However if he tried to actually "game" the system to his advantage (not saying he did) should THAT be tagged?
With gaming the system I mean influencing DT list for his own sake or agenda and not for legitimate reasons. See Thule et al.
If the "gaming" takes the form of strategically sending a lot of merit, creating sockuppets, and stuff like that, then no. That sort of gaming might get me to blacklist people, in fact. But if it looks more like
politics, then that's OK, and that's what H8bussesNbicycles's thread looks like to me.
I might not understand when self-moderated threads are appropriate.
I have no problem with your (theymos) conclusion that "H8bussesNbicycles's thread looks like [politics] to me", but isn't there a bit of a problem with the self-moderation aspect of certain kinds of threads, especially when dealing with seemingly meta issues?
For example, I had 6 posts deleted from that thread so of course, now I don't even attempt to participate or pay attention to postings in that particular thread, since I could not even contribute if I wanted to, except if I were to exclude Lauda from my trust list, then they might allow my posts, and I thought that my posts were innocuous, even though obviously the contents of my posts likely distracted from the message that they want to promote in that thread and spread through the forum if they are able, inaccurate as some other members might find such thread messages to be.