DCUM Weblog

The most active thread yesterday was the Gaza war thread which is back on top after interest in the war was renewed due to Israel's repeated drone strikes on a convoy of World Central Kitchen aid workers, killing seven. Since I have already discussed that thread, I will move on to the next which was titled "UT Austin lays off DEI employees" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to an article in "The Hill" saying that in order to comply with a Texas law that bans Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion initiatives at public universities, the University of Texas at Austin has laid off 60 employees that were involved with DEI. The original poster, who is a proponent of DEI programs, asks if anyone is removing the university from their list of colleges to pursue. DEI is the lastest in a series of right-wing bugaboos following affirmative action and critical race theory (CRT) that have been hijacked by right-wingers to promote the idea that White people are the true victims of racism. There is a well-funded political infrastructure devoted to "exposing" DEI and generating opposition to it. That effort seems to have had considerable success in convincing White people, and to an extent Asians, that they are being discriminated against in favor of less qualified minorities. As such, a number of those responding express happiness that the DEI program is being eliminated and claim that they will move UT higher on their lists. To be sure, many DEI efforts are deserving of criticism. In many cases, especially in the corporate world, such programs are little more than window dressing that have no real impact other than to create frustration. Such programs are seen as a waste of money, which is one of the primary criticisms voiced in this thread. Similarly, many DEI programs are so poorly implemented that they have little positive impact. However, proponents argue that the response to poor DEI programs should be better DEI programs rather than the elimination of them. Moreover, because of the constant politically-motivated attacks on such programs, they are often misunderstood. As the original poster of the thread writes in a follow-up post, "Funny how the people so against DEI don’t seem to have an elementary understanding of the concepts." One of the most common complaints about DEI is about the large budgets often devoted to it. In addition, despite the often lucrative funding, the programs are not seen as contributing to the schools' academic mission. As a poster who is a college professor writes, "They hire consultants, have their own staff, host expensive events, and get paid probably twice what I get paid as a tenured professor." Ironically, even the successes of DEI programs are often used to disparage them. For instance, if a DEI program succeeds in increasing the percentage of minority students at a university, many will claim that these students are unqualified and that they took places from more deserving White students, regardless of whether that is true or not.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "I disconnected my direct deposit" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster, who appears to be highly stressed at the moment, doesn't do the best job of explaining her circumstances which, I think, leads to a somewhat negative tone for this thread. Essentially, the original poster works in a high-pressure job that pays well while her husband works as a professor, earning less than half that she does. They have a three-year-old child and the original poster is currently 32 weeks pregnant. She appears to have had a somewhat long-running resentment due to what she sees as her subsidizing her husband's lifestyle while also trying to be a mother. With a second child on the way, these feelings have come to a boil. The original poster's husband is about to start a year-long sabbatical and they have enough liquid savings to cover two years of their living expenses. Therefore, the original poster has chosen this time to take steps to force the issue of his refusal to increase his earnings. She says that she will "quiet quit" her job with the expectation that she will eventually be pushed out. In addition, she has switched the direct deposit of her paycheck from their joint bank account to her personal account. The bottom line is that she wants financial support of their family to be more evenly divided, something that can be achieved either through her husband increasing his earnings or by downsizing their lifestyle. Since her husband has not been willing to do either, the original poster essentially wants to create a financial crunch for him. I think that it is fair to say that the most common response to the original poster was one of confusion. Posters didn't understand what she meant by "disconnecting" her direct deposit and they were not sure if her problem was with her job or with her husband. Several question why in these circumstances the original poster would choose to have another child. They also are doubtful that changing her direct deposit arrangement will have any real effect. Many posters are concerned that this strategy might simply lead to financial insecurity or divorce. The original poster is willing to accept divorce if her husband continues to refuse to find a higher paying job and doesn't seem very worried about their financial situation. Many of those responding suggest that the original poster switch to job that has less pressure rather than risking getting fired at her current job, but the original poster insists that her skills are only suited for her current job. The most amazing part of this thread is that someone managed to dig up two threads that appear to have been created by the same original poster four years ago. I am simply dumbfounded that someone could remember the two threads sufficiently to connect them to this poster and was able to find the threads now. For what it is worth, despite the many allegations in the thread that the poster is a troll, the two old threads actually support the latest thread being authentic.

The most active thread yesterday was one that I already discussed. That thread was the one about the double murder in Fairfax County. There was a court hearing yesterday which not one, but at least two, DCUM posters attended and posted first-hand accounts. The most active thread after that one was titled, "College ‘Moms’ Service Provider" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Let me start off by saying that I hate everything about this thread. Most of all, I hate that nobody reported it within the first few posts so that I could have deleted it before it really got started (some posters did report subsequent posts but I'll get to that later). The original poster posted a link to a site that provides "moms" to provide comfort and care to kids away at college and asked how she could find such a service at Cornell University. The original post looks very much like an ad. Removing any doubt of that suspicion was the second post in the thread which was sock puppeted by the original poster. The original poster would go on to post throughout the thread promoting the service. As most people would expect, there is a huge outcry from posters who think that such a service is a terrible idea created to coddle "snowflakes". There are repeated posts urging the original poster and others like her to cut the cord and allow their children to learn independence. The original poster simply sock puppeted replies defending and justifying the service. The original poster ultimately posted at least 12 times, not once mentioning that she was the original poster and occasionally responding directly to her own posts. There was a suggestion that this was an April Fool's joke, but the service is real. Moreover, adding to the things I hate about this thread, it took a decidedly unfunny turn when a poster made a snide reply about the demographics of two universities at which the original poster — sock puppeting — claimed the service was popular. This was interpreted by other posters as an allusion to the large number of Jewish students at those schools and, hence, as anti-Semitic. This led to discussion about anti-Semitism. I did receive a report of the first post and I removed it. But, unbeknownst to me, the post had already been quoted and provoked its own discussion that I didn't notice until this morning. While readers of this blog are probably aware, I want to reiterate a few things about how the site is moderated. I can't possibly read all of the posts. As such, I probably won't know about an inappropriate post unless it is reported. I try to respond to reports quickly, but sometimes a response may be delayed. Reporting a post, but then also replying to it, will only make things more difficult for me and make the thread harder to clean up. It also risks, as in this case, that I won't notice the replies. Because I removed the inappropriate post after it was reported, it continues to exist on the site only because it was repeatedly quoted.

The most active thread since my last blog post on Friday was titled, "Let us pick for you…list acceptances" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. For months I've joked about a group of users in the college forum who approach college admissions with the obsessiveness of dedicated sports fans, analyzing the most minute of statistics and debating various rankings and top college lists. I refer to this group as the Fantasy College Admissions League. This thread is the culmination of this phenomenon, the college admissions playoffs if you will. The original poster invites the parents of undecided college applicants to list their options as well as factors influencing their decision and allow others to weigh in. Just in case you doubt the enthusiasm of the College Admissions Fantasy League participants, consider that this thread reach nearly 40 pages in just three days. To be sure, there are some very knowledgeable posters in this forum whose advice is worth considering. But, there are others who appear to be primarily motivated by personal biases rather than the strength of their analysis. The problem is telling which is which. In some cases this is made easier by the amount of effort posters put into their responses. At least in my opinion, the replies that consisted of nothing but the name of the school were not particularly helpful because they didn't explain the reasoning behind the opinion. In contrast, posters who supported their response with substantive reasons for their choice tended to be more persuasive. On the other hand, those posters often opened themselves up to challenges from others who disagreed with their reasoning. Even so, debate between posters was discouraged in the thread with a Northeastern University booster being shutdown when she went a bit far in her advocacy. It is clear that the thread was meant to be lighthearted and mostly for entertainment. That is not meant to disparage the seriousness with which many of the thread's participants approached the topic, but I don't think many final college decisions were made as a result of a DCUM post. I think the highlight of the thread for me had nothing to do with the substance of the topic but rather with a poster who chose to respond with snark to the original poster, "thanking" the original poster for providing instructions because the responder would otherwise not know what to do. This response was on page 34, so clearly a number of posters had found the thread engaging by that point and the snark was not necessary. But the icing on the cake was that the poster messed up the formatting of their post and ended up including their response within the quoted content. The inability of this poster to quote properly suggests that they actually do require instruction. Snark kind of falls flat when it provides evidence of the author's incompetence.

As I have said a number of times, DCUM has almost entirely grown organically with very little of it being planned. For the most part, we have followed the direction set by the users rather than trying to steer things in any particular direction. But to the extent that we had a vision for the website, we saw it as being primarily used for the exchange of helpful information. We wanted it to be a place where struggling parents might find advice to help them confront the challenges of parenthood in the District of Columbia. Obviously, things have turned out somewhat differently. For one thing, rather than relying on DCUM to indulge in their role as parents, for many users it is a temporary escape from those responsibilities. As such, DCUM is often simply a distraction and mindless entertainment. Today's most active thread is a case in point. Titled, "Things that make you irrationally angry" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, the original poster is irrationally bothered by people in the grocery store taking too long to choose pasta sauce or bananas. She wonders what similarly irrational irritations others have. The original poster is not alone in being bothered by the behavior of others at grocery stores. A number of other posters are similarly angered by various grocery-shopping activities. The other major provocation for irrational anger seems to be driving. Just as with grocery shopping, almost any aspect of driving, no matter how normal, is likely to make someone nuts. Obviously this thread was not meant to be taken too seriously, though some posters did address serious topics. More often posters took a humorous approach, such as the poster who is irrationally angered by monocles. Some posters get so irrationally angry when they can't find the scissors that I would hate to be anywhere near them when they finally did find the scissors. Adults eating various types of fruits also seems to set off a number of posters. Eating in general is apparently the source of much irrational anger. I was going to say that all of my anger is rational so I personally have nothing to add to this thread. But then a poster used the term "narc" to refer to someone that they considered to be narcissistic and I nearly flung my laptop across the room. A "narc" is either a narcotics officer or someone who narcs on you. Look it up.

Yesterday's most active thread was titled, "Do I need to lower my expectations ( dating)" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she is a 27 year old woman who has a career that she loves, makes decent money, owns a home, and has no debt. She has been dating in hopes of finding a husband but coming up empty. She hopes to find a guy who earns as much or more than she does, lives alone, has not been previously married, does not have children, and has no debt. Because she can't find these characteristics in men her age, she has been looking at somewhat older guys. But, since she has been unsuccessful, she wonders if she should lower her expectations. A number of posters suggest easing up on the salary requirements and dropping the requirement that the guy live alone. Living with roommates is both economically efficient and indicates an ability to successfully live with others they say. In response, the original poster emphasized the importance of income because she hopes to quit her job or work part time to raise kids who she also wants to send to private school. Several posters note that she is not considering some important attributes in a mate with one poster suggesting that she look for "someone who shares your values and will be a good partner." As another poster writes, "You sound like you're vetting loan applicants, not life partners." The original poster agreed that shared values are important, but her initial set of expectations was simply to screen for dates. She explores values and compatibility during dates. Posters warned that in order to attract the sort of man she is seeking she would need to meet certain beauty standards. "Are you Instagram fitness model caliber or nah?", asked one poster. The original poster's response, at least in my mind, left that as an open question. But, then on the second page of the thread a poster wrote, "Every single one of these threads lately reads like the ‘wife is a bad sham’/‘using pregnancy as an excuse’ troll" referring to a troll about whom I wrote in yesterday's blog post. Agreeing that this poster was on to something, I began to investigate that possibility. That particular troll uses DCUM in such a way that it is not possible to make conclusive determinations about his/her identity. So, I can't say that I know for sure that this poster is that troll. But, there are signs that indicate this might be the case. Enough signs that I have locked the thread this morning. But, I should emphasize that I could very easily be wrong in this identification. Assuming that I am correct, one reason that this troll has been so successful at creating threads that are among the most active threads of the day is through their shear tenacity. The poster posted more than 50 times in the thread yesterday.

It will be no surprise to anyone living in the DC region that yesterday's most active thread was about the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse. Titled, "Key bridge in Baltimore collapses after cargo ship crashes into it" and posted in the "Off-Topic" forum, this was actually the second thread on the topic. The first had been posted about an hour earlier in the "Political Discussion" forum, but I locked that one since this is not really a political topic. The initial posts in the thread were mostly aimed at gathering and disseminating information about what had happened. But fairly quickly a number of topics emerged upon which posters focused throughout the thread. One of those involved tugboats with users questioning why the Dali — the ship that hit the bridge causing its collapse — was not under the control of tugboats at the time. While it later turned out that tugboats had initially been used, ships are sent on their own in that part of the river. Next was the question of cruise ships and what would happen to them. Some posters saw this topic as insensitive given the circumstances, but other users were concerned about Baltimore-based cruise ships that would not be able to return to port. Any ships in the harbor are trapped for the foreseeable future and the few Baltimore-based cruise ships at sea will land elsewhere and their passengers will be bussed to Baltimore. Probably the strangest divergence was that dealing with how to escape a car that has plunged into water. A surprising number of posters seem to have long-standing fears of traveling across bridges and described carrying life jackets and hammers for breaking windows when they have to cross large bridges. There was considerable discussion in the thread about the best ways to escape a car that has landed in the water or even the possibility of doing so. Some users touted various tools that are supposed to break windows of a submerged car while other posters said the tools would not work. It turns out that bridge authorities were able to stop vehicle traffic just prior to its collapse and it appears that no cars were traveling across the bridge at the time. The 6 deaths were all construction workers repairing potholes on the bridge who were not warned in time to escape. A topic that was discussed throughout the thread dealt with liability for the collapse. Almost immediately posters were eager to cast blame. Some suggested the bridge was poorly constructed and fell down too easily. Others suggested the port authority and the lack of the aforementioned tugboats were responsible. One poster, supported by a number of others, hypothesized that cost-cutting measures by the Dali's owners may have resulted in a lack of maintenance, leading to the power failure that sent the ship out of control. One thing this incident did was reveal the many-layered owner and management arrangements common among ships of this nature. There are so many different companies involved, with all likely pointing fingers at each other, that it will probably be difficult to determine exactly who is responsible for what. Posters also discussed the economic impact the closure of the port of Baltimore would have on the region. In addition, there was considerable sympathy for the workers who were lost in the collapse.

The most active thread yesterday was was a thread that I previously discussed that was about former President Donald Trump's inability to post bond that is necessary for him to appeal a fraud ruling against him. Yesterday the bond amount was reduced and Trump was given an additional 10 days to pay. So this thread will probably be back on top shortly. The most active thread after that one was titled, "Can someone explain to me why so many on here would never remarry?" and posted in the "Relationship Discussion (non-explicit)" forum. The original poster says that she has read many posts from those who are divorced or thinking about divorce who say that they have no expectations of getting remarried and nor should anyone else. The original poster asks for the reason(s) behind those expectations and offers several proposals herself. Her own suggestions include the first marriage being so bad that it tarnished the entire concept, marriage being primarily about kids, not wanting to care for an older person, and skepticism that they would find a desirable partner or would be desirable themselves. Several posters respond saying that it is all of the above. As you would expect from a female-dominated forum, most of the responses come from women and, therefore, represent a largely women's point of view. Several posters say that in their previous marriages they were required to take care of everyone but themselves. Now they have the freedom to put themselves first and don't want to give that up. Several of those responding say that their financial independence is a factor in not creating an interest in remarriage. A number of responses amplify factors that the original poster suggested. For instance, one poster reported leaving an abusive relationship which was so bad that she no longer has an interest in marriage. A number of posters said that they have children from their earlier marriages with whom they have great relationships and have no interest in another family. The don't want to be responsible for someone else's children and either can't have or don't want more of their own. A common complaint was a lack of eligible and desirable men. Over and over posters questioned what the available men "brought to the table" and suggested that it wasn't much. To the contrary, the available men were generally seen as "entitled, demanding, and whiny". Males posters who weighed in were generally also not interested in remarrying. One expressed love for the "adult Disneyland that exists" due to online dating. He described a nearly endless supply of younger women that he could casually date and feared the financial implications of marriage. This caused the thread to get diverted into a dispute about prenuptial agreements and other ways that men could protect their wealth. Generally, the attitudes of the men justified the skepticism with which the women viewed them.

The most active thread of the weekend will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with DCUM posters' obsessiveness regarding the British Royal Family. Titled, "Palace making an announcement at 2pm" and posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum, the thread was created in anticipation of an announcement regarding the health of Kate Middleton, Princess of Wales. As readers of this blog will remember, multiple Royal Family-related threads have been among the most active lately. One dealing with a Mother's Day photo released by the Prince and Princess of Wales turned into a litany of conspiracy theories about the health and well-being of the Princess. Some readers were certain that she was in a coma, others said she and Prince William were preparing for a divorce, and a few suggested that she had been stabbed or otherwise harmed through an act of domestic violence. According to other posters, none of those were true, but rather she was suffering from complications of an eating disorder. The announcement turned out to be a video by Kate revealing that she has been diagnosed with cancer. The reaction by many DCUM posters was shock, grief, and sympathy. But, other posters immediately smelled a rat. They demanded to know the type of cancer and immediately began piecing together timelines that they said were inconsistent with Kate's message. The fact is that the crazy, obsessive, conspiracy-mongers have been wrong about nearly everything. But they got lucky with the Photoshopped photo and, rather than considering that the exception that proves the rule, they thought that it proved them right about everything. Therefore, rather than accepting that Kate's announcement revealed the that most of their outlandish claims were baseless, they simply doubled-down in search of revelations that would again show the Palace's duplicity. On the other hand, Kate-defenders who had been forced to stomach a faked photo and one of the most bungled public relations jobs in history, suddenly saw their opportunity to hit back at the conspiracy theorists. They demanded apologies, retractions, and everything short of abject groveling. In the midst of this, other posters opined on the type of cancer from which Kate might be suffering and described their own experiences with cancer. In the absence of further details coming from official channels, posters found themselves with little of substance to discuss. As a result the thread turned to back and forth sniping and arguing. I had no interest in spending my weekend babysitting the thread and, therefore, locked it — less than 7 hours after it had been started. Even with that short lifetime, the thread was still the most active of the weekend. Take note those users who insist that I moderate with an interest in generating traffic. I spent much of the rest of the past two days playing whack-a-mole removing new threads that were created about Kate's diagnosis.

The most active thread yesterday was titled, "Westfield HS-Student murdered" and posted in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum. The original poster provided a link to a Washington Post article about a shooting in Fairfax County in which a teenager was killed. The original poster says that individual was a student at Westfield High School. The original poster also says that her daughter who attends Westfield has told her that the school is "full of police". Because the shooter has not been caught and the original poster fears he may be in the school, she is concerned for her daughter's safety and asks if others would pick up their kids from school in such circumstances. Whenever an incident of this type is discussed, there are always posters who seem to be primarily concerned with protecting the reputation of the school and distancing it from the events as much as possible. B the fifth response in this thread a poster was already complaining that the title of the thread was inaccurate because the student was not killed at the school. The poster also reported the thread to me with the same complaint. I was confused because I did not understand the title to say that the student was killed at the school. But, I later figured out that the poster was interpreting the hyphen between "HS" and "Student" to be more like a colon and signifying that the event occurred at the school. At any rate, the discussion about the title continued throughout the thread. There was a second objection that the thread didn't even belong in the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) forum but rather in the metro politics forum because it didn't involve the school. A poster went on to write, "the posters who start these threads usually want to encourage trash talk about the schools". Multiple posters claimed that I was keeping the "click bait" title in order to generate traffic and ad revenue. To be clear, I didn't change the title because I correctly understand the purpose of a hyphen. Overlooked by almost everyone was the fact that the original poster's main concern was whether she should pick up her daughter from school early due to safety concerns. There is no indication that she is interested in bashing the school that her daughter attends. It later turned out that the suspected shooter had indeed attended Westfield in the past but was not currently enrolled in any FCPS school. Therefore he was unlikely to be at the school and the original poster's daughter did not face at threat related to him. But then a discussion broke out about whether the suspect and the victim should have attended another high school instead of Westfield with many posts devoted to school boundaries. The primary message that many want you to get from this thread is that regardless of anything suggested by thread's title, this incident had nothing to do with Westfield and any attempt to argue otherwise is either a right-wing attack aimed at making the school look bad or an effort to generate ad revenue.