What was the first General Questions thread?
The earliest one I could find was this one:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=715
Dern! Did you notice that handy posted and unfortunately the number of posts was n/a. It would have been interesting to see how many he had at the time.
Here’s one dated 5/14/99
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=1203
I’ve seen threads that started in March 1999 in other forums so there must be some GQ threads that date back that far as well. This is the oldest I’ve found so far, though.
It wouldn’t matter. If you could see it, it would be his current post count anyway. 
The part I found amusing was seeing Ed Zotti listed as “NOT REGISTERED YET”
Anyway–found an earlier one, first posted 5/4/99:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=861
I don’t know why I find this intriguing, but I do. There has to be a bunch of Aprils and at least a few Marches out there somewhere and I’m determined to find some.
Is it possible it’s been deleted? Has anyone gone through and deleted some of the really old ones, or was that just a MPSIMS/IMHO thing?
Back when the board started it was using UBB software. UBB started getting kludgy when a significant number of posts accumulated. At one point they decided to just do away with older posts, so GQ and I believe one other forum had all threads that had not had a reply after 5/31/99 deleted. The current vB software apparently has better data base functionality.
OK, that does sort of explain matters. Well, if you can’t visit the first threads here, you can–assuming you have AOL of course–still pay a visit to the [url=“aol://5863:126/mB:59300”] ruins of the place from which we emigrated.
As with so many things, this board has evolved. No srpinging whole from Zeus’ brow–no, the forums were added and altered over time. I don’t remember, however, what order they were created in. IIRC, it was Comments on Cecil’s Columns, GQ, and MPSIMS first . . .
Just wanted to say that the oldest thread overall that I could find is here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=7
In it, Ed welcomes people to the brand-spankin’-new Comments on Cecil’s Columns forum (which, incidentally, he calls a “folder” :)).
I just think it’s so cool to look back at how it was back in the day - hey, sometimes ya learn a bit. It’s like our own little time capsule. I even noticed some threads about Y2K. 
And the first poster after Ed? CatBiker, natch.
I suppose you have all by now noticed Ed’s announcement to the effect that they’ll be pruning again.
IIRC, ATMB was here early on, as were Comments on Staff Reports (previously Comments on Mailbag Items). Great Debates was added in the first half of 1999, as a response to an ATMB thread, Religious Trollery by Little Nemo (née Mike King) and has apparently been pruned, as the first debate thread there is no longer (which I remember because I posted it). IMHO is our latest addition, having had its debut a little over a year ago.
Interesting how the “threadid=x” does NOT appear to be sequential. (IE, thread 7 is older than thread 2)
Did they reuse thread 1? (For some reason, when I pull it up, it’s a thread started on July, 2000)
Thread 1 has been a topic of some discussion before. Apparently, the first few posts to it disappeared somehow, although I don’t think anyone ever did figure out a satisfactory explanation for why. It was sometime after the Great Conversion that it happened, though… I was around the first time it got bumped, and saw the old posts.
Thread ID numbers are sequential in both UBB and vB, but somewhere in the conversion, they got mixed up a bit. I believe that the primary reason for this is that UBB numbered threads by forum, but vB uses the same numbering across the Board. To which thread do you assign vB number 1: The old ATMB #1, the old GQ #1, or the old CCC #1?
What we need is someone to write The Unexpurgated History of the Straight Dope Message Board…
Alternate suggested title: "Everything you always wanted to know about the SDMB[sup]*[/sup]
*[sub]but were afraid to ask[/sub]