# member to guest not on sign up date?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [November 5, 2007, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351 "2007-11-05T22:42:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2007, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351/1 "2007-11-05T22:42:52Z")

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I’ve gotten accustomed to old threads showing various posters I knew as guests. And, of course, accustomed to new posters as guests as well. However, it strikes me odd when during an active thread, suddenly some on who has been posting, oh, say 2 days ago, suddenly turns up as “guest”.

[http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=442346&page=6](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=442346&page=6)  
as in \*\*magellan01 \*\* in this thread. their join date is in July 21 2004- shouldn’t that, therefore, be the ‘sign up again’ date? as in, if they’d let their subscription lapse, they’d revert back to guest. wouldn’t have thought there were ‘partial year’ sign ups. don’t see a ‘goodbye cruel dope’ post recently.

was’ the deal?

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**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2007, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351/2 "2007-11-05T23:01:42Z")

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Without having access to the details, my guess would be that he had already let his subscription lapse sometime past, and that this was the end of when he signed up again. Just a guess.

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**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351/3 "2007-11-06T15:06:20Z")

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Two different things here.

What you see is the date they originally signed up for the Dope – July 21 2004. That’s not they date they subscribed to the Dope, which was actually 11-01. And has expired.

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**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\
**Post date:** [November 6, 2007, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351/4 "2007-11-06T22:16:49Z")

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ok. thanks.

still it’s odd to me that some one would be involved in various threads, then, just  
stop.

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**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\
**Post date:** [November 7, 2007, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/member-to-guest-not-on-sign-up-date/425351/5 "2007-11-07T04:41:42Z")

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Why did they not renew? I dunno.