In this thread the question was asked “Why does the board lean Democratic?” During the discussions quite a few conservative posters voiced their opinions of how they believe they were treated on the SDMB by the more liberal members. This lead to what seemed like a lot of dismissive comments from the more liberal members who either didn’t think there was an anti-conservative bend to the board or who thought the conservatives were thin-skinned or whining. This post really got me thinking, especially this line:
Was my perception really out of line? Was I the only one who felt there was an undercurrent of anti-conservative attitude? Am I seeing a “persecution” where none exists?
To get a better understanding I decided to create this completely unscientific, non-binding and faulty poll. Ultimately it makes no difference and the results are completely flawed, but I am hoping to get some input from the members. Thank you.
I see this board as having a more liberal composition, but I don’t see anti-conservative bias in modding etc. I"m not sure if you want the poll to answer composition of the board or if we see bias.
Same here. I don’t think the moderators skew the board to the left, I think it’s just that there are more left-leaning members. We just don’t get too many righties in here. That might be because they don’t feel welcome, or that they only want to hang out with their own kind- but either way, most of the newbie righties we get in here come here with the intention of stirring up shit.
The fact that we’ve got some right-wingers who have been here for years would seem to indicate that there’s no institutionalized leaning.
Maybe I should have been clearer. I’m not looking for how people see the mods mete out their warnings and bans and whether we see it as pro or anti one political group or the other. I want to see if liberals think that the board is supportive or antagonistic to political beliefs. So, for example, a conservative member sees what they think is an inordinate level of animosity towards conservatives/support for liberals they would choose “Conservative poster and see a pro-liberal lean”. Conversely, if they think there is an inordinate level of animosity towards liberals/support for conservatives they would choose “Conservative poster and see a pro-conservative lean”.
I’m liberal and see the board as pretty plainly left leaning with enough people actively hostile to conservative beliefs that it drives off conservatives and becomes self-reinforcing.
I imagine everyone sees themselves as paragons of fairness. There are more liberals here, so any conservative (or libertarian) is going to feel outnumbered and are going to interpret that as hostility, even if that’s not the intent of the individual posters.
Or, to put it another way- I don’t have a problem with conservatives, in general. I *do *have a problem, though, with many of the conservative viewpoints. From the right, that would look like I’m personally hostile to conservatives. Multiply that by a thousand, and I can easily see how an incoming right-winger would see the board as hostile and partisan.
Hard to say where I fit politically. I guess the simplest thing to say would be that George W. Bush and his fellows drove me out of the Republican party, to which I had belonged and voted with for a long time. I voted for Obama twice. I still subscribe to The National Review.
IMO, there are far more liberals posting here than there are conservatives.
I identify as liberal. Compared to my social circles IRL, this board is a model of political diversity. I think that what I notice most frequently about the politics of board members is how many people there are with a libertarian streak.
I actually waivered on this! I figured I would rather use the more positive phrasing than the negative to hopefully avoid an antagonistic tone.
I also didn’t include libertarians because I didn’t want the poll to become too unwieldy.
I realize not everyone self-identifies as liberal/conservative because they don’t believe they can be shoehorned into a single label when then don’t adhere to everything associated with the label. I would self-identify as conservative because although I am pretty centrist my views tend to be more to the right than left.
I consider myself liberal and I believe the board skews pretty liberal on many things.
I think we have a cadre of militant liberals who really do bash conservatives at every opportunity. Most dopers give conservatives here a fair shake though. Unfortunately, some of the only conservative posters here are complete idiots and trot out hateful stuff time and time again and they get mocked by anyone deservedly. Decent conservatives here seem to get a fair shake, I think.
Originally, I was going with liberal-leaning. However, I stopped to consider that reality has a liberal bias. If conservative ideas were factually wrong, then one doesn’t have to be liberal to be correct. One could be perfectly neutral and still side with liberal ideas
There are indeed a few libertarian types here but, as a newbie (and a fairly liberal one), I’ve been surprised at the thinly veiled hostility directed at libertarian ideas expressed. And while there’s a lot of good-natured “there should be a law…” joking, I get the impression that not all of it is really joking at all and that there is a basis of nanny-statism lurking beneath the veneer of liberalism.
OK, for those of you playing at home: 6 hours into the polling and 91% see a liberal lean on this board. Sure the number of participants is still low and will probably increase this evening, but it is a fascinating trend. It’s almost like watching the election night coverage and making predictions based on 2% of the votes being counted in one state.
I do find it interesting that no conservatives think the board is neutral or leans conservative.
Before anyone jumps to any conclusions, this is not a scientific poll. The answers are all based on people’s perceptions and should be taken with a grain of salt.
