[CCIP]

Why does political affiliation matter? And why do people, let alone mods doing their job, need to label themselves with a reductive right vs. left label?

I make little secret of my own political leanings, but I'm far more conscious of the fact that some posts, threads and members do more to provoke, inflame or offend than others. Any moderator's job is not to push politics, but to keep the place tolerably friendly for the largest possible number of members. We also consider this to be the members' job here. I don't moderate general topics, but I can tell you for sure that I've known several moderator decisions before where the moderator who made the call did so completely against his political preferences. The problem is rarely the subject of the thread, but the tone, intention and extremity. I can tell you that 100% of political or religious threads which get closed are not because of leanings, but rather because people dominating them are doing so at the expense of this forum's mission, which is to provide a friendly and welcoming environment for subsimmers. If you're here to preach and pick fights, maybe it's a good idea to step back. That's the message behind forum discipline, not that you shouldn't believe what you believe.

To answer your question more directly, the moderators' political views are diverse, but that doesn't even enter the equation here.