I was in high school and found most of the forums aimed at people my age to be boring and/or obnoxious. I have always loved gathering information and my brother pointed me to the SD website. I spent a three day weekend reading articles and thoroughly enjoying them. Once I had read through a majority of the articles, I realized that I still needed more and the message board was an obvious solution.
I mostly lurk, but it has been a huge part of my entertainment since then.
I’d been following the column in the Chicago Reader, which I generally picked up on my way home from work on Thursday or Friday. Due to a change in my commute home it became no longer convenient to do so, so I decided to check out the Reader website, and followed the link to here. In addition to the columns, I started reading the message board, where I lurked for a while before joining.
I went searching for the MB that would be most improved by my presence.
Well? Have you found any yet? 
Back in late 2000 I was part of a mailing list devoted to a popular television show but there was an OT thread where people were discussing the Bush/Gore presidential election. Someone posted a link to a thread here and after lurking for a few months I decided I liked what I saw and decided to go ahead and register.
Still mostly a lurker though.
Had and had read all the books (3 at that time) and needed a Cecil-answer at work FAST. Did a Google on the subject (killing vampires) and found the website. In browsing it I found the message board. A long period of lurking and lost productivity (only matched by when I first found Cat Bowling) followed.
And no, I won’t explain why I needed to know how to kill vampires RIGHT AWAY while at work. Some things are best left unsaid.
I was just surfing one day and ended up here. It was a PTP board then and I just watched and read.
Heard it talked about by members of the other message board.
Link, please? I missed that one!
That was me. I figured it was the best answer, since I couldn’t remember how I got here. Maybe I was on drugs at the time.
ETA: In fact, I was the first to answer that in the poll.
With a straight line, like this, I can’t resist:
Keep looking, dude. You haven’t found it, yet! :D:D:D
My first exposure to the Dope was when a friend in high school brought in one of the books. My first exposure to the site was some years later in college, when I was whiling away an afternoon clicking on random links, and recognized the Straight Dope name. The thread that convinced me that this was the place to be was one where folks were, in earnest, considering the effects of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle on Galileo’s hammer and feather experiment. You’uns are my kind of nerds.
I was bored at work. I used to check snopes.com and straightdope.com every day or so just to kill time. One particularly slow day at work, I started clicking on some threadspotting links.
I liked what I saw, and realized that what was missing was exactly one more smart-ass computer engineer to inject random sarcastic comments.
Sadly, someone else registered before I did, so I’m waiting for someone to leave before I’m properly appreciated.
I assume someone out there keeps the list and will wake me up when it’s my turn, right?
-D/a
Turns out it’s a hugely old thread but worth a look I suppose :). Gee, it’s a decade old; that eighth grader is now twentysomething.
I was [del]eleven[/del] nine years old (1986, right?) and my mother was watching the Today Show. I heard Bryant Gumble talking about a new book that explained how m&m’s get their m’s and why there is no channel one. This would have been shortly before my family took our first trip to visit my grandparents and uncles and cousins in the UK. At the airport, I asked to stop at the bookstore for a book to read on the airplane, and somehow (the clerk must have seen the same Today Show) I found what I wanted, and my mother naively bought it for me. I’ve been warped ever since.
There was also a TV series, which is how I discovered it.
It only lasted a season, but that season was a year before I went to university and got a regular internet connection, thus discovered the online version of the column. A year later, the boards migrated from AOL to the web, and I jumped in.
As a result, I continue to picture Cecil looking like Mike Lukas, who hosted the show, to this day.
Through bored.com back in maybe 2001 or 2002 when I was about 11. Read the columns and message board for years before signing up then waited another few years before starting to post.
Out of curiosity I went back to bored.com just now and it appears to be devoted to games - back in the day it used to be a great list of entertaining websites. I discovered snopes.com through there as well.
Heh. I wonder if **Rilchiam **is pleased or disappointed?
Thank you, kindly! On reading it, I’m thinking “Glad I’m not one of those pervs!” I generally only lust after old, dead, mouldering wimmins! I’m cool! 
I don’t honestly remember.
My best guess is I found some article by Cecil, read through the archived columns, then found the message board.