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In the 'Users' section of each Stack Exchange site, there is a 'New User' section that shows the newest members of the site. But, is there any good way to see the oldest members of each site?

I have found that when I type, for example, user:1 into the main search tab on this site, that it pulls up a post by Jeff Atwood, which means that he was the 1st user on this site (right?). But after user:4 (the four users that show up using the search tab are all moderators that work on the SO team), the method doesn't work anymore.

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This query will grab the 100 oldest users on a site ordered by their id

SELECT TOP 100 
id as [User Link]
From Users
where id != -1
ORDER BY id`

Link to query

or by their creation date

SELECT TOP 100 
id as [User Link]
From Users
where id != -1
ORDER BY creationdate

Link to query

You can use the site switcher below the Run Query button to switch to the desired site,

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  • As per the OP's question, it might be more accurate to order by CreationDate, as they don't seem convinced/sure that id always means older user.
    – Davy M
    Commented Aug 1, 2018 at 23:58
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    @DavyM I added a query that sorts by that, I don't see a difference in the results but its there now
    – Charlie Brumbaugh
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:02
  • Interesting, I haven't seen that page before. So I guess that user:1 doesn't necessarily mean they were first, right?
    – 0xCursor
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:10
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    Shouldn't you filter out the Community user? It's not really a user so it doesn't really make sense to say that it's the first user.
    – Donald Duck
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:15
  • @DonaldDuck Yeah, that makes sense.
    – 0xCursor
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:16
  • @DonaldDuck Done
    – Charlie Brumbaugh
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:26
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    @LAD Each time a record is inserted into the table, the value of the id is one more than the value of the id in the preceding row. So perhaps the most accurate way of putting it, is that sorting by id shows the order in which they were inserted into the DB
    – Charlie Brumbaugh
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:27
  • @CharlieBrumbaugh Cool, thanks for clarifying.
    – 0xCursor
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 0:30
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    There are a few cases where id's and createddate have a different order. I used the site Audio Video production because I know that site has been merged (former Audio.SE and Video.se) so I expected to find a lot of these case but that doesn't hold. The few cases you see are probably caused by account merges but only a mod or SE staff can confirm
    – rene Mod
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 6:49
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    Glorfindel was kind enough to check and confirmed most of my hypothesis here where he notes that small differences in creationdates don't involve account merges. They can be written off on race-conditions.
    – rene Mod
    Commented Aug 2, 2018 at 7:33

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