By my count there are 68 threads on the page [not counting the stickies at the top]. Of them 14 mentioned eclipses, so nearly 20%.
Normally I’d think if there were 2-3 World War II questions on the page, someone was getting a bit over-excited, but 14!!
I guess the pertinent questions about why eclipses excite us so much have already been asked in the existing threads, but are there other events [human / natural / other-worldly] that have inspired a large number of related simultaneous discussions on the Straight Dope? Probably a question for the old Timers.
The eclipse happened in America - the board membership is primarily American - there’s also a general board-wide interest in the sciences, and on top of that, eclipses are exciting, potentially once-in-a-lifetime events that people get agitated about in the real world - I reckon that’s probably enough to have caused the effect you observed.
I heard on the news that the eclipse was blamed for an accident involving an Atlantic Salmon growing up on the west coast breaking loose from its mooring and releasing Atlantic Salmon into the Pacific with who knows what result. Had he blamed the new moon high tides it might have made sense, but that happens every month.
Don’t get too full our yourselves here. The chatter on this MB is about the same as you see in the local paper. Americans were all atwitter about this phenomenon. The main difference I noticed was the few here who had to poo-hoo the whole thing because… rebel!!
Is the purpose of the thread to think of other such phenomena on the board? If so, every time we have a national election we go a little batshit. Trump, natch, has broken our collective mind. GoT used to inspire multiple threads every week, but I think now that we’re past the books that has ceased.
I have now seen four total solar eclipses, plus the Transit of Venus. Each event is just as exciting as the first. I’ll be just as excited about the next eclipse, which I’ll be able to see by stepping through our front door and looking up.
And it’s nice to be reassured by a phenomenon that’s accurately predicted by science.
The topics on the SDMB ride the wave of the news headlines. The bigger the headline, the more the associated SDMB response. Things such as the 9/11 attacks and space shuttle disasters get a lot of concurrent discussion. We also get more if the subject is broad. When threads can be started in GQ, MPSIMS, Great Debates, and the BBQ on a single subject, you get a perfect storm that lends itself to a large percentage of threads on that subject.
I didn’t give two shits about it. It was only a partial here, and I’ve seen partials. Did notice that the clouds blocking the view got a little darker for a couple minutes.
