There are many complaints that DART is a former shell of itself and nothing like DDO. Calls to action have been made to return DART to its glory days by banning the following individuals: YouFound_Lxam, Kaitlyn, Best.Korea, Greyparrot, TWS1405_2, and IWantRooseveltAgain.
The latter two are the most controversial for several reasons. TWS because of his beef with the mods and fights with the community in general, IWantRoosevelt because of his constant baiting of right-wingers/republicans/conservatives and as one of the former president’s nemeses.
Difference between the two is that TWS sometimes comes across as a triggered reactionary for the right, whereas IWantRoosevelt is just a wannabe troll for the left.
Neither of these two rise to the level of being ban-worthy.
Firstly, let go of the delusion that DART should be like DDO. That ship has long sailed.
But that doesn’t mean it’s completely a lost cause, it’s just Damaged Goods with Wasted Potential.
Your first mistake is in assuming that these individuals are responsible for driving away new blood and scaring away potential people. (Which is stupid because of big platforms like Twitter, Reddit, and Quora.)
Common denominator is the transparent lack of firm leadership, vision, and purpose.
The actual reality is few people know that DART even exists.
Mike could very easily turn this around if he actively led his community instead of letting his community make the choices. Wylted could have very easily been the man for the job and he’s right that DART is a shithole, but he assumed the title of responsibility for fixing it and he gave up. So that failure is partly his too.
Bootlicker could be what’s needed for the site to change, but I’ve seen no convincing evidence that he is even capable of such, aside from his perpetual ranting and raving. He should return to lurking in the shadows where he’s the most useful.
Instead of confusing the position of President to think he has anything remotely insightful to say.
But I want to touch on something more important about the current state of DART where there is a clear, simple solution.
We have one side demanding Absolute Freedom of Speech and the other demanding Total Censorship.
The solution to this problem is to separate the two by allowing certain categories to have more unregulated discussion and then to enforce more rules in other categories about what kind of subjects/topics are taboo, so people have a place of acceptance.
Instead of allowing such dialogue to cross interfere in one channel. Let the white nationalists/binary people have their channel outlets to freely criticize anything they want, (nobody has to visit their category, engage them or read their posts if they don’t want to.), and then let the leftists/progressives have their channel to have civil discussion so they have a medium for acceptance. There’s no reason both sides cannot co-exist, regardless of the hatred between the two. That is if only, the mutual goal is to move DART forward.
Here are our current leaders who have done a great job for DART.
- whiteflame. Whiteflame has done many great things that people don't really appreciate. He is a consistent voter on debates and has competently enforced the rules without needing to publicly shame or scrutinize people. He is active in Tournaments and has encouraged innovation through fascinating topics. You can't really deny whiteflame is probably one of the least biased people on the site. Whiteflame is what your ideal mod is like. Definitely one of the most interesting and least boring people on the site.
- Barney. Barney was actually the first person that actually got me interested in debating in the first place, and he's regularly provided feedback or criticism. Another thing is Barney was who actually taught me how debates should be structured.
- oromagi. I'm actually a fan of oromagi's brash criticism and strong beliefs. His contributions to the site have mainly been through his insightful commentary and debates. I think the current state of DART would grow even more dull and tedious, if it weren't for people like oromagi challenging people's opinions and holding them accountable. It was oromagi who made me want to be better at debating.
People seem to forget that the mods are unpaid volunteers who participate in the site because they actually care about the community. I think this goes overlooked way too often. If it weren't for either of these three, DART would be fucked.
Other leaders include: Savant, WeaverofFate, and AustinL.
