Well, it was probably a stoopid opinion anyway…
Hey, I was thinking about becoming your lackey, doc, but keep that up and I’m going to take my newbie self and go home!
Felice
“There’s always a bigger fish.”
I lurked a little bit before signing up, and I think this is a decent forum for the honest exchange of opinion. Especially GD. I haven’t really checked out the other forums, but, so far, I haven’t really seen the need to. One thing that makes me wonder, tho: sometimes you can get way with a convincing argument despite lack of documented support, other times, you get the shit beat out of you. 
It’s not how you pick your nose, it’s where you put the boogers
Depends on the topic and depends on the participants. If one is going to post that the earth is 6,000 years old, that person is going to have to scramble to provide evidence that most of us can laugh at. If one is going to establish a position regarding the reality of God, there isn’t a lot of physical evidence to cite, then we look for a firm structure to the argument.
(Of course, it is not as if we will be consistent in our application of those guidelines. We’re here to brawl and to learn and which of those two we value more highly on a given evening may be directly connected to they way our SO treated us or how the kids behaved.)
Tom~
We also base a lot on past performance.
One “I read it someplace” from Tom~ is worth seven cites from the peer-reviewed literature from almost anyone else.
Sage, I’m the guilty party if you’re referring to the following thread: http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum7/HTML/001093.html (Michael Skakel)
I, however, plead innocent to newbie-bashing.
- I didn’t realize you were a newbie at the time I made those posts
- I didn’t criticize you. I criticized your opinion.
- I didn’t criticize your opinion BECAUSE you were a newbie; I criticized it for the reason Dr. Fidelius suggested above.
What clique?
If you’re referring to Rick (Bricker) agreeing with me, I would simply point out that Rick has been posting here only slightly longer than you have. If he is in a clique with me 
, a 6 month board presence is obviously not a requirement.
In hindsight, had I realized you were new to the board, I probably would have handled the matter differently. OTOH, responding to someone bringing facts to your attention with “Lighten Up” is not likely to win you friends or admirers.
All that aside, I am glad to know I didn’t run you off. This is not a forum for the weak of heart or the thin of skin; things do get rough sometimes. I hope you are getting to know us better, and will continue to post here.
We ARE open to opinions, btw. But shoot-from-the-hip, unsubstantiated/unsubstantiable opinions will not go unchallenged.
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
There were about 200 users registered when I signed on, and the board seemed quite fresh, fast-paced and lively. The numbers seemed to grow quickly, and the board was sustained early on by a group of transplants from the AOL board, several of whom stayed while manny others did not. We’ve garnered lots of new members (I’ve come to recognize the start of a semester rush) and lost quite a few.
As I suspect is the experience of manny, I slogged my way through several debates early on and eventually grew weary of having pretty much the same argument over again. But, the arguments do evolve as we filter lots of folk through them, so I must admit some cheer that we have posters who care to keep the GD fires burning.
Several whom I thought were rocks and pillars early on have segued away; others have flat said goodbye. New ones who make an impression show up regularly and it does seem that the roll of active posters hovers between ~200 to 400. As with the rest of life the level of activity and interest waxes and wanes on a weekly or so basis.
And we are now establishing the pattern of life on the SDMB in 2000: the 72 hour or so crisis du jour. We’ve had the LBMB “invasion” and a, really, minor troll flood along with Opal (hope you’re doing well, dear) having some high profile troubles.
Life goes on…
The IRL’s have become a well established fact of SDMB life, and the SDMB is a real part of manny lives (there’s a pit thread going on this subject).
So, yeah, it does bog down, but methinks new shots are forthcoming; just be prepared to deal with your time otherwise if they don’t appear today.