# Encountering the Straight Dope Elsewhere on the Net
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [November 1, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278 "2014-11-01T17:00:56Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2014, 5:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/1 "2014-11-01T17:00:56Z")
Does this happen to anyone? I think of the Straight Dope as a very little-known community, different from the likes of Gawker and so on. I’m not sure why, but I guess I always have. So it’s a little surreal when I see it mentioned on other sites.
Like seeing it get a [TVTropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Memes/OtherInternet) mention.
> [@](#):
>
> The Straight Dope Message Board has its own quirky in-jokes and memes that occasionally require some explanation. Among them:
> Given that the tagline for the Straight Dope is “Fighting Ignorance Since 1973”, any claim made by anyone, especially in the “Great Debates” section (the board for controversial topics), are met with cries for “Cite?”, though this is also used humorously in other contexts as well.
> Because of the user named “Opalcat” complaining that lists have to come in items of three or more, the third item on any list of any length is now “Hi, Opal!”
> A user named “Hal Briston” once left his workstation unlocked while signed on, and a mischievous colleague started a topic for him: “Sex with sheep is fun.” Needless to say, he has yet to live this down.
> Simultaneous posts involving a question about the Duran Duran song Rio has resulted in the joke answer of any question being “Rio by Duran Duran”.
> Multiple attempts to send a post through about the Marianas trench results in other things having been attempted “once, in the 1960s, for about twenty minutes”.
> A question about weapons of mass destruction garnered the (then dead serious) answer of “1920’s style Death Rays”.
> Any anecdote about cats (and occasionally other pets as well) will be bombarded by requests for pictures.
> It’s pretty much an open secret that The Straight Dope column writer Cecil Adams is the Pen Name of “editor” Ed Zotti, but most long-time posters, including board moderators, like to pretend that this isn’t the case.
It makes Dopers sound quite quaint. 🙂
Jezebel also gave the Very Vaguely Creepy threads a shout out, too, in the comments. (Having trouble finding it now, but it referred to our threads as true classics. Yay!)
It shouldn’t feel surreal, but I suppose it does. And kind of awesome!
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### Author:  [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)
#### Post date: [November 1, 2014, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/2 "2014-11-01T17:15:56Z")
It always gives me a thrill. I just wish I’d found it sooner and I wish some of our best posters would quit leaving us.
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### Author:  [@FluffyBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FluffyBob)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2014, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/3 "2014-11-02T22:21:17Z")
Googling rare questions will often produce Straight Dope threads, sometimes at the top, hence all our zombie outbreaks.
When ‘probably the best site in the world’ is mostly girlie pics (not a terrible thing but…) and other influential sites are often bastions of heartless nastiness, I am happy to have this relatively quite corner of the internet here.
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### Author:  [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2014, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/4 "2014-11-02T22:27:12Z")
Yeah - we’re the best cite in the world!
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### Author:  [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2014, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/5 "2014-11-02T22:53:06Z")
There was the time when a well-regarded bit of speculation (I forget what) about the last season of Breaking Bad came from a Doper (I forget who). This Doper, who said he’d read it on reddit ‘somewhere’ ended up having his SDMB username cited quite a bit in the run up to season 5.2 of Breakign Bad.
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### Author:  [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2014, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/6 "2014-11-02T23:14:44Z")
Xkcd has mentioned this cite a few times.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/7 "2014-11-03T00:44:44Z")
Not touting myself, but one of my sons called me about six months ago, playing a trivia contest. Don’t remember the question right now.
He googled the question and my response was the first hit. He called me and I was amazed.
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### Author:  [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/8 "2014-11-03T00:51:00Z")
Too cool, **samclem**!
And wasn’t **Scylla** ’s Horror of Blimps linked to elsewhere also?
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/9 "2014-11-03T01:01:19Z")
Our “If Somebody Else Wrote The Lord Of The Rings” Thread was famous for 15 minutes.
Apparently, at the bottom of the Marianas Trench, if rumors be true.
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### Author:  [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/10 "2014-11-03T03:17:49Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> Too cool, **samclem**!
>
> And wasn’t **Scylla** ’s Horror of Blimps linked to elsewhere also?
The blimp story was printed in a British ballooning magazine. I have a copy, and it mentions the source of the story as being the Straight Dope.
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### Author:  [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 4:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/11 "2014-11-03T04:01:18Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> And wasn’t **Scylla** ’s Horror of Blimps linked to elsewhere also?
It was mentioned online somewhere, I can’t recall now where, and was the reason I joined the dope forums.
That shit was funny.
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### Author:  [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/12 "2014-11-03T05:06:26Z")
[Cracked.com](http://Cracked.com) readers may be familiar with their Image Macro contests. For those who aren’t, these contests ask contributors to present facts on a theme in an interesting way. Sources (or, as we would call them here on the SDMB, “cites”) are required, and sources are checked; and entries that cite unsuitable sources (such as Wikipedia, IMDB trivia, or other user-edited sites) are tossed.
Anyway, in the “entry discussion” thread on Cracked’s message board, somebody once asked if the Straight Dope would be a valid source. The answer was “no.” IIRC (and I can only recall, as I cannot find the message to cite to), while the Straight Dope was seen by Cracked as reputable, the problem lay with the identity of Cecil Adams–without the ability to cite back to an identifiable person, who had done and published real research (is “Cecil” a pseudonym? does he or they have a team behind him or them? who are they?), Cracked was reluctant to accept the Straight Dope as a cite for its Image Macros.
As a longtime Doper, I did like seeing the Straight Dope mentioned at Cracked; but as an occasional entrant to the contests at Cracked, I was disappointed to see that Straight Dope cites would not be accepted. Never mind; if that is Cracked’s policy, it is what it is. Regardless, the SDMB has taught me the value of research and reputable cites, so the sources for my entries at Cracked usually pass muster.
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### Author:  [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/13 "2014-11-03T14:15:50Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#):
>
> It always gives me a thrill. I just wish I’d found it sooner and I wish some of our best posters would quit leaving us.
I definitely feel this way. I wish I had discovered the Dope when it first came about… although I would cringe if some of my idiotic views from my college years were immortalized
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### Author:  [@Inner\_Stickler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inner_Stickler)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/14 "2014-11-03T14:42:24Z")
> [@Freudian\_Slit](#):
>
> Like seeing it get a [TVTropes](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Memes/OtherInternet) mention.
When it’s a wiki sort of thing like TVTropes, I usually assume it was a doper who wrote it.
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### Author:  [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/15 "2014-11-03T14:52:53Z")
> [@Inner\_Stickler](#):
>
> When it’s a wiki sort of thing like TVTropes, I usually assume it was a doper who wrote it.
Concur.
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### Author:  [@Helena330](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helena330)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2014, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/16 "2014-11-03T15:15:21Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#):
>
> I definitely feel this way. I wish I had discovered the Dope when it first came about… \*\*although I would cringe if some of my idiotic views \*\*from my college years were immortalized
Me, too. I was naive for a long time, and still am sometimes. The Dope would’ve set me straight sooner, however!
I read a few other message boards, and have seen the SDMB quoted on quite a few occasions. Most of the time I chuckle like I have a secret, but sometimes I think, “Seriously? You’re quoting that tool??” 😃
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### Author:  [@congodwarf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/congodwarf)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2014, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/17 "2014-11-04T22:03:44Z")
My sister just shared this on her facebook wall. She has never heard of SDMB or [The Horror of Blimps](http://www.quickmeme.com/news/?p=5729).
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### Author:  [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2014, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/18 "2014-11-05T02:34:36Z")
[http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23043](http://www.skepticforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=23043)
It’s not about the forum, but it is about flies.
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### Author:  [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)
#### Post date: [November 5, 2014, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/19 "2014-11-05T16:38:33Z")
> [@FluffyBob](#):
>
> Googling rare questions will often produce Straight Dope threads, sometimes at the top, hence all our zombie outbreaks.
Is THAT what’s behind them? I had wondered.
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### Author:  [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)
#### Post date: [January 8, 2015, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278/20 "2015-01-08T20:23:22Z")
I just read and enjoyed \*The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible \*by A. J. Jacobs, and was delighted to see that he cited to the Straight Dope in his endnotes.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/encountering-the-straight-dope-elsewhere-on-the-net/703278.md?page=2)