Yep. Gotta agree. Grew up in Palos Park. 
Why do you guys think SD Chicago never took off?
Second City Syndrome. Or whatever is cursing the Cubs.
There is a nearby website with a forum called Forgotten Chicago that has loads of fascinating Chicago topics that I know would be of interest to many here (In fact there are some members here that I sometimes run into over there). I think it would be great if we could find a way to share some of their topic threads since a lot of what they do depends on personal knowledge and experience of Chicagoans - especially the over-curious brand that we find at SD. The more people involved, the more queries get resolved.
I thought it was a local thing, though I imagine the concept isn’t original. I’ve only ever played at the Fullerton one. I’ve gone there for birthdays and going away parties, and there was much drink involved so I’m surprised there haven’t been any serious injuries, now that I think about it. Those balls get smashed under the wheels pretty easily.
I have no evidence or factual basis at all, and I don’t know what Ed thinks (I will ask him next time we get together), but my feeling is that only a small proportion of posters are Chicagoans; our longest threads have maybe 30 posts. That’s not seriously different from the “factual” forums (GQ, CoCC) but it’s way low for the “social” forums (MPSIMS, IMHO, etc). And then, aside from a small(er) proportion of posters, we only post Chicago-related discussions here – most of our posts still go to the general forums, to get wider responses.
I think the numbers just weren’t there.
Maybe the question to ask is; what happened to Cecil s “Straight Dope Chicago” feature. I found the articles interesting and they always provoked some discussion.
That was a nice idea, but I suspect it was unsustainable. Think about it: answering a Straight Dope Chicago question probably takes just as much manpower as answering a general question, but only has about two and a third percent* as many people who might be interested in it.
Of course we can keep its spirit alive by trying to come up with interesting Chicagocentric questions that we pose to each other right here in this forum. What do you all say to that?
*dividing the population of Chicagoland by the population of the USA.
Ditto. And I haven’t had a proper Chicago-style cracker crust pizza in DECADES. :mad:
Damn.
Cecil wasn’t being paid for it. It was part of the idea of starting up a Chicago sub-website that would include the Message Board forum and articles about Chicago, and then would expand to Atlanta and wherever else. Cecil (and Ed Zotti, his editor) agreed to try it out for a while without being paid, but then Cecil called it off. Cecil likes to be paid, it was a lot of effort, and he doesn’t like to simply toss around his knowledge/intelligence for free.