Perhaps more now, Ranger Jeff. Or should I just say “Ranger”?
Two times that made me feel somewhat established - I met a Doper in real life just because he was in town and contacted me. While we were chatting, he claimed that I have a presence on the board. (Side note - he got to the bar before me. I texted saying I was around the corner, and described what I was wearing. His response: “I have a hat.” I use that line all the time now, and none of my friends get it. Maybe I should try it with a hat on…)
During the zombie outbreak last year, I was infected relatively early on. So my attacker either ran out of friends quickly, or liked some humerus comment I made sometime. We had bantered a few times in some threads, so I like to believe it was the comment thing.
Other random things help, like when you bump your own old thread with an update, and people comment that they had been wondering what the latest was, or that they had been following along silently.
Zeldar - while your rummaging through big threads will give some decent names to pick from, it will self-select a bit for certain types of posters. Unless I happen into it at the beginning, I don’t jump into really big threads. Still, it wouldn’t be bad for a good running start.
Quite so. The difficulty (for me at least) in identifying the “established posters” is that I tend to stay within a fairly narrow range of threads in only a few of the forums and have had meaningful exchanges with a few dozen folks over the years. I’ve met 30 or so in person at various Dope Fests and a few others randomly elsewhere.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if I saw 10 lists by others of their own “established posters” that I might not have seen anything from roughly half of them – unless they happened to frequent the types of threads I enjoy.
On top of that I would imagine each one of us has an idea who the “established posters” are/were and getting any sort of consensus on who they are (or even how many there are) would be a crapshoot.
But it’s fun to speculate and try to remember the “stars” of this place. 
Seriously volume is not a good metric.
There are those who likely post a multitude of that which is very forgettable (hence not “established”) and those who post only every so often but whose posts are so pithy or insightful or expert or funny or strange that they are always of note.
raises hand Like me. I’ve been posting more or less constantly for fourteen years, but after getting burned a few times early on, I learned to be a milquetoast. I am *not *an “established poster”.
I got Pitted without even trying, too - I said something I thought was innocuous, and BOOM! next thing I know I’m getting Pitted (and called Big Guy). Sheesh.
Gah. I’ve done that exact thing - read a post, thought it was so brilliant, saw my own name. Yay me!
I do.
That was you?!? Oy vey.
Opal herself discusses it inthis thread.
Oh yes, there was that one too Among other things, I also got credited with telling the dumbest anecdote in SDMB history with my milk in a bar story. I thought that was a completely benign (and completely true) tale but a lot of people took it extremely seriously. The debate about raged on for weeks across hundreds of posts. I have read that similar ideological clashes led up to the American Civil War.
I sometimes feel like Rose from the Golden Girls. People sometimes ask me what the point to my stories are. There isn’t any. It is up to the reader to assign some meaning because hell if I know what it is. I just write about unusual things that I have witnessed and describe it in a Southern story-telling style.
People remember enough of them that I guess it makes me an established poster but I’ll be damned if I claimed that I could predict what people will latch onto in the long-term and what gets instantly forgotten.
See, I would have put you on the list. I would have to re-read a list of usernames to remember to put you anywhere, because as you say, you’re not one to draw attention to yourself or present a very strong persona here. You’re unlikely to make it into the popularity contest threads. But you’re a recognizable user name who I enjoy seeing in threads, and I think most of us would consider you established.
At the risk of causing a flame… I think “established posters” are the ones who could, if they had to, get away with a little poor behavior, even rules violation, because both the moderator and other posters would give them the benefit of the doubt (that they were having a bad day, that they were drunk, that their attempt at humor fell flat, whatever) rather than a Warning. Because they are established enough that their poor behavior is noted as an aberration, not a problematic pattern.
You’d be on that list, I’m certain. Go ahead, call me a cunt. See if you get banninated. 
Dear heavens, I’VE MADE IT!
Is there a blushing smiley? Why is there no blushing smiley? I think I will start an ATMB thread about why there is no blushing smiley…
What would you guess total # of “established posters” would be(would have to be a WAG at this point)? % of posters?
:o
Opalcat is passed away. There has got to be a better way to remember her than to use her name in a list over and over and over until people are sick of hearing it.
Zeldar, I see what you are saying, but I definitely consider myself “established” and I never went anywhere near that thread - because I am not dating. I haven’t posted in several of the big threads, for example the LOTR thread, because I have nothing to contribute.
I’m not sure that’s a great metric!
By Zeldar’s metric, I am one established motherfucker!
Ballpark? 500?
I think my own list would slow down (trying to remember some of the departed types) around 200. Just a wild guess, though.
Whenever I try that sort of thing I look at the posters to some of my more “successful” threads. One of my favorites of that type was a good while back but it might serve as a decent example:
Favorite “Far Side” Memories (MAD, too) which ran from 06-20-2003, 12:40 PM (shortly after I joined SDMB) through Post #149 01-13-2014, 02:32 PM (with a substantial gap in posting due to the zombie effect – most of the last page).
I have a dozen or fewer really “successful” threads where there was genuine input and not just post-padding.
The thing is, I rarely see a veteran poster using it, or someone deliberately using it as some kind of “tribute.” Veteran posters all got tired of it many years ago. I generally only see it used by relative newbies, who use it to try to show they are “in the know” with regard to board memes in an effort to establish themselves. So I would say that using it is generally a pretty good indicator that a poster is not established.
I consider you to be “established,” too, Anaamika, and I surely don’t propose that approach for determining all the By God established posters! Just one approach among many to get a feel for the number – not necessarily the specifics.
I support this sentiment 100%. The same can be said for the trite-but-true memes that keep popping up from time to time. Many of them predate me by a long shot and only a few of them arouse my curiosity enough to go searching for their origin. (I don’t mind reading about their origins once somebody else has bothered to explain them, though! )
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The one thing that is preventing me from posting my own list of “established posters” is the dread of leaving out some of the most productive and entertaining people to grace this board – out of sheer forgetfulness. That always troubles me when such efforts are made to highlight the Key People here. It can be quite hurtful to be omitted!
Colibri, forgive me for possibly speaking out of turn, but might I suggest you start your own thread about what does not make an established poster? Frankly I wish that you would take your negativity elsewhere. I meant this thread to be more of a thread about what we like about other posters and not one to make fun of other people, as you are doing when you speak about what Si Amigo wrote. Furthermore, are you really just trying to say that Si Amigo, Jibuff, Ivory tower Denizen are not established.
Also, it would seam clear to me that jumped into this thread in an argumentative, offensive way without following what came before, and you seem completely tone deaf .
So, if the subject of what marks a poster a newbie is of importance to you and you would like to mock/make your disapproval known about what they post I think such a fascinating and engaging subject deserves its own thread.
Really, just a humble request sir.
I’ve been here for like 6 years and made a lot of enemies and I still don’t know whether I’m “established” or not. Maybe its like a secret club where you can only belong to the club if someone else already in the club sponsors you. So if another established poster says you’re established, then you’re in.
I forget who said it and when but a spinoff of what you said was, “I wouldn’t consider joining a club that would consider having me for a member.” (Groucho, maybe?)
Another yarn associated with that idea was (I think) attributed to the writer Tolstoy when he is accused of saying, “My brother and I devised a club where membership was predicated on being able to stand in a corner for 30 minutes without thinking of a white bear.”