I read most of this thread.

My take on it:
At one time, Mudcat was almost all music discussion with a small handfull of non-musical threads. Then came political debate, usually one or two thread's worth. Now for some reason (mostly one virus-guest and maybe a couple other anon-guests who just like to start threads) there are more posts on politics than on anything else. Can't say much, because it's what people want.

But...

Early on, we were encouraged to cut and paste folkie stuff because Mudcat was somewhat archival in nature. Early on, we were told not to cut and paste lenghty non-music articles.

It's not censorship because the stuff being deleted is not the work of the person doing the posting. Their own personal words would have to be deleted. It's a waste of space, it's usually a copyright violation, and the articles are not only old news in a couple of days, but usually so available that there's no reason anyone should expect to see them here.

Now if somebody wants to start on the freakin' virus warnings, hoaxes and "My name is Jokhe Stwahrt, I'm an African man, and you know that my credit is bad"... (oh jeez - somebody stop me NOW!)