Monday's Most Active Posts

The thread with the most replies and the most views yesterday was titled, "UVA mass shooting" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. As is clear from the title, this thread is about the tragic shooting that took place at the University of Virginia leaving three members of the University's football team dead and two others — including an additional football player — wounded. The thread was started just after 1 a.m. by a worried parent whose child was under lock down at UVA. Through the night, posters exchanged messages of support and sympathy and gathered what details they could about the shooting. There was also a discussion about the "Run, Hide, Fight" alert sent to students with some posters not understanding what is apparently a pretty standard warning as a part of active shooter training. Threads of this type generally provoke posts or reports from users who object to any kind of speculation about incidents of this type. They prefer that the threads be limited to expressions of sympathy and the simple reports of known facts. Others think that attempting to draw conclusions or discussing theories related to the event are helpful and normal. I tried to find a middle ground between these two sides by removing overtly political posts and others that diverted from the main topic of the thread. Specifically, I removed a number of posts disputing the value of prayers as compared to gun control. These posts simply rehashed the same arguments from countless other threads and continued over several pages, prompting multiple posts pleading that the discussion be taken elsewhere. I am not one of those who believes that the aftermath of a shooting is too soon to discuss gun control, but I do believe such discussions shouldn't drown out the rest of the posts.

The thread with the second most number of views and third highest number of replies was titled, "'Shamed' for Thanksgiving contribution to school" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. This probably should have been posted in the "Schools and Education General Discussion" forum since it deals with a school-related topic with the original poster's child barely being involved. In any case, the original poster describes participating in her child's school's food drive by contributing cream cheese. When she dropped the donation off at the school's front desk, a staff member commented that the original poster provided a generic brand and seem disappointed. The original poster wants to know if she has committed a faux pas of some sort. Frankly, I can't imagine anyone bothering with this thread beyond the original post, let alone it ending up as the second most active thread for the day. Luckily for our revenue stream I suppose, DCUM users not only engaged with the thread, but found ways to highlight multiple controversies within the topic. The importance of name brands over generic was debated, the fact that a food bank would request perishable foods was discussed, whether the food drive was aimed at serving the needy or providing a "feel good" experience for privileged parents was bandied about, and the rudeness of the school staff member was repeatedly brought up. Many posts attempted to shed light on how the recipients of the donations might view things and others described their own experiences — and in some cases, evolutions — with providing food donations.

Second in number of replies and fourth in number of views was a thread in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum titled, "Taylor swift texts?". The entirely of the original post was "Are they all out?" Clearly, I am not clued into Swiftyspeak, as I had no idea what this was about. The first reply told the original poster to check an existing Taylor Swift thread, which the original poster checked and reported back. You can imagine my joy in learning that one of the most active threads yesterday is written in indecipherable code and largely duplicating a pre-existing thread. But, when Taylor Swift is involved, nothing is really surprising. As best I can tell, in order to purchase a ticket to one of the upcoming Taylor Swift concerts, you have to receive a text of some sort. Then, even if you receive text, it appears that you won't immediately know the cost of the ticket due to some dynamic pricing scheme. Moreover, Swift is not performing in DC, MD, or VA, so where do all of these posters plan to see her? All in all, this thread is a mystery to me, as are most things related to Taylor Swift.

A thread posted in the "Private/Independent Schools" forum titled, "Friendly reminder there is literally no reason the Big 3 couldn't be 50% AA by tomorrow" was third in number of views and fifth in number of replies yesterday. The private schools forum has become troll central lately with numerous threads involving race, religion, or any other divisive characteristic on which posters can fixate. I was surprised that this was the first I heard of this thread because I expect it has plenty of posts within that are worthy of being reported. My first reaction was to the title, the reminder was not actually friendly and I'm not sure anyone needs a reminder in the first place. While the original poster may not have been using the term "literally" literally, there are reasons. Those might not be reasons with which the original poster agrees, but they are reasons nonetheless. Indeed, how would these three schools identify, contact, reach agreement with, and enroll sufficient students overnight? The poster literally said "literally", but I suspect that she literally meant "figuratively". Having gotten that out of my system, I'll simply say that I haven't read this thread and probably won't read it. Looking at the first page, it appears that responders are not really buying what the original poster is selling and the original poster seems more interested in arguing than understanding. One of the earliest responses is probably a good summary of the thread, "This is probably the craziest and most bizarre rage post I've ever seen on this board...and I'm Black."