Talk:The Straight Dope

History of the boards
Is there another way that anyone would like to see this material presented? I'm not stuck on how, exactly, it's written; just that it be in there. It's a valid part of the history of the Boards.MichaelCaricofe 5 July 2005 02:36 (UTC)

How about not "presenting" it at all? Believe it or not, neither the board nor Widipedia revolve around you and your issues. Your banning is no more important than a good dozen or more other incidents on that board that aren't included here because this is supposed to be a bloody encyclopedia entry, not a place to air your spite.

Get a grip, get a life, and get lost. And I say this as someone who thought the Admin in question should have been demoted to Member because of this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.197.238.119 (talk) 18:58, 5 July 2005 (UTC)

This stuff has no business in a factual article describing the board. This article is not intended to chronicle every slight on every person. You need to let this go. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.248.223.41 (talk) 19:11, 5 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I fail to see how factual information has no place in a factual, encyclopedic article. The FACT is that there was discussion on the boards as to whether the boards would be continuing or not. The FACT is that at least one administrator of the boards admitted that the future of the boards was uncertain. The FACT is that, for a brief time, the future of the boards was in question. These facts are irrefutable; their place in a history of the board should likewise be obvious. This is not about me. It's about the boards and the history thereof. I never once mentioned myself as the user in question, nor did I mention by name or username the admin responsible. I was, and still am, simply reporting facts that are relevant. MichaelCaricofe 5 July 2005 21:24 (UTC)


 * No, the FACT of the matter is that YOU cannot present an unbiased report of what happened. Just look at what you wrote.  You failed to mention that was precipitated the whole incident was that an underaged member of the boards reported that you were making sexual advances to him.  In addition, you FAIL to mention your repeated harrassment of the SDMB community by posting idle threats of legal action and threatening to have the board shut down in your LiveJournal, in the anonymous communities, and in the SDMB LiveJournal community.  That FACT is suspiciously absent from your biased version of events.  You think that this is a BIG DEAL solely because it happened to YOU; there's no mention of Melingate, the Fathom board wars, or WallyM7's death.  All of those had real consequences on the board and were much more like watershed moments than your blown-out-of-proportion little blip on the radar.  Go whine somewhere else. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.92.197.110 (talk) 1:43, 5 July 2005 (UTC)


 * To follow up on the previous person (evidently, this is a near simulpost): Just because it's a fact doesn't mean it belongs here. How many squares of toilet paper President Bush uses every time he takes a dump is a matter of fact as well, but does an encyclopedia entry on him need to include it? There have been many incidents through the SDMB's history that have caused board-wide rifts, and the board's viability is an ever-going concern. Your contention that "for a brief time, the future of the boards was in question" is true only insofar as that board members have aired doubts about it; if the board goes under, it will be because of a combination of factors, and your single incident is nowhere as important as you think. If you're really interested in chronicling the history of the SDMB (or just of the bannings), why not write something up other than your own story? Or, if "the incident" is worthy of preservation here, it should come from an unbiased party -- which, by definition, you're not. Your contribution IS all about you, in spite of protestations otherwise. It's transparent. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.203.62 (talk) 21:53, 5 July 2005 (UTC)

SSS link
I wonder how the crew that watches the SDMB wiki would feel about a link to my Snarkive page somewhere in the entry. http://cloudhelmut.4t.com/snarkarchive.html

If you take a look you'll see that, despite the name, I give a pretty objective telling of "watershed moments". Also, as it icludes Michael's personal fav it might stop his trolling here.

I know this is an open-edit community but I feel silly just putting it up myself. Nominating it is as far as I can go. I'll leave it to the more regulars here to decide. And hopefully I don't screw up the page with this entry, Wikipedia is mucho not intuitive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.131.159 (talk) 1:23, 6 July 2005 (UTC)

Forum Creation Order
A casual search on the earliest threads in CoSR turned up this thread, dated 1999-04-29

A similar search in IMHO turned up this post by manhattan, dated 2000-05-25, where he mentions IMHO as a new forum.

My search is based on last-post times, so earlier threads (based on OP time) may well exist. However, with the gap being over a year, unless the earlier CoSR threads were carved out of CoCC or GQ threads -- which I'd imagine would be a painful manual process and therefore unlikely -- it appears that CoSR was created well before IMHO.

I realize that a lot of dates got screwy when the board switched from UBB to vBulletin, but I really don't think that's the case here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.203.62 (talk) 05:29, 7 July 2005 (UTC)

Edited to add: FWIW, the earliest GD thread found via the above method is dated 1999-06-07. As it turns out, the threadID really isn't a helpful indicator. For posts made before the UBB/vB switch (late April 2000, IIRC), there is no correlation between increasing threadIDs and later (displayed) timestamps. My gut feel is to trust the timestamps over the threadIDs, but I really don't know for sure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.203.62 (talk) 05:54, 7 July 2005 (UTC)
 * As I recall, the original forums were: About This Message Board, Comments on Cecil's Columns, Comments on the Mailbag (later renamed Comments on Staff Reports), General Questions, Cafe Society (although that might have come a little later), Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share, and The BBQ Pit. Great Debates came later, following a period where some people were posting religious witnessing in the form of General Questions. In My Humble Opinion was the most recent forum added, as a response to a bunch of opinion polls being asked in MPSIMS. MK2 21:50, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Cafe Society was created after Great Debates but before In My Humble Opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lincoln McPieflag (talk • contribs) 09:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

On the Cafe Society being created before IMHO, are you sure about that? -Clayton_e — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cs302b (talk • contribs) 10:31, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

also on creation dates
Not sure you can rely on the forum/thread numbers.

Here's the pit creation thread (started by Tuba)

03-11-1999 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.131.159 (talk) 06:32, 7 July 2005 (UTC)

(You certainly can't rely on thread IDs to turn up the threads. None of the above links actually work.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.4.178.22 (talk) 07:34, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

SDMB on AOL
I just corrected the date for the first SDMB incarnation on AOL. However, it's unclear to me how exactly it came about -- in Zotti's announcement, he says: 4. Does this mean the end of a.f.c-a? Of course not. The Straight Dope has no formal connection with a.f.c-a. It is a spontaneous efflorescence of wit and learning on the part of Teeming Millions, proving that our many years of selfless labor are finally paying off. Cecil is very proud. So, did the Chicago Reader contact AOL to form a Straight Dope group? Or did Cecil's fans who were also AOL subscribers organically coalesce into a group there? If it's the latter, how did it come to be officially blessed by the Reader? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.166.204.158 (talk) 17:58, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Answer: AOL came to Ed Zotti; back in the day, AOL paid for content. The Chicago Reader agreed to let Straight Dope content be reproduced on AOL. AOL threw in a message board as part of the deal. When the contract with AOL expired, the columns were moved to an online site the Reader had reserved but was not using at the time. Message boards were started on this site a few months later. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.34.225.100 (talk) 20:50, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

Notability
It would really be nice if this article talked about something beyond just the size and formal structure of the message board. It's hard to tell from reading this why anyone would care. Are there topics that are particularly commonly discussed on the board? Notable participants? Something? -- Jmabel | Talk 01:00, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

No. Nobody should care. Just more wanking on the part of SDMB posters that think their board is the end-all of the internet. WLight 08:24, 24 July 2005 (UTC)

add&trim
Put in the slashdot incident so as to improve notability, :P.

Also trimmed the last para so it wasn't so advert like.

-CH — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.114.131.159 (talk) 19:37, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

Straight Dope article
I think that this should form the basis of an actual Straight Dope article (currently a redirect). Cecil Adams is not the only person that does things there (the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board, for example) and I think it all deserves its own article. I think that this should then be part of a larger Straight Dope article. violet/riga (t) 12:09, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

omissions
I like how, despite the fact that the article has been running for at least 20 more years than the message boards, the message board section is more than twice as long as the section on the article. You don't even mention the date that The Straight Dope was first printed, for chrissake. (It was during the week of February 2nd, 1973, says the Straight Dope website.) Are you people even trying?

Congratulations, Wikipedia. Once again, you completely fail at not being totally parochial.

-anon — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.205.198.51 (talk) 18:51, 27 January 2006 (UTC)
 * You're free to make any additions or changes, y'know. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.245.84.235 (talk) 18:09, 17 February 2006 (UTC)

"Wikipedia" does not write the articles, anon. People just like yourself, sitting at their keyboards do. So there's no one to blame. You evidently have more knowledge and something to contribute, so jump in and edit the page. Tragic romance 10:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Notability, really
Most of the section on the message board just simply isn't notable. Unless someone can explain why an encyclopedia should name and describe every subforum an unremarkable message board, I'd like to trim that section to:

"The Straight Dope Message Board (abbreviated SDMB) is a collection of forums inspired by The Straight Dope. The board is owned by the Chicago Reader, and operated mainly by volunteer moderators. It uses the popular message board software vBulletin and has over 56,000 registered members, of which ~3500 are paid subscribers as of August 2005. It is ranked 70th by big-boards.com in number of posts as of January 29, 2006.

The SDMB had its fifteen minutes of internet fame when the thread If LotR Had Been Written By Someone Else!? became a victim of the Slashdot effect. The thread garnered a little over 2000 replies and close to 420 000 views." 130.132.199.75 21:15, 24 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree that most of the text about the message board is/was not notable. Tskoge 09:23, 26 February 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree as well. Do members of the "recent changes patrol" actually read the discussion section or the article's content or do they just make educated guesses based on the length of text removed? sheesh. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.139.33.21 (talk) 15:59, 1 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Sorry, it looked like blanking vandalism (especially as it was from an anon. user). I should have been more careful in this instance. Hynca-Hooley 16:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Relevant external links
It appears that there is currently a revert war regarding two of the external links in the article. In my opinion, these two links should be removed because they violate some principles in the Wikipedia style guide for external links, mainly item 1 in the section titled "Links normally to avoid" and possibly numbers 3 and 9 as well. The link labeled "History of the SDMB" links to a site called "Trainwreck Snarkives", which appears to be original research and does not seem to be a notable POV. The link labeled "SDMB anonymous snark pages" goes to a DeadJournal page called "SnarkPit", which is a discussion area for the Straight Dope message board which may or may not be notable. In fact, there is currently a thread on that page about this very issue. It seems that everyone who has either added the links or removed them has been an anon (except for me). What are everyone else's thoughts on it? --Cswrye 07:00, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

It's both non-notable and trolling. They should be removed. --Walachia 01:00, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Well, for that matter there's no reason to have the message board mentioned at all, or linked. It is after all a commercial operation with google ads and paid membership, so the link here is basically advertising. Best scrap the whole thing since arguing is the raison d'etre of the SDMB no good will come of it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.139.33.21 (talk) 13:26, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that it's better to just scrap the content on the discussion board. It's only tenuously relevant to the entry, which is supposed to be about a syndicated newspaper column. I would link to the discussion board (the official one) and remove the other content and links. Skutir 20:06, 20 March 2006 (UTC)


 * After looking at the content of the links, I realized that they were not spam as I had originally thought, and they are related to the Straight Dope Message Board. However, I still think that they are not relevant enough to the Straight Dope column to merit inclusion, especially given Wikipedia's guidelines that generally discourage external links. The consensus seems to be that three out of three users believe the links should be removed. That's hardly an overwhelming number, so if anyone disagrees, feel free to voice your opinion. In the meantime, I'm going to go ahead and remove the links, although I predict that they will frequently be re-added by anonymous users. --Cswrye 16:08, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

The revert war over this issue appears to be unending. I would like to request mediation from both sides to resolve this matter. Is anyone else supportive of this? --Cswrye 22:22, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I'll support mediation. The first link is entirely relevant to the message board which is relevant to the column. The second link is just an anonymous snark board that's marginal at best. Xploder12 20:38, 27 March 2006 (EST)

"The straight dope"
Shouldn't we refer to the idiom from which the name of the column derives? Ventifax 01:15, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Criticisms
There should be a section for criticisms of The Straight Dope's accuracy. There are plenty of them. Tragic romance 21:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Are there any cites for these inaccuracies? Alastairward 10:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Recent deletions on talk page
I strongly oppose deleting large chunks of discussion from this talk page by User:Dhartung without consensus. 212.199.22.214 00:15, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, 212.199.22.214. Please make yourself familiar with talk page guidelines, in particular:
 * Keep on topic: Talk pages are not for general conversation. Keep discussions on the topic of how to improve the associated article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal.
 * As the discussion pertained only to opinion about the accuracy of the subject, it was off topic. If anyone has a citeable source of the form "Alice Jones of Smith University disputed a Straight Dope answer ..." or "The Prolix Science journal ran an article summarizing some recent errors ..." that is different. Otherwise, please take such discussion to a forum or other appropriate venue such as Blogspot. --Dhartung | Talk 03:33, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Hello, Dhartung. I am familiar with the guidelines. Unfortunately, quite often people have to discuss certain topics on talk pages before they find suitable quotations from reputable academic sources. Sometimes it is necessary to state a problem so that people become aware of it and eventually someone will come along with a source. Why blank the whole section? Why not ask the others' opinion before doing it? 212.199.22.233 18:36, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
 * I'll point out that the comment stating there are criticisms of inaccuracies ("plenty of them") and the comment asking for cites of these criticisms are still intact. Therefore, the "problem" has been stated so people are aware of it and can bring on the sources. Garfield226 19:29, 24 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't know about back then, but current guidelines discourage deleting anything from talk pages. So dom't do that again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.29.253.224 (talk)
 * The current WP:TPG guidelines explicitly mention removing off-topic chat: "Talk pages are for discussing the article, not for general conversation about the article's subject (much less other subjects). Keep discussions on the topic of how to improve the associated article. Irrelevant discussions are subject to removal." --McGeddon (talk) 09:14, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Correction please: The Straight Dope site is NOT inactive.
Hi, I'm the administrator for The Straight Dope.

You have the site listed as Inactive; this is not the case, which you can see here:

https://www.straightdope.com/

https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/

We are not currently producing new content; Cecil Adams is on hiatus and longtime SD editor Ed Zotti is now working as a local columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, the corporate owner of The Straight Dope. But the site continues, both the column side and the message board. There is still a weekly mailing.

We may return to providing new content but there is no current date for restarting.

Please correct this. Thank you.

JParadisHagar TubaDiva@aol.com your humble TubaDiva Administrator The Straight Dope JParadisHagar (talk) 20:16, 5 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Fixed. -- Escape Orbit (Talk) 23:34, 6 March 2020 (UTC)