> They just try to keep explicitly political material from being posted on their site - from any point of view.

Right that is what they claim in their guidelines but in practice this is very untrue. American left progressive material generally does fine on the site, both from the rule moderation perspective and community sentiment.

> Fun fact: that’s called “they don’t want you around”. You’re being vibe checked out.

It's funny, in your attempt to sarcastically sneer in your comment you just tried to build a strawman of my political opinions in your head.

Regardless the easiest way for them to settle this would to say it explicitly. "We strongly believe in left social justice values and that informs our moderation and the content we allow on the site." That's all the guidelines would need to make it clear to everyone what's going on. Instead they do this gaslighting dance where they never explicitly say their political position but instead enforce it by enforcing the rules more harshly on those they politically disagree with. They could instead point to this guideline to moderate or flag content they politically disagree with. It's upfront and clear.

The Internet as it is is subject to a huge amount of context collapse. Moreover tech people are more likely than the average person to have lower EQ. Using unrelated moderation rules to fight political battles is a fairly negative thing in my opinion. Being clear about what you allow and disallow does everyone a service and level sets expectations.

There are some very smart people on that site that only contribute there(although some are old slashdotters from back in the day) so it is a shame.

I get the impression by watching the community that interacting with them is basically impossible as a normal person.

Someone gets an invite, has productive technical discussions, eventually says something that doesn't align exactly with their religion(and we're talking really obscure stuff here) and he gets swiftly and permanently banned possibly bringing the person who invited him down with him as well.