It’s featured prominently on Ask Yahoo!
I found it when I clicked on a link while using the website of an Eastern (Baltimore, I think) alternative newspaper.
I can’t remember what the first article was, but some weird question I wanted an answer to came up with an SD archive page as one of the first search engine hits. I found the answer to my question, moved on to the rest of the archive, and eventually made my way over to the boards. I lurked for a couple of weeks before signing up for a trial, actually let the trial lapse, and eventually ponied up the money to come back for more punishment.
I bought The Straight Dope in the late ‘eighties and shared it with a few friends as the ultimate in bathroom reading. Exploring the vast reaches of the internet in the very late ‘nineties (or maybe it was early into the next century, I can’t be sure), I Yahoo’d The Straight Dope on a whim and was surprised to find it existed, nay, thrived on the web. Yayyyy!!! After several years of daily lurking, existing on this earth without a credit card and too proud to ask reluctant friends or family, I appealed to the SDMB community and found a benefactor. He knows who he is and I would identify him if I knew he would not mind, for I am forever indebted to his largesse.
A year ago or so I was trying to learn more about the history of the Middle East conflict and a Google search brought me to a Great Debate thread about it. Then I read a couple fascinating philosophy debates, and became hooked. Now my daily dose consists of a perusal of all the forums- The Dope is such a mind expander and cure for boredom (and also ignorance!)
My latest love/hate experience with The Dope: those damn Weffriddles! I wish I would have never opened that thread! (I would link but I SO don’t know how to do it correctly)
I read the books in college and loved them, then graduated and promptly forgot about them (forgive me, Unca Cece!)
A few years later I was wandering around at Heartless Bitches when someone mentioned the Straight Dope, and it was like hearing the name of an old friend long forgotten. I made a beeline over here, read the Evil Nazi Groundhog thread, and have been hooked ever since.
Saw the TV show on A&E, and they mentioned an AOL keyword link in the credits, so I went there, and started on the old forums. I’ve been a Doper ever since.
I went to Google to find out what “colitas” were, from The Eagles’ “Hotel California.” The first link was to Cecil’s column on the subject. So I looked at the rest of the archives, then discovered the message board. The first thread I got hooked on was Auntie Em’s missing co-worker. I lurked for awhile, and then joined up when it was free. I liked it enough to stay when it went pay.
Someone linked to The horror of blimps and I almost pissed myself laughing when I read it. Then I started reading the other forums and ended up joining.
If I answer that, you and all the other Dopers will have to kill me.
Do a search on my name and go all the way to the beginning.
See it?
Yup, that was me, way back then.
Not any smarter, but maybe a little wiser?
Forgot which one it was, but one of the early newsgroups had a link.
Q
I arrived here thanks to a reference in the APF at lspace.org.uk
That’s the one I mentioned in my post- I have read it four or five times now, and again, tears are streaming down my face, my sides ache and I will be late for work.
Thanks for linking- I needed that this morning!
(If you haven’t read that post- click that link!!)
I, too, read my first Straight Dope book in high school. That was a little over 15 years ago.
I don’t recall. I was in the office and was bored beyond belief, surfing the internet without purpose and I just stumbled upon it. Been visiting everday ever since, but just now got a guest account.
Hiya all 
I first heard of The Straight Dope from the A&E TV show, and some time later I found it online. I lurked on and off for years before finally joining in order to be able to use the search function.
My son told me about it. I was always trying to find places on line to discuss things that were a ways off the beaten track, internet chat wise. I had often expressed displeasure (Okay, screaming mouth foaming rage, so what?) at the absence of credulity on typcial foura. He told me that at least some of the people on this board ask “What the fuck makes you think that isn’t an out and out lie?”
So, I read the forum for a few months. It was pretty cool. So, registered, and began posting. It seems like such a small thing, at first. Then comes the bookmarking, the checking, the editing. sigh.
Tris
Hold up there, buck-o!
The question was how you got here and I told you about The Dope. We had both enjoyed the books for years in the 80s and when I was bored one day at work I thought of the books and looked to see if there was a website.
Of course, my first post was a dilly about an exploding dildo, but that was a story for that other day…
Just in case, (and I think a search may be affected by the “Winter of Our Missed Content”), I was one of the gry posters.
I get one last meal, right? 
Quasi
Oh, woe is the day when a man can’t enjoy his fantasies of being invited to strange message boards by exotic Other Women, without every wife of his popping up out of nowhere and bursting his balloon.
Good God I may be wrong about what brought me here- I think I was looking up the definition of “colitas” and was directed here! When I read fishbicycle’s post it was absolute deja vu for me. I’m thinking the Middle East thing came after that. Whoa…