DCUM Weblog

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.

Leading in both number of replies and number of views yesterday was a thread in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum titled, "African parents please weigh in on manners". I thought the original post was interesting, relating how a fellow parent who is from a West African country had told the original poster that the original poster's child does not acknowledge them when the child sees them and that this is considered rude in the other parent's culture. Children are expected to initiate greetings to elders. The original poster was wondering if this is truly an expectation.

The first reply stated that this was also an old school American tradition while responders from various parts of Africa confirmed that it was the expected practice. However, some replies were defensive and critical of the African parent. One poster even threatened physical violence toward the other parent which reminds me that DCUM does have its share of Internet tough guys who are incredibly brave when hiding behind anonymous posts. Unfortunately, the main takeaway from this thread is that DCUM posters of all cultures can probably work on improving their manners as the thread broke out in name calling and petty bickering. Things got so bad that I eventually locked the thread.

As I've mentioned before, the Political Discussion forum is normally the most active forum. Despite that, it has only made one appearance in previous posts in this series. Today marks the second time. A thread titled, "NYT: Independent Women Flocking to GOP" led in both replies and views yesterday. The thread is about a poll published by the New York Times showing that independent women who had recently favored Democrats have shifted and now favor Republicans. I haven't read all of the 12 page thread, though I've removed several off-topic posts that were reported. Any thread involving women and politics these days will immediately turn towards reproductive healthcare and abortion and this thread did exactly that. The Republican talking point used to counter complaints that women are losing bodily autonomy is to point to vaccine mandates. As a result, much of the thread is used to rehash this debate which has already been held in numerous other threads.

From the very beginning of the series I've mentioned how the active threads make me feel out of touch with this website, despite owning and operating it for nearly two decades. This weekend's threads with the most engagement reemphasize that feeling.

Leading this weekend in number of replies and second in number of views was a thread posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum titled, "How upset would you be? Close friend missing my DD's wedding." The original poster writes that one member of a group of four close friends of hers is unable to attend her daughter's wedding due to the date conflicting with that of a co-worker's wedding. This despite the group of five friends excitedly talking about the wedding for over a year. In all honesty, I am baffled that this topic would interest anyone, yet it reached 18 pages of replies in just two days. At least one poster must have also thought things were a bit strange because I received a report asking if the original poster was trolling (she wasn't). I haven't read the thread other than a few posts here and there just to see what was going on. As best I can tell, most of the discussion is a back and forth about the importance of the other wedding to the friend and why it got the nod over the original poster's daughter's wedding. For her part, the original poster appears to have accepted whatever advice she was offered and seems to have reconciled herself to the situation.

Today I'll look at the most active threads during the last week. I'll skip over threads that were already mentioned in the daily updates, though that limits the number that I can discuss. However, that is not the case with the first thread which didn't appear in the daily posts. Titled, "Friend with bad child being iced out of friend group" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum, this thread had the most replies and second most views during the week.

The thread describes the child of the original poster's friend who has hurt other children and caused damage to the house during get togethers. The original poster is now avoiding the child and has learned that other parents are doing the same. The original poster wonders whether she should address this with the other mother. I haven't read the thread but it did come to my attention during the week because it had devolved to lots of name-calling and inane arguing. At that time I locked the thread. Looking at the first page today, I see that several posters objected to the description of the child as a "bad boy" while several others suggested outdoor playdates.

The leading thread in number of replies yesterday was titled, "If you had the money, would you raise your kids in NYC?" and posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. The original post is succinct, simply asking whether if you could afford a suitable apartment, good schools, activities, and travel you would raise your family in New York City. I didn't know about this thread until just now and I'm not convinced that it is posted in the correct forum. Nevertheless, scanning through replies there are a lot of posters who would not raise their children in NYC. There also appear to be a few posters who are already doing it. I noticed more than one post in which the author declared animosity towards NYC based on experiences during college with a New Yorker. It's probably time to let those grudges go and to consider whether a single person is really reflective of the entire 8 million NYC residents.

In what I think is a first in this series, the thread with the highest number of replies was posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. Titled, "Why does the default activity for kids seem to be sports?", the original poster describes her child who dislikes sports, preferring art, dance, and music. The original poster feels this is an anomaly because other families are heavily devoted to sports. The thread managed 12 pages in less than a day, but since I haven't read it, I can't really say anything about it. I took a look at the last page and see that most of the posts there are about boys and art and music lessons. Since the original poster's child is a girl, I guess the thread didn't stay completely on topic.

The "Political Discussion" forum is very active — generally the most active of all of the forums — but I don't think it has produced a most active thread yet in this series. That changed yesterday with a thread titled, "Jan 6 Committee hearings - 10/13/22" which led in number of views and was second in number of replies. I removed many posts from that thread that were reported as inappropriate, so it probably actually had the most replies for the day. DCUM's userbase, reflecting the DC-area, is predominantly liberal. However, the "Political Discussion" forum has managed to attract every stray conservative in the area plus a considerable number from other parts of the country. Because these folks tend to post incessantly — all the time complaining about how unfairly they are being treated — the forum often seems to be dominated by conservatives. As such, a thread about a hearing that was heavily focused on former President Donald Trump's culpability for the January 6 attack on the Capitol was frequently sidetracked by posts blaming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, President Joe Biden, and other Democrats. One would almost think that it was Hunter Biden speaking at the Ellipse and provoking events.

Yesterday's threads with the most engagement included one involving Florida and several relationship topics. While I noticed the thread titled, "Why do people like Florida?" that was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, I hadn't read it until just now. I did see that the thread was growing rapidly and I thought that it would be a top thread. Indeed, it reached 15 pages by this morning. I assumed that it had turned political — everything involving Florida does these days — and that is exactly what had happened. So, after reading just a few posts this morning, I locked the thread. We have two very active political forums and if posters want to have political discussions, they are more than welcome to do so in those forums. However, political discussions in other forums are not appreciated. Florida has been getting so much attention on DCUM over the past several weeks that I should probably consider a dedicated Florida forum.

For the first time since I started writing this series of posts there wasn't a thread or two that stood out well above the rest in numbers of replies or views. Instead, several threads were all very close to one another. Among the threads at the top were a range of topics, including working moms, mother-in-laws, nuclear survival, and New England.

One constant in the DCUM forums is debates about "work out of the house moms" or WOHMs vs "stay at home moms" or SAHMs. When I saw that the top thread in number of replies was titled, "Working moms - how do you…" I immediately assumed that this thread had turned into such a battle. Indeed, the thread, which was posted in the "Jobs and Careers" forum, appears to have gone in that direction for a bit. However, it doesn't look like the thread was completely hijacked. Instead it looks like much of the conversation turned instead to questioning the role of husbands and dads. Nevertheless, there appears to have been quite a few substantive responses so hopefully the thread was generally helpful.

Once again I have not read any of yesterday's most active topics. But, at least this time the topics didn't make me question where I went wrong in life. The topics might not be my cup of tea, but I can still understand the interest in them.

Leading in both numbers of replies and number of views was a thread titled, "Professor who uses 'third world' country" in the "Off-Topic" forum. The OP describes a professor who uses the term "third world" to describe poor countries. The OP doesn't ask a question or say much more than just that, so responders had quite a bit of leeway with their replies. Some time back in ancient history, some folks thought it might be a good idea to choose words and language that were less offensive than that used at the time. This became known as the "political correctness" or PC movement. That quickly inspired others to become "anti-PC". To hear them tell it, they were brave proponents of free expression because they weren't afraid to offend someone. But, whatever you do, don't call them deplorable. That's simply not acceptable.