Wednesday's Most Active Threads

The thread I discussed yesterday about white women and beauty standards and the thread about Trump's indictment I discussed earlier this week held the top two spots on the most active list yesterday. So, I'll skip to the third most active thread which was titled "How to talk to 14yo about waiting to have sex" and posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum. The original poster says that her 14 year old daughter has had a boyfriend for about six months and while she has discussed birth control and other topics related to sexual activity, she would like advice about additional things to say to encourage her daughter to wait for sex. I am not really going to discuss this thread because I assume that I will be forced to delete it due to Google's terms of service. As such, I'll take this opportunity to talk about Google and it's impact on DCUM discussions. For advertising, we rely on several ad networks, but manage all of them through Google's Ad Manager product. We also use Google's Adsense and Ad Exchange advertising services. Google has robots that scan our site looking for content that violates their terms of service. When such content is identified, it is flagged in Ad Manager's Policy Center. Google provides very little information about why the content violates their TOS, but in our case it is almost always labeled as "Adult: Sexual content". There are two types of violations: 1) the regular violation that restricts advertising on the page with the content; and, 2) "must fix" which cause advertising to be restricted across the entire site. We receive anywhere from 10-30 violations a day. The problem we face is that Google doesn't identify the specific content that triggered the violation. The Policy Center has links to the pages, but a page in a DCUM thread likely has 15 different posts and identifying which post is the culprit can be a challenge. Moreover, Google's system is completely braindead. Repeated mentions of the word "sex" are often enough to cause a thread to be flagged. Because this thread has "sex" in the subject line, it is repeated at least 16 times per page (once in the title and as part of each individual message). It is probably mentioned many additional times in the text of posts. To be clear, there is probably nothing sexually explicit in the thread but that is enough. The thread is currently 8 pages long and Google has already flagged 5 of the pages. I imagine the remaining 3 will eventually be flagged as well, Currently all of the violations are in the normal category rather than being "must fix". As such, I am willing to leave the thread for a while, but will eventually have to remove it. If the classification changes to "must fix", I will have to remove it immediately. One strange thing is that despite being flagged and subject to restricted advertising, there are still plenty of ads on those pages. This is just another oddity of Google's system. In short, we are subject to an arbitrary system that does not function in a coherent manner. But because nearly all of our revenue depends on it, we have to attempt to comply. As a result, many interesting and useful discussions are removed for no other reason than because of Google.

The next thread I'll discuss was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "Emory Full Tuition vs Stanford". I have to say that I don't ever remember being as confused by a thread as I am by this one. On the surface, it should be pretty simple. The original poster's son has been accepted to both Stanford and Emory universities. That much is clear. She says that her son has a full tuition scholarship, apparently for Emory. But, she then says that the costs of the schools are 80k for Stanford and 20k for Emory. I am not sure why Emory costs that much if her son has a full tuition scholarship and, weirdly, nobody seems to ask for clarification of this. So, maybe it is obvious to everyone but me. She then goes on to say that her family can afford 55k a year. Her son would likely study either political science or economics at Stanford, but business at Emery. She wants to know whether Stanford is worth that much more money. The very first reply says that the poster would choose Stanford even if it meant driving an Uber at night. This leads to an ongoing discussion about Uber driving that morphs into posts about working as a janitor and, eventually, to a post about Good Will Hunting. One poster simply posted "to what?" which was apparently meant to say "to do what?", meaning "what will he study" which was already answered in the original post. More than one poster seems to think that college is only one year and that the total cost difference is only $60k rather than the actual 240k. By the time I finished the first page of this thread, I felt like I had inadvertently ingested LSD. Just to make things more complicated, the original poster later revealed that if her son went to Stanford, he would probably go on to law school. That would make the cost difference even greater. Nevertheless, there are lots of proponents of choosing Stanford regardless of the extra expense. Emory, of course, also has its advocates and many posters find the cost-savings appealing. I would like to say that this thread eventually started to make sense, but sadly even on the current last page posters are still posting things that make me think that I am still feeling the effects of the LSD.

The third thread that I'll discuss was titled, "What’s so bad about living in a townhouse?" and posted in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster says that he grew up in a townhouse and lives in one now. It is easily affordable and allows him to save most of his income. He could easily afford a "7 figure home" but is perfectly happy where he is and wonders why everyone feels the need for a single family home. Those responding list a number of reasons that they don't like townhouses. A frequently-cited factor were neighbors with several posters saying that bad neighbors tarnished the entire experience and others simply not wanting to live that close to people even if they were good neighbors. Related were concerns about smells, noise, or pests easily travelling from the neighboring unit. Some posters expressed fears of fire easily spreading. Too many stairs was another factor. On the other hand, townhouses had their fans who either didn't encounter many of the drawbacks cited or didn't find them to be problems. Eventually the discussion turned towards the perceived social status of townhouses and the belief they are for, as one poster said "cash-strapped people". Another poster claimed that anybody who didn't realize that people are judged by their homes is in denial. One strange development in this thread was the seeming acceptance by most posters that townhouses are in the city and single family homes are in the suburbs. As such, many of the criticisms of townhouses were really addressing aspects of city life such difficult parking and the smell of weed. Conversely, posters shrugged off the supposed advantages of single family homes because they didn't want to make a long drive to visit someone that lives in one. Folks, what about single family homes in the city and townhouses in the suburbs? There was also some recognition that townhouses could be expensive with some posters providing links to townhouses that cost more than many single family houses. Throughout the thread there are obviously insecure posters accusing others of being insecure. Opposite of that were posters who thought that whatever worked for someone was great and that there is no reason for them explain themselves to others.

The last thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" and titled, "How would you react: DH says he's ‘done working.’" The original poster explains that her husband retired from the military at age 43 and, in the five years since, has only had a few temporary jobs. Recently he told her that he does not plan to start a second career but plans to "kick back and relax for the rest of my life". The original poster's husband's pension only covers about 20% of their expenses, so her salary is necessary. Moreover, the original poster does most of the housework and care of their children. The original poster is understandably resentful about this and asks whether she should continue to tolerate it or put her foot down and make her husband get a job. Of course the very first answer is to get a divorce because that is the standard answer for everything in this forum. Beyond the divorce advocates, there are posters who suggest giving him an ultimatum about either getting a job or doing more around the house. Some suggest that he might benefit from therapy though the original poster indicated that he refuses that idea. At least one other poster described being in a similar situation with her recently-retired from the military husband. While a few posters had some sympathy for the original poster's husband, most did not. He was repeatedly described as a "deadbeat", "moocher", and a "lazy bum". Quite a few posters suggested that he be screened for depression and there were several advocates of seeking transition assistance that might be available for veterans. Several posters commented on the fact that military life is very structured and regulated and guessed that her husband was not dealing well with the lack of structure. Therefore, they suggested that she establish a schedule for him in order to create structure.