the conservative exit from the board, on shaggy, was possibly due to what led to the [serious] manifestation.
what a lot of you don't understand is that a lot of moderation is driven from reported posts. you don't report, often we don't see it. generally, my goal is not to take any action on anyone for any reason. the whole point of these boards from shaggy to here is free discourse. the only rule is no trolling.
and that's the rub. defining trolling from honestly misled people. i think too many times, people make people a troll in their mind when the poster actually believes the bullshit they are spewing. generally, i side on the "this person is honest" side of the equation, which is why i rarely take action on the political board, aside from calling people out like a normal poster, but not as a mod.
the whole reason for [serious] was because people weren't actually engaging in serious discourse. and there was a not insignificant group of posters who really did want that. some did not, and they trolled those threads. and that accounted for what you perceived as moderation bias. the desire for actual discussion was the genesis there. and i understand that it did not work as well as it could have, but that's not entirely on the moderation. a community is a sum of individuals.
i took a RATION of shit for any moderation move i made on the old site. i think much of it was unfair. marvin the martian comes to mind. that dude was obviously a troll, but when i banned him, i got called out repeatedly for bias. nevermind that i banned trolls on #bothsides. the one obvious right wing troll, and come the fuck on, he was obvious, got me catching a ration of shit.
and this idea that people on the "right" were getting banned left and right is utter bullshit. i can probably count on my ten fingers the number of posters who earned a holiday for trolling. almost nobody was proper banned. that i can count on one hand. perception bias is a hell of a thing. i really think some of yall need to have a think about how you perceive things versus how things actually are.
conservative posters schism'd from cloak room on the move here because of the timing. it was impossible to be honest about donald trump because the man is fundamentally dishonest. that's why some left the cloak room. many left the site altogether, i reckon. swam, tahoe, the insidiously dishonest but clever laphroiag (known by many names, but always detectable). notably, many conservative posters did not leave. @ChiTownDoc and @Ghost of LL and @Lobo come to mind. yall think the cloak room is liberal for some reason. it's far from it. ask @bad_teammate, and he'll set you straight. he thinks all these republican converts are fucking up the show for proper democratic policy.
yall came here to dt because you don't want to get called out, and you got no real defense. that's the sum of it, imo. i acknowledge my biases, and i like to think i'm honest with myself, and i always second or third guess before i take any moderation action. but you (not you, wulaw, the editorial you) have CLEARLY wanted to bring political discussions to the daily texan. whether it is to bait people into coming offsides, or doing it yourself, you are engaging in pretty clear shenanigans.