Why wouldn’t Neil want to hang out with us? I mean, I think we’re all pretty cool.
He’s been dragged into the darkest side of the forum though. Don’t you know this thread scares off new people who would have made great contributors to the forum once they were trained not to throw feces. Not that I’m saying NdT throws feces.
The Tweet thing is too cute. A real celebrity wouldn’t bother.
When else might I get a chance to tell NDT that I dozed right off during a show at the Hayden Planetarium because his voice is very sonorous and I was quite sleepy?
I’m just really curious about the motives. I get it if people want to make more channels for fans to ask them questions or what ever, why not. In general conversation it just makes for a power imbalance, I’d say.
Plus I could not resist the rhyme. (a sort of homage to Rick, the people’s poet)
AND now I’m kind of tickled by the chance I could really be called a dipstick by a celebrity! (that epithet specifically, I’m not interested in any other ones) Only I don’t really want to pursue that in earnest, since it would be trolling…
Tell you what - I’ll call you a dipstick, just in case one day I become famous. And then you can tell everyone about how you knew me before I was famous and that I called you a dipstick.
I mean, I’m unlikely to become famous - at least for anything good - but it’s worth a shot…dipstick.
Thank you for the courtesy, but it just doesn’t feel the same. It’s more the kind of thing like Barack Obama calling somebody a ‘poopypants’ that I’m tickled by.
I can accept this, but I’m not really sure what it means. That the post style and content fits the person’s other output?
Your post mentioned that almost everyone here is anonymous, and your own handle is Pseudonym.
Oh. I thought it was referring to NDT.
I’m also unlikely to become famous and wish to add my name to the list of people who think “Pseudonym” is a dipstick.
Well if this is a sincere sentiment, I’m sorry for what ever caused it. And I’ll humbly and eagerly take any criticism that would explain it in more detail, so I can avoid the same mistakes in the future.
Well I’ll be damned.
I forget who owns us but they may want to consider raising their advertising rates just a smidge 
I mean, I don’t want to derail the troll thread, but the idea of internet anonymity is so 1990s. Why wouldn’t NDT post under his name? I do. I never thought anonymity was a real thing on the internet so I never kept my internet persona and my real life persona separate.
So, to that end, this isn’t an anonymous message board. It might be to you, but to me, it’s quite a public and visible part of my real-life day-2-day. Which isn’t surprising since I’m the only one here with one of these:
https://boards.straightdope.com/badges/23/great-share
And the only one here (excepting the creator of Discourse) with these:
He’s not a “celebrity”. Not until he bangs one of the Kardashians.
Me neither. I just truly, sincerely am fascinated by this subject.
Would it be worth starting a thread about? I mean, I’ve already riled people up with what I meant as sincere questions mixed with harmless jokes, so I’m trying to figure things out in general. Don’t want to purposely do anything that will be judged to be dipstickery by any significant portion of the ‘population’. 'Cause I think this is a cool place and certainly someone like NDT being here would make it even cooler.
I will be glad to contribute. Not right away… I’ve other writing projects I need to attend to now ( 
don’t tell anyone I’m here)… but am glad to do so, likely by tonight.
Thanks, appreciated! 
(I can’t be sure when exactly I’ll actually be able to get to it either, and I bet we’re separated by a bunch of timezones. But hope to see you there later!)
I’ll just point out that Phil Plaitt of Bad Astronomy fame used to post here with fair regularity for awhile.
People of note in the science fiction community such as Paul Levinson and James Gifford have also posted under their own names
Did this spring from my post addressed to NDT? If so, I’m sorry if it offended you.
On one hand, if you just thought I was being disrespectful, I guess I can see where you’re coming from, but I saw it as some warranted incredulity presented in a jocular way that didn’t seem offensive at all to me. If it was really him, perhaps he might even have been amused by it, and at best, I may have even elicited a positive and/or informative response.
On the other hand, if there was more to your comment, I’d really like to know. I really didn’t mean any snark with my reply to you.
I didn’t quite expect people to start calling others names so easily in this particular community. But I suppose it serves to remind me that we are all humans, and not to take anything for granted. Brilliance displayed in some area of human activity bears little weight as to what anybody’s personality is like. (That said, I’m left wondering how much of this may be that the Pit just is a place where people like to let off steam whenever any opportunity presents itself.)
What I also learned to keep in mind is that there are a multitude of different kinds of senses of humor, not to speak of levels of sensitivity.