# The elephant in the room. 4063 active members **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [June 4, 2017, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139 "2017-06-04T23:07:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/141 "2017-06-13T20:11:28Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > **Moderator Note** > > It’s perfectly valid to express this as a reason why someone might not post as much, so (although I disagree with DrDeth’s interpretation of things) it is on topic for the direction this thread has been taking. > > That said, let’s not hijack the thread any further with this, so no more discussion of it within this thread, please. Fair dinkum. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/142 "2017-06-13T20:49:34Z")
I’ve been here a bit over 14 years now. I can quite literally count the number of websites I still visit from 2003 on one finger - unless you count Yahoo!, where I’ve kept my main e-mail address since the free hosting service I was using previously shut down in 2002. I don’t use Yahoo for anything else except fantasy football and that’s only because the various SDMB leagues are all based there. I consider us lucky to have lasted this long, frankly. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/143 "2017-06-13T21:05:23Z")
> [@dalej42](#): > > Exactly. There’s a race to see who can post the quickest zombie snark as soon as a newbie resurrects a thread. If I was a newbie, I’d be annoyed and confused with reading several snarky brain responses until a mod comes in, locks the zombie, and requests a new one be started. Every message board has their own culture, on some, you never start a new thread if that topic has been covered in an existing thread. On others, it is a judgement call. Wanna know the stupidest part about this? vBulletin has a built in feature that can be turned on that disallows a reply to a thread when the reply exceeds a specified time frame set by the admin unless the poster checks an acknowledgment box. I know this, because it’s been set active on Giraffeboard and I’ve run into it once in a while. So if the SDMB doesn’t want people replying to zombie threads without actually closing threads over a certain age they could make it a lot harder with one insignificant bit of effort. The fact that they don’t is one of myriad reasons why I don’t bother posting here very often any more. Fact of the matter is that if I do bother to read a thread I can almost always predict how it’s going to go and which stupid poster is going to say the same stupid thing they always do, but the fact that you can’t just tell someone they’re being endlessly stupid without dedicating an entire new Pit thread to it means that it’s easier just to roll my eyes, close the tab and not bother to look at the board again until something interesting rolls by in a Geeb snark thread. In a world where millions of sites are competing for attention, being boring is a death sentence, and the rules and moderation on this board have made it as boring as it can possibly be without actually banning cusswords–and that was done too, long and long ago, but at least it was a temporary condition brought about by the hosting site. No excuses for it now. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/144 "2017-06-13T22:21:24Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Wanna know the stupidest part about this? vBulletin has a built in feature that can be turned on that disallows a reply to a thread when the reply exceeds a specified time frame set by the admin unless the poster checks an acknowledgment box. I know this, because it’s been set active on Giraffeboard and I’ve run into it once in a while. So if the SDMB doesn’t want people replying to zombie threads without actually closing threads over a certain age they could make it a lot harder with one insignificant bit of effort. The fact that they don’t is one of myriad reasons why I don’t bother posting here very often any more. I think that’s actually an add-on (I don’t know for sure.) If it’s not, then the problem comes back to the absentee management–last I remember hearing nobody actually has Admin rights any more since Tuba/Dex left. The other problem is that there’s absolutely no coherent policy on zombie threads: some forums are supposed to be more lenient than others regarding them, but some mods are more hard-assed about it than others. So the only way a newbie can get a guess as to whether zombies are ok is to successfully predict what moderator sees the resurrected thread first and how they’re feeling on a given day and if there’s any contentious old posters who were really involved. (The old “Opalcat sez owning a leather-bound book is the same as owning a lampshade made of Holocaust victim skin” (it had a sub-thread inside it about “Is the lampshade story even real?”) would be insta-closed by most moderators since Opal is dead–but not all of them, even if new evidence came to light about human-skin lampshades). No coherent policy=no right or wrong answer and no way to tell if it’s ok or not=frustrated noobie. ---
**Author:** ![Crazy\_Canuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazy_canuck/32/5282_2.png) [@Crazy\_Canuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazy_Canuck)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/145 "2017-06-13T22:23:04Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > Not to hijack my own thread but… > > For those long time posters who have low post counts, it looks like many have taken long hiatuses from posting, frequently 10 years or more. > > What are some of the reasons? Let’s see … 806 posts since 2005. Yup, guess I qualify. Though none of my gaps were because I was in jail, that happened before I ever posted here … There were two big reasons for me to spend far less time here. First of all, this place, particularly the Pit, got too nice. It used to be quite a bit more volatile around here than it is now, and I liked it that way. I remember when things like Cervaise’s telemarketer thread were posted in the pit, and I’m sad that we will never see anything like that again. Ever since Ed went on his big kick, the Pit has became a hollow shell of what it used to be. Second, is that the left lean on this board has gone to full out tilt. I’m an anarchist, and I tend not to agree with either the right or the left, depending on the topic in question. I’ve found that if I agree with the left, I’m invisible in the crowd, and if I agree with the right, it becomes a dog-pile faster than you can say 1920s-style death rays. Then Trump got elected, and it only got far, far worse. I don’t even bother with the political threads here anymore unless I have a good one liner to post and dash with. So not worth. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 9:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/146 "2017-06-14T09:10:36Z")
How DO new users find this place nowadays, anyway? I haven’t seen the newspaper column in ages, and even then it was only in indie papers. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [June 14, 2017, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/147 "2017-06-14T16:28:15Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > How DO new users find this place nowadays, anyway? I haven’t seen the newspaper column in ages, and even then it was only in indie papers. I think a lot of them find the place through Google searches. This board is a front-page hit for a lot of factual questions. That’s the main reason why they made the board Google-searchable in the first place—to drive traffic here. It’s also a key reason why so many new members make their first post resurrecting a zombie thread. ---
**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/148 "2017-06-21T20:13:33Z")
As the active members number decreases, the less likely I am to post. Sometimes what I wanted to say has already been said, but mostly the permanence of every comment bothers me. I don’t want my history of inane and irrelevant comments to be readily available. It’s not like anyone knows who I am and my history is about as vanilla as it gets, but the fact that if I say something stupid it will never, ever go away, is a deterrent to me. > [@Crazy\_Canuck](#): > > First of all, this place, particularly the Pit, got too nice. It used to be quite a bit more volatile around here than it is now, and I liked it that way. I remember when things like Cervaise’s telemarketer thread were posted in the pit, and I’m sad that we will never see anything like that again. Ever since Ed went on his big kick, the Pit has became a hollow shell of what it used to be. I agree with this, and lately it seems there are about a dozen threads that are pages and pages and pages. The Stupid Republican Ideas thread is currently 687 pages long! If I’m gone for a few days there’s no way I’m going to keep up with that. I really miss the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/149 "2017-06-21T21:47:23Z")
> [@Alma](#): > > As the active members number decreases, the less likely I am to post. Sometimes what I wanted to say has already been said, but mostly the permanence of every comment bothers me. I don’t want my history of inane and irrelevant comments to be readily available. It’s not like anyone knows who I am and my history is about as vanilla as it gets, but the fact that if I say something stupid it will never, ever go away, is a deterrent to me. a) That sounds like a reason to post MORE: to drown out the dumb stuff, assuming you’re okay most of the time. b) Sounds like the Internet in general isn’t for you if you’re worried about immortalization of your mistakes. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Alma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecd19e/32.png) [@Alma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alma)\ **Post date:** [June 21, 2017, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/150 "2017-06-21T22:00:22Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > a) That sounds like a reason to post MORE: to drown out the dumb stuff, assuming you’re okay most of the time. Good point. I don’t think I considered the signal to noise angle. > [@Leaper](#): > > b) Sounds like the Internet in general isn’t for you if you’re worried about immortalization of your mistakes. 😃 Oh you have no idea. I don’t know when I got to be such a delicate flower but I rarely participate in any social media anymore. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/151 "2017-06-22T00:48:30Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > But what is Reddit if not a large general purpose message board? And that remains highly popular. Though I don’t believe that fact contains any useful wisdom for revitalizing these boards, since Reddit’s popularity owes a lot to its features, libertarian governance, and critical mass. Reddit is a link aggregator above all else. It is a place where you share content online. Far more users there follow links than vote on them, and even more vote than actually comment. And the number of comments that are more than just the comment section on YouTube or similar is even smaller. Long form conversation is actively discouraged by the format. Repetition is values and highly upvoted, even if everyone complains about it. Stealing content from others is encouraged by the that same system. It’s very different from pretty much any messageboard I’ve seen, even less intellectual ones than this one. The subreddits do have some similarities, but it’s still nearly comments on content, not people having conversations about things. That’s what’s dying. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/152 "2017-06-22T01:37:46Z")
It’s weird that we have people saying this place is too nice now, while others saying we’re too mean to newbies due to basic zombie jokes that occur anywhere where rezzing threads is allowed. The board never needed to welcome people before–that was the self-selection process. ---
**Author:** ![Ambivalid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a5b964/32.png) [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/153 "2017-06-22T01:57:53Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s weird that we have people saying this place is too nice now, while others saying we’re too mean to newbies due to basic zombie jokes that occur anywhere where rezzing threads is allowed. The board never needed to welcome people before–that was the self-selection process. Well _ **I** _ certainly was made to feel welcome when I first joined the board. :o ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/154 "2017-06-22T02:21:03Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It’s weird that we have people saying this place is too nice now, while others saying we’re too mean to newbies due to basic zombie jokes that occur anywhere where rezzing threads is allowed. The board never needed to welcome people before–that was the self-selection process. I think the difference before was that entertainment choices were limited. Sites that had a certain momentum would attract more drive-by people, and some of them would end up staying. But now there are are so many other options for people’s free time–facebook, instagram, photo editing, etc. etc.–that there just aren’t that many people driving by anymore. Back then, even if they didn’t like the board, people might stick around because there weren’t other places for them to hang out. But now there are lots of places which are finely tuned to their personality, so they hang out there. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/155 "2017-06-22T13:56:57Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > I think the difference before was that entertainment choices were limited. Sites that had a certain momentum would attract more drive-by people, and some of them would end up staying. But now there are are so many other options for people’s free time–facebook, instagram, photo editing, etc. etc.–that there just aren’t that many people driving by anymore. Back then, even if they didn’t like the board, people might stick around because there weren’t other places for them to hang out. But now there are lots of places which are finely tuned to their personality, so they hang out there. I guess this place is finely tuned to my personality. I like it better than any of the other places that have been mentioned in this thread, even if they are more popular. Well, I do like Facebook to share news about my real life friends and family. But it’s terrible for intellectual conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [June 22, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/156 "2017-06-22T21:12:46Z")
I still pop on and scan through threads any more, but I haven’t posted for a long time, and it certainly doesn’t take me as long to go through everything as it used to. Part of it is that I have a lot less time these days, part of it is that I’ve moved on to other communities, and part of it is that this place just isn’t as interesting as it used to be. I feel like I should close with an apology, but I’m not entirely sure why… ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/157 "2017-06-23T17:19:26Z")
One other issue. It seems that a lot of times, especially in GD, the “debate” resolves down into two posters bickering with each other, mostly pedantic quibbles over the other guy’s post. Maybe if we have a page of that, it’s time to lock? ---
**Author:** ![CapnPitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/edb3f5/32.png) [@CapnPitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CapnPitt)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/158 "2017-06-23T19:41:55Z")
> [@Ruby\_Slippers](#): > > Some of us don’t post much but we enjoy reading this board! And I like to think of myself as a superb inactive user. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [June 23, 2017, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/159 "2017-06-23T23:21:43Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > One other issue. It seems that a lot of times, especially in GD, the “debate” resolves down into two posters bickering with each other, mostly pedantic quibbles over the other guy’s post. > > Maybe if we have a page of that, it’s time to lock? I heartily endorse this idea. Once it degrades into one poster quoting another in 2-sentence chunks and critiquing line by line, the thread is over in my view. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2017, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139/160 "2017-06-24T19:57:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > One other issue. It seems that a lot of times, especially in GD, the “debate” resolves down into two posters bickering with each other, mostly pedantic quibbles over the other guy’s post. > > Maybe if we have a page of that, it’s time to lock? I think a great deal could be accomplished by applying the “Don’t be a jerk” guidelines to redundant and unproductive pedantry. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-elephant-in-the-room-4063-active-members/788139.md?page=9)