I had a Facebook friend who I considered recommending to come here.
He is far right politically, believes that he is making strong cases showing how his views are right and the other side is stupid. However, his “proofs” were full of incorrect information, logical fallacies and so forth (you probably know what I mean).
I wondered what would happen if he came here with intelligent, and sometimes mean, people who disagree.
But, I don’t really want to see strong attacks and it wouldn’t change his mind.
I guess people like that have come before. (It would be interesting to read those discussions)
I recommended it to a friend, who told me he started an account. I have no idea if he actually visits or posts to any degree or what his SDMB name is, I’ve never asked and he hasn’t volunteered.
90% + of what I post here is related to either politics or current events and issues. There’s a couple of other people I’m going to push to join and they share my interests, as does the first friend I sent over.
I probably wouldn’t think to recommend the board to anyone that isn’t politically or socially engaged, because of how I engage on the site.
I’m not concerned at all with “compromising” my real life identity, anyone with any skillz could figure it out in under three minutes. My rule of online engagement is that I assume everything I write is visible to everyone I know, and I’m fine with that.
Thank you for refraining from directing that person here. 
Yeah, we’ve had a few. 
And no, those discussions aren’t interesting.
I would actively discourage most people I know from coming here. I like to keep the two worlds separate. I think it would be fairly easy to doxx me regardless.
Sometimes I mention things about the boards to a few friends. But they aren’t really interested because posting on forums is something foreign to them. I’ve been posting on different message boards since 1998. It’s built in to how I interact with the online world. They don’t have that experience and don’t understand it.
This, too. 
I do not regularly interact with anyone who shares my interest in trawling for weird info and facts and pointless arguments and is happy with whatever the nets bring up
There are a handful of people I might recommend this board to. But in general, no. Partly due to the anonymity thing. In part because most of my friends don’t waste time on-line with strangers. Some would find this place hostile (I have a lot of trans friends.)
No!
…
Um… is that “hell, no!”?
Would I recommend the SDMB to my friends? Sure, if my friends were itching to hang out with a bunch of aging know-it-alls who are constantly trying to out-nitpick each other. (I keed, I keed!)
But seriously, no, for the same reason that others have already mentioned: anonymity. I don’t want anyone here (whether members or casual visitors) to figure out who I am. If I recommended this board to a friend, they’d probably ask, “What’s your username there?” and the jig would be up.
I can’t even convince the friends I already do have here to stay.
In my experience, people who know me in real life tend to recognize my “voice” on anonymous internet bulletin boards. I suspect that’s true of most of us.
I’ve invited people to check this place out and some of them have.
I’ve no idea – and don’t care – if they figure out my identity on the board.
I don’t know if they’re around, posting and/or just reading. I know at least three spent time here reading and were impressed.
One admitted she was intimidated to participate, feeling she wasn’t “smart enough” (I assured her she was), and didn’t appreciate how she had observed other new people being treated. I couldn’t argue that point, I’m sorry to say.
Not exactly. It’s a firm no.
Hey, I deeply represent that remark. I’m not aging – I’m old. I have arrived.
On the few occasions I’ve referred people to specific threads, I’ve said right upfront, I’m not going to tell you what my username is.
On my first visit to the board, I posted something nice all full of rainbows and bunny rabbits and got clobbered by the typical cynical, hard-boiled, mean sort of person one can find here from time to time. I left and didn’t come back for many months.
Very true. Even if I refused to tell my real-life friends what my username was, they’d figure it out soon enough.
You handle this nicely. I’ll borrow this.
I’ve crossed the streams of IRL and On-line before, and it didn’t end well. In several on-line venues, in fact, and I’m considering which disaster went worse–different screwups, all very bad.
This is wonderful to read. I remember whole summers as a kid where I would just read, read, read all day long.
One challenge of the internet era is that there is so much “content” now being produced that it can be a bit overwhelming. Sometimes it’s nice to go to a quieter corner of the internet and have some, y’know, conversations? We built in so many nudges in Discourse to keep people reading, so they are listening, not just waiting for their turn to type.
There’s only so much time we have, and choosing where we spend it speaks volumes, even if you don’t type a single word.
That makes sense. You could add a Discourse instance as a “comment section” for your substack (effectively, blog).
Well, dang. What reasons in particular?