Real question… is DCUM

[Anonymous]

It’s a nice place to pose legal questions and get free advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crowd-sourcing from internet message boards peaked in about 2010.

And yet it seems like, despite the power of search engines now and AI (!!) more than ever, DCUM has become a redundant cycle of questions people are too lazy too look up.

How much pizza do I need for this party?

I have teens and it's an epidemic. They ask me all kinds of stupid shit and I tell them to google, which apparently is even too much for them. Not enough folks who knew how to actually research things in an encyclopedia or an atlas. And that translates to absolute laziness of new threads.

That's really sad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I subscribed to DCUM back in the listserve days. It was smaller and more of a community then. When things get bigger, the thoughtfulness goes away. Even though it's been anonymous for a while now, the increasing size and accessibility make it seem even more anonymous = less thoughtful and more mean

At the same time, I have long thought that this would be a GREAT site for Russian bots or other intelligence services to target -- lots of high powered zip codes represented here, and an ability to plant discord, stir culture wars, etc. seems like it may be pretty unmatched given this is a plain old parenting site.

I don't live in the area any more and can 100% say that the idea of returning to DC is less and less appealing given what I read here. Even the non-nasty posts validate all my stereotypes about the DC (where I grew up!) as power hungry, status obsessed, rat racy and overly Type A.

Yet Get you come back to this site over and over and over again. You protest too much.you come back to this site over and over and over again. You protest too much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Urban Moms and Dads active zip codes. And I know for a fact some relatively high level people are on here and I bet the % of influential people on this board are pretty high conmpared to another random area. NOt saying the people on DCUM are running the world tho

The irony here....

What should bother you is that the high-powered people can't figure out to order pizza, boil water, or use a gift card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Urban Moms and Dads active zip codes. And I know for a fact some relatively high level people are on here and I bet the % of influential people on this board are pretty high conmpared to another random area. NOt saying the people on DCUM are running the world tho

The irony here....

What should bother you is that the high-powered people can't figure out to order pizza, boil water, or use a gift card.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crowd-sourcing from internet message boards peaked in about 2010.

And yet it seems like, despite the power of search engines now and AI (!!) more than ever, DCUM has become a redundant cycle of questions people are too lazy too look up.

How much pizza do I need for this party?

I have teens and it's an epidemic. They ask me all kinds of stupid shit and I tell them to google, which apparently is even too much for them. Not enough folks who knew how to actually research things in an encyclopedia or an atlas. And that translates to absolute laziness of new threads.

This is actually a result of the collapse of community and the epidemic of loneliness. Most of us would have had a circle of friends/moms to ask about pizza amount or what not. But everyone is busier, more isolated, and on their phones all the time that we just don't have a reservoir of actual people to draw upon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I subscribed to DCUM back in the listserve days. It was smaller and more of a community then. When things get bigger, the thoughtfulness goes away. Even though it's been anonymous for a while now, the increasing size and accessibility make it seem even more anonymous = less thoughtful and more mean

At the same time, I have long thought that this would be a GREAT site for Russian bots or other intelligence services to target -- lots of high powered zip codes represented here, and an ability to plant discord, stir culture wars, etc. seems like it may be pretty unmatched given this is a plain old parenting site.

I don't live in the area any more and can 100% say that the idea of returning to DC is less and less appealing given what I read here. Even the non-nasty posts validate all my stereotypes about the DC (where I grew up!) as power hungry, status obsessed, rat racy and overly Type A.

I grew up in DC too and the idea of ever returning makes my stomach turn. Aggressively competitive, conventional, humorless hall monitors dominate the scene.

+3

Also grew up here. DC is awful and it continues to self-destruct.

Hate it here. Can’t wait to move. And I agree with the previous two DC natives because the DC area:


Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves),

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere,

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow most years,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating public school system,

Unaffordable private schools,

Skyrocketing crime,

Incompetent local government,

Whole area stinks of weed now,

No one can drive here,

Metro on verge of financial collapse from fare-evasion after council decriminalized fare-evasion in 2018.





We are only here for our .gov jobs.

Where is the magical place that addresses your list?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I subscribed to DCUM back in the listserve days. It was smaller and more of a community then. When things get bigger, the thoughtfulness goes away. Even though it's been anonymous for a while now, the increasing size and accessibility make it seem even more anonymous = less thoughtful and more mean

At the same time, I have long thought that this would be a GREAT site for Russian bots or other intelligence services to target -- lots of high powered zip codes represented here, and an ability to plant discord, stir culture wars, etc. seems like it may be pretty unmatched given this is a plain old parenting site.

I don't live in the area any more and can 100% say that the idea of returning to DC is less and less appealing given what I read here. Even the non-nasty posts validate all my stereotypes about the DC (where I grew up!) as power hungry, status obsessed, rat racy and overly Type A.

I grew up in DC too and the idea of ever returning makes my stomach turn. Aggressively competitive, conventional, humorless hall monitors dominate the scene.

+3

Also grew up here. DC is awful and it continues to self-destruct.

Hate it here. Can’t wait to move. And I agree with the previous two DC natives because the DC area:


Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves),

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere,

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow most years,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating public school system,

Unaffordable private schools,

Skyrocketing crime,

Incompetent local government,

Whole area stinks of weed now,

No one can drive here,

Metro on verge of financial collapse from fare-evasion after council decriminalized fare-evasion in 2018.





We are only here for our .gov jobs.

Where is the magical place that addresses your list?

I could tell you.

But if I did, you’d just mockingly call it “flyover country,” falsely claim it “doesn’t have enough diversity,” or whine about a few MAGAs living in the state and you hate their opinions don’t exactly match your own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I subscribed to DCUM back in the listserve days. It was smaller and more of a community then. When things get bigger, the thoughtfulness goes away. Even though it's been anonymous for a while now, the increasing size and accessibility make it seem even more anonymous = less thoughtful and more mean

At the same time, I have long thought that this would be a GREAT site for Russian bots or other intelligence services to target -- lots of high powered zip codes represented here, and an ability to plant discord, stir culture wars, etc. seems like it may be pretty unmatched given this is a plain old parenting site.

I don't live in the area any more and can 100% say that the idea of returning to DC is less and less appealing given what I read here. Even the non-nasty posts validate all my stereotypes about the DC (where I grew up!) as power hungry, status obsessed, rat racy and overly Type A.

I grew up in DC too and the idea of ever returning makes my stomach turn. Aggressively competitive, conventional, humorless hall monitors dominate the scene.

This....NoVa

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Getting dumber? I’m being serious. I’ve been on DCUM for about 7 years now, and the lack of basic intelligence evidenced by some posters these days is alarming.

That's a long time to be on one site.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The political forum is a disaster. You can't have a realistic conversation on there.

A fair amount of posts are bored people trolling or creating hypothetical problems for the fun of it.

The money forum seems to have an average HHI of $1M.

There's kids posting on here pretending to be adults.

I'm not sure if it's less interesting or that there's only so many times you can have a thread on any given topic and after so many years it feels like you've heard everything already. Several times.

On the whole, it's not bad. I've noticed that, if anything, there's less censorship and moderation going on compared to even a year ago. There were certain protected topics that you just could not have a pragmatic discussion without getting censored and banned.

+1000

This saddens me because the political forum used to be filled with incredibly bright people with actual insights into domestic and international political issues. Now it's filled with ideologues spoiling for a fight. So tiresome.

Yep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Getting dumber? I’m being serious. I’ve been on DCUM for about 7 years now, and the lack of basic intelligence evidenced by some posters these days is alarming.

That's a long time to be on one site.

OP This made me smile

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The political forum is a disaster.

On the whole, it's not bad. I've noticed that, if anything, there's less censorship and moderation going on compared to even a year ago. There were certain protected topics that you just could not have a pragmatic discussion without getting censored and banned.

I agree that the censorship has lessened greatly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Crowd-sourcing from internet message boards peaked in about 2010.

And yet it seems like, despite the power of search engines now and AI (!!) more than ever, DCUM has become a redundant cycle of questions people are too lazy too look up.

How much pizza do I need for this party?

I have teens and it's an epidemic. They ask me all kinds of stupid shit and I tell them to google, which apparently is even too much for them. Not enough folks who knew how to actually research things in an encyclopedia or an atlas. And that translates to absolute laziness of new threads.

This is actually a result of the collapse of community and the epidemic of loneliness. Most of us would have had a circle of friends/moms to ask about pizza amount or what not. But everyone is busier, more isolated, and on their phones all the time that we just don't have a reservoir of actual people to draw upon.

NPR did a piece on how architecture shaped society (as opposed to the converse), many years ago. Actually more than a decade ago now that I really think about it.

They also highlighted the technology of air conditioning, and television.

Smartphones with social media and McMansions have only worsened all the isolation NPR highlighted back then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC Urban Moms and Dads active zip codes. And I know for a fact some relatively high level people are on here and I bet the % of influential people on this board are pretty high conmpared to another random area. NOt saying the people on DCUM are running the world tho

The irony here....

What should bother you is that the high-powered people can't figure out to order pizza, boil water, or use a gift card.

DP. How is that surprising? The only advice anyone ever has on here is outsource, divorce, or seek therapy/meds. These are not people who never learned to work through life’s common road bumps. So much focus on GPAs and HHIs and Big 3s and top 10 universities, and not an ounce of common sense.