I discovered the SDMB when that thread was Slashdotted.
The Straight Dope on AOL was one of the first things I found after learning to fire up our old PC. This was even before the A&E show. I found out there were books and stumbled across one completely by accident while shopping at a bookstore before Christmas. I lent it around to everyone I knew, and we all just LOVED it, so I bought more. For Christmas presents. - I didn’t know about ordering anything online, so I just kept going to bookstores and finding newer books when they came out.
After all of the mentions here about the books (apologies for not including that - I certainly would have) I decided to check them out. The ‘buy stuff’ link on the web site doesn’t work and hasn’t since last night. So I went to Barnes and Noble - the last book they have is 1994 or maybe 1997. Is that really the most recent one of the series? I’m sure most of the information doesn’t change much over the years, but it would require some real effort to force myself to buy something that is more than 5 yrs old. I might be able to go up to 10, but I don’t know. It’s a visceral, illogical response but even if I got it, I know I probably wouldn’t read it.
Wow. I have books over 100 years old that I reread from time to time. Heck, I have some over 200 years old.
Not to mention modern reprints of the classics.
You’re right, but a mere three links down is “Books Advertised on TSD”, which handily lists all SD books. 
A specific thread came up in an Internet search, I checked it out, and found that I had to sign up as a member to respond in the thread (which I had to do, since one cannot abide another person being wrong on the Internet).
Been so long, I don’t recall but had to be either due to a link someone sent me or a search result.
I read the books way back when. Then I went online back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth (actually it was back when BBS’s ruled the internet). I eventually signed up with AOL (because it was cheaper than CompuServe or Prodigy) and they advertised their various forums, one of which was the Straight Dope. So I checked it out and have been here ever since.
I got a google hit for one of Cecil’s columns when searching the answer to a specific question I don’t remember and was instantly fascinated by the way it was presented. After that, I browsed the archives at large, then was pointed to the board via threadspotting, became a keen lurker for quite some time, and finally subscribed.
I was using a search engine to find information about something I wanted a quote on and one of the results led be to an informational thread here (possibly a Cecil column). I searched around the site & found a message board with interesting, intelligent & fun posters. It was like finding a nice Swiss Army Knife at the bottom of a crackerjack box!
One of the threads had 5 or 6 posts in a row that were so funny that I actually dared to laugh in front of my [del]co-workers[/del] cow-orkers and had to “explain myself” :rolleyes: .
…And I’ve been trying to get even ever since. 
Fascinating stuff. I was a member at arstechnica.com and after 9/11 there was an amazing thread there about the worldwide reaction, someone posted a link to the dope thread about it and it went from there. 
To be more precise, the book led me to alt.fan.ceciladams (I think that was the newsgroup name–it’s been a long time), which led me here, where I lurked on and off for several years before getting involved.
Aw. But in fairness, you did say that it wasn’t the TV show that led you to the website.
Me too.
Started with the books when I was in college in the early 90s, from there I read and posted on the Usenet board for many years and then I found this place and joined. I lurked and just when I started to actually post, the site went to a pay site so I went back to lurking.
The site changed back to free but I continued to lurk until the Lost Finale. I was itching to discuss it so I fnally posted something here and now I won’t shut up 
Same here, except it was at theonering.net where it got mentioned.
I was a regular reader of Cecil’s column in a local free weekly. In fact, I went out of my way to find this paper. Then they suddenly stopped carrying it and I searched online to see if I could find it there. I could and did and discovered TSD boards.
I was a mod for this tiny little local board and we had some troll bothering us for a while before we finally banned him. First time we’d ever banned someone, actually.
Said troll found his way here and decided to make a thread bitching about us, in the Pit. This was back when the Pit was properly fierce and he got roundly bitch-smacked for being so asinine. Since he’d linked back to us in the thread, a few folks wandered over and said hello, so I followed their links back here. You can imagine my delight at finding the pit thread where they so handily eviscerated him, so of course I had to sign up.
This. For work, I needed to know how the length of the meter was settled. A search on (my god, could it have been HotBot) took me straight to Cecil’s column. The answer was more interesting than I’d expected, so I wasted much of the rest of the day checking out what else Cecil knew about.
Cow-orker.