Yup. 1.3 posts per day seems about right over almost 20 years. Dayum, 20 years - how time flies…
<checks stats> Holy Joe! 2.32 posts a day! 15,678 posts since 08-01-1999 Threads started by Lumpy… doesn’t say, but a search shows 5 pages of 100 threads each.
Man you guys are chatty.
My stats:
User#173
Join date: 03-15-1999
Posts Per Day: 0.04
You’ve started about 2850 threads in your time here. Took a few minutes to do the search, but there you go.
I just came back today. I haven’t posted since 2009. I’m saddened by the list of the fearly departed, I recognized several people I consider old friends. But I’m encouraged about the number of you I see are still here.
So, is it possible to get my charter member status back?
I’m not a mod, obviously, but the answer for years has been a consistent ‘No.’ They just don’t do it anymore.
Sorry, but no. The deal was that it was a one-time offer that had to be continuously maintained.
When did the AOL board first start up? It’s common knowledge here that a '99er is someone who joined the board during its first year, but how far back to the AOL people go? (I’m a '97er myself and it was well-underway. They had the push pins already, and board history with in-jokes like being “insluted”)
The Straight Dope on AOL opened in June of 1996.
That’s how we got started. AOL billboarded “THE STRAIGHT DOPE NOW ON AOL!” about six weeks before they actually opened for business. The portal was built but all that was in it in the beginning was a chat room. Remember chat rooms? (The message board and the columns came a little later.) Some people who had seen the ads and read the books ran to the chat room and sat there waiting for something to happen. Since we had nothing else to do but talk to each other and wait for Cecil and Ed, we all quickly became buddies.
When Ed finally showed up there was a gang of excited Teemsters eager to volunteer. (Cecil came to chat a little later.) That’s the day we all started [del]whitewashing the Reader’s fence[/del] working on the site as chat hosts, message board monitors, etc.
I was actually on my way to cancel my AOL membership when I saw the ad on the AOL front page; that was a chance encounter that literally changed my life.
Somewhere around here I may still have logs of old chats. Somewhere. If there was any interest I could see if they’re fit for publication. (We used to archive them on the AOL site back in the day.)
I have four or five 3.5" discs with the logs of the chats I hosted on AOL. I don’t have a computer that can play them anymore.
Ooooooh, my friend, step into my stall. My family has been doing business here in the Doper Sook since the 1380’s. Why here, we’ve got just what you have been seeking !! An external floppy drive to read old disks and I must admit I can give you a very very fine price on this item.
Very very fine.
And while you consider this and many other beautiful things may I offer you some tea? 
I suspect we have an answer and it’s not a good one; the old material is the copyrighted property of the Chicago Reader.
Dang.
Ahhh, well.
Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
My join date makes me a relative newbie but I do have a well thumbed copy of More of the Straight Dope I bought in 1988. It has names of
people people that could be users today.
In just under the '99 wire!
Saw it on AOL, signed up when I saw it again on the new server, and have enjoyed being a part of it the whole time.
However, if the original registration agreement is like the current one, it’s a non-exclusive license. Posters still retain copyright to their own posts. Of course, it might be difficult to establish the real identity of many posters and obtain permission.
If your post contains a quote from another poster, would said quote have to be stripped out?
You retain the rights to your own words, not to those of other posters. So you would have to get their permission as well (although brief quotes might fall under “fair use”).
Tontine, hell. Isn’t there a long-running gambling thread on the Soon-to-be-Deceased?