My guess is it’s Ed, but I don’t think he could do it alone. So, must have been a group of people. As to what their intentions were AT THAT TIME is still a mystery for me.
The SDMB goes back to our AOL days, although the board today has only a faint resemblance to what it was way back then.
The Straight Dope (cyberspace division) opened for business on AOL in July of 1996, with the Message Board opening a month or two afterwards, iirc.
We had two (count 'em, two) forums, “General Questions” and “Comments on Cecil’s Columns.” And that was plenty.
And two moderators, JK Fabian and myself. Lynn and Eutychus came along later, when we got a little bigger and Fabian went on to other things.
The rest of our story, most of you know . . . and here we are. If someone had told me we’d have this big a membership and a million page views a week, I’da laughed and laughed . . .
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Thanks, Tuba. I can’t believe I missed it for almost three years. I found this board first listed at our local weekly paper’s online site, coastweekly.com
I found this in the Berkely Express, which I got every week for the column. When they stopped printing the column, I had no Cecil every week and felt empty. Then I ran across an old copy at the homeless shelter and spotted the url. The rest is history! 
If handy had found this board in the beginning, and if post counts had transfered when they switched board software, he’d probably have a million posts in by now.