It’s been alleged many times that conservatives are treated unfairly by the mods and admins, but I’ve yet to see any examples put forth. If true, it shouldn’t be too hard to prove.
One of the recent warnings Terr received was for calling other posters idiots, with that coming after ten other warnings and a suspension. That would get a flaming liberal banned too.
The topic was the death of a poster’s friend.
I don’t know why you call it rules-lawyering. But yes, sharing his legal knowledge and sharing it with his conservative slant pisses people off. Mostly unjustifiably in my view: we’re here to fight ignorance. Now a few years ago posters would tell him repeatedly over many pages that the underlying issue was moral/political and the law wasn’t especially relevant to that. It was then that I thought the vitriol was understandable, since Bricker never seemed to grasp that. But now Bricker acknowledges the distinction, and even introduces it (thereby pre-empting the objection in my view)*. But he still gets some abuse.
Then again, I’ve lampooned Bricker in the pit, or at least I did years ago. I haven’t done it recently though as I haven’t felt the need.
The mods changed the topic to that well after the posts being discussed.
No, it was not. The posts in question could hardly have been more disruptively and cruelly OFF topic. It was a thread prompted by worry about the poster’s friends and colleagues at the site of the shooting and looking for information and support. It later became a thread of condolences about the friend that was killed. One would have to have the sensitivity of a lump of mud to intrude a gun-politics debate into it.
They changed the title, not the topic.
I don’t think I’ve ever done this. Falsely, that is.
Racist views? Damn straight I’d prefer those shut down. Not going to happen on this MB, though, I’m aware. Doesn’t mean I have to keep my own mouth shut up.
Convenient not to have to constantly refight a war we already won, yes, it is.
Just for the record, I am “no wing”. I don’t identify as right or left, as a conservative or liberal. I don’t know anything about politics nor do I care to.
So accusing the mods of leaning a certain way is a little funny, considering there’s at least one who doesn’t know what any of them mean or wishes to.
I stay out of all things politics.
…the correct place to argue about things has always been either Great Debates or the BBQ Pit. Sometimes the Mods have allowed debate to take place in IMHO. But MPSIMS has always been a place to report and talk about the news and not a place to debate it. Heck: even the 9/11 thread was more civilised than the thread in question.
It was frustrating to watch Lancia’s thread get politicized and am glad the moderators intervened - thank you. But yes, this issue is something I am aware of too - it feels like traffic here is just fading.
When was the last time you were modded?
The topic was the OP being upset over the danger some of her friends were in. It was a personal lament, not an invitation to debate. Bring up gun control in that context is about as “on topic” as doing so at a funeral. If you’re that tone deaf, though, then maybe it’s best to stay out of that forum.
I changed the title to better reflect the topic, as a last attempt to keep off topic politicizing of someone’s personal grief at bay.
Yeah, I’m not seeing any sort of mod persecution of right-wing types.
What I do see though, is a certain group of posters who, in most any politically charged thread, angrily shout down anyone who they disagree with. I mean, if there’s a thread on gun control, abortion, poverty, racism, etc… both sides ought to be able to come in and state their cases and have their *cases * beaten up and examined in detail and affirmed or refuted, but they themselves shouldn’t be the target of vitriol and condescension due to the mere fact that they hold an opposing viewpoint. What makes it worse is that the left-wing side always tries to claim the moral high-ground and uses that to bludgeon everyone else.
That’s what happens more often than not in my experience, and I suspect that’s probably some part of what Bricker’s getting at. I know that I just don’t even bother in a lot of threads because it’s not worth the uphill battle if I don’t feel the same way about something.
If there’s a modding differential, it’s not really due to stricter modding on right-wing types, it’s more of a matter of greater leniency to left-wing types.
My complaint was partly just belly-aching at what I see as deteriorating ratios between mindless shitposts and thoughtful writing.
But closer to the topic at hand, I do actually think some posters would be both higher quality and less likely to get themselves in trouble if they posted half as often. Maybe the causation is backwards–they post so often because they are just looking for a fight. But maybe, just maybe they end up in stupid fights saying stupid things because they post so often. Just limiting them–whether to a number of posts or a number of threads (to satisfy your concern)–might solve the rules violations and as a bonus leave a little more room for the quality to shine through.
This may be an insight limited to the threads I frequent, which tend to be political arguments.
Frankly, has any thought been made to weeding out the bulk of the offending posts, so that the topic is less distracting trying to read now?
Move 'em to a thread in GD or something.
Well, if we always agreed with you, then we would both be wrong. 
Obviously, my eyes deceived me, and I misread a date from one of his posts. Wow, four years already.
Modded? I’ve never seen that.
Sure, you take a lot of snipe from the much more populous left-wing here, many of whom are more emotional than rational (but hey - at least we have hearts! ), but I’ve never noticed you being modded more than the average poster - or actually, at all. What have I missed?
Here was my last post that was modded, April of this year:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=18295370&postcount=91
Are we really debating left wing bias again?