# Is this the biggest general-interest board on the 'net?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748
**Category:** About This Message Board
**Created:** [October 11, 2001, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748 "2001-10-11T05:50:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chickenhead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chickenhead)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/1 "2001-10-11T05:50:27Z")
Well? Based on posts, page-loads, whatever, is it?
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/2 "2001-10-11T17:09:32Z")
No way of telling, at least not in public. We’ve all learned the hard way not to post links to our favorite other message boards, because of the massive troll infestations that invariably follow.
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### Author:  [@sloanaheadayou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sloanaheadayou)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/3 "2001-10-11T18:45:49Z")
What a strange thing to think, that nobody has rated message boards.
There’s plenty of sites that exist just to rate these things.
I can’t imagine this board being high on the lists though, since it’s not advertized, is it?
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### Author:  [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 10:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/4 "2001-10-11T22:38:45Z")
IIRC, one of the mods or admins once said that the SDMB is one of the largest vBulletin or UBB boards.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/5 "2001-10-11T22:54:25Z")
> [@](#):
>
> There’s plenty of sites that exist just to rate these things.
Since you seem to be in the know about these sites, why don’t you wander on over to one of them in your free time and report back to us?
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### Author:  [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)
#### Post date: [October 11, 2001, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/6 "2001-10-11T23:00:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by rowrrbazzle \*
> \*\*IIRC, one of the mods or admins once said that the SDMB is one of the largest vBulletin or UBB boards. \*\*
It is one of the largest, but not _the_ largest. There is a person on the vBulletin developer’s site who got 1,000,000 posts on their Board in 8 months from the start, IIRC. I think another person broke 2,000,000 in two years. I’ve also seen a vBulletin site that had more than 45,000 users on it, but I can’t remember where it was.
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### Author:  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/7 "2001-10-12T01:28:18Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Duck Duck Goose \*
> \*\*No way of telling, at least not in public. We’ve all learned the hard way not to post links to our favorite other message boards, because of the massive troll infestations that invariably follow. \*\*
Well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, I’d say. If someone wants to post a link to a large “General Interest” message board, that’s fine with me.
We did have a problem in the past, when a few Straight Dope posters started trolling on _another_ site. What followed was just the reverse of that: but it’s inaccurate to blame that on “placing a link to another message board” alone.
Not a “General Interest” site, but I do recall from an earlier discussion along these lines that some sort of hardware message board had the biggest membership. But I’ll be damned if I can think of the name right now.
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### Author:  [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/8 "2001-10-12T02:02:48Z")
Well, long ago I once merely mentioned one of _my_ favorite other MBs, in the context of a thread, and during the course of the next four days there was a tremendous sock puppet invasion (with user names like SuckMyBigFatOne), the server was hacked, the MB crashed, and we all had to change our passwords. And it couldn’t have been coincidence, because it was a fairly obscure, very small technical hobbyist board that you normally wouldn’t have stumbled across, unless you already knew it was there.
So.
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### Author:  [@puk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puk)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/9 "2001-10-12T13:18:06Z")
so, DDG, do you have a link to that site?
_Ducks and Runs_ 😃
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### Author:  [@Tars\_Tarkas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tars_Tarkas)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/10 "2001-10-12T17:15:33Z")
If not the biggest, it is the best
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### Author:  [@sloanaheadayou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sloanaheadayou)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/11 "2001-10-12T18:33:52Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by UncleBeer \*
> \*\*
>
> > [@](#):
> >
> > There’s plenty of sites that exist just to rate these things.
>
> Since you seem to be in the know about these sites, why don’t you wander on over to one of them in your free time and report back to us? \*\*
For a “moderator” at a trivia site, you sure don’t seem interested in doing research. Trust me, if you don’t really care about the answer, then neither do I. But I can start someone else off.
I found one of these and then hit the browser’s “Related” button.
[Top9.com](http://Top9.com) [http://www.top9.com](http://www.top9.com)
Topfivesites [http://www.topfivesites.com](http://www.topfivesites.com)
[Top5000sites.com](http://Top5000sites.com) Directory -… [http://www.top5000sites.com](http://www.top5000sites.com)
Pcdata Online Reports [http://www.pcdataonline.com](http://www.pcdataonline.com)
Wisecat’s Top 100 Web Sites [http://www.wisecat.co.uk](http://www.wisecat.co.uk)
Webtop10 Redirect… [http://www.webtop10.com](http://www.webtop10.com)
starnet.com.au/zachm [http://www.starnet.com.au/zachm](http://www.starnet.com.au/zachm)
Navipage [http://www.navipage.com](http://www.navipage.com)
100 Greatest Web Sites Direc… [http://www.greatest100sites.com](http://www.greatest100sites.com)
100hot [http://www.100hot.com](http://www.100hot.com)
[100.com](http://100.com) - 100 Top Web Sites … [http://www.100.com](http://www.100.com)
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### Author:  [@Coldfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coldfire)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/12 "2001-10-12T23:51:03Z")
You think we’re a _trivia site_? Ye Gads.
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### Author:  [@The\_Pit\_and\_The\_Pendulum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Pit_and_The_Pendulum)
#### Post date: [October 12, 2001, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/13 "2001-10-12T23:56:43Z")
Those don’t seem to be trivia sites either.
Here’s one list of just message boards [http://www.freefever.com/mboard.html](http://www.freefever.com/mboard.html)
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### Author:  [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)
#### Post date: [October 13, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/14 "2001-10-13T00:02:03Z")
[This one’s part of a national UK newspaper](http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/notesandqueries/index.html)
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2001, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/15 "2001-10-14T18:05:10Z")
The hardware message board to which **Coldfire** is referring is probably [Ars Technica](http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=cfrm&s=50009562). They don’t have membership numbers listed there, but I’ve seen threads there with more posts than some of our fora.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [October 14, 2001, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/16 "2001-10-14T22:29:55Z")
**Anthracite’s** post inspired me to read some of the message boards over at vBulletin. It would seem that there are boards out there with indeed larger numbers of registered members. What I found most interesting was many instances of 400-500 posters on a board at the same time.
Of course, those boards may not employ a search feature to the degree that ours does. Or they may have servers so large that it doesn’t matter.
But reading those threads, we aren’t in the top five based on registered members, threads, posts, or many other quantifiable statistics. I kept searching for statistics indicating _posters-who-are-bright-as-hell-and-trying-to-make-the-world-a-smarter/better-place_ but couldn’t find any. 😃
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### Author:  [@micco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/micco)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2001, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/17 "2001-10-15T16:06:36Z")
Just to nitpick terminology, you really want to compare SDMB to other general-interest boards on the **web**. If you compare the the net, you’re going head-to-head with Usenet, which isn’t even a fair fight.
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### Author:  [@UncleBeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleBeer)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2001, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/18 "2001-10-15T16:52:51Z")
> [@](#):
>
> For a “moderator” at a trivia site, you sure don’t seem interested in doing research.
Actually, since you seemed to be the local “expert,” what I wasn’t interested in doing was re-inventing the wheel. Had nothing to do with “research.” Had everything to do with using an existing knowledge base. What would be the point of duplicating efforts? It would seem though that you are no “expert” anyway. You implied there are many sites that exist solely to rate these [message boards] things, but the links you’ve given us are much broader than that.
[Edited by UncleBeer on 10-15-2001 at 11:56 AM]
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2001, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/19 "2001-10-15T16:58:01Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Chronos \*
> \*\*The hardware message board to which **Coldfire** is referring is probably [Ars Technica](http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=cfrm&s=50009562). They don’t have membership numbers listed there, but I’ve seen threads there with more posts than some of our fora. \*\*
That link was worth it just for this thread alone.
[http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=77909585&m=8020990882](http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=77909585&m=8020990882)
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### Author:  [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)
#### Post date: [October 15, 2001, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748/20 "2001-10-15T17:16:08Z")
> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Chickenhead \*
> \*\*Well? Based on posts, page-loads, whatever, is it? \*\*
Not by any measure nor would most people want it to be. This is a medium-largish BBS and there are others that are considerably bigger. There is an optimium size range where people can have a sense of community and SDMB is (IMO) just within the boundaries of that envelope.
The most important thing about the SDMB is the overall quality of the moderation which tends to help retain quality participants. We are not the biggest overall or even the deepest (within narrow bands of expertise) but I would venture to say we are the most eclectic by a fairly wide margin and I can’t think of any other site in existence that tackles the range of questions we delve into here in volume.
We are not the library but we _are_ the best card catalog of general information guides that will point you in the direction you need to go in search of knowledge.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-this-the-biggest-general-interest-board-on-the-net/86748.md?page=2)