Monday's Most Active Threads

Today I'll go over yesterday's most active threads. Since yesterday was Halloween, it's fitting that the post leading in replies and second in views was Halloween-themed. The thread, titled, "Why do some people give out full-sized candy bars for Halloween?" was posted in the "Off-Topic" forum. The original poster wonders if those who give out full-sized candy bars are trying to appear generous or believe the kids otherwise won't get enough candy. The poster decrees that this is unnecessary. Once again I am completely baffled by which threads attract engagement and I can only conclude that the original poster did not participate in trick or treating as a child. I know from my own experience a half century or so ago that the houses that gave out generous treats were the most popular and word of which homes those were quickly filtered through the children's grapevine. Indeed, the first page of the thread is filled with responses saying they do it because the children love it. Later in the thread some posts turn to the practicalities of giving out this sort of candy such as how much you need and/or go through. Still, why this thread generated 11 pages of replies will remain a mystery to me.

Capturing the top two slots in the opposite order of the previous thread was a thread titled, "Men, what does a woman wear to immediately attract your attention?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster asks men what clothing attracts enough attention to consider dating a woman. I am not going to read this thread which I consider naive and shallow. However, I can make two predictions that I am certain are correct. First, the thread will be filled with inappropriate posts and, second, most of the responses will be from women. Due to the first, I'll probably eventually have to remove the thread due to advertisers' policies. But until then, if anyone is interested in what women think attracts men, I'm sure this will be a very useful thread.

A thread titled, "Client meeting tomorrow in person and my son just tested positive for COVID" and posted in the "Health and Medicine" forum was third in both views and replies. The original poster assumes that she should skip a client meeting due to her exposure to her COVID-postive son. I haven't read the entire thread but a look at the first page suggests that most responders agree with her. A second poster added her own story involving possible COVID exposure and an upcoming client meeting. This created some confusion as posters mixed up the details of the two posters' situations. There were also a few responses from posters who thought it would be perfectly okay to attend the meeting. I would have thought that by now we all would be pretty well-versed in how to handle COVID exposure, but this thread shows there is still some debate.

It was a little hard to decide which thread was next in activity because there was little consistency between views and replies after the top three. However, a thread in the "College and University Discussion" forum was fourth in replies and fifth in views. The thread was simply titled, "WUSTL". The "College and University Discussion" forum has become very popular and it seems like threads from the forum are almost always among the most active. For those that don't know, WUSTL stands for "Washington University in St. Louis". The original poster's child is considering the school and wants to know the "vibe". Skimming through the thread, I am not sure there were many replies describing the vibe, but there were some informative posts by responders familiar with the school. Several had even attended at some point. As seems to happen with any college located in a city, there were replies from posters who appear to have done little more than Google crime statistics. The fact that there was a recent shooting in a high school located in the same city and that East St. Louis has high crime appeared important, despite East St. Louis being on the other side of the Mississippi River in a completely different state. There was also at least one example of a poster insulting the abilities of another poster's child. This is an unfortunate trend that plagues the forum.