DataLounge
Encyclopedia
The DataLounge is an Internet forum
for LGBT
news and gossip with approximately 6.5 million page views each month according to its Webmaster . Mediapolis, a New York City
-based interactive media company, created the site in May 1995.
The DataLounge's style stems from a core community of predominantly anonymous post
ers who share news, opinions, gossip, personal histories and political views from a gay
and lesbian
perspective. While the forum guidelines formally require posters to respect others, much of the site's fun revolves around its appreciation of wit and satire, as well as its shared history and in-jokes.
DataLounge was launched by Mediapolis, Inc.
in May, 1995. During the site's early years, content included GLBT-oriented news, gossip, links to other sites/services, and editorial content that made it a gay Web portal
. Content contributors included New York drag queen Trudy and journalist Chris Barillas. DataLounge affiliated itself via the DataLounge Network with other web sites such as the gay dating site Edwina.com, gay Web guide Homorama, and GLBT health information site Gay Health, offering information and services to GLBTs. A weekly e-mail was also offered to users. The site evolved to have several discussion forums covering topics such as lesbian, religious and sexual issues, and also created a "Flames and Freaks" forum to house threads that site administrators determined to be disruptive to general forum discussion. Forums created for subpopulations such as The Lord of the Rings
fans and U.S. daytime drama aficionados were subsequently closed. The most popular forum was the Gossip Forum, which dwarfed all others in both traffic and number of discussion threads created.
A portion of DataLounge and the DataLounge Network's content came as a result of the integration of some of the 1995-97 content of Out.com from Out Magazine, which announced in March 1997 that it was closing its Web site to focus on print content. Out.com users were redirected to DataLounge, and DataLounge administrators adopted Out.com's discussion forums, dating service, and weekly survey.
In 2003, DataLounge instituted a subscription service which blocked all web banner
and pop-up
advertising for a $12 annual fee (this fee was subsequently raised to $15, then to the present price of $18).
In 2005, DataLounge was given a major redesign. All forum topics were collapsed into one general discussion forum called "The DataLounge Forum," and all news content, most references to the other sites in the DataLounge Network, and other features were discontinued. Editorial commentary discussing events continues to appear on the site. Users were also given the option to control aspects of the site's layout, including filtration of political, gossip, and/or "Flames and Freaks" threads.
With this redesign came a policy change that limited access to the DataLounge Forum during high-traffic "primetime" periods to fee-paying subscribers. This move was met with controversy amongst DataLounge users, as non-subscribers were blocked from the DataLounge Forum during these periods. Though Mediapolis has received complaints about the policy, specifically that "primetime" periods are irregular and can often occur at times when site traffic should be at its slowest (e.g., North American overnight hours), DataLounge administrators assert that the "primetime" is necessary to prevent slowdowns of the other sites which Mediapolis hosts on the same servers, and preserves the existence of the DataLounge forum by generating revenue to cover DataLounge's hosting, bandwidth and maintenance expenses.
In the summer of 2007 DataLounge instituted a policy that only paying members may start new threads, but in May 2009 DataLounge launched another comprehensive redesign of the site, dubbed "V6," one that allows users to embed photos and YouTube videos, as well as mark specific threads to watch. The new site is auto-refreshed in real-time as new posts are written, and nonpaying members were at first permitted to start threads, but that quickly changed. The DataLounge Webmaster explained in introducing the redesigned site that the transition was largely dictated by the effect of tabbed Web browsing, which resulted in users constantly using their browsers' refresh function and overloading the servers, sending the site into constant primetime mode. However, shortly after launching V6, the Webmaster reinstituted primetime, in part due to the quick proliferation of racist troll posts.
Over the course of its history DataLounge has enjoyed, and fiercely debated, posts from dozens of named posters. Some named posters are authenticated, meaning that they have verified their username and obtained a password so no other users can post under their name, but most of the site's authenticated posters have gradually disappeared over time, often due to weariness of constant attacks from anonymous posters.
Anonymous visitors can insert any arbitrary name into the "username" field. This is often used to great comedic effect.
DataLounge has many trolls. The term "troll" is used on DataLounge to describe posters obsessed with a certain subject, even when it's benign, as well as the classic kind of Internet troll.
The DataLounge forum is largely self-moderated via debates amongst posters, and since most posts are anonymous viciousness does occur, though face slapping is discouraged. Many DataLounge posters become violently pedantic where matters of improper grammar, punctuation and spelling are concerned. Some threads are locked by the Webmaster, however, and a few are deleted outright, particularly those which criticize the site's management. For most of its history DataLounge had a system of "redtagging" trolls. When posters were tagged, each of their previous and subsequent posts are tagged with a number in red text so that they become publicly identified. This prevented the majority of trolls from stirring flamewars by, for instance, "talking to themselves" (e.g., posting anonymously on their own threads while pretending to be different individuals). Although the V6 version of DataLounge has a "ff" button, short for "Flames & Freaks," to report trolls to the Webmaster, and in past incarnations could be used to create a redtag for a particular post even in the Webmaster's absence, as of yet no redtags have appeared on V6. It is not known whether redtags are now gone for good.
television network, posted that actress Marcia Cross
would come out as gay in an upcoming issue of The Advocate
. Within days the rumor had spread like wildfire and garnered mentions in the media including CNN
and Fox Television's Los Angeles affiliate, before Cross denied the rumors in an interview with Barbara Walters
and her co-hosts on The View. The Advocate published an article chronicling this incident. Less than six months later, Cross announced her engagement to stockbroker Tom Mahoney, leading to widespread speculation on DataLounge that Cross -- believed by most posters to be a closeted lesbian
, owing to both direct accusations made by gossip columnist and DataLounge user Michael Musto
and the fact that she had not, to anyone's public knowledge, dated a man since her then-boyfriend Richard Jordan
died of a brain tumor in 1993 -- had entered into a relationship of convenience at the urging of her PR team in order to squash the gay rumors about her.
has mentioned visits to DataLounge in print magazine interviews.
Internet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
for LGBT
LGBT
LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...
news and gossip with approximately 6.5 million page views each month according to its Webmaster . Mediapolis, a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
-based interactive media company, created the site in May 1995.
The DataLounge's style stems from a core community of predominantly anonymous post
Anonymous post
An anonymous post is an entry on a bulletin board system, Internet forum or message board, blog, or other discussion forum without a screen name or more commonly by using a non-identifiable pseudonym....
ers who share news, opinions, gossip, personal histories and political views from a gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
and lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
perspective. While the forum guidelines formally require posters to respect others, much of the site's fun revolves around its appreciation of wit and satire, as well as its shared history and in-jokes.
History and site policies
DataLounge was launched by Mediapolis, Inc.
Mediapolis (company)
Mediapolis, Inc. is a web engineering company based in New York City. Founded in 1995 the company has built over 300 websites largely utilizing open-source software.Mediapolis owns and operates the DataLounge a popular LGBT Internet Forum.-History:...
in May, 1995. During the site's early years, content included GLBT-oriented news, gossip, links to other sites/services, and editorial content that made it a gay Web portal
Web portal
A web portal or links page is a web site that functions as a point of access to information in the World Wide Web. A portal presents information from diverse sources in a unified way....
. Content contributors included New York drag queen Trudy and journalist Chris Barillas. DataLounge affiliated itself via the DataLounge Network with other web sites such as the gay dating site Edwina.com, gay Web guide Homorama, and GLBT health information site Gay Health, offering information and services to GLBTs. A weekly e-mail was also offered to users. The site evolved to have several discussion forums covering topics such as lesbian, religious and sexual issues, and also created a "Flames and Freaks" forum to house threads that site administrators determined to be disruptive to general forum discussion. Forums created for subpopulations such as The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
fans and U.S. daytime drama aficionados were subsequently closed. The most popular forum was the Gossip Forum, which dwarfed all others in both traffic and number of discussion threads created.
A portion of DataLounge and the DataLounge Network's content came as a result of the integration of some of the 1995-97 content of Out.com from Out Magazine, which announced in March 1997 that it was closing its Web site to focus on print content. Out.com users were redirected to DataLounge, and DataLounge administrators adopted Out.com's discussion forums, dating service, and weekly survey.
In 2003, DataLounge instituted a subscription service which blocked all web banner
Web banner
A web banner or banner ad is a form of advertising on the World Wide Web delivered by an ad server. This form of online advertising entails embedding an advertisement into a web page. It is intended to attract traffic to a website by linking to the website of the advertiser...
and pop-up
Pop-Up
Pop Up is the debut album by French electropop trio Yelle. It was released in France on 3 September 2007 by the EMI-owned label Source Etc. The album peaked at number sixty-one on the French Albums Chart, and went on to sell 20,000 copies.-Promotion:...
advertising for a $12 annual fee (this fee was subsequently raised to $15, then to the present price of $18).
In 2005, DataLounge was given a major redesign. All forum topics were collapsed into one general discussion forum called "The DataLounge Forum," and all news content, most references to the other sites in the DataLounge Network, and other features were discontinued. Editorial commentary discussing events continues to appear on the site. Users were also given the option to control aspects of the site's layout, including filtration of political, gossip, and/or "Flames and Freaks" threads.
With this redesign came a policy change that limited access to the DataLounge Forum during high-traffic "primetime" periods to fee-paying subscribers. This move was met with controversy amongst DataLounge users, as non-subscribers were blocked from the DataLounge Forum during these periods. Though Mediapolis has received complaints about the policy, specifically that "primetime" periods are irregular and can often occur at times when site traffic should be at its slowest (e.g., North American overnight hours), DataLounge administrators assert that the "primetime" is necessary to prevent slowdowns of the other sites which Mediapolis hosts on the same servers, and preserves the existence of the DataLounge forum by generating revenue to cover DataLounge's hosting, bandwidth and maintenance expenses.
In the summer of 2007 DataLounge instituted a policy that only paying members may start new threads, but in May 2009 DataLounge launched another comprehensive redesign of the site, dubbed "V6," one that allows users to embed photos and YouTube videos, as well as mark specific threads to watch. The new site is auto-refreshed in real-time as new posts are written, and nonpaying members were at first permitted to start threads, but that quickly changed. The DataLounge Webmaster explained in introducing the redesigned site that the transition was largely dictated by the effect of tabbed Web browsing, which resulted in users constantly using their browsers' refresh function and overloading the servers, sending the site into constant primetime mode. However, shortly after launching V6, the Webmaster reinstituted primetime, in part due to the quick proliferation of racist troll posts.
Culture
Over the course of its history DataLounge has enjoyed, and fiercely debated, posts from dozens of named posters. Some named posters are authenticated, meaning that they have verified their username and obtained a password so no other users can post under their name, but most of the site's authenticated posters have gradually disappeared over time, often due to weariness of constant attacks from anonymous posters.
Anonymous visitors can insert any arbitrary name into the "username" field. This is often used to great comedic effect.
DataLounge has many trolls. The term "troll" is used on DataLounge to describe posters obsessed with a certain subject, even when it's benign, as well as the classic kind of Internet troll.
Moderation and rules
The DataLounge forum is largely self-moderated via debates amongst posters, and since most posts are anonymous viciousness does occur, though face slapping is discouraged. Many DataLounge posters become violently pedantic where matters of improper grammar, punctuation and spelling are concerned. Some threads are locked by the Webmaster, however, and a few are deleted outright, particularly those which criticize the site's management. For most of its history DataLounge had a system of "redtagging" trolls. When posters were tagged, each of their previous and subsequent posts are tagged with a number in red text so that they become publicly identified. This prevented the majority of trolls from stirring flamewars by, for instance, "talking to themselves" (e.g., posting anonymously on their own threads while pretending to be different individuals). Although the V6 version of DataLounge has a "ff" button, short for "Flames & Freaks," to report trolls to the Webmaster, and in past incarnations could be used to create a redtag for a particular post even in the Webmaster's absence, as of yet no redtags have appeared on V6. It is not known whether redtags are now gone for good.
The Marcia Cross incident
DataLounge was in the news in February 2005, when a "friendly spy" claiming to work at the ABCAmerican Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
television network, posted that actress Marcia Cross
Marcia Cross
Marcia Anne Cross is an American actress. She is known for her television roles as Bree Van de Kamp on the ABC comedy-drama series Desperate Housewives, and as Dr...
would come out as gay in an upcoming issue of The Advocate
The Advocate
The Advocate is an American LGBT-interest magazine, printed monthly and available by subscription. The Advocate brand also includes a web site. Both magazine and web site have an editorial focus on news, politics, opinion, and arts and entertainment of interest to LGBT people...
. Within days the rumor had spread like wildfire and garnered mentions in the media including CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
and Fox Television's Los Angeles affiliate, before Cross denied the rumors in an interview with Barbara Walters
Barbara Walters
Barbara Jill Walters is an American broadcast journalist, author, and television personality. She has hosted morning television shows , the television newsmagazine , former co-anchor of the ABC Evening News, and current contributor to ABC News.Walters was first known as a popular TV morning news...
and her co-hosts on The View. The Advocate published an article chronicling this incident. Less than six months later, Cross announced her engagement to stockbroker Tom Mahoney, leading to widespread speculation on DataLounge that Cross -- believed by most posters to be a closeted lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
, owing to both direct accusations made by gossip columnist and DataLounge user Michael Musto
Michael Musto
Michael Musto is an American columnist for the The Village Voice, where he writes La Dolce Musto. Musto was born in Brooklyn to an Italian American family. He attended Columbia University graduating in 1976. During his studies, he was a theater critic for the Columbia Spectator...
and the fact that she had not, to anyone's public knowledge, dated a man since her then-boyfriend Richard Jordan
Richard Jordan
Richard Jordan was an American stage, screen and film actor. A long-time member of the New York Shakespeare Festival, he performed in many Off Broadway and Broadway plays...
died of a brain tumor in 1993 -- had entered into a relationship of convenience at the urging of her PR team in order to squash the gay rumors about her.
Posters of note
Rosie O'DonnellRosie O'Donnell
Roseann "Rosie" O'Donnell is an American stand-up comedian, actress, author and television personality. She has also been a magazine editor and continues to be a celebrity blogger, LGBT rights activist, television producer and collaborative partner in the LGBT family vacation company R Family...
has mentioned visits to DataLounge in print magazine interviews.