How many Charter Members are still left?

…it was stolen as a joke from someone the same size.

It’s a shame, but if your membership lapses, you don’t keep charter member status. Part of the deal is to remain a paying member. If it helps, you’re not the only one this has happened to.

I believe you must offer her chocolate. A particular variety, if I am not mistaken.

Oooooh, what kind of chocolate? I’ll mail it out. I personally like those Belgian hazelnut seashell chocolates, if anyone knows what I’m talking about.

Seriously though, I read around and I guess I’m probably out of luck, but am pretty sad about it; not sure why exactly. It’s not the money. It’s the pride issue; also the sheer strangeness of having “Charter” be an adjective that can be granted or taken away not based on how long a user has been around, but rather on the basis of lapsed subscriptions or especially as incentives 5 years into the board’s existence to get people to subscribe. (“Sign up now! Be a Charter Member!”)

I mean, what does “Charter Member” really mean then? To me Charter Member means you were here at the beginning. If you are given that title 5 years later to drum up subscribers, doesn’t that nullify the “Charter” part of it, for all intents and purposes?

Not whining here, just talking. Doesn’t make sense, to me anyway. YMMV.

But if chocolate will help, I’ve got connections…

EmmaJane

Your user page says you’ve been here since 2004. What’s the “7 year member” thing about?

Sam – if you read her first message, she explains that she first joined in 1999.

Well, it does – but ‘the beginning’ in this case refers to the beginning of subscriptions. It’s just contingent on maintaining that subscriber status, but that doesn’t strike me as an outrageous requirement. I agree that it’s a shame you lost it though. :frowning:

Honestly I don’t know. It’s been awhile. I know I was a member pre-2004, I’d have to find my archived emails from back then to find the date I first registered.

The 2004 date is when I registered during the big going-to-pay promotion. Perhaps I was lapsed before that? I don’t know why it has the 2004 date.

I’m pretty clear on this because I used to post while pregnant with my son who is now 7. I whiled away a lot of boring hours at work on this board back then.

But unless you’ve got archives that are searchable back to 2000, I can’t prove it I guess… but I don’t really see why anyone would lie about it.

I suppose that “7-year-member” is technically inaccurate since I didn’t keep my subscription active for 7 years consistently. I subscribed (or registered, back then), then somehow got unregistered and when I reupped with the promo the date of my joining flipped to then.

So call me a 7-year-reader/poster/lurker, I suppose. For years I was too intimidated to post on message boards, I mostly read them. (I’ve gotten over that now). :slight_smile:

It’s okay, I’m not trying to start anything. Just kicking myself for announcing myself on this thread, thus bringing myself to TubaDiva’s attention and losing my proud little title. I didn’t know that would happen.

(And I’m still puzzled by the word “Charter” as it is pretty inaccurate as a descriptor, but that’s probably another thread…)

cheers,
EmmaJane :wink:

previously tripletmom, I think early days I was karenow - does that help?

Lurking I guess, it counts.

I’m the opposite. It says I jumped on in 09/2001, but really I’ve only been around for about 2-3 years.

ETA: Another guy around for the subscription period who never subscribed. And is happy with his simple"member" status, but is mystified that over half of the people here are “Charter Members”.

In the case of the SDMB, Charter Member, just means you were part of the initial members to pay to post. It does not mean a Charter Member of the Board.

I think that is your confusion. Does that make sense?

Jim

We simulposted, so see my response above yours.

If you had other account names … well, you might want to pop an email over to Tuba to make sure your accounts are in order. You’re obviously not intentionally doing the dual-account thing, but that’s considered a no-no, technically speaking. :slight_smile:

I get what you’re saying. However the meaning has then changed because unless I’m losing my brain, there were Charter Members and regular members long before the pay to post switchover. So I assumed Charter meant… you know, from the beginning.

I think I’m fine there… I only changed to this name a little while ago, and did it by way of asking Ed Zotti to change it for me. I’m not positive there was another name before that, but I’ve never had two accounts at the same time. Actually there must have been another name before tripletmom because I didn’t have the triplets until 2003. :slight_smile:

I honestly don’t know when that changed; maybe I was away from the board long enough that I changed email addresses and had to get a new name, or something. It was so long and so many angry babies ago.

It’s okay - I won’t lose sleep over my demoted status though. :wink: I can probably say that I was the charter member with the fewest posts, though. Even though I read half the day away when I was working or at loose ends, or when the baby slept, I very rarely posted because I thought I’d sound stupid.

I guess I’ve reached the age where I don’t care? Kind of nice.

Sorry to thread-hijack, sort of.

Cheers,
EmmaJane

No, “Charter” membership was a category created at the time of the switch to pay-to-play. Prior to that there were members and there were guests and there were teh Banned.

What was the difference between a Guest and a Member, in the prepayment days?

I don’t think there were guests before pay-to-play: You were either on the bus or off the bus.

…or under the Bus. :slight_smile:

[emphasis added]

I’ll presume that I’m being whooshed, since such a heavy-handed irony could scarcely be accidental.

I guess my brain really has deteriorated then. Too many episodes of Teletubbies, perhaps.

EmmaJane

As I remember it (and it might even be true,) in the AOL days, there was no member designation, although I suppose every poster was an AOL member. I think anyone could just drop in and post, with no signup. When AOL dropped us, there was an interim board someplace. I remember only that it was rather chaotic. When this board was founded, you had to sign up (for free) to post, but anyone could lurk anonymously. So, all posters were members, and a glorious few were moderators and administrators.

One exalted poster was and still is designated Perfect Master. He is Cecil Adams, of course, without whom we would be crunching around in the wilderness, wondering whether a bear, in the woods, on a treadmill, could take off unsightly pounds in time for beach season. :wink:

In the life of every large internet entity, there is a time when it has to start pulling in cash or die. That’s why we became dues-payers. Those who signed up during the initial period are called Charter Members, and they still pay dues at a discounted rate. All those who joined since are Members, at full price. When a lurker wants to try us out for 30 days, for free, we call them guests, and we keep an eye on them. If a guest looks promising (that is, promises to pay dues,) she can become a member. A member gains the right to use the search function. A member gains the opportunity to be taken seriously by other members.

Guests, being temporary, are seen by some members as tourists or gawkers. Some even point and laugh at the tyro. Most of us are patient with them, unless they ask about parking on a nine-yard driveway, or some such fox’s paw. :rolleyes:

Why wasn’t I told about this?

Opportunity. It’s like the pursuit of happiness – no guarantees.