DCUM Weblog

Yesterday's highest ranking thread in both number of replies and number of views was titled, "Pelosi’s husband assaulted during breakin" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. This thread nearly doubled both the reply and view count of the second leading thread, coming it at a whopping 23 pages in a single day. For the benefit of those of you living in unelectrified caves, Paul Pelosi, husband of the US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked by an intruder with a hammer and seriously injured. The initial focus of the thread was on the identity of the attacker with some suggesting the individual was likely provoked by violent MAGA rhetoric and others claiming it was simply an example of the type of crime that Democrats are allegedly encouraging in cities.

The thread leading in number of replies yesterday, and third in number of views was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "FCPS new FLE curriculum", the thread is about a proposed curriculum for "Family Life Education", or what was once called "sex education". This has become a very contentious issue — especially in Virginia — because a significant number of parents are convinced that schools are turning their children gay or transgendered. A lot of hysteria, much of it manufactured, surrounds the topic. In fact, I removed one multi-page thread on this topic because it was so full of misinformation that it was not possible to simply clean it up. Despite starting over from scratch, this thread still managed to lead the day in replies. Almost all of the discussion is focused on semantic changes such replacing the terms "girls" and "boys" with the phrases "assigned male at birth" or "assigned female at birth" and the fact that classes that used to be separated by gender are proposed to be combined. The fact that a child assigned male at birth will have to sit in a room with another child assigned female at birth and learn about menstruation is just too much for many parents.

The thread that led in both views and replies yesterday was titled, "Everyone's Too Busy to Be Friends" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. I am not sure this is the correct forum since the original post seems to deal with adult friends. So, I may move this thread eventually. The original poster describes a fairly common scenario. Her family has recently moved to the area and other families that she meets are too busy to get together. She is asking for advice about how to make friends. I skimmed the thread and it looked like there was a lot of advice offered, as well as many posters describing being in the same boat (they should have a meet-up). I notice that almost anytime someone describes a struggle they are having, someone will show up to post about how they don't have that issue, but not offer any helpful advice. I'm not sure of the purpose of such posts which don't seem to have a malicious intent, but basically pile on and add to the original poster's misery. This thread had just such a poster who, to put it mildly, didn't receive a very warm welcome. That poster certainly didn't make any friends in this thread.

I've frequently mentioned that I'm baffled at which threads get traction and gain lots of engagement. That is especially true in the case of yesterday's leader in both replies and views. The thread, titled, "One of them is lying to me - the cleaners or the neighbor", was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. In a fairly lengthy post, the original poster explains that her neighbor's daughter — apparently a drug addict in recovery — allegedly smelled marijuana coming from a car belonging to the original poster's house cleaners'. The cleaners are said to be Mexican and possibly undocumented. The original poster texted this accusation to the cleaners who reacted by calling it racial profiling and racist. The cleaners strongly denied the allegation and cancelled the original poster as a client. The original poster doesn't know whether to believe her neighbor or the cleaners.

I think for the first time in this series, yesterday the top five threads in number of replies were perfectly aligned with the top five threads in number of views. The leader in both metrics was a thread titled, "Yay! Another religious holiday!" in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster complains that Fairfax County schools were closed yesterday for Diwali. Moreover, according to the original poster, this is the fault of "liberals" who removed the entanglement of Christianity and school holidays while adding holidays for other religions. Taking the original poster at face value, one must conclude that Fairfax County liberals are incompetent because the county's schools are closed on the Christian holiday of Christmas and the week leading up to the the Christian holiday of Easter. Schools are even closed for Orthodox Christian Good Friday. Liberals have apparently utterly failed to disentangle Christianity and holidays. A more likely explanation is that the original poster is simply full of it.

Today I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. On Saturday I created a new forum titled, "The DCUM Book Club". Posters have long been asking for a dedicated forum for book discussions. While such threads have been successful in the Entertainment forum, they tend to get buried in the discussions about celebrities and television shows. It is fitting that on the weekend of its debut, a thread from the forum would top the list of threads with the most replies.

Titled, "Name a popular book you didn't like", the thread was also second in number of views. The original poster explains that she wanted to discuss books that she didn't like and specifically singles out Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings". It is a little disconcerting that in a forum created out of reverence for books, a thread about disliking books would lead. On the other hand, probably the only book thread I ever personally created was about not liking J. D. Vances's "Hillbilly Elegy". When I started that thread back in 2016, I felt a bit like a heretic because the book appeared to be receiving nothing but praise. I think my criticisms have held up and my skepticism has proven warranted. Moreover, I noticed that the book was mentioned several times in this thread as a book posters didn't like. So, I'm glad to see that my opinion is not as lonely as it seemed back then.

Today I'll look at the most active threads during the past week. I'll skip any threads that were already mentioned in the daily updates. This week, a lot of the threads with the most engagement have already been mentioned so I am kind of getting into second tier today. With that said, one of the threads leading in number of replies was titled, "law school?" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. This thread was not in the top ten for number of views and I also didn't notice it until now. The thread may be low key and under the radar, but it appears to be full of helpful advice. The original poster asks for thoughts about attending law school, such as whether to go directly after college, what speciality to pursue, or other considerations. DCUM, being full of attorneys, is a good place to ask for such advice and, indeed, the thread has reached 15 pages with, as far as I can tell, little to no trolling or off-topic arguing.

The leading thread in both number of replies and number of views was posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. Titled, "slur during last nights FCPS Board mtg", the original post inquires about a rumor that during a school board meeting a school board member said, "we can't be this (r word) about this". The first reply confirmed the rumor and called for the school board member's resignation. In recent years, school board meetings — especially in northern Virginia — have become something of a full contact sport, rivalling Roman circuses as spectator events. It is fitting, therefore, that a school board meeting would push a thread to the top of our charts. I'm sure it won't be the last time.

Before posters could really dig in discussing the slur in question, the thread made what appears to be almost obligatory diversion to posts about Ibram X. Kendi, the current bugaboo of the right wing who seems to be hiding under every school desk in America. Anything involving eduction triggers an almost Pavlovian response in some posters to condemn Kendi whether he has anything to do with it or not. Once that was out of the way, most responses turned toward criticizing the use of the term, but arguing that an apology (which was quickly issued) was sufficient. While some posters appear to have authentic concerns about the slur in question, most posters appeared to be balancing their dislike of the specific school board member with their absolute disdain for "cancel culture", resulting in many posters listing multiple unfavorable characteristics of the school board member before coming to her defense in this instance. Much time was wasted by posters saying this entire controversy was a waste of time.

Yesterday's thread with the most replies and views was titled, "6th grade DD is being excluded from social events with longtime friends". Posted in the "Tweens and Teens" forum, the original post expands on the subject line, detailing how the poster's 6th grade daughter has been getting a cold shoulder from a group of longtime friends. I hadn't seen this thread until just now, despite it reaching 10 pages of replies. That indicates that the thread must be very low drama since nobody found a post in it worth reporting. Indeed, looking at a few posts throughout the thread — I am not up to reading the entire thing — it looks like most responses were empathetic and helpful. I noticed the original poster provided a fairly heartfelt post on the 7th page thanking the responders. That was nice to see. DCUM has a well-earned reputation for nastiness, but I've always felt that the good outweighed the bad — even if that required some pretty creative accounting to establish. But this type of thread really highlights the positives of our community. Normally it takes controversy to generate clicks. It was nice to see that this thread was an exception to that rule.

The "College and University Discussion" forum was on fire yesterday with three out of the top four threads coming from that forum. The thread with the most replies — by some measure — and the second most views was titled, "Schools That Aren't Easy to Get To". The parent of a high school junior says that as she has started thinking about higher education, the fact that many schools under consideration are in locations to which it is difficult to travel has become a concern. The original poster asks how much of a factor this has been for others. It was surprising to me that, despite the significant lead in number of replies this thread received, I was not aware of it until just now. I just took a quick glance through the 7 page thread and, as far as I can tell, the thread has stayed on-topic and contains mostly helpful replies. Frankly, that is rather remarkable for the Colleges forum.