DCUM Weblog

A couple of days ago I noted that the most active threads of the previous day both involved bicycles. One thread argued that the "bike lobby" was too powerful and a second thread applauded the increased number of cargo bikes being used around town. Another thread discussing changes to Connecticut Avenue — which involves the installation of bike lanes — has been running for several days with considerable engagement. That thread opposed the changes and, in reaction, a poster started a new thread yesterday titled, "With all this negativity about bikes and pedestrians" in which the poster asks how to support changes such as those proposed for Connnecticut Avenue. Posted in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics", the thread largely duplicates the discussion of the other threads and involves many of the same posters. Nevertheless, the thread led in the number of replies yesterday.

Yesterday two threads stood out of the pack in terms of number of replies. The first of these titled, "Taylor Swift is awful (and her music isn't even very good)" was posted in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture" forum. This thread also led in the number of views. Anyone with even a passing familiarity with "Swifties" knew where this thread was going. Even the original poster of the thread -- who based the post on a Daily Beast article -- expected the inevitable backlash. And, came it did. The thread racked up 9 pages of replies in less than a day. A quick look over the thread suggests that the discussion didn't turn as vitriolic as one might have expected, but rather was humorous at times and serious at times. Much of the thread seems to involve a comparison of Swift to Beyonce.

The second thread was posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. Titled, "Idaho Universities prohibited from referring or distributing birth control", the thread was only a couple posts behind the Swift thread in number of responses and may have actually led before I deleted a few inappropriate posts. This thread ties together a number of themes that have repeatedly occurred in the Colleges forum -- as well as other forums -- recently. Starting with warning about fallout from Idaho's abortion law which has been interpreted as prohibiting the universities and their health facilities from distributing birth control, the thread soon diverted into discussions of Catholic universities and abortion. There is a vocal group of posters in the College forum who rank access to women's reproductive health services near the top of factors when choosing a college or university. There is an equally vocal and active group who is convinced that priority is completely misplaced. The result when these two groups meet is a thread that leads the forum in replies.

Today we will look at two threads that led in numbers of replies and views. Both are in the "Metropolitan DC Local Politics". The first of the threads, titled "The Bike Lobby is too powerful in DC..." led both metrics. The second, titled "I'm so happy to see all the family cargo bikes in my neighborhood!" was near the top in both categories.

Obviously, these threads are related in that both focus on bicycles. But, more than that, many of the same posters are participating in both threads and posters from the "Lobby" thread explicitly viewed the "cargo bike" thread as astroturfing by the bike lobby. The "cargo bike" thread was initially focused on the benefits of electric cargo bikes and their utility in an urban environment. Eventually, the threads started to overlap and essentially duplicate each other.

Today we will look at yesterday's threads with the most engagement. Leading in both number of replies and number of views was a thread in the "Food, Cooking, and Restaurants" forum titled, "Food hacks to deal with rising food prices/inflation". As usual, I haven't read the thread but I did skim a few pages just to make sure that it hadn't turned into a huge fight about whether stay at home moms are better cooks than work out of the house moms or something along those lines. As best I can tell, the thread avoided such arguments though there does appear to be a brief foray into an accusation of sexism by a poster who is proud to describe her enviable financial situation. Be that as it may, the Food forum has proven to be a good source of cooking ideas and, for the most part, avoids the negativity that is unfortunately common in other forums.

I am going to try to continual this series of posts since I kind of have fun writing them. For Monday, I'll look at the most active threads over the weekend. Looking back at the posts over the past two days, we really see the eclectic nature of the forums.

Leading in the number of replies and second in the number of views was a thread in the "Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)" forum titled, "Our elementary school canceled Halloween". This topic which seems to appear at least once every Fall discusses the cancellation of a Halloween parade by an unnamed elementary school. While I haven't read the entire thread, a brief skim of it shows that such cancellation has both opponents and supporters. However, as often happens in such discussions, several posters seized the opportunity to make larger points. Posters with completely opposite perspectives both claim the action proves their previously held viewpoints.

Today I'm going to look at the most active threads throughout the last week, rather than just those from yesterday. I am probably getting into broken record territory with my repeated mentions of how different my personal interests are from the most active topics on DCUM. But this divergence could not be better illustrated than by the two most active topics from the past week.

The thread with the most replies during the last week was titled "Queen Elizabeth Funeral" in the "Entertainment and Pop Culture". The thread with the second most responses was "Queen of E's funeral fashion" in the "Beauty and Fashion". In terms of views rather than responses, these two topics simply swapped places. No other topic came close be either metric. Of course this interest is somewhat understandable given the tremendous press coverage the death and funeral of Queen Elizabeth II received in the US. But, as I have mentioned before, British Royal Family topics receive an unusual amount of attention on DCUM even in normal times.

In many ways I am unsuited to be the primary administrator of this forum. As is frequently pointed out, while the site is dominated by moms, I am a dad. Beyond that, I often find myself completely out of touch with the topics that are most popular on the website. Let's not get started on the British Royal Family threads that I detest or the Kane Show threads which generated more engagement than any other single topic (I had never even heard of Kane before the threads here and didn't listen to single one of his shows). Just consider yesterday's most active threads.

A thread in the "Family Relationships" forum titled, "My sister-in-law wants to borrow $9600 for emergency" completely clobbered all other threads in terms of views. The thread also led in number of responses. I believe that I removed a couple of posts from this thread that were reported, but I'm not completely sure. I do know that I haven't read the thread and have no interest in reading it. I am dumbfounded that such a topic could be so popular. There have been a rash of these "sister-in-law" related threads and most of them get reported as potential troll threads. It's possible that they are but it seems like such a strange thing to troll about.

Of all the threads created yesterday, the one with the most views and most replies was in the "Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS)" forum with the title "Student walkout". The thread is about a planned student protest against Virginia Governor Glenn Youngin's recently announced policy regarding transgender students. I knew this thread would be the most active the minute I saw it and it led the site in replies despite my removing at least a dozen posts that were inappropriate, off-topic, or replies to such posts.

With the exception of the posts I removed, the thread actually managed to generally maintain a fairly high-level, respectful tone. Much of the discussion delved into the wording of the new policy and how it should be interpreted. Threads dealing with transgender issues have become the most controversial on DCUM and seem to go down the drain quickly. However, because this thread tended to focus on the policy rather than opinions about transgender students, the problematic posts that I expected didn't materialize in large numbers.

In this series of posts I'm going to try to look at a thread or threads from the previous day that gained a lot of traction. Human nature being what it is, we are drawn to controversy and, as such, it is not the mundane topics that receive kind and helpful responses that generate replies and views. Rather, it is those topics that generate differences of opinion and/or emotional reactions. One such thread from yesterday was titled, "White teacher reading 'white savior' type book to mostly AA students".

This is the type of thread that makes you wonder why all DCUM posters are not bald from having pulled out all of their hair in frustration. The gist of the original post is that a teacher at a small Christian private school is reading a "white savior" book to her students. The original poster doesn't name the book and is vague in all regards. The thread was originally posted in the "Elementary School-Aged Kids" forum, but since it is about a school topic, should have been posted in an education forum. I moved it to "Schools and Education General Discussion". The thread gets sidetracked frequently by discussions of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and there are an inordinate number of requests for more information and complaints about the lack of detail. Nevertheless, the thread generated six pages of replies in less than 24 hours.

The DC Urban Moms and Dads home page has been severely neglected for a long time as I have run out of both energy and ideas for updating it. I am going to try to rectify that by providing regular posts about topics that have received significant attention in the discussion forums.

As longtime DCUM users will know, DC Urban Moms and Dads originally started as a mailing list completely devoted to parenting issues. The website forums were an afterthought and got their initial impetus when we required that "nanny posts" -- posts searching for a nanny or advertising the availability of a nanny -- be moved to the forums rather than the mailing list. After that, the forums grew mostly organically as we added topics due to user requests. I don't remember when the "Entertainment" forum was created, but I do remember that the idea behind it was that it would be used to discuss books, TV shows, movies, and music. So, it is with some surprise and not a little disappointment that it has become a popular forum for discussing the British Royal Family.