# Charter Members: Who and how many are left? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [August 1, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708 "2015-08-01T06:07:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Tripler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripler/32/21807_2.png) [@Tripler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tripler)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/1 "2015-08-01T06:07:22Z")
Just out of curiosity, how many folks took advantage of the charter membership, and is there a listing of who’s left? The Internet’s a wild, open space. I’m curious of who’s left of those ‘unwashed masses’ as Mike Lukas once put it. Tripler I’ve washed. With soap and water. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/2 "2015-08-01T07:02:48Z")
May be hard to tell. There are people like me who were charter members but got dropped back due to a late payment maybe. I never stopped subscribing but the title disappeared. I think I could have got it back but it involved some BS or other so I never bothered. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/3 "2015-08-01T11:36:04Z")
Here since 1999. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/4 "2015-08-01T11:47:53Z")
Another ex-charter member whose title lapsed through inadvertently neglecting payment. When the sky didn’t fall in I figured what the hell? It’s only a name. ---
**Author:** ![Honey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honey/32/5074_2.png) [@Honey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honey)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/5 "2015-08-01T12:17:12Z")
I like my Charter Member status. As well as the half price membership fee. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Morgenstern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Morgenstern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgenstern)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/6 "2015-08-01T14:12:54Z")
Charter member… Is that sort of like the emperor’s new clothes? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/7 "2015-08-01T14:54:31Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members. heh ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/8 "2015-08-01T15:22:10Z")
> [@aldiboronti](#): > > Another ex-charter member whose title lapsed through inadvertently neglecting payment. When the sky didn’t fall in I figured what the hell? It’s only a name. Me, too. ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/9 "2015-08-01T19:07:15Z")
Still here. Don’t post much anymore, but a '99er for life. Hi everyone! ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/10 "2015-08-01T19:45:42Z")
Here and paid up through May of 2017 in fact. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/11 "2015-08-01T19:47:48Z")
Another 99’er checking in. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 8:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/12 "2015-08-01T20:48:49Z")
yeah, yeah, there’s always bunch of us 99ers around to proudly proclaim it, mostly because that’s the last consolation we have, upon despairing of ever getting them kids off our lawns. The subscription database could probably cough up the number of “live” CM accounts if the Admins so wished. However as mentioned there’s probably quite a number of de-facto CMs who at one point or another lost the title in the middle of the various changes in membership protocols so it could be misleading. ---
**Author:** ![Foggy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foggy/32/1082_2.png) [@Foggy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Foggy)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/13 "2015-08-01T20:59:30Z")
I hung out at the old AOL Boards, signed up here in November 1999. I’ve never been a member much less a Charter Member. I don’t even know how one became a Charter Member. I left when the board went pay to post for several years, but return in July 2010 and have been annoying dopes since then. 😉 Don’t know how much longer I’ll be here, but all things mush come to an end. I doubt my computer will last much longer. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![engineer\_comp\_geek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/engineer_comp_geek/32/504_2.png) [@engineer\_comp\_geek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/engineer_comp_geek)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/14 "2015-08-01T21:09:53Z")
> [@Foggy](#): > > I don’t even know how one became a Charter Member. The board started out with free access. There were no paying members. Then the board switched to a pay only membership, with no free guests. Those that paid became Charter Members, as they were paying members right from the start, and received a discount. Anyone who joined after that date or let their membership lapse and re-joined later, became a Member. A while later, they added free guests whose subscriptions were paid for by advertising. You can pay to become a Member (and not see ads and have posting privileges in the Marketplace), but if you weren’t there from the start, you can’t be a Charter Member. For a while they had a special thing going where Charter Members who had lost their membership could get reinstated as Charter Members, but that was only a temporary thing and is no longer in effect, as far as I am aware. I was a Charter Member up until the point where I became a Moderator. ---
**Author:** ![pool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pool/32/4152_2.png) [@pool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pool)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/15 "2015-08-01T21:12:15Z")
I used to be a Charter Member, nothing really special about it. What’s being a '99er have to do with being a Charter Member, the paid subscription came later right? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/16 "2015-08-01T21:16:24Z")
I think charter membership started in 2004, the year that I joined. That means I would be one of the most recent charter members. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/17 "2015-08-01T21:21:37Z")
Here as more than a lurker since 2002. On the 13th it will be 13 years! It isn’t really big deal, being a Charter Member. But can you twitch your nostrils like a rabbit? * * * - Formerly known as Trans Fat 0g Prior to that: True Blue Jack (I will soon be requesting another handle.) ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/18 "2015-08-01T21:32:43Z")
Here’s a tip to avoid letting your membership lapse: buy 2 years of memberships, roughly every year. I think I’m paid up through 2020 or something. Of course that sort of defeats the purpose of the discount, but nobody claimed that the fight against ignorance would be easy. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/19 "2015-08-01T21:35:00Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > The board started out with free access. There were no paying members. Then the board switched to a pay only membership, with no free guests. Those that paid became Charter Members, as they were paying members right from the start, and received a discount. Anyone who joined after that date or let their membership lapse and re-joined later, became a Member. A while later, they added free guests whose subscriptions were paid for by advertising. Another 99er who passed on Charter Membership here. It was that period of pay-to-play that drove a number of users away - not as much because we were being asked to pay, but because it was going to reduce the user pool so drastically. I never participated on the AOL and (GEnie? Prodigy?) iterations of the board but my earliest posts on AFCA are around early 1987. I came to this board when it started, went back to AFCA when it went P2P, have wandered in and out ever since. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2015, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708/20 "2015-08-01T21:35:53Z")
The title is mostly an indicator that some of us have had nothing better to do for the last 11 years than to hang around this board and continue to pay for the privilege of doing so. If the SDMB were an elementary school, we would have been arrested long ago. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/charter-members-who-and-how-many-are-left/726708.md?page=2)