When posting or reading a thread here on the Dope, do you notice the membership status listed under the Username?
Folks who just register and post show up as “guests”, whereas people who contribute (voluntarily) to the SDMB show up as “member”, or in some case “charter member”
If you notice what effect does it have? Do you give more stock to a post from a member, or a charter member? Look down on guests who don’t pay their way?
Doesn’t register at all. What I notice is “Join Date,” especially if the OP is…different.
I recognize most of the charter members just because we’ve all been around for so long. I recognize a lot of names of those who are members or guests too just because they’ve been around for a while too.
I generally take each post on its own merits and don’t pay too much attention to whether it’s from a guest, member, or charter member. If I know someone, that helps me to put their posts in perspective. For example, someone might say something that leads me to believe they have a questionable understanding of what they are talking about. If I know the person and I know that they know better than that, then I know all they did was word something poorly. If it’s someone I don’t recognize though then I have no idea if they worded it poorly or if they truly don’t understand, so that may lead to a slightly different response.
People are people. We all deserve respect. I don’t like cliques that look down on anyone who isn’t a part of their privileged group. If you are friendly and respectful to me I will be the same to you. If you are a guest and I am a charter member that doesn’t really matter much to me. All that matters to me is what you post.
Same here. I didn’t go “Member” for quite some time, and only have that now because I won a random-draw gift subscription. Whether I’ll renew that or not depends heavily on my finances when the time comes (our income right now is DH’s UI benefits).
I find that “Join Date” tells me a bit more than the tag under the name.
Ditto.
Lest anyone think I’m a freeloader who doesn’t pay his fair share, you’re entitled to your opinion. My opinion is that I deliberately avoid using programs which hide the advertisements, and since I do occasionally look at them, I therefore do support the site financially.
I notice if the poster is going someplace strange. Does the post appear like something a troll or sock might post?
And if they are complaining about the board itself- are they a member? Cause if you’re not, then really, you don’t have the same rights to complain as if you are paying for it. Paying customers have more rights in that regard, IMHO.
I also support the board by making suggestions to the moderators. For example, I just sent in a suggestion that this thread might belong in Great Debates, or perhaps in About This Message Board.
I was a charter member for many years. My renewal date was around the time that I was preparing for lung cancer surgery. Since then, I’ve remained a guest. Judge me on what I have to say. I “pay” for not being a Charter Member by having to scroll through lots of adds.
If I don’t recognize a user name, I will look at join date. When looking at user names I’m sure I see the member/guest status, but that doesn’t signify much to me. I was a member when I joined, I’m a guest now, no big deal.
I treat all charter members with utter reverence.
Been here a while.
Does not make me a good poster or smart.
But I am stubborn. Bawahahaha
Having such rights is not a matter of opinion. Either we have the rights or we don’t.
No.
At the time subscriptions were no longer required there was some discussion about ‘guests’ being a good thing since they attracted advertising money, wheras members got the bonus of having the advertisments blocked and didn’t.
I missed the window to be a Charter Member, that might have been cool, but I can’t be bothered to register now.
I do look at join dates, same as silenus, um something smells wrong here… Join Date: Jul 2013 uh oh!
Since the OP is asking about personal experiences, let’s move this to IMHO.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Look, if you go to a retail business and complain about the music they play or whatever, there’s a big difference whether you are a long time customer or have never bought anything there before. Now sure, no business wants to tick off potential customers either, but losing current good customers is much worse.
Dumb question, but how do I become a member instead of a guest?
User CP > Paid Subscriptions > Give em your credit card info.
I pretty much spend most of my time in either the Charter Member Lounge, because I like the free drinks & big screen TV in there, or the 99ers Club (I can’t really say publicly why I like it there, but trust me, it’s great). But when I do venture out, I always notice the poster’s status; it’s hard not to, what with the “Guest” posts mostly greyed out and “Member” posts accompanied with the full dossier of info that we charter members use to rate the validity of each post.
I also find the dossier section that maps political leaning to Member/Guest status to be particularly revealing.
{Nods graciously in Crotalus’ direction}
Stupid '99ers. 
I don’t care much about the title under the name, either - a recent join date means a lot more, as everyone else has said.
Being an old-school attention whore, I pony up for the custom title. It is to the 2010’s what sig lines were to the 2000’s. So I generally look to see who else is rocking a subscription.