I still see SDMB threads come in at the top of Google searches, though. I don’t know if Google puts them there for me because it knows my history. Strange if true.
Interesting. I haven’t seen the straight dope come up in my searches for years unless I added site:forums.straightdope.com or something. Even then searches haven’t worked as well as they did with vBulletin.
But not nearly as busy as MPSIMS, which, as far as I could see, was the locus of the community, especially the ones that shifted over from AOL… Impressions on what the “Board” was or is like are going to be individual.
Good point. I never had that perception of MPSIMS, because I rarely went over there. I did frequent the Pit after a couple of years. On the whole, I’ve enjoyed my stay at the board. Ed’s slogan (and it happens to be Ed’s not Cecil’s) provided a sense of mission that made this place special. Fighting ignorance, making wisecracks. Some posters did more of one, some of the other: both are fine activities.
Judging by the response Cecil got from his first couple comeback columns (and his subsequent decision to hang up his pen again), It’s doubtful that even he would be welcome here as a poster any more.
I’d say that whatever this board has become, its original mission is long gone.
The last column was a month ago, and in his last post he said he would be taking a break and wouldn’t be able to produce articles at the rate he was, but would continue to do so now and then.
He seems to have gotten a lot of discussion from his columns, I don’t see that they were poorly received. And he has been fine interacting with the community.
That sounds like nonsense to me; as has been noted, he’s gotten a warm reception, even if we’ve largely foregone the joking traditions of calling him “Unca Cece” or “the Perfect Master” (and for that matter when’s the last time you’ve seen Dopers referred to as “the Teeming Millions”?). Cecil’s slower pace, I think, can be attributed to two things.
Firstly, and most simply, age. Ed Zotti is 72 years old; he’s been writing this column for decades, and I’m sure he’s happy to slow down and enjoy a very well-earned rest.
Secondly, as @Measure_for_Measure pointed out, the niche that Cecil carved out back in the 70s and 80s - offbeat questions answered accurately but snarkily - have been colonized by other sites. Still think “The Straight Dope” is one of the best, especially at debunking woo - remember how Cecil took down Morey Bernstein, the “past lives regressionist” responsible for Bridey Murphy? - but he’s not the only game in town, anymore.
Keep in mind the Straight Dope was edited by Mike Lenehan from its inception in 1973 up to 1976, when Dave Kehr took over. Ed then became editor in 1978, when he was 27.
Even if Ed began the column in 1973 that’s not too much of a stretch – graduating college at 22 and going to work for a small alternative newspaper writing a funny but irrelevant column seems perfectly like a perfectly cromulent career trajectory.
Reading the books in order one gets a sense that the columns from the 70’s were written by a different person than all the subsequent columns. So my guess is Mike/Dave wrote the colums before Ed, and Ed has been doing it ever since.
Huh? I dunno. I met Cecil in person recently (we were both attending The Megabrain Conference for Advanced Study, in Rio de Janeiro) and complimented him for replying to Dopers like @Beckdawrek on the SDMB.
Cecil replied, “who??? I don’t reply to nobody, I just have ChatGPT set on auto-reply to the teeming masses on that silly message board.”
[just kidding, I never talked to Cecil.
…attending the Megabrain Conference is true, though. ]
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