just curious, did the bells and whistles go off? New car?? Uncle Cecil give you a congrats?
later, Tom
I’ll bet someone can figure out an answer to your question in About This Message Board. I’ll move the question over there for you.
Actually, some posts have been deleted, so post 500,000 happened a while ago.
You can try going directly to a post # by putting in your desire post number in the following URL
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=500000#post500000
I thought somebody explained somewhere that there were extra posts in the vB database due to aborted conversion efforts, so that the original #500000 wasn’t really #500000, and that the excess posts had been cleaned out during the recent upgrade. Very confusing. Oh well.
now that I think about it, wouldn’t deleted troll posts also mess up the count?
Here’s my calculations. I watched the main forum page and kept refreshing it until the total post count went from 500676 to 500677. I then looked to see who had just posted. Turned out to be Tracer in GD. I looked at the source for that page to fine the post # and it was 575134, giving an offset of 75457 (the post number - the post count).
I substituted 575457 for 500000 in Arnold’s link above ( http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=574457#post574457 )
and came up with denbo’s post at 7/13/00 2:45PM in MPSIMS in the biking and nads thread.
The boards kinda busy so I don’t know if the counts on the main page are current, but that’s what I came up with.
Jim
p.s. It’s 102 outside and I don’t feel like watching the sprinkler go around.
Wow, nice detective work JimB. I was trying to figure that out myself but it didn’t occur to me to view source!
Tried your experiment and matched your offset number (74457, not 75457, which looks like a typo in your post 'cause the link is right). Matches the time I observed when 500000 showed. Guess that settles it.
Does denbo get a free toaster?
Sounds like he/she should get at least a toaster, maybe even A NEW CAR. Come on down, denbo!!
Jim
He did some real planning and waiting, and got an actual round number on his link.
You have a point, AM/PM, but dpr was expecting it, and so we’ve lost the element of surprise. On the other hand, if we show up at denbo’s door with a big fake check and lots of television cameras, we might catch him in his underwear!
I asked this before, but is there any easier way to determine the post number of a particular post? It’d be nice if you could easily link directly to a particular post, rather than just to the whole thread.
I think this is what they are saying:
On the browser pulldowns, select View / Source
search for, say, “Chronos”. Then put the number thereabouts into the link listed above. For your post above you get
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=575744#post575744
I saw this happen at the end of my day and had no more time to be online… great detective work and vow a usefull tool. Hey denbo, when’s the party? Wonder if he even knows?
Guess I could look him up.
later, Tom.
One more simplification:
**right click on the blue link “logged” to find the number to plug into Arnold Winkelried’s url.
**And select “Properties”.
Even better, tshirts, hover over the link and just read your status bar.
Interesting. That would give me more than 1% of the posts.
And of course, the “quote button” below your post also shows you the post id.
Thank you, tshirts (and Arnold)! I knew about “view source”, but Netscape’s view souce screen is totally non-interactive (no “search”, and it’s a pain in the neck. This way is a lot easier. 
Wow. Jim you should have been a detective. I’m impressed. And I’m kinda glad we can nominate someone else as the 500,000th poster for I did feel a bit guilty afterwards (that I’d cheated the system by removing luck/chance from the equation).
I say give denbo the Straight Dope Home Game.