With the primary season upon us, and a hotly contested school board election, there seem to be a lot of posts/zombie threads on the MCPS forum that are trying to instill fear and mistrust of public education.

Toward that end, I'm wondering about some sock puppeting when folks don't get the traction they want.

For example: 18:47 and 7:47 on this thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1196708.page

Or, like this whole thread, which purports to be started by a PreK mom: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200857.page

at the same time as this one, which purports to be from a Sherwood parent: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200859.page

I'm not an MCPS apologist, but I do feel like there's a tidal wave of posts about a limited number of topics, all aimed at making people feel less comfortable with public education. Am I being a conspiracy theorist?

I am the OP of the Sherwood bathroom thread. I did not write the prek tread or Sock puppet it. the other thread. I have commented on the Board of Education thread, but as part of the conversation and not sock puppeting.

The Sherwood bathroom situation is so severe that my son is not going to the bathroom because he can’t find working toilets on his route.

Anonymous wrote:With the primary season upon us, and a hotly contested school board election, there seem to be a lot of posts/zombie threads on the MCPS forum that are trying to instill fear and mistrust of public education.

Toward that end, I'm wondering about some sock puppeting when folks don't get the traction they want.

For example: 18:47 and 7:47 on this thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1196708.page

Or, like this whole thread, which purports to be started by a PreK mom: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200857.page

at the same time as this one, which purports to be from a Sherwood parent: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200859.page

I'm not an MCPS apologist, but I do feel like there's a tidal wave of posts about a limited number of topics, all aimed at making people feel less comfortable with public education. Am I being a conspiracy theorist?

The first example is not sock puppeting. It's two different posters.

The second thread is started by a poster who seems legit. I can't find any other threads started by her but she identified herself as the OP when she responded in that thread.

The third thread has been deleted because it was a duplicate but the poster seemed authentic. She even reported the duplicate thread to me.

It is rare that people start threads because they are happy about something. Rather, the tendency is to create threads about things that upset you. Nobody is starting a thread saying the principal of their school did something great and, if the did, they would be accused of trolling. The result is that most threads are negative. That's the nature of the beast. It is not a conspiracy, it's just human nature.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With the primary season upon us, and a hotly contested school board election, there seem to be a lot of posts/zombie threads on the MCPS forum that are trying to instill fear and mistrust of public education.

Toward that end, I'm wondering about some sock puppeting when folks don't get the traction they want.

For example: 18:47 and 7:47 on this thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/60/1196708.page

Or, like this whole thread, which purports to be started by a PreK mom: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200857.page

at the same time as this one, which purports to be from a Sherwood parent: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1200859.page

I'm not an MCPS apologist, but I do feel like there's a tidal wave of posts about a limited number of topics, all aimed at making people feel less comfortable with public education. Am I being a conspiracy theorist?

The first example is not sock puppeting. It's two different posters.

The second thread is started by a poster who seems legit. I can't find any other threads started by her but she identified herself as the OP when she responded in that thread.

The third thread has been deleted because it was a duplicate but the poster seemed authentic. She even reported the duplicate thread to me.

It is rare that people start threads because they are happy about something. Rather, the tendency is to create threads about things that upset you. Nobody is starting a thread saying the principal of their school did something great and, if the did, they would be accused of trolling. The result is that most threads are negative. That's the nature of the beast. It is not a conspiracy, it's just human nature.

Thanks, Jeff.