Something different - yes. Something completely different - no. There are enough similarities to make comparisons not completely worthless.
Heck, the notion of what ‘right’ and ‘left’ means probably varies from person to person - unless there’s some commonality, the whole discussion (and therefore any accusation of bias) is worthless.
The free market in action; if the market valued conservative messageboards, there would be more of them.
The original OP says “I’m having trouble finding a good x; can anyone suggest where I might look?” A perfectly sensible answer to such a query is “well here’s one reason why you may be having trouble finding x.” Granted, it doesn’t answer the OP directly, but it addresses the concern. If it happens that the response entails a critique of ‘x’ and a justification for why it’s hard to find, that’s useful and productive (if potentially obnoxious, at least to the author of the OP).
Since when are SDMB responses forbidden to address issues that aren’t a direct response to the OP? Particularly in the case of issues so ripe with political overtones as “why aren’t there more intelligent right-wing discussion boards” which, while not the specific question in the OP, constituted the main topic of the post?
True. The same goes for left-wing talk radio.
I agree entirely, in fact I’m tempted to point at the overprotective moderation in that thread as a counterexample for the whole ‘liberal bias’ thing.
Absolutely. No let’s discuss why conservatives prefer a medium that is much more tightly moderated by the host to suppress dissenting viewpoints, and avoid a forum where their viewpoints are subject to relatively uncensored debate.
That should be “Now let’s discuss…”
Can anyone point me to an example of someone requesting or expecting protection of their expression of liberal views on this board?
Don’t kid yourself. The people here aren’t much smarter than they are anywhere else, if they are smarter at all.
The distinguishing feature is that in many threads, people have to back up their assertions. Citations are important here, and research is valued. So much of what we do rests on the genuine accomplishments of people actually smarter than us who did that research, supplemented by some subject-matter experts that we have here that have some proven expertise in a field and that can genuinely use their posts as their cite.
You’d find that in numberless other message boards devoted to the shooting sports, or the military, or law, or medicine, or the arts. Now, we discuss many of these things here, and much else besides. This board has always been intended to foster wide ranging discussion among people whose interests might be wide ranging or narrow. All sorts of folks were welcomed here.
If a military discussion board were to have these sorts of discussions, among active duty people and veterans, and they discussed everything from duty stations to weapons systems, and the board turned out to have a rightward political slant, nobody would be surprised. Nor would anybody make assumptions about intelligence from that - these people were drawn to that board because they wanted to discuss those topics.
We wanted to discuss the topics here, and we’re here. Intelligence has squat to do with it.
Here are the first ten thread titles I found a few moments ago in General Questions. I would appraciate if Quartz, or any other interested poster, could point out the liberal bias:
How to move headrests further back in new cars?
Gadget Universe
Windows Movie Maker question
Birmingham Section of London?
Londoners: Name help please
What’s faster - a tortoise or a snail?
GAH!! What did I do to my bathtub??
What exactly is a Wal-Mart greeter?
Can/Do Irish people have two official versions of their name?
Derren Brown - NLP?
Just pointing out here that the political sections of this board are nothing but a sideshow to the main intent of this board’s existence. I see nothing inherently leftist about the concept of The Straight Dope, nor the vast majority of the subjects discussed here.
Sure, there are numerous partisans here who treat certain sections of this board, mainly GD and the Pit, as bulletin boards for political advertising. Maybe more self-identified liberals do this here than persons who call themselves conservatives, but there is no question that a lot, maybe even a majority, of the political content emitted by both sides here is advertising rather than legitimate news or subject for debate, and as such justifiably can be ignored.
Got anywhere to talk about shotguns, Moto?
We’ve had a few good shotgun discussions here. But for a dedicated board, look for Shotgun World.
They seem to cover everything from clays to game to model discussions.
I have not participated, as my time does not permit both talking about shotguns and shooting them. 
You use GQ as an example? The forum that has a warning about bringing politics to the forum right at the top? Give me a fucking break. No one is saying that this is a left leaning MB because Cecil set it up that way. It is a lefty board because the vast majority of posters who are vocal about political topics are lefty.
…and don’t go bringing any of your idiotic ‘round-Earth’ partisanship into it!
Bullshit. “Where can I get intelligent discussion from a conservative viewpoint?” “You can’t rightwingers are morons.” Yippee hooray for us we is smart and they is dumb. Moderated in just the right way because the smart people couldn’t help themselves and kept shitting on the thread.
Nobody was expressing conservative views in that thread. No one was asking for their views to be protected. A simple factual question was asked. People without an answer shit on the thread. Even after mod warnings.
It might be interesting to compare this recent request of Quartz’s with the one he made looking for left-wing blogs. There were a bunch of suggestions, and not one snide comment. That indicates one of two things to me…either there aren’t many conservatives around here, or there are a lot, but they are the nicest, most polite conservatives on the Web. I’m guessing it’s the first.
I have no problem with this being a left-leaning board, as I think it was a natural occurance, for whatever reason. I just think it’s funny that people on the right think it’s left-leaning, and people on the left think it’s centrist. That alone should indicate which way it leans! If the people on the left don’t see anything one way or the other, it probably means that the board reflects their perspective more often than not.
I think you’re missing out the effects of the posters themselves. My problem with the posters of the thread in question was that as someone pointed out, a right-wing prospective customer coming across it isn’t as likely to think “Wow, what a reasonable, respectful board”. You may have thought it was a stupid question because you don’t believe there’s a bias, but that’s not what most of the mockers said - they were firmly in the “Let’s all make jokes about right-wingers being thick!” camp.
Well, I myself am liberal, and liberal by European standards. I suppose i’m just surprised that in your head, insulting the entire opposition with a lovely broad brush is just as respectful as not doing so. After all, complaining about it is just childish, right?
Feel free to bring up a reason why you don’t think it would be found. That’s a great idea. And i’m not saying you can’t bring those up; I am not a moderator. I haven’t reported any of those posts as being against the rules. However, when your reason it won’t be found is that being an intelligent right-winger is an oxymoron, i’m perfectly free to in turn call you out as a complete idiot. It’s not against the rules, it’s against my sense of respect and dislike for people who’ll take any excuse to make a jab at people they don’t like.
I admire the carefulness with which you’ve written your argument. However, by reducing it to the general you seem to be missing the specific points made in this thread. I don’t think your argument is taken so well when the reason you give is that “You won’t find this, because all those people are total idiots”. Likewise, I note that the posts in that thread did not even have a facade of helpfulness. They (not all) weren’t even saying “You won’t find them, i’m afraid, since smart right-wingers don’t exist”. They were just getting in insults!
Okay, is this pit about (1) there being a left-wing tilt to the SDMB or (2) the notion that when someone asks for recommendations about something, but we thing that thing is silly (in my case, the notion of an intelligent conservative), we have no right to say so? Because I’ll go on record agreeing with (1) and not (2).
I don’t think that fully works. If left-wing posters see the board as being centrist, and themselves as leftist, then what they’re saying is “This board is more right-wing than I am” - not that it reflects their perspective.
I’ll defend to the death your right to call me an idiot (indeed, I think it’s a useful contribution to the discussion, providing you back it up with evidence – which usually isn’t too hard :p).