DCUM Weblog

A thread in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum absolutely ran away with lead in both replies and views, more than doubling the number of the second in line. Titled, "What's Behind the Rise of Lonely, Single Men", the original poster linked to a blog post on the "Psychology Today" website describing challenges that younger and middle aged men are having with dating. The original poster expresses concern about this trend and wonders if anything can be done about it. When I first learned of this thread, it had already reached 21 pages. After reading a few pages, I decided to lock it because it had gone completely off the rails. I really can't provide a better description of the thread than that written by a poster on the tenth page which said, "Like all DCUM posts, what started as thoughtful posts on pages 1-3 turned into man-haters and misogynists yelling at each other for the rest of the thread....". My only quibble would be that this does not describe "all DCUM posts", but it does describe quite a few in the relationship forum and certainly this one.

Yesterday's leader in both number of replies and number of views is a real doozy. The original poster even wrote about making this list, so mission accomplished I guess. Titled, "Dr. X may not really have a doctorate?", the thread is posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. I am not sure where to begin with this thread. To the original poster, I apologize in advance. I am sure you are a very nice person, but there is no way to summarize this thread in which you don't come off looking a bit crazy. As succinct as I can be, the original poster is bothered by the fact that a teacher at a school that her children previously attended asks to be called by the honorific "Dr." However, the original poster has researched the teacher's credentials — not only searching the state's Department of Education's licensing database, but calling the Department to confirm that the database is up-to-date — and found no evidence that the teacher has earned a doctorate. The poster feels that she should report her findings to someone but is not sure what action is most appropriate.

Today I'll go over yesterday's most active threads. Since yesterday was Halloween, it's fitting that the post leading in replies and second in views was Halloween-themed. The thread, titled, "Why do some people give out full-sized candy bars for Halloween?" was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster wonders if those who give out full-sized candy bars are trying to appear generous or believe the kids otherwise won't get enough candy. The poster decrees that this is unnecessary. Once again I am completely baffled by which threads attract engagement and I can only conclude that the original poster did not participate in trick or treating as a child. I know from my own experience a half century or so ago that the houses that gave out generous treats were the most popular and word of which homes those were quickly filtered through the children's grapevine. Indeed, the first page of the thread is filled with responses saying they do it because the children love it. Later in the thread some posts turn to the practicalities of giving out this sort of candy such as how much you need and/or go through. Still, why this thread generated 11 pages of replies will remain a mystery to me.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. The leader in both number of replies and number of views was a thread titled, "Which of the T20 schools have the least driven, intense, goal-oriented students?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster explains that her child is a freshman at a T15 school but finds that the seriousness and intensity of the student body creates an atmosphere with little fun. As the title suggests, the original poster is asking about top schools which have less driven students. Many of the replies point out that students don't get into top colleges or universities without being fairly intense and driven. As such, that's the sort of student you find there. Others provided suggestions, but that led to debates about whether those schools were really in the top 20. Eventually the thread turned to focus almost entirely on the admission and transfer rates of various institutions.

Today I'll look at the most active threads of the past week. Since I'll skip any threads that were discussed in a daily report, this eliminates many of the week's leaders. However, the second thread overall in number of views was titled, "Secrets you keep from your spouse" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)". The original poster discloses that he had a past addiction about which he hasn't told his spouse and asks others what they have kept secret from significant others. I only skimmed a few posts in this thread and see that many mention sexual topics. This is likely to lead to the thread being flagged as adult content by one of our ad networks, forcing me to remove it. I laughed at the first reply in which a poster told of showing her husband a DCUM thread and his unknowingly singling out her post as being the worst take in the thread. She is keeping the fact that it was her post a secret. If you are interested in what others are keeping secret — and many must find this interesting given the number of views — act fast to read it before I will likely have to remove it.

Yesterday's highest ranking thread in both number of replies and number of views was titled, "Pelosi’s husband assaulted during breakin" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread nearly doubled both the reply and view count of the second leading thread, coming it at a whopping 23 pages in a single day. For the benefit of those of you living in unelectrified caves, Paul Pelosi, husband of the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder with a hammer and seriously injured. The initial focus of the thread was on the identity of the attacker with some suggesting the individual was likely provoked by violent MAGA rhetoric and others claiming it was simply an example of the type of crime that Democrats are allegedly encouraging in cities.

The thread leading in number of replies yesterday, and third in number of views was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "FCPS new FLE curriculum", the thread is about a proposed curriculum for "Family Life Education", or what was once called "sex education". This has become a very contentious issue — especially in Virginia — because a significant number of parents are convinced that schools are turning their children gay or transgendered. A lot of hysteria, much of it manufactured, surrounds the topic. In fact, I removed one multi-page thread on this topic because it was so full of misinformation that it was not possible to simply clean it up. Despite starting over from scratch, this thread still managed to lead the day in replies. Almost all of the discussion is focused on semantic changes such replacing the terms "girls" and "boys" with the phrases "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth" and the fact that classes that used to be separated by gender are proposed to be combined. The fact that a child assigned male at birth will have to sit in a room with another child assigned female at birth and learn about menstruation is just too much for many parents.

The thread that led in both views and replies yesterday was titled, "Everyone's Too Busy to Be Friends" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. I am not sure this is the correct forum since the original post seems to deal with adult friends. So, I may move this thread eventually. The original poster describes a fairly common scenario. Her family has recently moved to the area and other families that she meets are too busy to get together. She is asking for advice about how to make friends. I skimmed the thread and it looked like there was a lot of advice offered, as well as many posters describing being in the same boat (they should have a meet-up). I notice that almost anytime someone describes a struggle they are having, someone will show up to post about how they don't have that issue, but not offer any helpful advice. I'm not sure of the purpose of such posts which don't seem to have a malicious intent, but basically pile on and add to the original poster's misery. This thread had just such a poster who, to put it mildly, didn't receive a very warm welcome. That poster certainly didn't make any friends in this thread.

I've frequently mentioned that I'm baffled at which threads get traction and gain lots of engagement. That is especially true in the case of yesterday's leader in both replies and views. The thread, titled, "One of them is lying to me - the cleaners or the neighbor", was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. In a fairly lengthy post, the original poster explains that her neighbor's daughter — apparently a drug addict in recovery — allegedly smelled marijuana coming from a car belonging to the original poster's house cleaners'. The cleaners are said to be Mexican and possibly undocumented. The original poster texted this accusation to the cleaners who reacted by calling it racial profiling and racist. The cleaners strongly denied the allegation and cancelled the original poster as a client. The original poster doesn't know whether to believe her neighbor or the cleaners.

I think for the first time in this series, yesterday the top five threads in number of replies were perfectly aligned with the top five threads in number of views. The leader in both metrics was a thread titled, "Yay! Another religious holiday!" in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster complains that Fairfax County schools were closed yesterday for Diwali. Moreover, according to the original poster, this is the fault of "liberals" who removed the entanglement of Christianity and school holidays while adding holidays for other religions. Taking the original poster at face value, one must conclude that Fairfax County liberals are incompetent because the county's schools are closed on the Christian holiday of Christmas and the week leading up to the the Christian holiday of Easter. Schools are even closed for Orthodox Christian Good Friday. Liberals have apparently utterly failed to disentangle Christianity and holidays. A more likely explanation is that the original poster is simply full of it.