical, scientific topics right next to “Is there such a thing as standard poop?” and “What is the correct pronunciation of ‘twat’?” I mean, how can you not stand in awe at the breadth of interests represented there? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-we-firmly-state-that-straight-dope-community-is-more-educated-than-any-other-internet-community/642415.md?page=2)