this :
and this:
and despite my admittedly horrible writing style most of y’all still put up with ya still read my post …
Send me $500 and I will let you in on it
In addition to my earlier post, this is also where I can share my love for Mark Gormley, a couple times a decade. Little Wings - Mark Gormley - YouTube
Someone has to be the chaff.
I thought of another reason: this is the best recreation of the late night dorm bull sessions that I used to enjoy back in college. Back before those darn millennials and their phones, the dorm had some VHS tapes, some CDs, a couple of pool tables, and a couple of tvs that mainly got religious programming late at night. We would sit down at night with beer and weed and discuss how the world should be. It was kinda cool with the econ/poli major (me) with the biology major, the psychology major and whoever was that semester’s new convert to veganism or Libertarianism.
This might get me banned. I’ve been posting as early as maybe 2002, 2003. I’ve never trolled or was a sock puppet as they called it back then. I signed up (I think) as Rooves, then “legally” changed my username to BlackTrainSong. But then after that I left for so long it was easier to just sign up as this.
So, Ive been around a long time. And when I do reply to anything I’m usually met with ZERO response. Could be because I’m uninteresting. That’s most probable. But…there’s this really great thing about this group. You are bold, interesting, knowledgeable, funny and credentialed as shit.
But one thing I hate is that you see people as me as outsiders. You dont welcome newcomers (in my opinion).
I think my first EVER BBQ PIT fight was with monstro (maybe??) , who i think is awesome and I was just new.
Anyway, guys… if I don’t get banned…welcome people you’re not used to. I’ve taken so much advice from you peckerheads through the years.
All good reasons so far, and I’d echo many of them. I’ll add one more: if we regard the SDMB as a whole as a single forum, then there are only a few sub-forums on the SDMB (12, by my count), which, I’d suggest, fosters a sense of community.
I’m thinking of another board I follow, which has hundreds of sub-forums, and sub-sub-forums. If you are interested in vegetable gardening, you can zero in on the Vegetable Gardening sub-sub-forum, interact with other vegetable gardeners, and never hear the views of the flower gardeners. For that matter, you can completely ignore anything that does not concern vegetable gardening. As a result, you never get to know other forum members who don’t care for vegetable gardening.
Now, consider the SDMB. With so few sub-forums (and no sub-sub-forums), you have to figure out where your question or comment belongs–alongside questions or comments that have nothing to do with your interests, but which you might find interesting anyway. You might open them and read them; and even though you may never post in them (or you might, if the topic strikes your fancy), you get to know the people behind the names: what they know well and what they don’t, what they find humorous, what their lives are like. Who might be a good resource if you’re planning a trip, or if you’re looking for expertise outside your experience. And in turn, they get to know you too. You become a member of a community, not just a vegetable gardener discussing vegetable gardening with other vegetable gardeners.
That’s what keeps me coming back–the community we’ve created. I’ve made a lot of friends here, and I think it’s the few forums that we have that have contributed to me considering interests that were not my own prior to signing up, getting to know people whose views I may not agree with but respect anyway, considering points-of-view and solutions to challenges I never would have thought of, laughing at humorous posts, helping out others if I can; and otherwise, being part of the community.
I come here because I learn so much and enjoy engaging with all the smartypants Dopers. I like that people demand cites (on some boards). I don’t think I’m a very influential poster, but I’ve been influenced by many of you and am better for it.
If TPTB ever lean toward taking this site down, the comments here would be a great argument against such nonsense.
Cats.
Facebook sucks donkey balls and Twitter sucks twice as many of them
I came for the pie.
I stayed for the cats. And the stoats. And the quokkas.
The occasional truly awesome discussion and even more occasional awesome irresistible question to dig around for a factual answer to.
Plus a lot of opportunities for plain old garden-variety (but often articulate and interesting) quarrels.
Why do I read? I learn new stuff.
Why do I write? Keeps my written English oiled aaaand…
…it’s always fun being able to poke at the neighbors. Those spaces before the semi-colons are very French, monsieur Kobal2 
I’m aware.
But at the same time a) I can’t just go against decades of normative ruler_to_the_knuckles conditioning and b) those norms are QUITE EVIDENTLY justified and objectively superior to any absurd foreign gobbledigook masquerading as quote unquote rules. I mean the very ideaaaahr, ugh. Miss me with that Saxon shit.
You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.
I came here for the social discourse. Before there was social media, there was the SDMB. Since then, I’ve just never gone away.
I’m not a very social person IRL, I’m a wicked homebody-introvert. I enjoy reading here and feeling a sense of community even though I’m pretty much an outsider. There are some really intelligent, witty, and kind folk here and that gives me hope in the face of the chaos of today’s world.
This place is like the best kind of people-watching but without the eye contact. It’s endlessly entertaining and often I learn something too. What’s not to like?
Hey, FollowMeDown, how ya doin’? Why would such a post get you banned?? Have you looked into ATMB lately? Lots of criticism of the board there.
My posts often get ignored. In fact, I’m often the one who shuts down a thread. And I KNOW I’m interesting. 
Here’s a secret: I think many of us feel ignored from time to time. Except trolls, of course. Troll behavior will generate endless, pointless replies, and I’m sure that’s one of the reasons they do it. It’s not worth resorting to that just to get replies IMHO. But I digress.
Is it possible that changing your screen name several times has prevented people from getting a sense of the Continuity of You?
Anyhoo, don’t be a stranger. 
Ixnay on the ultiplema accountsmay.
Clearly I sinned mightily in a past life and the SDMB is one of the many punishments in this one. But I am mindful of my masochism, so there is that.
Because interesting topics show up here. Or things I feel passionately about, and want to say something on. It’s also just a nice respite from elsewhere online, where long form text comments are rare.
Oh, and it’s nice to not have to re-explain basic concepts all the time, in order to discuss them.
The downside is that this means you guys know how to build up an argument, and so it’s more work to try and break it apart when I disagree.
It’s like something an acquaintance told me once: Intelligence means you are more likely right, but it also means that, when you’re wrong, it’s harder to find the flaw. Intelligent people argue better.