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Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Big 15??" and posted in the "Private & Independent Schools" forum. The original poster provided a list of 15 private and independent schools and suggested that posters rank them using various criteria that the original poster provided. The original poster also said that others could not add or subtract from the list. Almost from the beginning of this forum's creation there has been an obsession among some posters with the rank of schools. There have been bitter battles waged over which schools should be considered the "Big 3". The "Big 3" or "Big 5" or even the "Big 10" has been so contentious that the forum even has a "sticky" post on the topic. Expanding the list to the "Big 15" may be taking things a bit too far and the stipulation that schools cannot be added or removed seems a kind of controlling if I am honest. But, as you would expect from DCUM in general, and this forum in particular, posters are not too concerned about following rules. Before the first page was complete posters had already started adding and removing schools. The position of various schools in the original poster's list is disputed with boosters of particular schools arguing that they should be higher on the list and detractors arguing they should be lower. These disputes are sometimes accompanied by derogatory comments such as those accusing both Holton and Georgetown Day School supporters of being "delusional". The thing about a thread like this is that the original poster knows it will turn into a train wreck and everyone replying knows that it will be a train wreck. Yet, they can't help themselves. I probably received a half dozen reports about this thread from posters complaining that it is a train wreck. Of course it is, why would anyone expect anything else? I finally locked the thread this morning mostly so I could write this post without being interpreted by additional reports about it. The original poster had warned against adding BASIS Independent McLean, a member of the BASIS independent school network that has become quite controversial. The school, normally referred to as "BIM" on DCUM, has a group of extreme boosters who I've repeatedly caught sock puppetting supportive posts. The boosters tend to stake their claim for the school's superiority on ratings by Niche, a website that collects data and reviews about schools. I really know nothing about Niche and can't comment on the accuracy or validity of it ratings. BIM supporters and detractors obviously hold contrary opinions of the website. Despite the original poster's prohibition on adding BIM to the list, a BIM booster was not to be stopped and promptly put BIM at number 1 in her list. Then, true to form, the poster immediately sock puppetted a response quoting her own post and describing the list as "Very accurate". Other posters attempted to add public schools to the list, creating their own controversy. Just to be clear, I think any thread of this nature is pretty stupid and a waste of time. If your ego is so fragile that it hinges on whether your kids' school is number 1 or number 5 on a list, you would probably be better off spending money on therapy than private school. The only redeeming value of such threads is that the vast majority of posters don't take them seriously.