A thread in the forums got me thinking about the ideological battles we sometimes witness on DDO. Which ideologies balance each other, or act in opposition? What is the prevalence of conservatism on the website? Or liberalism? Or libertarianism?

Well, I made up a list of 32 active members here – members who are active on the forums and also show their ideology, meaning people like Kleptin are left out, and decided to dissect them demographically. Here are my results:

chart

As you can see, the pie chart shows that liberal members of the site are the most common, yet are hardly a plurality, as conservative members of the website are nipping at the heels, in membership, so to speak. Meanwhile, moderates come in third in adherents, tied with libertarians, while socialists and authoritarians are fringe.

However, it is important to note two things: one, that 3 out of 8 “conservatives” also profess to be libertarians, and their membership could easily switch back and forth, meaning that in general, conservatism and libertarianism are tied in terms of absolute adherents, not giving a truly clear right-wing opposition; and two, the left-wing (liberals, moderates/progressives and socialists) outnumber the right-wing (conservatives, libertarians and authoritarians) – 17 to 15.

So while, yes, this is a small sample, and yes, it isn’t representative of a lot of views of DDOians, I think it can give a somewhat clearer picture of DDO’s ideological drift. Overall, I’d say that DDO is about even on the ideological divide, though “liberals” probably take up the lion’s share of all active users.

So, when sometimes people complain about the “left slant” of DDO, people should remember this: quantity-wise, there is no real difference – so quality is what distinguishes the argument. ;)