This Weekend's Most Active Threads

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. A thread titled, "Can we talk Covid? What we did right and wrong" that was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum was first in number of views and second in number of replies for the weekend. I have only read a few posts in this thread and I have no interest in reading more of it. In fact, I've just locked it. Covid threads are frustrating because they all end up simply repeating what countless other threads have said and posters don't discuss so much as divert the thread to their own parochial obsessions. These threads remind me of the parable of the blind men and an elephant. If you are not familiar with this, a group of blind men encounter an elephant for the first time and attempt to describe it to each other. One, who feels the trunk believes that elephants are like snakes, one who touches the ear describes elephants as being like fans, a third who examines a leg believes that elephants are shaped like trees. This is how I see Covid discussions. For instance, those who had young children in school are often fixated on school closures and repeatedly stress any negative outcomes of the closures. While those without children who struggled during the closures are more willing to excuse or justify the action. It's like one group finding the elephant's trunk and the other its leg. Both versions of Covid are equally correct and equally wrong. On top of this, there are posters whose reactions are formed less by their experience with Covid, but more by prior political or other partisan biases. Anti-vax posters obsess over real or invented (mostly invented) negative effects of the Covid vaccine. Anti-immigration posters blame immigration. Pro-Trump posters credit him with the vaccine's rapid development, but warn that the vaccine will kill you. Everyone misuses statistics to prove whatever point they wish to confirm. I am convinced that the only way a constructive Covid discussion could be held is if it were heavily structured and closely moderated. The exact opposite of the wild west DCUM environment.

The thread that led in replies over the weekend and was third in views was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "The Twitter Files". For the first time since I have been writing these posts, this is a thread in which I heavily participated. Therefore, it is easy for me to summarize. Everything that I posted was brilliant, astute, and remarkable for its insightfulness. Everything that was posted by someone who disagreed with me was utter trash, not worthy of being repeated. Joking, I'm joking. More seriously, the thread is about a series of tweets posted by journalist Matt Taibbi on Friday evening discussing Twitter's suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story. Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, provided Taibbi with internal documents and emails and promoted Taibbi's work through his own tweets. So, expectations were high that significant wrong-doing by Twitter would be revealed. Since my view of whether or not Taibbi's work met expectations is well-documented in the thread, I won't repeat it here. But, the significance of Taibbi's findings is throughly debated in the thread, which also encompasses discussion of Biden's laptop and the controversy surrounding it. There is also a diversion into discussion of my moderation of DCUM topics. Being both a participant in and a moderator of a discussion is admittedly an awkward task. However, I reject the notion that I should not participate in discussions on a website that I own. I recognize that even setting aside my own participation, my moderation performance can still be called into question and, as countless threads in the "Website Feedback" forum can attest, posters do that with some regularity. Ultimately, it is impossible to please everyone one and I accept that there will always be those who disagree with my decisions. Ironically, Musk is more or less in the same position that I am these days.

Coming in second in number of views and third in number of replies for the weekend was a thread titled, "Bella Hadid, stunning, gorgeous, beautiful, graceful" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. The original poster asks whether Bella Hadid is the most beautiful girl who ever lived. I seriously cannot believe that people waste time on threads such as this. This is especially true on a forum dominated by women on which it is constantly argued that women shouldn't be judged by their looks. I hate to say it ladies, but the phone call is coming from within the house. As if I could dislike this thread more, it is dominated by the original poster's repeated posting which includes sock puppeting. At some point, the original poster seems to lose her obsession with Hadid and becomes Blanca Padilla-curious. Eventually, the original poster concedes that Bella's sister Gigi might even be the prettier of the two, so Bella's hold on the "most beautiful girl who ever lived" title is very precarious. The beauty or lack thereof of several other celebrities is also debated in this thread with the Kardashians making an not entirely unexpected appearance. The one saving grace of this thread might be the very first response which is by a poster who is obviously looking for a monumental haul of brownie points by denying that Bella Hadid is the most beautiful woman that ever lived because that would be his wife.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "do any kids ever really choose a SLAC over an Ivy?". This thread was sixth in both views and replies over the weekend. If you spend anytime at all in our college forum, you will realize a few common obsessions among posters. Chief among them are Ivy League schools, but closely behind are "SLACs". In a previous post I did involving SLACs, I mentioned that despite all of the years I've spent dealing with the topic, I've never really known for what SLAC stood. Two commenters weighed in to explain, but they didn't agree with one another. One suggested "Small Liberal Art College" while the other claimed "Selective Liberal Arts College". The meaning is actually discussed within the thread and one poster suggested that it is actually "Selective" but is sometimes "Small" is used though that would be redundant because they are always small. In any case, it is the "Liberal Arts College" part that is important. The original poster wonders if students ever choose colleges such as "Williams, Bowdoin, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona..." over Ivy League schools. Many respond to confirm that they know people who have done this or even did it themselves. There is some question about whether these choices are due to the SLAC being a better opportunity or whether sports, merit aid, or legacy status were the deciding factors. Some posters dispute whether Ivy League schools are even held in as wide esteem as DCUM posters would have you believe. Basically, "SLAC" and "Ivy League" are to the college forum what "Circumcision" and "Breast Feeding" are to the General Parenting Discussion forums. Perennial topics that are guaranteed to get traffic and which have no correct answer other than "you do you".