One thing that I used to really enjoy about this forum was that we seemed to have ordinary members here who wielded as much or more influence than the staff, almost solely based on their knowledge of Dhamma. Sadly that is no longer what carries
any weight around here - at all. The most impressive attribute now seems to be one's willingness to aggressively take up an issue regardless of its relation to the Dhamma. And this trend started long before the "News" section arrived. I think people realized they weren't getting noticed based on Dhamma knowledge, in Dhammic topics, and were longing for more easily accessible accolades. Hunt down some of the older lounge threads and you'll see precisely what I mean. Members from all over the political spectrum were responsible for making that worldly direction and attitude a significant part of what we discuss here and how we discuss it.
I used to love getting into those really rich Dhamma discussions, but those days are in the past. They can surely come back, but it must be a wholesale effort either from the bottom up or the top down or both. Either way, the general membership needs to rediscover what carries weight around here in "an environment for the discussion of Theravada Buddhism" and you surely do not need the staff's approval in order to do so. There are seven of us and hundreds of you.
As binocular said, just do it. If you want to talk Dhamma, talk Dhamma. If that sounds boring to you, then just keep participating in nonsense threads that have nothing at all to do with Dhamma, further proliferating an unDhammic direction of DW.