Thursday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was the school shooting thread that I already discussed and, therefore, will skip today. The most active thread after that was titled, "WSJ Rankings 2025" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Apparently this is the college ranking season and we will probably have as many threads as there are different rankings. Based on what we've seen so far, every one of them will be controversial. This list was developed by the Wall Street Journal and College Pulse. The rankings in the list was determined by how well colleges set students up for financial success. That makes this list a bit different than others. What is not different is that the list is topped by Princeton, something that seems to be fairly common. However, in second place is Babson College, a school that I don't recall have ever heard of previously. Though that may well say more about me than the school. Many posters expressed surprise about Bentley University which was ranked 11th and is another school of which I have never heard. While some posters expressed appreciation for the list, many more were critical of it. If anything, reaction was very polarized with posters either hating the list or loving it with not many in between. There were, of course, lots of reactions to the placement of specific schools. Virginia Tech at 19th surprised and, in many cases, excited posters. The same was true of Towson University which was ranked 40th. One thing this list does is draw attention to a topic on which I have commented several times and which is really starting to become my pet issue with regard college education. Is the purpose of college to educate in the broadest sense of that term or to simply be an on-ramp to a high salary? I have tended to personally land somewhere between the middle and the eduction end of the spectrum. I don't think college should be a glorified vocational school but I also think that it is important to be able to command a living wage upon graduation. This list is clearly weighted toward the opposite end of the spectrum, prioritizing high salaries. However, I have difficulty believing that Princeton is not providing a broad education so it's place at the top may be somewhat redeeming. Many posters praised the rankings because they were based on actual data and, therefore, believed to be more objective. But posters may be familiar with the saying that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics." Several posters criticized the methodology which they viewed as fundamentally flawed. As one poster colorfully put it, "it's like measuring your schwantz from the floor up. Does not give an accurate measurement of what it claims to. It's data, not information."

The next most active thread yesterday was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. Titled, "If you know of a very short marriage, what was the reason for divorce?", the original poster describes the reasons for two marriages ending very quickly and asks if others know of similar short marriages and why they ended. As it turns out, many posters know of very short marriages, in some cases, several of them. However, this thread was really dominated by a rabid troll. Among the mental cases that show up on DCUM, this troll has a special place. I may have even written about her before. There are a number of topics with which she routinely engages and when she gets her teeth into a thread, she is unrelenting. One topic about which she has very firm opinions is marriage. Women are not only expected to marry, but to marry the perfect partners. According to her, any mistake is purely the fault of the woman and entirely inexcusable. She really had no reason to participate in this thread. She had no stories of short marriages or anything related to the topic. Instead, she choose to kibitz every story that others had. If a husband turned violent shortly after marriage, leading to a quick divorce, the troll claimed that the woman should have known about the guy's violent tendencies before marrying him. Therefore, it was her fault and her own personal failure to find herself in such a situation. No matter what happened to cause spouses to part, the troll was adamant that it should have been predictable and it was the woman's fault that she ignored the signs. The troll accused a number of posters of lying about their circumstances. If a poster offered any sort of sympathy or support in response to explanations of short marriages, the troll would accuse the poster of pandering to victimhood. The troll even began sock puppeting responses to her own posts. When I discovered the troll posts this morning, I removed them and responses to them from the thread. As a result, the thread is about half of its original length. Looking at the troll's other posts, she was very active in a number of threads over the past couple of days, posting well over 100 posts. I'll try to remove them, but I don't know if I'll have time.

Next was a thread titled, "Barely into the 2nd week of school and unhinged parents filed a bullying complaint against my 2nd grader" and posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum. The original poster posted a rather lengthy message but to summarize, her 7-year-old son and some other boys of the same age were rough-housing after school and the original poster's son, as well as at least one other boy, attempted to jump on a third boy's back. The third boy is known to get upset easily. Moreover, the original poster and her husband don't seem to like the boys parents much. The third boy's father texted the original poster's husband complaining about the incident and calling the original poster's son a "jerk". The original poster's husband ignored the text and didn't respond. The other boy's parents reported the incident to the school and now an official bullying investigation is being conducted. The original poster wants to know what she can expect. Generally, posters advise the original poster to allow the investigation to play out and to cooperate fully. If there was no bullying, then nothing will be found. A number of posters blame the original poster and her husband for not being more responsive to the other family and for allowing their feelings about the parents to interfere with their acknowledging that the other boy had been upset by the incident. These posters think that the original poster and her husband could have defused the situation if they would have been more sympathetic to the other boy and discussed the incident with the other family. Frankly, if the original poster's version of events is accurate, I don't think what happened is a very big deal. It certainly is not worthy of reporting to the principal and conducting a formal investigation over. I agree with a poster who wrote, "One incident of your son being too physical when playing needs to be addressed, but isn't bullying and doesn't need an investigation." I do agree that the incident of roughhousing should be addressed, but it sounds like the original poster has already done that. Many of the posters who respond view things differently and, as DCUM posters are want to do, make a very big deal out of this indeed. Some posters believe that the original poster and her husband's ignoring the other father's text indicates that the original poster and her family may not be as innocent as the original poster would have us believe. Some posters theorize that there may have been other incidents prior to this one and that an investigation is justified. A few posters take the completely opposite view and argue that the other boy and his parents are the bullies. According to this view, the text that the other father sent was abusive due to the name-calling and immediately triggering an investigation was aggressive and unnecessary. Taken together, this is bullying behavior. The upshot of this thread is that posters can't agree who is the bully or if there was any bullying at all.

The final thread that I will discuss today was posted in the "Travel Discussion" forum. Titled, "Why italy is so popular this year?", the original poster says that she knows a lot of people taking trips to Italy this summer and fall and asks whether there is something particularly special about Italy this year. Those responding don't seem to know anything special this year. However, most posters say that Italy is fabulous any year. Also, next year is a jubilee year which is very important to Catholics and will cause huge crowds. Therefore, some travellers may be choosing this year in order to avoid next year. A few posters opine that Italy is popular for inexperienced travellers who may not be adventurous enough to travel elsewhere. One phenomenon that this thread highlights is the existence of posters who haunt the travel forum who simply hate the entire concept of tourism, viewing it as low-class and lacking authenticity. One posters exhibits this attitude by writing, "Italy is for tourists, not travelers". Another poster responds by saying, "There's this entire smug and self-satisfied segment of the population that seems to think only certain travel experiences are authentic...Instead of going to Rome and seeing the Collosseum or the Vatican Museums, they'll tell you it's far superior to visit some backwater village and slum it with the locals". The rest of the thread is mostly a debate between these two concepts of visiting abroad. I get really fed up with the smug "travelers" who I have seen disrupt many threads. It's not that I disagree with them necessarily, but both "tourism" and "travel" have their place. The idea that someone would go to visit Italy but purposely avoid all of the tourist designations is ridiculous. It's like coming on a vist to Washington, DC but ignoring the White House, Capitol Building, and all the Smithsonian museums. I guess you can stay in Anacostia and visit the Big Chair if you want points for authenticity. The distain for those who choose to visit tourist sights might be better saved for those who vacation at all-inclusive resorts in the Caribbean where their only interaction with local culture is with the staff of the hotel. At any rate, this thread got sidetracked into debates about whether visitors should see tourist sites or attempt to experience the life of average Italians. This led to a discussion of what life is like for average Italians and how that compares to the lives of Americans. In the midst of all of this there are a handful of posters who don't like Italy at all and would never go there unless forced to. "Italy is an overtouristed dump," says one such poster. True that may be, but if you want to visit the Vatican or see the Colosseum, that's where you have to go.