She has been posting a lot. But, I'm not sure what I should do. Can you point to examples of her doing something beyond expressing her viewpoint?

takoma wrote:Concerning the confusion about the amendment, I think the problem is the phrase "pass by", which I understand to mean "table", i.e. not consider. Using the word "pass" certainly invites confusion when in fact the vote defeated the amendment.

Turns out that you are correct. According to this page:

http://legis.virginia.gov/1_cap_class/9-12/9_12_how_bills.html

There are two types of "Pass by" actions and neither one means to "pass". Both basically mean to table. This is the first time I've encountered the term. I was just reading it as "pass".

So, the bill is even more draconian than what I was giving it credit for being.

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:This bill apparently passed the VA House. It has had first, second, and third readings. I don't know how many readings are required in Virginia, but I can't imagine it's more than three. So, the bill probably goes to the Senate now. A good source for the legislative status is here:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB1

The bill was amended to make clear that birth control is still permitted. But, it is still a very draconian bill.

I'm confused - I thought the amendment was defeated?

Click on the link. There was a substitute bill that was defeated, but the amendment passed:

02/13/12 House: Motion to pass by Amendment by Delegate Watts agreed to (64-Y 34-N)

On the page listing amendments (of which there is only one listed), it says this:

(HB1)
AMENDMENT(S) PROPOSED BY THE HOUSE

DEL. WATTS [Passed by]

1. After line 26, introduced

insert

§ 8. Nothing in this section shall be interpreted as affecting lawful contraception.

Emphasis added by me.

Anonymous wrote:Jeff, I get it, but what is the difference between someone posting, "I am looking for a tutor..." and they sock puppet back, "well I tutor kids..."?

I'll catch them and publicly flog them. Also, make them to 20 push ups.

Here is the thing, you would just spend all of your time in that forum. On an intellectual level, we all hate train wrecks. But, we can't resist watching train wrecks (or even participating in them). That's just one of those mysteries of human nature.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, not blocked, locked. When the link takes you to the post (sorry about that period on the first one), you can't reply on these posts, as they have been locked. Not that I want to reply (not one of those posters who likes to revive 2 year old posts!), I'm just wondering why they have been locked by admin.

Maybe this is the explanation?

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/169733.page#1644754

Yes, that is the thread that led me to lock old threads that harden been active for a while. But, there had been many other requests besides those in that thread. Most of the time, posts to old threads come from spammers.

I know that someone suggested that I wouldn't lock that thread because I was interested in getting paid for the page views, but I actually don't want to lock it for other reasons. I think the discussion is kind of interesting. There are actually good tips for SAHMs trying to reenter the workforce. Also given the number of people posting, I don't want to deal with the resulting howls that would come from locking it. I suspect it will die on its own fairly soon anyway.

My one hope is that if Santorum wins the nomination, "Frothy" will become the next trendy name.

It needs to go to committee first. I assume Reid has referred it to the Senate Budget Committee. It is up to the committee to act on it and eventually send it to the floor.

This bill apparently passed the VA House. It has had first, second, and third readings. I don't know how many readings are required in Virginia, but I can't imagine it's more than three. So, the bill probably goes to the Senate now. A good source for the legislative status is here:

http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?121+sum+HB1

The bill was amended to make clear that birth control is still permitted. But, it is still a very draconian bill.

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nothing. My browser uses Adblock.

Obviously this is a choice that you are free to make. But, I really wish you would consider displaying our ads. I've tried to be careful to place ads in areas that don't distract from using the website. I've rejected a ton of advice to put ads in places that they were harder to ignore. But, advertising revenue is the only income we get from DCUM. If everyone blocked ads, the site would cease to exist.

Fair enough. I respect what you've built here, so I don't want to take money out of your pocket. But does my having Adblock really decrease your revenue? I thought Google pays you per page view. So if my browser just renders the page without certain elements, does that really affect your ad revenue? (This assumes of course that I don't plan on clicking on ads to buy things.)

Google records both page views and advertisement impressions. If you are aren't' loading ads, there are no impressions. Revenue is derived from impressions. If it's just you blocking ads, obviously it's no big deal. Also, there are some people who can't deal with the animation in some ads and I certainly don't think they should be forced to put up with ads. But, widespread ad blocking would be a serous problem for us.

Anonymous wrote:Did it disappear? Someone was advertising as a writing tutor.
Was planning on giving them a call.

Advertising is not allowed. While I'd like to be able to address every possible need, we just can't. As such, we don't have options for tutors who want to advertise other than buying ads (which probably isn't practical). However, you can post a request for a tutor in this forum. That's within the rules.

Anonymous wrote:
Will blocking Dating also block mail order brides? If so, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

Hopefully.

Anonymous wrote:I'm okay with ads, but wish some of them weren't so adult-themed. I often cruise this site at work and at home around my kids. Never know what ads will load when I click on another page on the site!

I just reviewed our Adsense settings and there is an option for blocking Dating advertisements. I blocked that, so maybe this will alleviate this problem a bit. There is also an option to block ads for reproductive health, but I've left that for now. I can block that also if it seems to be a problem.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing. My browser uses Adblock.

Obviously this is a choice that you are free to make. But, I really wish you would consider displaying our ads. I've tried to be careful to place ads in areas that don't distract from using the website. I've rejected a ton of advice to put ads in places that they were harder to ignore. But, advertising revenue is the only income we get from DCUM. If everyone blocked ads, the site would cease to exist.

Regarding the content of the ads to which many of you apparently object, we have little to no control over that. We use Google Adsense and Google chooses the ads that you get. Very frequently, the ads are based on searches you have done or other websites that you have visited. We recently used 1-800-Got-Junk and now almost all the ads I get are for that service. Seems a waste since we already used them, liked the service, and will use again when needed. We just don't need the service now.