A friend in uni alerted me to Cecil Adams’ existence via one of the paperback collections. And somwhere I lived in my twenties, there was a free weekly that carried the column, then once the internet came along, I read the archives pretty much back to front. Probably just clicked on this link at some point. I was a lurker for about a year before I finally made a profile and started chiming in.
This message board was started in 1999. Its establishment was announced in the previously mentioned alt.fan.cecil.adams USENET group.
I probably ran across threads here a few times over the years during Google searches but never looked around more after getting my answer. But one time I was wondering who else in the world remembered that a baloo is a bear and wuzzle is to mix, found a thread here, and had a lot of free time to browse around into other threads.
Pretty much the same here. My kids would bring home copies of free weekly, called, IIRC, the Montreal Mirror. Then they went off to college and I would look for it. Then they abruptly dropped Cecil’s column and I looked to see if I could find it on the Net–and did. It referred to SDMB and I started reading that tool
I, too, read the Cecil column in the New Times. One day, about 1997? I was surfing my AOL account (I never got mail 
) and there was a link to the proto-message board. So I joined up. Then I got flamed by some dweeb who was white knighting someone who might have been JillGat and Ieft in a Huff. Never looked back on AOL.
Then when this board showed up, I lurked from about 2002 to 2014.
I was a fan of his books. I don’t remember, but I must have been perusing the web and happened upon the SDMB. That was in April 1999.
In 2006, I had a rather boring office job with averagely three or more hours a day with nothing to do. But I had internet and so never was bored. I remember to have discovered two websites at that time, the Bad Astronomer, and a site called religioustolerance.com or so, which was a great, almost totally unbiased (it that’s possible) source of information about world religions. It was one of these sites which had a link to one of Cecil’s column (I don’t remember the actual subject), and I found it interesting and informative, so I began to read the columns archive. Soon I noticed the “threadspotting” links to popular threads on the SDMB and followed them. And I got hooked, and I lurked, and lurked, and lurked, for three years, I sometimes had the urge to post, but I was hesitant to subscribe because English is not my first language and I was afraid that my English was too bad to communicate on the usual high level of this board. But as the great philosopher Homer Simpson knows, alcohol is the cause and the solution to all life’s problems, so when I came home one July 2009 night after drinking with my friends, I had the guts to finally subscribe. I kept my profile quite low in the first three or four years, but after that became a regular poster, and I visit (and post) every day.
ETA: I have to mention that I met two of the best friends in my life here at this board. They’ve been both longtime real life friends by now.
Sometime between 2002 - 2004, a coworker pointed me here. I think it started with the famous “Lord of the Rings written by other authors” thread.
If I didn’t know English wasn’t your first language, I wouldn’t know it wasn’t. If you know what I mean!! Your English is flawless.
A friend and I were discussing why shit is brown, and he referred me to a Straight Dope column:
I knew about the column and the books and some dude named Cecil Adams for a few years and eventually learned of this place, lurked for a few more years before deciding to join and comment.
As with others, it started with the books back in the mid 90s.
The SDMB was started by the Chicago Reader and I am a Chicagoan who always picked up the Reader and looked forward to Cecil’s column. Somewhere in there I learned about the message board.
Also, the internet was a lot smaller back then.
My middle school teacher gave me a copy of the OG SD book ca. 1992. I found the website some time after it migrated away from AOL and subsequently the message boards. I distinctly recall joining and posting before it went pay-to-post but my join date is during the PTP era, so I dunno what I’m remembering. Anyway, I’ve been here ever since. Damn near 18 years now.
Me too; read the books, saw mention of the forums and signed up. First forum I ever signed up for in fact.
I knew of The Straight Dope from finding a print book at a store in North Carolina, 35ish years ago, and when we moved to the DC area was delighted to find The City Paper carrying the column.
I think I knew of the website, but never bothered with it until someone forwarded a link to Master Wang-Ka’s The Horror of Blimps. That’s when I registered. That would be 20+ years ago now!
I was an inquisitive and nerdy child. I was IIRC ten or so and were on a roadtrip somewhere or other, we went into a rest stop. My Mom came out with a book. She said it was for me. It was The Straight Dope. I read tha book cover to cover many times. In the year two thousand, search engines were in their infancy (if they were even that advanced). But, I would often search for things that I enjoyed pevious to emergence of the internet, and that might now have an online presence. One day, I searched for the Straight Dope. I found that all the columns that had been written were available free on the site. I also saw that there was a message board. I lurked fpr about thirty seconds. The Straight Dope Message Board has brought me joy, good friends, several torrid love affairs, and one duel in which I was fatally wounded.
That’s a bit of a giveaway !
I really don’t remember how i found the SDMB.
It would’ve been either a google search hit or a link from another
board (either the chronicles of george or computer music, maybe even the halfbakery).
Unlike many whose first experience was with the books, or others who found the site while Googling on some specific subject, I found the SDMB by specifically searching for a high quality message board. I have no idea what search terms I used, or if I even had a clear idea of what I even wanted in a “quality message board”, but whatever they were, Google turned up the SDMB multiple times.
I probably lurked for a while before signing up, but it probably wasn’t for long. I was really just looking for a place for online discussions that was populated with the least possible quantity of morons and more than the usual number of knowledgeable professionals, and the SDMB is it.
I got here pretty much the same way as thorny locust. Except I waited for the email I was supposed to get from snopes for months. When it appeared it wasn’t coming I moped for a bit. Eventually I remembered some link or other from that board, and decided to see if the dope was still up. It was, I joined, and I hope it sticks around.
Some 20 years ago I was looking up something (now forgotten) on my work computer and up popped one of Cecil’s columns. His answer to the question was concise, yet amusing, so I went looking for his other columns. After reading all of them I discovered this message board.