Is it now possible to pay to subscribe to the SDMB?

Before we switched to the New Board*, it was possible (and encouraged) to pay an annual subscription amount to the Board. I don’t think it came with any special privileges, but I like to support a thing that I use every day and value as much as I do The Dope… so has the subscription function been reinstated?

I’ve seen references to such in a few threads, but I’m not sure if the references were ironic. There’s a lot of irony in this community, I’ve noticed.

The subject came up a few times when we first switched, but it was always “we’re getting to that but haven’t gotten there yet.” Are we there yet?



*Still miss ya, TubaDiva. I hope you’re playing in a ginormous tuba band in the Great Beyond.

Not yet and it is still on hold.

I think it comes down to our Boss’s bosses’s bosses still completing the acquisition integration and we’re probably a pretty minor item on the checklist. But to be truthful, I know very little more than you know.

Oh, okay. Thanks.

So the SDMB is the property of the Sun-Times which was aquired by Chicago Public Media.

Chicago Public Media (CPM) is a not-for-profit media company that operates as the primary National Public Radio member organization for Chicago. It owns three non-commercial educational FM broadcast stations and one FM translator, and produces the programs Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me! for NPR stations and This American Life which is self-distributed but uses PRX for distribution to other radio stations.

On January 30, 2022, Chicago Public Media formally took over the Chicago Sun-Times daily newspaper.

I guess we could donate to Chicago Public Media and designate the contribution to the Straight Dope Message Board… but, on second thought, maybe it’s best to keep a low profile, below the radar, in the bushes (and other appropriate metaphors…), so to speak. Probably nothing good would come from drawing attention to ourselves.

I suspect that is true but once again to be honest, I have no clue.

As I recall, it was paying the subscription that gave us the “Member” tag.

That’s true. Back before The Shift.

Is the ominous sounding “The Shift” a Stephen King novel?

“Long Shift, Dad! Longer than you think!”

Almost.

Perhaps HP Lovecraft.