Ash was aware of at least one of them, and she acknowledged that one case. I could provide you a list of people (and I did to Ash in a BM) that are known to be guilty of the behavior I described. It's not about political disagreements, or wanting to be only in their echo chamber--if it were, they would only post in FO. But the cases of which I'm aware, and have been discussed in the FOs in which I'm a member, show this goes on a lot.

Some of those people HAVE been dinged by the mods, with increasing penalties over time. Some are more effective at staying JUST within the rules. Some of those people have admitted in boardmails that they just enjoy poking, irritating, sniping at people. This is stupid. It apparently is compensating for some deficiency in their personal lives, but they do it.

So, whether you buy it or not, it does happen, and it IS the major reason behind it. I can't really speak for Jefe on this, but I can say there's a reason he agreed to put this in place.