Friday's Most Active Threads

Before I get started discussing the most active threads I want to explain a change I've made to my methodology for identifying which threads are most active. Prior to today, I only considered threads that were created during the time frame being discussed. That is generally the prior day but on Sundays it is the previous week and on Mondays it is the prior weekend. Doing this overlooked threads that were created earlier but received a high number of replies or views during the relevant timeframe. It also generally meant that threads created late in the day had little chance of making the most active list. Starting today, I will no longer limit threads to those created during the time period being discussed, but will rank them by number of replies within the timeframe regardless of when the thread was created. Because views are recorded as a simple incremental number in a topic's record, there are no dates associated with them as there are with replies. So, I have no easy way of telling how many views occurred during a specific period and, therefore, the most viewed threads will still be determined based on when a thread was created. I will use a combination of the most views and most replies to somewhat arbitrarily determined the top threads. The bottom line is that while there will still be some subjectivity in determining the most active threads, the list of threads with the most replies will no longer depend on when threads were created.

The most active thread yesterday regardless of methodology was titled, "Should the guy always pay?" and was posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she knows a man who makes a lot of money but gets upset if a woman doesn't start offering to pay for dates after the first few. This continues the trend I mentioned yesterday of relationship topics concentrating on money. The original poster implies that she would expect a wealthy man to always pay for dates but would expect to split costs with someone who made the same or equal to her. At root of many of these money-related threads is the issue of women's financial independence, something that is increasingly a goal for women and something that is becoming more common. In that vein, many of the responses in this thread addressed the relevance, if any, of a man's paying or not paying for dates to the financial arrangements that might be expected in a marriage. Would a man's paying mean that he also expected to be the sole bread winner while his wife stayed at home? This was answered every way possible. Alternatively, it was argued that a woman paying was an important assertion of her financial independence with the implication being that she had no plans to rely entirely on her husband's income. Other posters suggested that there is a danger of dates being transactional in that, if the man paid, he could expect romantic favors in return. In response, posters claimed that the man paying was an indication of generosity and appreciation and provided a window to his character. Much of the thread is dominated by debates about feminism and how it impacts this topic. Is a woman paying a feminist gesture, an actual requirement of feminism, or not at all related to feminism? Each characterization is argued, argued, and argued again. At some point the thread devolved into the female version of penis measuring when several posters began arguing which of them was the most beautiful, best educated, and wealthiest. I didn't read this part of the thread close enough to understand the significance of the debate, but I admit to being intrigued, if confused, by one response describing another poster as a "delusional Russian". I'd like to say that is strange for a thread to go from "who pays for dinner" to discussing a Russian woman who is top 1% in brains, top 1% in income, and a 9 out of 10 in looks. But on DCUM that's just another Friday.

The second thread that I'll discuss would not have been considered under the old way of identifying most active threads. Titled, "Harry and Meghan on Netflix episodes for five and six positivity and friendly comments only please" the thread, which was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, was created at close to 11 pm on Thursday and, as such, did not have time to get enough replies to be a top thread on Friday. However, the number of posts it received on Friday put it near the top of today's list. Given the topic of the thread and the history on DCUM of British Royal Family threads in general and Harry and Meghan threads in particular, this might be an argument for doing things the old way. Several threads have been started discussing the "Harry & Meghan" documentary showing on Netflix. Like all threads about the Sussexes they have been taken over by insane Meghan-haters, many of them displaying thinly-veiled — if veiled at all — racism. As such, those threads have all ended up locked or deleted. The original poster of this thread attempted to avoid the pitfalls of the other threads by emphasizing that only friendly comments were welcome. Nevertheless, this thread also ultimately ended up getting locked. I really don't understand disliking someone so much that you can't stop writing about them. This is especially ironic when the main complaint about Meghan seems to be that she is an attention seeker. Complaining about someone being an attention seeker by giving them attention doesn't seem to me to be an especially well thought-out strategy, but what do I know? There was a time when the Meghan fans were just as bad as the haters and, frankly, I couldn't stand either group. However, Meghan's extreme fans have either given up on DCUM or improved their behavior because they really aren't an issue these days. The other major topic of this thread — as best as I can tell without doing more than skimming over it — is Meghan's hair. I didn't read closely enough to know the details, but there is much discussion about her hair. If posters could just stick to discussing the documentary, these threads might survive longer. But, that seems to be an unrealistic expectation.

A thread titled, "$2M Sale and realtor thanked us with a Yeti." and posted in the "Real Estate" forum was the third most active thread of the day. The original poster complains that she sold a $2 million house and only received a Yeti tumbler as a gift from the realtor. The original poster is insulted and would rather not have received anything at all. The original poster was so upset by this, in fact, that she sock puppeted several times throughout the thread in order to emphasize just how poorly the original poster had been treated. I know nothing about the original poster but I suspect that anyone whose personality is such that they would not only start a thread about their lack of appreciation for a gift, but then sock puppet that thread, is probably not the best client. In that case, the Yeti was probably not simply a cheap gift, but more likely the realtor's way of sending a message. In response to the original poster's complaint, several posters said that they never received gifts from realtors and would value a commission discount much more highly. Others described gifts that they had received, some highly appreciated and some not so much. There is really no agreement as to the need for gifts with some posters opining that real estate transactions are simply business deals. One poster compared expecting a gift from a realtor to shopping at Safeway and expecting the cashier to hand you a thank you note. In general, the DCUM real estate forum holds realtors in low esteme and some posters never miss a chance to bash them. So the thread has a number of posts denigrating realtors in general.

The last thread at which I'll look is another one that wouldn't have been considered under the old methodology. Created way back in April, a thread titled, "Elon Musk buys $3 billion stake (9.2%) in Twitter and is now the platform's largest shareholder" and posted in the "Political Discussion" forum was originally created when Elon Musk bought an interest in Twitter. As anyone following the saga knows, Musk later made an offer to buy Twitter entirely, then tried to get out of his commitment to buy the company, only to reverse himself and go on to purchase Twitter. As the original post of the thread says, "Musk calls himself a free speech absolutist and has expressed his dismay over Twitter censorship for a while". The reason this thread burst into the top threads in number of replies yesterday is due to Musk's own actions to censor Twitter posts and reveal his commitment to free speech as being far from absolute. Musk has long harbored animosity toward the @elonjet account which used publicly available information to post about takeoffs and landings of Musk's private jet. Not long ago, Musk claimed that his support for free expression was so strong that he would not ban the account. However, after an incident of sorts involving a car, one of Musk's children, and someone Musk described as a stalker, Musk changed Twitter's terms of service to ban any mentions of anyone's real time location. This resulted in the @elonjet account, along with several similar accounts, being suspended. When reporters tweeted about the suspension, their accounts were suspended as well. Moreover, Twitter began blocking any links to competing social networks such as Mastodon and Post. This is especially ironic given that Musk has been promoting "The Twitter Files", the first installment of which detailed Twitter's blocking links to a New York Post article about Hunter Biden's laptop. Musk is using the same technology used to block the NY Post article to block Mastodon and Post. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Most of yesterday's discusion in the thread consisted of liberals outraged at the suspensions and accusing Musk of hypocrisy or worse and conservatives believing that they were conducting the world's greatest own by saying that Twitter, as a private company, could implement any terms of service it wished. The conservatives' point is correct, but that was never disputed by anyone. Moreover, since conservatives — including Musk — had until recently spent considerable energy complaining about the same company's terms of service, this only highlighted how they have flipped on the issue. Today Musk has apparently lifted some of the suspensions and the reporters have been able to return to Twitter. The @elonjet account remains suspended.