I agree with this if you simply look at the site as it is, but the kind of movement that gjm is talking about has certainly happened, and Eugene's downvoting may have contributed to that.

Some years ago, if you even mentioned religion or a culturally conservative practice without saying something negative about it, you would very likely be downvoted. I'm pretty sure that even happened to gjm on at least one occasion -- he was downvoted and added, "I don't see what's wrong with this comment," and I'm pretty sure it was downvoted just because he didn't add something negative when he mentioned religion.

That is obviously not the case anymore with religion. And I just recently was giving some arguments favoring a policy of no sex before marriage, without that kind of result. Of course people still disagreed, but they didn't object to the fact that someone was arguing that point.

So it seems to me true that there has been a substantial amount of movement, even if it is still true overall that LW is more leftwing than not.

I'm not claiming that LW is generally hostile to lefties, nor that there aren't things that happen here that might annoy righties or push them away, nor that overall it's worse for lefties than for righties. Only that one particular thing that happens here makes LW more unpleasant for lefties than it need be and drives some away.

(I would prefer LW to be a place where people with any political proclivities at all can feel welcome, unless those proclivities are severely and overtly anti-rational or so obnoxious as to render them unwelcome pretty much everywhere.)

people left LW because it stopped being interesting

And vice versa.

LW would probably still be interesting if certain people (e.g. Eliezer and Yvain) still regularly posted here.

Some people did. Some people left for other reasons. One of those reasons was disliking getting downvoted a lot. In one case, it was specifically disliking getting mass-downvoted by Eugine. Which happens to be what you asked for.

(I agree that most people who have left LW have left for reasons other than getting mass-downvoted by Eugine. I hadn't thought that was under any sort of dispute.)

D'oh! Thanks.

(I have a feeling I've made the same mistake before and had it pointed out before. Perhaps I'll remember next time.)

quite unlikely

There are two separate claims: (1) He was hell-banned; and (2) EY personally intervened to un-ban him.

Is there evidence that this didn't happen? I am, too, more suspicious about EY intervening, but regarding the first claim nobody (in particular, Nancy) jumped up and said that Eugine is making shit up and no one actually hell-banned him.