Tuesday's Most Active Threads

Once again the two most active threads yesterday were threads that I've already discussed. So, I'll start with the third most active thread which was titled, "How does your redshirted kid feel now that she/he is older?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. This is the type of thread that I find very frustrating and makes me want to reconsider what we are doing with DCUM altogether. The original poster has a perfectly reasonable request. Her family is moving to the DC area and she is giving thought to school for her daughter who just completed kindergarten. The child's birthday is in late August and she has recently been diagnosed with ADHD. Therefore, the original poster is considering redshirting her daughter and having her repeat kindergarten. She would like to hear about the experiences of those who redshirted their children in the past. This sounds pretty straight-forward, right? If you redshirted your child, the original poster would like to hear how that turned out. No additional input was requested. But, this is DCUM where I have often said that if you post a question asking for input from cat owners, you will most assuredly be flooded by responses from dog owners, many of whom hate cats. No surprise then that the thread was filled by posts from those with no experience with redshirting. To be sure, many of those were helpful and informative and contributed positively to the thread. But, others were not. For instance, one poster weighed in to say that her older child was glad that he was not redshirted. Good to know, but hardly relevant to this discussion. That wasn't the end of this poster's participation, however. She would eventually post nearly 30 times in the thread, opposing redshirting and challenging the experiences of others. So, not only was this poster not providing responsive posts, she was debating those who were. As is turns out, probably not surprisingly, this particular poster is one that I encounter frequently due to her prolific posting. Yesterday, in fact, she posted at least 127 messages. The strange thing is that she does not appear to have actually started a thread herself during this calendar year. Her habit is to simply comment relentlessly, and mostly negatively, on other's posts. I appreciate this person's commitment to DCUM, but I wish she would be more positive and helpful. In this case, she is almost single-handedly responsible for this thread being among yesterday's most active and, more importantly, much less useful than it could have been. I wish I had the ability to contact the user privately and encourage her to do better, but I don't. So, maybe this post will suffice. Either way, I've blocked her IP address for 24 hours so we will see what that does, if anything. For the original poster's part, it doesn't look like she posted again in the thread. So, who knows what she thinks of the discussion?

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. Titled, "Airbnb Review Removed", this thread has a bit of a backstory. Not long ago, the original poster of this thread started a thread complaining about her experience renting an Airbnb. She had rented a house in Philadelphia in order to attend the Taylor Swift concert. Based on the description in the listing, she expected the house to be located in a fairly decent neighborhood, but upon arrival felt that the location was very unsafe. Therefore, she went to a hotel instead. I didn't read that thread but became aware of it when the original poster asked me to delete it. Apparently, responses had been less than supportive, to say the least. Subsequent to all of that, the original poster left a negative review on Airbnb, only to find that it was deleted. She started this thread to warn others that Airbnb deletes reviews. Some posters sympathized with the original poster and agreed that reviews do get removed. Others said that it is very difficult to have reviews removed and, in order to do so, they must violate specific policies. Several suggested that because the original poster did not actually stay in the house, her review violated the guideline that reviews must reflect actual experience. The original poster was not receptive to any criticism or suggestions that didn't support her point of view and was often combative in her responses. She eventually followed-up to say that Airbnb had informed her that her review was removed because safety of the area is something that is outside the host's control and, therefore, not allowed in a review. This didn't placate her. While the original poster bears a lot of responsibility for keeping this thread going, she is not alone in being critical of Airbnb. Quite a few posters agreed that discussing the area should be fair game. Others agreed with the Airbnb policy and a few of those suggested that calling an area "unsafe" is a dogwhistle meaning that the area has a lot of Black people. Several of the Airbnb defenders are Airbnb hosts themselves. Many posters pointed out that feelings about safety are subjective and that it is likely many people have stayed at the listing and didn't feel unsafe. The original poster explains that she concluded the area was unsafe due to the number of boarded up houses and other houses for rent, as well as the poor upkeep of many homes. She also cites crime figures for the area that she learned upon her return. These are not convincing measures to many posters. Some posters eventually started to take a sort of strange delight in the original poster's unwillingness to let this drop and one even gleefully claimed to be looking forward to me writing about the thread. So, here you go. One poster did have what was probably the best suggestion in the thread, urging the original poster to resubmit a review that described the vacant buildings and other objective factors that made her feel unsafe. As the poster said, the original poster's feelings don't matter so she should just write about facts.

Third for today is a thread titled, "Why are American parents, kids and grandkids so cold & distant toward one another?" and posted in the "Family Relationships" forum. The original poster says that in her country it is common for grandparents to live with one of their children and provide babysitting. This is expected and nobody complains about it. She wonders why this is not true here. As with most generalizations, this one falls short in many instances and multiple posters report that grandparents are very involved in their children's lives, including by providing babysitting. Others though explain to the original poster that, for better or worse, American culture is focused on the nuclear family. Some posters point out that where cultural differences are concerned, "different" is not necessarily better or worse, it's just different. There are a number of posters who author substantive thoughtful posts and consider historical and socio-economic factors that have led to the primacy of the nuclear family. Financial explanations, in particular, get a lot of attention with some posters pointing out that poorer families are more likely to be intergenerational. But, DCUM is full of posters who get their spines up at anything vaguely resembling criticism of America. It's almost enough to make you wonder if DCUM is becoming more MAGA moms instead of urban moms. One poster, for instance, predictably suggests the original poster should return to the country from which she came. Others complain about immigrants that don't adopt American ways. At some point, several posters decided that the original poster must be Indian. Indians, like several other minorities, are frequently subjected to prejudice and rude treatment on DCUM. No surprise then that there are eventually posts like one accusing Indians of having no non-Indian friends and, therefore, not knowing what they are missing about American culture. For her part, probably thinking this is a rabbit hole in which she has no interest, the original poster seems to have abandoned the thread. At the more substantive end of the scale, were a few posts by immigrants who explained the other side of the original poster's coin. Grandparents in their original countries didn't necessarily live with their children purely out of love and an interest in providing childcare. Rather, financial realities meant that there were no other affordable options for the elderly. They lived with their children out of necessity, not choice. I am sure that just as there are a number of family arrangements based on a variety of factors in the US, the same is true of other countries as well. There can always be good and bad aspects to almost anything.

The final thread at which I'll look today was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum. Titled, "I truly do not understand the anti WFH sentiment", the original poster says that she would much rather work with someone who works from home but does a great job than someone who comes into the office but doesn't add that much value. She thinks those who favor returning to the office are small-minded and controlling. The first poster to respond says that this is similar to concerns people often have about welfare or being afraid that someone down the block is getting something they aren't. I've often thought this is true in many, though not all cases. Along those lines, I think the work from home debate often involves a lot of people telling on themselves. Those who suspect that others working from home are probably loafing, probably loafed when they worked from home. One proponent for working in an office claims that people need the human interaction that allows. This is rebutted by a poster saying that not everyone needs such interaction and even those who do don't necessarily need to have it in the office. The thread eventually focuses on posters' personal experiences. One poster who describes himself as a Vice President for Operations says that he put systems in place for tracking productivity and as long as employees meet their productivity requirements, he doesn't care where the work gets done. Another poster argues with this poster, for reasons I don't quite understand, trying to convince him that this attitude is wrong. The second poster brags about having worked multiple jobs simultaneously when working remotely. But, as long as this poster met his productivity metrics for all the jobs, I am not sure the VP would care. A more concerning revelation was that the poster appeared to boast about sharing confidential information between companies. The personal experiences described by others include both good and bad experiences with working from home. If any conclusion can be drawn, it's that there must be effective ways to track work productivity. Otherwise employees will either abuse working from home or be suspected of doing so by others.