This.

If anything we used to talk about politics in the sense I did, giving real world examples of possible institution failure or success, much more in the old Overcoming Bias days. And while before karma the worst comments where much worse and before Politics is the Mindkiller we where less careful about how we approached it, I would say we where still less mindkilled and more capable of discussing it.

In the example TimS gave the goal was already assumed and not made explicit, this would be less of a problem if it was an academic exercise rather than directly tied to changing the LW community. And I should emphasise that since I don't believe in most kind of political activity a citizen is supposed to engage in the governing style of SF for me really is an academic question with little real world implications beyond tangential lessons on how to organize a non-profit or for-profit company.