Well, I happen to frequent both the SDMB and alt.fan.cecil-adams (misc.facts.straight-dope seems to have never quite caught on as well) and can say that a.f.c-a has, for USENET, a quite respectable content-to-noise ratio. There are factual questions, political debates, flames, rants, and flirtatious exchanges among the regulars. Even the SPAM gets deconstructed at times. Only that, sans moderators, no one gets kicked out and no thread gets locked however much it may need it…
Since the SDMB is run at and by the Chicago Reader, it is their call as to the use of their resources and assets. I can not and will not begrudge them a business decision. Anyway, it was right on these boards some time back that it was said: “Information, you say, wants to be free. Well, THIS information wants to be available on paperback at $9.95 at a bookstore near you.”
Necros, I don’t demand that something be proprietary or written by Microsoft. Actually I’ll use your example (Linux) to further explain my thought process.
I’m an Oracle DBA. In the early days of Linux, I read several articles by people saying they got Oracle to install on Linux. But Oracle Corp. would not support those installations, i.e. if something went wrong you were on your own. Would it be OK for someone to experiment with Oracle on Linux? Sure. Would I have recommended (at the time) that a business run their Oracle database on a Linux server? No, even if a clever programmer at the company said “I tried it out and it works fine. I bet I can fix any problems if/when they happen.”
But now Oracle has certified some Oracle versions on Linux, and you can run it and get support if something goes wrong. So Linux is an acceptable choice for enterprise databases.
We could all write letters to each other, two copies of each letter, send one to the intended recipient and one to me for archiving.
Better still, why doesn’t everyone come round to my house and we can just have all these discussions face to face?
We could all live together in a big anarcho commune type thing. We’d use a different room for each category eg the lounge for GQ, the kitchen for CS, the bedroom for MPSIMS. I guess the Pit would have to go in the John.
The mods could still have the power to lock threads or move them to a different room.
Cecil would have to live in the attic as a mysterious invisible presence descending only rarely to settle particular arguments.
We could call ourselves The Incredible Expanding Straight Dope Yellow Submarine House…or something. And we’d all be known as the Dopes…
No scratch this idea, I’ll get back to the drawing board.
Yes, God forbid that I accidentally wander into a subject line that says TIGHT YOUNG ANAL CHERRIES FOR YOU, thinking it was about Bergman’s Wild Strawberries.
Inversely, the people on AFCA hate the stuffy rules and slow load time on here. I’m torn.
So, if this becomes a pay site, are the mods gonna get paid? Continuing the if: since they’re now our customers, will they have to show some new respect? Not that I want to name names, but there are a couple of mods that aren’t quite the models of Public Relations * or *Customer Service. If I’m going to have to pay for abuse, I want to know now.