I cannot. But I did do contract work for IBM in the early 1990s, and I remember discovering the IBM forums. As I recall, there were multiple forums, catering to a variety of technical questions, and also to interests, hobbies, and tastes. I don’t recall a single one such as you describe, though given how many there were, I’m sure the Straight Dope newspaper column was mentioned at least once. No reason why the Straight Dope AOL site and subsequent WWW website would not be mentioned on IBM forums in later years.
I see some folks are speaking about lurking before joining. I did that too, lurking for about a year before joining. Heck, I should have joined sooner, so I could be a 99er too. Oh well, at least my user number is only four digits.
But the Dope is a newbie. I came here when the Dope was mentioned as a good place in talk.origins, and I was on Usenet back when there was only one, low volume, alt.sex newsgroup. But I was a part of the very first message board in the world, to the best of my knowledge, PAD on PLATO, where the introduction of quoting was a big deal. That was 1974-1975.
Dropzone, you NEED TO STOP with these type of comments…they have been very regular coming from you lately and you have been talked to already about it. This is a warning for you. Knock it off. Stop saying inappropriate things on these boards to and about female members…both TO other female posters and ABOUT females, in general. You just can’t do that.
I’ve been here since 2002, according to what the Dope tells me in my user profile. But I seem to remember being here a couple years earlier than that.
Not that it matters much, 'cause I ain’t on anybody’s list of memorable posters.
Some of the long-timers here really should list it on their resumes, with pride.
(But at least I ain’t never been given a warning by the mods, so I guess I’ve accomplished something in my life )
Once every four hundred years. You want a calendar date nobody will ever see again? February 30, seen for the first and last time in 1712.
Technically I’m a geezer - joined on March 29, 1999 (about three weeks after KCB615 up there). Had been reading Cecil in the Washington DC City Paper for years before that, and joined up when he started announcing the Boards in his column. Burned out around 2005 and have shown up now and again since then, particularly when work is slow and I’m bored out of my skull. So there’s that.
I registered in 07 but I read for several years before that. I also dropped in now and again to the old AOL Community Boards/Chats thing but back then I mostly hung out with the Civil War area watching Katie’s rock getting destroyed and making passes at Fannie; she knew my wife well so that was OK. I don’t remember if I ever joined in but that would have been with my e-mail address (ArussFROG back then) rather than a screen-name.
Been here for a while. Had a Juno account, had an AOL account, did dial up BBS because I originally had an Amiga til '96 and the only way to get ‘online’ was through a service such as Genii where not only would I have had to pay by the minute of time logged in, but for long distance phone minutes as well. I only got a PC in '96 because I was wanting to go online, but to get the amiga online I would have had to get the program from online to get online … so I got a PC with everything loaded built for me by a friend. Been a doper since 04, but I lurked prior to that. Have like 16 000 or so posts.
I think he was talking about the fact that the other poster mentioned the year, and there’s no way that particular date is coming around again, ever. Having said that, I’m not sure where you’re getting four hundred years from, even if you missed the year. Doesn’t Feb. 29 come around every four years?
