# Record-holders: The first SDMB user and the first SMDB thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 25, 2013, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148 "2013-12-25T15:09:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/21 "2013-12-31T04:17:39Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > I don’t think **Monty** , #14, was an Admin or moderator. He’d be the oldest poster if I’m right. He’s SDSAB, but I’m pretty sure he was never a mod or admin. I see there are posters with earlier join dates even though they have higher registration numbers, though. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/22 "2013-12-31T04:22:22Z")
[Not 29](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=16971561&postcount=17). I do remember your original name, and looked for it in the first 150. (Some people have too much free time on their hands.:o) There were several missing user numbers that could have been you. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/23 "2013-12-31T04:54:41Z")
> [@Stoned\_stoner](#): > > I thought I might as well make a reference source to record SMDB history (the first ever). The AOL version of SMDB doesn’t count, because it’s like a primitive version of SMDB. > > The first SMDB user (moderators don’t count): GusNSpot (user id #33) > The first SMDB thread (the “welcome” threads and “rules” threads are not the threads we usually think of, so they don’t count): “Boy Scouts board?” (03-11-1999 at 05:23 am): [Boy Scouts board? - The BBQ Pit - Straight Dope Message Board](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=1448) > > \*\*\*The first post in the above mentioned thread was made by a user named Opal. Does anyone know what became of this user? > [@The\_Universe\_Lashes\_Out](#): > > Wow, the first ever thread was somebody threatening to leave the board in a huff? You can’t make this stuff up. I am so proud! Opal was having her first hissy fit on the SDMB at ME! How dare I not love and admire absolutely everything she did! ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/24 "2013-12-31T04:59:00Z")
> [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](#): > > Is [possibly Ranger Jeff?](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/member.php) If it is, he probably doesn’t count, since he didn’t stick around, and only came back to this board when Opal’s board disappeared. It was me who pissed her off, but I was staff/admin, so I wasn’t a civilian like Gus was. You can dismiss the AOL SD board all you want, but the early staff here came directly over from the AOL board. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/25 "2013-12-31T05:11:11Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > It was me who pissed her off, but I was staff/admin, so I wasn’t a civilian like Gus was. You can dismiss the AOL SD board all you want, but the early staff here came directly over from the AOL board. What exactly was your position originally re: staff? ---
**Author:** ![Inna\_Minnit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Inna\_Minnit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inna_Minnit)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/26 "2013-12-31T05:41:55Z")
SDMB. Does the dyslexia bother no one else??? ---
**Author:** ![Stoned\_stoner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stoned\_stoner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoned_stoner)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/27 "2013-12-31T06:16:59Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > It was me who pissed her off, but I was staff/admin, so I wasn’t a civilian like Gus was. You can dismiss the AOL SD board all you want, but the early staff here came directly over from the AOL board. True. Although it is technically a different version of the board. Not the SDMB we all know and love today. ---
**Author:** ![Stoned\_stoner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stoned\_stoner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoned_stoner)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/28 "2013-12-31T06:30:16Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > He’s SDSAB, but I’m pretty sure he was never a mod or admin. I see there are posters with earlier join dates even though they have higher registration numbers, though. Yeah, but the SDMB opened to the public around March 10, 1999. GusNSpot was preceded by other members (particularly Cecil and TubaDiva), but they all were associated with “The Straight Dope”. This makes GusNSpot the first regular member. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 12:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/29 "2013-12-31T12:12:23Z")
> [@hajario](#): > > [QUOTE=AuntiePam] > > Why no usernames? We’re on vB now but the board started on a different software. When they transitioned, some of the information was lost. [/QUOTE] To be pedantically precise, the board started on uBB, don’t know what version but let’s pretend it was uBB version 1. Later they updated to uBB version 2 and converted the uBB version posts, which then looked normal enough under uBB v2 but were still different in some unknown fashion. Yet later they switched to vB and converted all the uBB posts. The uBB version 2 posts looked normal but the older version 1 posts all appeared with no username. No one noticed it right away because by then those were all pretty old posts, we’d been using v2 of uBB for quite a while. (If all the uBB posts had shown up without username, the first morning of vB would have been chaotic and the event would echo down through the ages and have some well-known phrase like Amnesia Day or something). ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/30 "2013-12-31T12:15:59Z")
Somehow I didn’t think Monty was SDSAB _ab initio_–but I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![James\_Toothpaste](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e56c9b/32.png) [@James\_Toothpaste](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/James_Toothpaste)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/31 "2013-12-31T19:25:43Z")
The first user would have the ID of 1, right? ---
**Author:** ![Stoned\_stoner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Stoned\_stoner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stoned_stoner)\ **Post date:** [December 31, 2013, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/32 "2013-12-31T22:34:30Z")
That would have been a moderator. And it would have been before the board officially opened in March. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/33 "2014-01-01T00:17:04Z")
> [@samclem](#): > > What exactly was your position originally re: staff? Well, I’m sorry but I have to go back to the AOL days to explain it. If anyone reading this isn’t interested in Ancient History, just skip this post. In the AOL days, there was the message board, the chat room, and the forum (where you could read Cecil’s latest column, archived columns, and submit questions to The Master). 1. The Forum: This was all out of the CR offices. Cecil, Zotti, Slug, some tech/production people, and Jane Fabian as Cecil’s off-campus, so to speak, assistant. B. The Chat Room: There was a chat room with nightly one hour hosted chats. I think there was also a Sunday afternoon chat also. I was one of the hosts. There were maybe 12 hosts. Some worked solo, some worked in teams, sometimes an experienced host would be paired with a new host until the new host was ready to go solo. Of the folks I’ve seen posting here on this SDMB since I’ve been back, the only former AOL hosts I’ve seen besides myself are Monty, Tubadiva, and C.K Dexterhaven. At some point, AOL required the hosts to take on new usernames with an official SD title and we ended up with SDSTAFF as a prefix. When SD and AOL parted ways, the hosts were kept on as Cecil’s research staff to help out Jane. iii. The Message Board. I think that was pretty much moderated by Tubadiva alone. Tuba was pretty much the First Sergeant of us all back then; she ran the chats and MB for Cecil. 1. There was also an ALT.Straight Dope community out there too. I wasn’t all that familiar with it. I guess it had it’s own message board. And eventually, the Forum and Message Board moved here and I guess the ALT. SD folks came here too. There were bumps and wrong turns and some shaking out to do, but here we are. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2014, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/34 "2014-01-01T00:58:27Z")
> [@Ranger\_Jeff](#): > > 1. There was also an ALT.Straight Dope community out there too. I wasn’t all that familiar with it. I guess it had it’s own message board. \ I always get stuck with the fourth item! Thanks for the suggestion. \ Carry on. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2014, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/35 "2014-01-01T04:38:13Z")
alt.straightdope? Sounds line [Usenet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet). I was active on Usenet in the late nineties, though not in relation to the SDMB. (I may not have heard of the SDMB yet, especially if it was confined to AOL.) ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [January 1, 2014, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/36 "2014-01-01T15:05:39Z")
I think the two groups that I remember were misc.facts.straight.dope and alt.fan.cecil.adams. There might have been more. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/37 "2014-01-06T06:47:37Z")
I know I should know this, but how do we look up membership ID numbers? I assume it’s possible to to look up one’s own number, at least. I joined in August 1999 and assumed the board had already been around at least a couple of years essentially in its current form. Even by August '99 it seemed there was a huge virtual crowd of posters. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/38 "2014-01-06T06:59:37Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > I know I should know this, but how do we look up membership ID numbers? I assume it’s possible to to look up one’s own number, at least. Hover your cursor over the person’s username. You’ll see a URL appear somewhere (on my Firefox, it appears at the bottom of the screen). At the end of the URL, there will be a “u=xxxxxx” where “x” is the membership ID number. For example, I can see that you are user 2109, **Sunspace** is number 1544, I am 9680, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![MikeG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mikeg/32/4329_2.png) [@MikeG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MikeG)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/39 "2014-01-06T08:12:24Z")
I was in the middle of a divorce in the spring of 1999 and my computer was boxed up so I didn’t get sign up until July. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2014, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148/40 "2014-01-06T16:07:46Z")
I’m number 1544! I’m number 1544! Er, what do I win again? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/record-holders-the-first-sdmb-user-and-the-first-smdb-thread/677148.md?page=3)