Monday's Most Active Posts

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.

Second in number replies and third in number of views was a thread titled, "Will the middle class be able to afford a home?" in the "Real Estate" forum. The original poster provides some pretty compelling math to illustrate the impact of rising interest rates on mortgage payments and asks if the resulting increase — which is significant — will make homes unaffordable to the middle class. This again is a thread that I haven't read, but the first page shows mostly posts that either support interest rate increases or suggest alternatives to a single family houses. The original poster doesn't seem to get much sympathy. I also looked at the last page and by then the discussion appears to have diverted to talking about schools.

Second in number of views and third in number of replies was a thread in the "Tweens and Teens" forum titled, "My teen wants a $80+ hoodie". The OP apparently asked her child why he/she likes an $80+ dollar hoodie the most and the child replied, "Does it matter?" Predictably, I haven't read this thread but the first page has lots of replies suggesting that since the shirt would likely be worn more frequently, on a "cost per wear" basis the hoodie made sense. Some posters suggested making the teen earn the garment, giving is a holiday or birthday gift, or splitting the cost. A couple replies also concentrated on the rather rude response. I can share my own experience with teens and say that a request for a hoodie in that price range is not unusual and, in fact, may be getting away cheaply. Though, I normally get more substantive, if not entirely convincing, justifications for the expense than this poster did.

A thread titled, "Would you allow your spouse to have an open relationship in this circumstance?" in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum was fourth in replies and fifth in views yesterday. The original post outlines a detailed set of circumstances emanating from a spouse's desire to engage in a same-sex relationship. I haven't even skimmed this thread and, as such, can't say anything about it. However, my inclination based on similar threads in the past is that it has not gone well. The ad networks that support DCUM are very sensitive to what they describe as "adult content" which, as near as I can tell, is defined as "whatever we think it is whether or not there is any basis whatsoever for thinking that." My experience suggests that this thread will soon be labeled "adult content" and for that — as well as due to it likely have gone well off the rails anyway — it will have to be removed.

Reversing the previous thread's order of number of views and replies was a thread in the "Jobs and Careers" forum titled, "Goldman Sachs plans biggest shake up in firm’s Wall Street history". The original post links to a Daily Mail article about a planned reorganization at Goldman Sachs. In my opinion, the Daily Mail is the trash heap of news sources and linking to it almost immediately discredits any post. Moreover, the original poster makes this a debate about working from home, something that's already been had a million times. Of course I would not waste time reading this thread, but glancing over it suggests that it is primarily a debate about working from home with the added benefit of being a fight about "Gen X’ers" and "Boomers". If there is anything that could turn me off more from a thread than a Daily Mail link, it is the use of generational labels in this manner. I'm almost inclined to nuke this thread based on general principles alone, but for now I'll let it go.