Monday's Most Active Threads

The most active thread yesterday was, unfortunately, about the British Royal Family. Titled, "New Princess Catherine video", and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the original poster made about as little effort as possible starting this thread. She simply wrote that a "stunning" video involving Catherine, The Princess of Wales, was available on Youtube, not even bothering to link to the video. Yet, this was enough to create the most active thread of the day. In the video, which I must stress I have not watched, Catherine apparently announces that she has completed her chemotherapy treatment. Immediately posters reacted critically, complaining that the video was overproduced and boring. The few posters who were glad to see Kate seeming to be in good health and who wished her well were mostly drowned out by those who claimed not to care about her or the Royal Family in general. In fact, those posters cared so little that they posted about how little they cared. That, of course, is the ultimate sign of not caring. Beyond that, a large portion of the thread was devoted to Catherine's hair, or more specifically, why she still has hair. Many posters expect that the chemo treatments would have caused the Princess to lose her hair, which based on this video, she hasn't. Posters had plenty of theories explaining this apparent discrepancy. There was also considerable discussion of Kate's specific medical condition. Many posters questioned how accurate of a story the public has been provided. They pointed out what they believe to be discrepancies or holes in the story. Getting back to the video itself, posters were unrelenting in their criticism. There were constant complaints that it was fake and simply a public relations effort. Posters described scene after scene as being "set up" and not natural. Not a single frame was safe from nitpicking. Fans of Kate posted every now and again, but their posts tended to be lost in the sea of criticism. As a result, many of fans resorted to reporting posts that they considered inappropriate. I received at least 10 reports about posts in this thread. Eventually it seemed that this thread would go nowhere and simply continue a cycle of critical posts and reports to me. As a result, I locked the thread which is the normal fate of most Royal Family threads.

Yesterday's next most active thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum and titled, "Yield Protection". DCUM's college forum has always had a number of posters fixated on "yield protection" which, for the uninitiated, is the practice by universities of prioritizing the admissions acceptance of applicants likely to actually enroll in the school. As such, colleges that practice yield protection are likely to reject students who have outstanding statistics based on the assumption that those students will be accepted by a better college and choose to attend that school instead. According to this theory, universities place significant value on their admissions yield. While my knowledge of this topic is not informed enough for my opinion to have any value whatsoever, I am instinctually doubtful that yield protection really exists to a significant extent. Rather, I suspect that "yield protection" is almost wholly an excuse used by students rejected by universities by which they believe that they should have been accepted. Nevertheless, as I noted, many posters in the forum are obsessed with yield protection and it comes up in almost any thread dealing with college admissions. The original poster of this thread cut directly to the chase and asked which colleges are known to practice yield protection. To my knowledge, no college or university has ever admitted that it practices yield protection. To the contrary, some schools publicly disclaim that they engage in yield protection. Therefore, no answer to the original poster's query can be anything other than guesswork. The primary "evidence" that a school practices yield protection is anecdotes about the school rejecting students who were accepted by higher-ranked colleges. As such, the list of universities that engage in yield protection exists mostly as lore rather than settled fact. Poster respond by naming schools that they believe practice yield protection but, almost as quickly, other posters deny that the school does any such thing. Many posters share my skepticism that yield protection is really much of a factor. Rather these posters point out that the admissions processes of top universities are opaque and, with low acceptance rates, many qualified students are rejected. Such rejections could be based on any number of factors other than yield protection. Several posters argue, and based on reading countless admissions threads I tend to agree, that for even the most qualified students, applying to top universities is a dice roll. As students apply to lower-ranked colleges, their odds in the dice roll increase, but a lot is still left to chance. When an applicant is accepted by a top 10 school but rejected by a top 20, it is likely that the student just got lucky with the higher-ranked school and unlucky with the second rather than some gamesmanship related to yield protection.

Next was a thread titled, "The debate" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum. The original poster wants to know if others will watch tonight's presidential debate and who they believe will win it. I came pretty close to deleting this thread immediately after it was created because I didn't think such a thread would be useful so far in advance of the debate. Nobody knows who will win and responses will just be from partisans touting their own candidate. Moreover, assuming reactions to the debate once it actually occurs are also posted to this thread, I won't be able to write about the more interesting posts because I don't discuss the same thread twice. The context of this debate is interesting. This will be the second presidential debate of this election season and the first one fundamentally changed the campaign by resulting in President Joe Biden being replaced as the Democratic candidate by Vice President Kamala Harris. Former President, current cult leader, and convicted felon Donald Trump has repeatedly engaged in the unconventional practice of setting low expectations for his debate opponents. More often, candidates will try to raise expectations for their opponents so high that they are impossible to meet. In the run up to Trump's debate with Biden, Trump set expectations for Biden so low that I argued that Biden only had to be able to stand upright for the length of the debate and correctly articulate his own name in order to exceed expectations. While Biden managed to accomplish those two goals, that was about the extent of what he was able to achieve that evening and the bar actually turned out to be somewhat higher. Trump is now repeating this habit and lowering expectations for Harris. It is doubtful, however, that Harris will collapse in the same manner as Biden. As is to be expected, posters in this thread mostly predict that their favored candidate will win the debate. Republicans predict that Harris will say nothing of substance, appear to be mean, and be soundly defeated by Trump. Democrats expect Trump to lie constantly and they hope that Harris will successfully fact check him. One of the wiser posts in my opinion suggested that the regardless of the truth of what happens, the right-wing media will spin the debate as a defeat for Harris, presenting it as one stumble after another. Meanwhile the mainstream media and left-leaning media will attempt to appear objective by subjecting both candidates to critical analysis. However, Trump's incoherent non sequiturs will be translated into understandable English that completely misrepresents the reality — Trumpslating if you will — while Harris' thoughtful and nuanced responses will be deeply probed for any vulnerability. This creates a no-win situation for Harris. My own feeling is that Harris is at her best when she is just being herself and at her worst when she is attempting to stick to preconceived talking points. This is probably the exact opposite of what many believe. Nevertheless, my sincere hope is that her debate preparation team does not over rehearse her, but rather allows her to react with spontaneity and authenticity.

The final thread that I will discuss today was originally posted in the "General Parenting Discussion" forum. However, I moved the thread to the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum once I saw it this morning. The thread was titled, "This isn't normal is it?" and the original poster describes her nine year old daughter who has anxiety and periodically has emotional meltdowns when things don't go her way. The daughter is already engaged in virtual therapy and neither the therapist nor her pediatrician have diagnosed ADHD, autism, any other neurocognitive disabilities despite the original poster repeatedly asking. The original poster would like to have a neuropsych evaluation done on her daughter but her husband doesn't think it is necessary since the therapist and pediatrician have not recommended it. Posters suggest various ways that the original poster can react to her daughter's outbursts beyond the original poster's current practice of attempting to simply ignore them. Other posters suggest therapy for the original poster that can give her the tools to react more appropriately and in a manner that might help her daughter control her emotions. Many posters suggest that the virtual therapy is not worthwhile and that the skills the therapist has been attempting to teach the daughter are not age appropriate. There are many suggestions that the original poster find a new therapist, particularly one who will meet in person. There are always difficulties diagnosing others through the limited online interaction that DCUM provides. This is even more true when neurological disorders are being discussed. Some posters suspect that the daughter may have ADHD despite her not having any obvious signs of the condition. One poster strongly argues that while the daughter may not meet the criteria for ADHD today, that may simply be due to her school being easy for her at this point. As she progresses in school, she may struggle more and reveal the characteristics of the disorder. While posters don't agree about whether the daughter may have ADHD or any other condition, there is quite a bit of support for getting a neuropsych evaluation regardless of her husband's preferences. They argue that this will give them answers and allow them to make better decisions about what to do next. A number of posters said that the way in which the original poster describes her daughter reminds them of themselves when they were young. They related their personal experiences overcoming emotional outbursts, something that took some of them several years.