This grand board is, without a doubt, peerless. Each and and every member here is among the elite. You all inspire and challenge me everday to discussion and debate. The Straight Dope Message Board combines the wit of the Algonquin Round Table with the wisdom of the Vienna Circle.
What do you find inspiring on the Dope? What keeps you coming back?
jjimm paid my subscription and I don’t like to waste money. Even his.
It’s cheap entertainment.
Every now and then you learn something.
Every now and then you get to teach something.
Hot naked chicks.
Yes, the hot naked chicks.
Actually I’d think most people deplore the Dope…I mean jeez, look at some people’s post counts: 6,k, 10k, 16k, 23k…30k
Obviously they hate it.
Seriously, though…I love the dope because we have people who are long time posters, and new people who join and become long time posters. It’s a good place to be.
General questions is the real quality of the board and why I am a member. Its really cool to be able to post just about any thing and stand a 99% chance of getting a helpful answer. The overall polite tone and moderation is impressive to me also, all my other time online is spent on sports boards which are just infantile in comparison.
It would be really interesting to see a sports section on the SDMB - although I think I’ve seen a mod post that kayboshed this idea. Given how sports bring out the inner child in all of us, I wonder if the inherent class of the board could resist the complete intellectual meltdown that usually accompanies sports discussion online.
The sports discussions go generally very well here. I don’t think a sports forum would be conducted poorly at all.
Especially if we can keep the Cleveland and Baltimore fans out. 
I guess hot naked chicks are a perk for Charter Members only. 
I like the sheer variety of people on here. I like the ability to get my questions answered. I like finding out about things that I would never have heard of but for the Dope.
What I like about the SDMB: It’s okay to be smart here.
That’s a big one.
I’ve learned more about religion here than anywhere else in my life. There have been threads from Christans, Jews, Muslims, Neo-Pagans, and all sorts of flavours. (There was one called “Ask the Ismaili Muslim” that was fascinating. And there have been explanations of mindsets and practices that I never could have imagined in my life.)
There are Hot Doper Women, which has led to me having quite a number of Hopeless Doper Crushes.
This board has an amazingly-wide age range; I think there was one poster who was 16 and another who was 65. This leads to a fascinating range of opinions.
I’ve had great fun participating in shared fiction here: the thread where Winston Smith asks for applications for the post of henchman is a classic.
And every now and then, we get a thread that restores my faith that humans can be more than just neotenous killer apes. That thread where people pitched in and sent money to a member who had been scammed, for instance.
Uh, yeah, what he said. 
I’m always amazed at the depth of knowledge by our participants – and I’ve asked some pretty obscure questions that I’ve gotten answers to. (For instance, “why would a construction site need hundreds of gallons of molasses?”)
I’m also a big fan of Cafe Society, where I get my TV and Movie fanwank fix.
J.
Hey, it’s a peep show!
On reflection, my first post here was out of place and far too negative. While it’s true that I’m not really enjoying the Dope right now, that’s more to do with a general distaste developed for all online communities and some RL shit going down rather than being the Dope’s fault.
So, being positive, things I like about the Dope: I’ve made a few good mates because of being a member here. A few are now ex-members, like Curly Chick and fridgemagnet, but there’re some still here. yojimbo (who let me stop with him in Dublin last year), jjimm, Myglaren and Gary Kumquat. All of 'em have helped me through some rough times. Wouldn’t have known 'em without this place.
I’m also rather fond of TubaDiva, though we don’t keep in touch as much as we should.
And the colour scheme ain’t bad.
The witty posts.
Even the odd one or two at my expense.
I like that I’m not the guy that reads too much, or the guy that understands relativity, or the guy that knows some history.
Hell, around here I’m the dumb one. It’s kind of cool to learn something from people that have done honest to goodness research and don’t view Readers Digest as deep.
I like reading people’s reactions to my posts. That and this place is just plain-out frikkin’ awesome! No explanation needed
Kitty pictures.
What?
Oh, and the laughs, and the learning, and the sense (most of the time) of community…
If this doesn’t convince you, nothing will. 
I like most everything about the Dope and don’t have much to complain about it. Sometimes the topics and posters are not to my liking, but I can easily envoke my option to ignore the thread and go on to another.
I think that the setup of the forum works quite nicely as long as posters use a little common sense in what and how they post. I realize that common sense is sadly lacking in the world, but it seems that Dopers have a bit more of it than the general population, so things go fairly well.
I seldom add to any posts because there are others who are usually better informed than I, but I ask a lot of questions and am pleased with the answers I receive. The variety of the posters on this board make for very interesting reading.
But if there was nothing else to hold my interest here, I think I would still come here just for the pleasure of reading a Sampiro story. The Dope is a wonderful place to explore, but Sampiro’s posts are the icing on the cake.
