# When were the various forums started? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [May 1, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007 "2004-05-01T16:22:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2004, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/1 "2004-05-01T16:22:57Z")
Would somebody mind giving a brief history of the order in which each of the SDMB forums were started and the approximate date? Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2004, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/2 "2004-05-01T18:44:06Z")
Well, I can give you the prehistory part. In the beginning, there were **General Questions** and **Comments on Cecil’s Column**. Then one day someone posted with the subject line “Titanic Wallpaper” in GQ. Now, this was in an era before threading came into being, so replies to the original post had the same subject of “Titanic Wallpaper” _by default_ but eventually some wiseacre changed the subject in his reply to “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”. And replies to that post preserved that subject line, of course. When the push-pins arrived, so did threading. Someone promptly started a thread with the subject title “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share” and things continued apace. Then America Online evicted us. On the new board (this board), we were greeted with forums titled **General Questions** and **Comments on Cecil’s Column** , and **MPSIMS** , now for the first time a forum in its own right; and new forums **BBQ Pit** and **Great Debates** to split off these types of discussion from GQ for cleaner organization; and an **About This Message Board** forum was also present from the start. The others came later\*, and I’ll leave it to others to provide dates and whatnot. - actually I’m not sure that Mailbag Answers wasn’t also present from the start on this board. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/3 "2004-05-02T12:43:39Z")
I came on the boards in January 2000, so I can only comment from then. At that time we had seven forums: About This Message Board, Comments on Cecil’s Columns, Comments on Mailbag Answers (later renamed Comments on Staff Reports), General Questions, Mundane Pointless Things I Must Share, and the BBQ Pit. In May of 2000, the administration [added In My Humble Opinion](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=25559). About a year later, the administration added Cafe Society. I looked for the threads announcing the start of Cafe Society, but I couldn’t find any, leading me to conclude that it was started in the Winter of Our Missed Content in early 2002. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2004, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/4 "2004-05-02T18:34:53Z")
It seems to me that Cafe Society was started a little before the Winter of our Missed Content. By the time that the temp boards on BbBoy came up, I was so used to having a LotR thread on the front page that my test post in the temporary Cafe was “Do Balrogs have wings?”. And as Billdo indirectly indicated, Great Debates was not one of the original fora, either. I once saw an ATMB thread discussing the possibility of adding it, but I don’t have the URL handy. ---
**Author:** ![Billdo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/billdo/32/315_2.png) [@Billdo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Billdo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/5 "2004-05-03T02:13:48Z")
Actually, I wasn’t indirectly indicating that GD wasn’t on the boards when I signed up, but rather I just accidentally left it off the list. Still, I recall that when I was new, GD was discussed as the most recently added of the forums, though I don’t know when it was added. ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/6 "2004-05-03T03:24:53Z")
I also couldn’t find any of the threads about Cafe Society being formed in this forum. It at least dates back to October 2001. [Manhattan moved a thread there then.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=1735452&postcount=24) ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/7 "2004-05-03T03:25:14Z")
They were all created 6,000 years ago… **BY GOD!!** ---
**Author:** ![mkl12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@mkl12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mkl12)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/8 "2004-05-03T06:51:41Z")
I think this one is the first Cafe Society thread: [Welcome to “Cafe Society”](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=84312) by **Eutychus55** ---
**Author:** ![Limbo\_Donni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Limbo\_Donni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limbo_Donni)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/9 "2004-05-03T14:26:15Z")
To find the earliest posts on a forum, just click on the little arrow box over the column Last Post. When you hover, you’ll notice the text says “Reverse Order”. ---
**Author:** ![Limbo\_Donni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Limbo\_Donni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Limbo_Donni)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/10 "2004-05-03T14:39:18Z")
Although, doing it that way uses Last Post, not Thread Start Date. Using the Search sorter would be great if you could find a word that appeared in the oldest thread. But I tried searching on the word “cafe”, sorted ascending by start date, and got one that’s from \*\*10-30-1999, 02:51 PM \*\*[Don Mcleans’ American Pie](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=7764&highlight=cafe) I guess some threads were moved by the mods when the forum started to get people switched over there. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/11 "2004-05-03T15:35:12Z")
> [@AHunter3](#): > > Then one day someone posted with the subject line “Titanic Wallpaper” in GQ. Now, this was in an era before threading came into being, so replies to the original post had the same subject of “Titanic Wallpaper” _by default_ but eventually some wiseacre changed the subject in his reply to “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”. And replies to that post preserved that subject line, of course. Ok, this would make wonderful trivium… Who was the wiseacre who first used “Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share”? Who is this masked marvel? Is he or she still among us? ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2004, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-were-the-various-forums-started/243007/12 "2004-05-03T17:15:55Z")
**Little Nemo** (under his original screenname) posted the thread in ATMB that resulted in GD, sometime in 1999. Many of the early threads are missing, so the earliest threads you find now are not necessarily going to accurately reflect tthe date of a forum’s inception. I posted the first debate topic in GD, and that thread is long gone. IIRC, old threads were pruned when archival space was not available.