Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "13yr old's pediatrician just told her she is overweight and I am pissed" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that during her daughter's well visit, the pediatrician talked to her about beng overweight based on her body mass index (BMI). The original poster, who provided her daughter's height, weight, and clothing sizes, is convinced her daughter is of normal weight and was very offended by the doctor's comments. I've mentioned before that weight, especially where girls and women are concerned, is a hot button issue on DCUM. Still the 23 pages of replies that this thread garnered in less than a day is extraordinary. There was no way that I was going to read that many pages this morning, so I just started searching for the original poster's posts, thinking that might give me an idea of how the discussion developed. Instead, I immediately discovered repeated sock puppeting by the original poster throughout the thread. Because of that, I've just locked it. I won't spend time discussing the thread because now I don't care about it. But, this is another example of why I think DCUM needs a fulltime psychologist on staff. Not only to provide help for the large number of posters who are clearly in mental distress, but to analyze this sort of behavior. Frequently the goal of sock puppets is simply to prolong a thread, sometimes fairly innocently because they think their thread is being ignored and they want to encourage legitimate replies, but other times as a form of trolling. In this case, I feel like the poster was not getting the support that she was seeking and couldn't stand being told she was wrong. Therefore, she came to her own defense. This was not a close call in regard to sock puppeting. The poster literally posted replies agreeing with her own previous posts. Even on the 22nd page, she was posting messages addressed to the original poster and arguing that the original poster was correct and everyone else was wrong. In all, the original poster posted at least 24 times in thread.

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Political Discussion" forum and titled, "FBI believes Covid likely came from Wuhan lab according to Director Wray." Obviously, the thread is about FBI Directory Christopher Wray's recent statement that the FBI has assessed that the COVID-19 virus originated from a Chinese lab leak. This is another thread that I will not waste time reading. Complex topics such as this are inherently difficult to discuss on DCUM, particularly in the Politcal forum. Nobody is really interested in discussing the nuances of the topic or seeking additional knowledge or understanding. To the contrary, the most frequent motivation is simply to score political points. The original poster clearly showed that his intentions were political by stating in his original post that this proved that Trump is always right about science. Unless the original poster has been treating COVID infections by injecting disinfectant, I don't think even he believes Trump is always right. Generally discussions like this do more to obscure facts than to elucidate them. That's disappointing because it is an important topic and one that could be interesting to discuss if posters were capable of doing so dispassionately. Sadly, they aren't. Really, the only thing I have to say about this thread is that whatever else Wray's statement may mean, it most definitely does not mean that Trump is always right about science.

Next was a thread titled, "Why don’t Americans embrace urban living?" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster asks why Americans are obsessed with large houses located a great distance from everything and claims that this is not sustainable environmentally, financially, or mentally. One mistake the original poster made was to forget his audience. The "U" in DCUM stands for "Urban" and while DCUM has certainly grown well beyond its original roots in some of DC's most walkable neighborhoods, we are still heavily biased in favor of urban dwellers. As such, many of the initial responses to the original poster were to dispute his premise. Posters pointed out that they do live in walkable urban areas and that the demand for such areas has caused prices to skyrocket. Moreover, they posited, even more Americans would choose city living if they could afford it. On the other hand, some posters stressed what they considered advantages of suburban living. These included large yards, what they view as better schools, and "not living on top of each other". Many of these posters rejected what those who enjoy urban living considered benefits. Some posters found urban living preferable when they were young and childless, but felt that suburban living fit their needs better when they started families. The thread contains many comparisons to the living situations in other countries. I didn't read the entire thread and I may have missed it, but an interesting aspect to this discussion could be the impact of working from home. By eliminating commutes, a transition to working from home could significantly reduce many of the negatives of suburban living that the original poster listed. However, I am not sure just how widespread or longlasting any such transition might be at this point.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "College application lessons learned". The original poster provides a list of 10 tips that she believes will be helpful to those who will be applying for colleges next year. As the father of a high school senior who is currently going through the college application process, I have a personal basis on which to judge the original poster's list. The only things I would add is to get the FAFSA done early and, if you are a DC resident, complete your income taxes as early as possible because you will need them for DC TAG. But, otherwise, the list is pretty good and very similar to what we have actually done. Those responding add to the list and there is discussion about some items. Generally, this is a very useful thread to anyone for whom it applies. There is an unfortunate diversion into a discussion of the meaning of "AA" which can stand for different things which are generally, but not always, distinguishable from context. This is apparently a hill on which several posters were willing to die, and while death is probably unnecessary, taking a break from the thread might be a good step. The original poster approached her list without much consideration for college costs or other financial considerations. This is a luxury that many don't have. Subsequently, several posters addressed those topics with helpful advice. On page 9, another poster provided a seven item list of tips that was much more oriented towards finances,