Exactly, we did our parts by never allowing our accounts to lapse thereby keeping the board breaking even instead of operating at a loss, we should get that little meaningless bone thrown our way.
When we go back to free to post will former members be able to reactivate accounts that had lapsed during the pay to post period for free? Because there’s more than a few folks that I’d hope would pop back up in the days to come.
Will we get Smashy back?
[sup]What? Don’t look at me like that!![/sup]
This has to be the case, because, as you will recall, socks aren’t allowed and the Board considers every “member” to be a “sock” if the real person behind the name has previously had a different name here.
I expect there will be some old users popping back in to post again. I’m hoping so. 
What they said. It doesn’t mean much to you Ed and new owners/bosses of Ed, but it means something to us, so respect that. You also need to read and think about the question in indigo.
How about the copyright the Chicago Reader has to the content of all our posts?
I don’t know if the Reader has ever acted on that right and used something from the SDMB in its editorial pages. But I have this image in my head, no doubt taken from countless movies I have seen, of the typical Monday morning editorial brain storm of a magazine or newspaper. The Impatient Chief Editor looks around the room full of Aspiring Young Journalists and asks agressively if anyone of them can come up with an idea for articles in the upcoming issue. Preferably an idea that hasn’t been hashed to death already. Something new. Fresh. And if not, that he’s going to fire all their asses and hire someone new, with fresh ideas.
This usually is the part of the movie where our hero or heroine usually lifts a shy hand and volunteers the idea that keeps the rest of the movie going.
Now, think of the SDMB. It generates (and tests the appeal!) of dozens of ideas, current interests, undercurrents of society, sources, international influences, internet links, research, and even ready-made interview snippets. Info that would otherwise have to be generated by that room full of Aspiring Journalists. And SDMB does so, unerringly, every single damn week. For free.
Does the Reader DO anything with that wealth of creativity? If not, why the hell not? That’s feels like an incredible waste to me. And if they do, then how come we don’t get appreciated for that? How come we are treated like a playground for boring kids, that the Reader offers us out of the goodness of our hearts and for the pithy revenue from ads and paid memberships?
I feel quite attached to my title as well. It shows I cared enough to pony up, and continue to care to this day.
I’d also like my paid, charter member status to come with a little check box that says, “I know you’ve paid, but will you also look at ads to further support The Dope? If so, check here.” I’d do that.
I guess the point may be that if I lose my title, I’ll stop paying and you’ll make more money through my ad impressions than you get from my pittance of a charter membership fee, but I’d like the chance to do both.
Well said, I totally agree. It’s been a long wait (and sometimes a frustrating one) but well worth it. I do hope we can keep our “Charter Membership” title though.
And definitely upgrade VBulletin!
Whoa! Major lapse here, Ed. Total failure to grasp that out in the Real World, there are people to whom the fact that their ancestors came over on the Mayflower is dreadfully, direfully, important.
Some Charter Members here think their Charter Member status symbolizes proof of their fidelity, loyalty, and faith in the Straight Dope Message Board, and a willingness to put their money where their mouth is.
One of whom is myself, yanno. 
I went out on a limb for this place; granted, it wasn’t a very expensive nor a particularly high limb, but it was definitely a Limb. I could have forked over my fee, which was pitched to us as part of a whiparound to upgrade the server for everyone’s use, and then had the SDMB close up shop anyway a few weeks or months later as the membership base slipped away due to dissatisfaction over having to pay-to-post. Which at certain points in the proceedings appeared to be a distinct possibility.
I paid for that “Charter Member” and I want to keep it, dammit. It has deep emotional resonance and symbolism for me.
And if you take it away from me, I will punish our corporate overlords by continuing to subscribe, thus depriving them of my ad-viewing income.
I’m serious about this. Quit giggling.
That’s usually about the time that you fire your system administrator.
I disagree. Charter Members are cheapskates who might very well not even be here if they had to pay full price. People like me who were out of the country at the time and missed the deadline but still pay FULL PRICE are keeping this place afloat.
If the powers that be decide to devote any time to discussing titles, I’d suggest titles reflect join date. Maybe something based on year. Or, to be fair, Charter Members become “Half Price Payer” or something more genuinely descriptive of their status here.
Charter Member is meaningless, unless maybe you joined in '99.
It’s good to see you’re not bitter. 
Your characterization is getting quite close to that line between opinion and slamming other people. If you have a real problem with Charter Members – or anyone or anything else in ATMB, for that matter – you need to take it to the Pit and not be airing your dispute in this forum, it’s not what ATMB is about.
I’m a Charter member, a quiet one. Please take my title if it means the boards will work properly. Hell, take it anyway. I joined in 2000, but I’d be delusional to think that makes my contributions somehow more important.
-Lil
To try to explain a bit more. I don’t think it makes any of my posts better than anyone else’s here. But, I see it more as “The Owners of this board extended a token of appreciation to us.” They shouldn’t take it back. Does that make sense?
I apologize if I missed this but I am thick as cement sometimes:
Will we be able to keep our current user names if we don’t P2P? How about number of posts? Will we be able to migrate it all to a free account or will it all just re-set?
Theoretically could I “become” say, **Polycarp **(to name a distinguished poster name that I hope won’t flip if I pick on him) if I sign up with that name the day his membership lapses & some Joe from Kentucky pulling the same thing become Jimmmy?
FWIW my $0.02 is I think this is a wise decision & will grow the board
Thank you, Ed.
And thank you, TubaDiva.
I’m not joined at the hip to the title of “Charter Member” or to the continued cut rate. I can see the realities of the situation.
But once things quiet down and performance is good, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE consider making sure search can find everything that is actually on the board. ISTR Jerry has said a full re-indexing would take months. I don’t suppose that has changed, and I have no idea if it could be done in parallel with normal operations, but it would be very nice.
Join date is on every post, so I don’t see the use of titles based on it. Besides, there have been complaints that new posters aren’t as well regarded as older ones. But I’ve never seen any such situations based on join date alone, and no one, including the complainers, has proffered any examples.
Maybe you’d prefer to have your title changed rather than Charter Members’.
The title is NOT meaningless. But it means what the conditions for getting it were, no less and no more: we were existing members, the option was given to us, and we took it.
Not even in theory. Once a name is used, it is out of the pool for good, even if the member is unpaid or inactive.
This is simply not true. I can create a full index of the English Wikipedia, which is, as you might guess, a fair bit larger than the board, in less than a day on my Mac Mini. The indexer matters (I used the Lucene search extension to MediaWiki), but I would be shocked to find that whatever vBulletin is doing would take more than a couple of days.
I’m curious about this as well. It would seem that they should be able to, but it would be good to know for sure. My husband decided to let his account lapse, but still reads the boards, and every few months or so wishes he still had the ability to post, so I’m sure he’d like to come back under free posting.
I don’t give a shit about being a “charter member” one way or another-I only like the discount.
However, IIRC, wasn’t it supposed to be basically for those who joined BEFORE the board went Pay-to-Post, not when you subscribed?
As for the fee, hell yeah I’ll keep paying.
Thanks man that makes sense.
So if we decide not to renew do our paying memberships become “inactive” and then we need to re-join under a new name or will they migrate us to a new free account with our posting history?