Apologies if this has been done before – I’m sure it has – hopefully not too recently.
I was thinking of starting a thread (which also has probably been done before) wondering why exactly this board seems to lean liberal in the Great Debates and Elections forums. I formed a theory based only on my experience. Back before the internet, I was a regular reader of “The Boston Phoenix,” an alternative weekly newspaper in the Boston area, which quite certainly leaned liberal. This paper published The Straight Dope, and that’s how I discovered Cecil and his column. It wasn’t long before TSD was one of the reasons I kept picking up the Phoenix. Later, I discovered the column was available on the web, and started reading it there, which led me to the message board.
That’s one data point. I realized the more interesting question was the one I’m asking now – how did you all make your way over here? I’m sure some of you found it the way I did, but there’s likely a good chunk of you who have never read The Straight Dope in print. How did you discover us?
Bored.com had a link to the dope. I started reading the archived threadspotting and then found the actual messageboard once I ran out of threadspotting.
A decade or so on AFCA, which I joined after reading at least the first book and maybe the second.
(As my profile says, I am among the very earliest members of the Cecil community - AFCA from about 1987, poked into the various online iterations, was charter user here until it went pay. I’d reclaim my old user name but I cannot remember it and it’s likely linked to long-gone email accounts.)
Started reading the Dope in Isthmus (the alternative paper in Madison, WI) in the 1980s, and bought the first two SD books. Discovered the SD page on AOL when I first went online in the mid 1990s. Followed it when it left AOL (1999?).
I did a google search for the TV show Heros when it first started.
After several days of searching for a messageboard that wasn’t:
eventually I found the Cafe Society thread and read it. I thought to myself, “Finally. A thread were people are actually discussing the show and it’s contents and speculating about the plots future.”
I hung around for a couple of months and then signed up.
Many years ago a friend of mine told me there is where I would find out why fecal matter is brown. Been an online reader (lurker) for years on the SDMB, and decided to participate last year.
No kidding? I didn’t know that! That was an epic board war and it was mostly annoying, but if it brought you here it was worth it.
My story, my girlfriend asked me why you never see Hitler’s speeches subtitled. I said “Damned good question” and headed to the internets to find out. Some search result (not Google, this was B.G.) led me to GQ where I asked my question and was hooked.
My ex-wife introduced me (while we were still married, that is) to the boards. I think she may have found the board through Threadspotting, but I really don’t remember. I lurked for several months before I decided I couldn’t keep my mouth shut anymore.
It has been all downhill for the rest of you ever since.
I read and loved the books (wish there were more of them actually) which led me many many moons ago to Alt.fan.Cecil-Adams. I was very active on there which led me to here after this site left AOL. I lurked here for a long time and then joined. Literally days later the site went Pay so I lurked some more. It went back to being free and I started to post again.
And that’s why I have a join date in 1999 but a relatively low post count
Cecil. I read a few of the books. I started reading the columns on the old AOL site. I lost track of it for a bit then found the website. I probably read the columns for a bit before I joined the message board.
