The Straight Dope Message Board (abbreviated SDMB) is a collection of forums inspired by Cecil Adams s syndicated column The Straight Dope . The board is owned by the Chicago Reader, and operated mainly by volunteer moderators.

The SDMB uses the popular message board software VBulletin and has over 50,000 members (though the number of active members is much smaller). It is ranked 55th by big-boards.com in number of posts, as of 01 October 2005, which represents a fall of 8 places since July of that year.

Cecil has referred to his readers as The Teeming Millions . Another term adopted by the board s members for themselves is Dopers .

=Forums=

The SDMB currently has nine forums:

*About This Message Board (frequently abbreviated ATMB) is the place for users to comment or inquire about anything related to the message boards. This is also used by members to test formatting and signatures as well as by moderators and administrators to post board announcements.

*Comments on Cecil s Columns (abbreviated to CoCC or CCC) is the place for users to comment on columns appearing in Cecil Adams column or the Straight Dope books, many of which are archived on the Straight Dope website.

*Comments on Staff Reports (abbreviated to CoSR or CSR) is the place for users to comment on reports written by staff. These are archived on the Straight Dope website and their contributors are members of the Straight Dope Science Advisory Board (SDSAB).

*General Questions (or GQ) is the place for users to post questions which have factual answers.

*Great Debates (or GD) is the place to discuss serious topics which often cause contention, such as politics and religion.

*Cafe Society (or CS) is the place for users to discuss things relating to art, music, literature and other things of that nature.

*In My Humble Opinion (or IMHO) is the place for users to post polls and threads mainly soliciting the opinions of the other users.

*Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (or MPSIMS) is the place where things which don t fit into any other category goes. The content is not always mundane or pointless, as it has been used for informing the community that members (or family of members) have died as well as a 9/11 thread begun just minutes after the event.

*The BBQ Pit (or The Pit ) is where users post rants against anything, including the board administration and other members.

=History=

The message board began in a crude form on America Online in mid-1996 (see administrator Ed Zotti s announcement on [http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.fan.cecil-adams/browse_frm/thread/c9aed3701179588b alt.fan.cecil-adams], dated June 5). It existed in this format until moving to its current website in early 1999. The board has continually evolved, with the administration adding forums as need dictates.

In mid-February of 2002, the message board crashed and was not brought online again until March 10, 2002. During this time, a temporary board was hosted on bbboy.net as a stopgap. In addition to the service outage, all posts from December 7, 2001 through the time of the crash were lost, leading members to dub the event The Winter of Our Missed Content .

The SDMB had its fifteen minutes of internet fame when the thread [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.phpt=138905 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.

Effective April 27, 2004 the board moved to paid subscriptions ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.phpt=269127 source]) with guest memberships free for 30 days.

On September 23, 2005 Ed Zotti implemented Google s AdSense ([http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.phpt=336493 source]), adding sponsored links to each page.

=See also=

Cecil Adams

=Article(s) mentioning the SDMB=

=External links=