See subject. I suspect it has a lot to do with cookies, flowers, or that special boot polish.
As long as I’m posting,
How do you find the first post someone ever made?
is one I came up against: I noticed Eutychus being goofy, as is usual and correct, in a thread game, and then noticed he was a Recognized Smart Guy Big Shot, and started snooping, and gave up because it was stupid.
Not that I’m :dubious:'ing at Eutychus or the PTB at SD who elevated him to such an exalted state.
Just interested.
You get that title by writing and publishing a Staff Report.
And, as a practical matter, I’m not even sure TPTB even accept Staff Reports anymore.
Nm. Realized I can do it with some Google footwork, as explained in the sticky.
Was trying to see if the “last” or “first” option in Statistics would pop it up.
Nope, that ain’t it. I have a Staff Report to my credit and all I got was the respect and admiration of my peers.
You are then, to me, and always will be, a Recognized Smart Guy Big Shot. Just not to SD.
Elendil’s Heir just had one published. Look in Comments on Cecil’s Columns/Staff Reports for the comments on his recent article on Benedict Arnold.
When I was a mod, the rules for being an SDSAB were that you had to write a certain number of columns, and, even more limiting, you had to maintain a level of contribution. A column here or there (sorry, Silenus) is not sufficient, nor is writing a boatload in a year or three, and then contributing nothing for the next five years.
My knowledge could, obviously, be outdated.
You have to be someone that Ed asks for advice.
You don’t need Google. Go to the Straight Dope’s advanced search page.
user name: whatever you want
find posts from: Any date and newer
sort results by: last posting date ascending
Search in forum: all open forums
Show results as: posts
This will return the person’s first 500 posts in chronological order.
Sexual favors may or may not be involved.
Oooh, favours. So that’s why it didn’t seem to help that I kept dipping my bits in chocolate.
I’m a bit surprised by the current date. I was unaware that new Staff Reports were still being published.
New staff reports mostly stopped being published quite a few years ago. C K Dexter Haven used to manage assignment and submissions.
When I became an SDSAB in 2000, the requirements were to write three Staff Reports. I actually got the title after writing a couple of articles plus helping Cecil with a column.
While there may have been a nominal requirement to keep writing reports, I don’t recall anyone ever losing the title for lack of productivity.
I’ve seen several in the past few weeks besides the one by Elendil’s Heir.
Now that I think of it, Dex sent me a PM suggesting (or agreeing to my nudge?) that I write a Staff Report on something or other after some looked-brainy-enough-to-him post.
Which leads to this extension of OP:
How Do You Get to Write a Staff Report?
Is it only a result tap from above, or do you accept pitches, as a regular thing? And if so, to whom should they be addressed? (Now that Dex is happy, I hope, among his grandchildren).
Also Colibri mentions that he “helped Cecil…” Hmm…I thought Cecil was a Fata Morgana of the intellect, the One Who Cannot Be. He is spoken of only as such around here.
So far as I know, Dex and the rest of the administration has always continued to be open to Staff Report contributions; it’s just that the usual contributors dried up. But if you want to write one, go ahead and drop a line to Dex.
I may be flaky, but I haven’t completely dried up yet.
I thought Dex was ex-…Happy among his grandchildren, that is, no longer tilling the fields of SD.
So, Chronos: The Hidden Master…What’s He like? Can it be put in words?
Dex retired from the boards in November of last year and has not posted since. If he is still handling Staff Reports I am unaware of it.
I figure I’d better post, or people will keep on randomly guessing. Dex is no longer involved. Mail Ed Zotti or the general Straight Dope e-mail if you want to write a Staff Report. Ed is extremely busy from time to time, so you may need to give the mail a bump if he doesn’t reply. Perhaps two bumps.
I do not think there is still an “official” policy regarding the number of reports you need to write to be SDSAB. No one has received the title in some time. Ed is the decisionmaker.
Disclaimer: I work for Sun-Times Media but I am not the big guy. Don’t mail your submissions to me please (some do from time to time).
Una,
For the Straight Dope
Hi Una!
Somehow I thought you too had hung up your shoelaces.