In How long have you been a “Message Board” person? which gathered 55 replies between 01-08-2012, 08:51 AM and 01-10-2012, 12:01 PM, 68 individuals (35.42% of those who voted) checked the “Over 16 years” option.
It seems obvious that I cut short on the 2-years gaps in that poll and thought I’d give it another try for getting more specific on the longer term “message board people” and how long they have been at it.
Public poll. Others can see where you voted.
Just since I put up this poll, another voter in the “Over 16 years” group brought that list to:
AHunter3, Anaamika, Arrogance Ex Machina, Athena, awldune, Barty, beowulff, breezman, Chicken Fingers, dalej42, Doctor, Dr. Strangelove, Dragwyr, Duckster, ENugent, Eonwe, Fear the Turtle, fluiddruid, FXMastermind, Giles, Hal Briston, Hamadryad, hermette, Hirka T’Bawa, hogarth, Infovore, Invisible Chimp, IvoryTowerDenizen, John DiFool, JohnT, Jophiel, kayT, Kenm, kenobi 65, Knorf, Lamia, Lanzy, Larry Mudd, Little Nemo, Lsura, Lynn Bodoni, Mahaloth, Manda JO, Miss Mapp, Musicat, Nametag, Number, Oliveritaly, Orionizer, psychonaut, Quartz, rbroome, RealityChuck, RTFirefly, Rushgeekgirl, sandra_nz, Sister Vigilante, Steophan, Sudden Kestrel, suranyi, Taomist, Thudlow Boink, Tim R. Mortiss, Trinopus, voguevixen, Voyager, wheresgeorge04, Zeldar, ZipperJJ
(This is mainly for “vanity searchers” to see their names in this thread.) Hi, y’all! 
I didn’t vote in the first one, but I did on this one. The first time I remember going to a message board was 1983, when I convinced my parents to pay the long-distance charge so I could call CompuServe for an hour or so with my 300 baud modem. It may have been 1982, but it was definitely by 1983 because I remember they casually remarked during a vacation that was definitely in 1983 that they would consider moving to such-and-such a town. I was ecstatic because I knew that town had a local CompuServe number and then I wouldn’t have to beg and plead for an hour’s worth of long distance.
(Of course CompuServe had more than message boards, but I remember going to message boards on it.)
God I’m old.
I joined GEnie in 1989. Spent all my time on the SFRT.
1981 in college, used to dial up acoustically to usenet using a thermal paper terminal (look it up, you whippersnappers). I’ve been addicted ever since. So I clicked 30-31 years.
Now get me my Geritol!!
The first message board I had anything to do with was a women’s site called Moms Online; my daughter was about 2, and she’s 17 now. I think I posted to some bulletin-board type thing sometime in the early '90s, though I barely recall the details.
My best guess would be since the early 1980s, '81 or '82, so about 30 years.
Heh, this was the very first message board I joined when I finally could afford an internet connection!
I was introduced to CompuServe and GEnie somewhere around 1987, but I didn’t become a real user of anything that could be considered a message board until I started using Prodigy in 1992.
Which…is more than 16 years ago. So, fuck – both because I voted wrong, and because I’m older than I thought! :smack:
I logged into my first BBS (running MBBS, connected via QModem on my 80/88 Cordata machine and snappy 2400baud modem–huffhuffgetoffmylawn) in August of 1993 and spent most of my awake time for the next few years alternating between the forums and teleconference feature.
So I voted 18-19 yrs.
1980, the old PLATO system. Tolkien message board, of course.
I messed up the previous poll, thinking it was just about how long I’d been at SDMB.
I bought my first computer in 1996 (and had zero experience with computers prior to that) and hung out in AOL chatrooms for a while. Although the AOL chatroom novelty wore off quite quickly, IIRC.
It was 2000 or 2001 when I first participated in any sort of online community/message board. I’m not counting AOL, so I chose the first option.
My husband and I were active on GEnie on the SFRT during the same timeframe. We probably crossed paths. (Our daughter was born in 1992. Her birth was announced by my husband on GEnie before he even told some of our family…)
My first message board was an expecting mothers board that I joined in January 1998. We’ve been through half a dozen different server changes, but about 40 of us are still posting to what is now a small private message board. We’ve gone from being pregnant to parenting teenagers together.
I joined up here in 2004.
About 24 years, even though at the time, I wasn’t using the internet but a French network called “minitel”. I also was much more a chatroom person than a message board person at the time, but the sites I was wasting time on normally offered both.
A mere 12 years. In 2000 somebody posted here something that was wrong, and I was required by God to set him right. ;
Prior to that, it was 1983, he was an idiot in Iowa talking crap about the fans of a video game I didn’t play but disagreed about, it was nearing the end of lunch, it was 300 baud, and I had only just figured out how to spoof my HP “Smart Terminal” into telling him how full of shit he was.
The modern internet is much daintier than it was.
They had messege boards in the 80’s?
Damn.
They had message boards in the 1970s.