There are a few things I would suggest that could make Datalounge a better, more functional forum. I suspect it's dysfunctional on purpose, and I also suspect a long-banned former regular once accidentally hit upon why, which is why they're always and forever banned, but more than that I will not say.
Even though I doubt this will accomplish anything, I don't like complaining about problems without having some solutions, so I have a few suggestions that might improve the Datalounge experience for the users. These are all personal opinions and nothing more than that.
1. Give users more FFs. Moderators have said that we need to FF trolls to hell, so give us the ability to actually do that.
2. Ban slurs and a small list of specific keywords. Datalounge used to have a few banned words, and the word "Edwin" is currently banned, so we know it's possible. Bring it back.
3. Fix the Ignore Thread feature.
4. Let us ignore more accounts. If you're going to let trolls have 100 sockpuppet accounts each, then give us the ability to ignore them.
5. Actually ban links to troll websites. You've banned links to TikTok, that means you can ban other links, too. You tried to ban links to two websites, but for inexplicable reasons, the links still work; all you did was replace a poster's text with autotext. That's not a ban. That's just silly.
6. Ban the worst of the worst, and keep them banned. You know who the worst trolls are. You ban the troll known as "Mrs Patrick Campbell" every time you realize they're back on the forum, so you can do the same for the two or three others who are just as bad.
7. Bring back trolldar, or at least some easy-to-use form of troll detection.
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As of right now, 90% of the forum's content is right-wing propaganda and trolling, or posts from one of two trolls: either the catfishing enthusiast who also wants to tell us what he ate at McDonald's, or the straight woman with a genuine affliction, who only posts on DL out of spite and because she hates gays.
Attempts to add more variety of content and new topics generally fail. Mainly, this is because trolls have no interest in anything that they did not post themselves. These trolls rely on sockpuppet accounts to control the board. They know that the board uses the "karma" system, so they are constantly mining for karma, and as such will primarily only pay attention to their own posts; participation alone seems to generate some karma, and of course they WW themselves, which gets them more board karma.
This is why we are awash with threads that contain short two- or three-sentence descriptions of celebrities, movies, or shows, where you are then asked what you think about said celebrity, movie, or show. This is why we always have threads about the same 20 topics, and very little else. This is why someone will post repeatedly about their alleged personal woes. They post what they know from experience will get them replies, which are reflected in their karma.
Further, to maintain control of the board, these trolls will sometimes FF a thread that is not their own, often just enough so that it no longer gets bumped to the top of the main page. The main page is automatically sorted by activity, so posts with recent comments are at the top. Give a thread about four or five FFs and the auto-moderation system will no longer track that thread's activity. The thread will no longer get bumped no matter how many replies it gets, and it'll drop to the bottom of the thread list, where it essentially disappears.
There's no reason why the content on Datalounge should be entirely controlled by bad actors and trolls.
