RD Forum shutting down

[tsig]

I never posted very much there but I'm sad to see it go:


"Dear forum members,

We wanted you all to know at the earliest opportunity about our new website currently in development. RichardDawkins.net will have a new look and feel, improved security, and much more."

"The new discussion area will not be a new forum. It will be different. We will be using a system of tags to categorize items, instead of sub-forums. Discussions can have multiple tags, such as "Education", "Children", and "Critical Thinking". Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed. The approval process will be there to ensure the quality of posts on the site. This is purely an editorial exercise to help new visitors find quality content quickly. We hope this discussion area will reflect the foundation's goals and values."

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110313

All comments have been cut off.

[95theses]

Hello all,

Due to some overlap I thought that you all might be interested to hear of the developments over at RDF, a forum that while primarily for atheists also had a thriving debunking paranormal section and that Randi was a member of.

it was the busiest Atheist forums on the net, and had 85,000 members and garnered over 2,000 posts a day.

Last night the Admin, Josh Timonen posted this to the moderators :

Dear forum moderators,

We wanted you all to know at the earliest opportunity about our new website currently in development. RichardDawkins.net will have a new look and feel, improved security, and much more. Visits to the site have really grown over the past 3 1/2 years, and this update gives us an opportunity to address several issues. Over the years we've become one of the world's leading resources for breaking rational and scientific news from all over the net and creating original content. We are focusing on quality content distribution, and will be bringing more original articles, video and other content as we grow.

The new RichardDawkins.net will have a fully-integrated discussion section. This will be a new feature for the site, similar to the current forum, but not identical. We feel the new system will be much cleaner and easier to use, and hopefully this will encourage participation from a wider variety of users.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value. When the new website goes live, you are welcome to submit these posts as new discussions. The forum will then be taken down from the web. You will not loose your username on the new system.

The new discussion area will not be a new forum. It will be different. We will be using a system of tags to categorize items, instead of sub-forums. Discussions can have multiple tags, such as "Education", "Children", and "Critical Thinking". Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed. The approval process will be there to ensure the quality of posts on the site. This is purely an editorial exercise to help new visitors find quality content quickly. We hope this discussion area will reflect the foundation's goals and values.

We're confident that these changes will improve the site experience and we look forward to seeing what you do with the new system.

We know that this is a big decision. We know some of you moderators will be against this change. We ask that you respect our decision and help make this transition as smooth as possible. These decisions have all been approved by our organization, and we ask that you don't add to our work by causing trouble.

We will not be migrating moderator roles to the new discussion site. Again, we're sure this might come as a shock, and we hope you don't take it personally. We can't thank you enough for your contributions to the old forum. The new system will not require a large team of moderators, as the discussion area will be more focused. We encourage you to contribute to the new discussions area, and are welcome to flag inappropriate activity for review.

Please understand that this transition is going to be a lot of work for us. I'm sure as you read this, you will have a lot of questions and concerns. We also know that this is a change from what we had been discussing previously. This announcement does not require a response, but we wanted you to be aware. Please do not email Richard with complaints, we have discussed this transition thoroughly with him, and he is currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand. Please do not attempt to inflame the users, start any petitions, or "relocate" groups of users to a separate forum. Do not use any of the data held by the foundation (such as email addresses) through the control panel to cause any trouble. Any behavior of this kind will not be tolerated. We don't expect you to do these things, but we say all of this only to discourage any well-intentioned moves that would only frustrate the situation.

Many thanks again.

Josh Timonen
Andrew Chalkley
The Richard Dawkins Foundation


As this appeared to be both rude and condescending, and due to the fact that for months Josh had been personally assuring the mods that very soon new forums with a working search function was coming, to have this thrust upon them was a shock.

A thread discussing this was quickly started, which was in the majority critical of the way this was being handled.

in response to this Josh shut down the forums, removed all critical posts and made it read only and removed the PM function.

The upshot is that members who have spent years battling for reason wether as members or mods now no longer have any way of contacting friends they made on the forums.

This is not the way to build a community.

A few managed to get word out that we were joining a new forum for now before those threads got burnt along with the other books and all dissent quashed.

Thread is at Rationalia but I can't post a link as I don't have enough posts under my belt here, i mainly lurk.

[Matthew Best]

As this appeared to be both rude and condescending,

Maybe I'm just insensitive myself, but it doesn't appear to me to be either rude or condescending. :con2:

[95theses]

They explicitly lied to the mods for months about the changes.

They felt the need to threaten the mods and tell them not to contact Richard, despite the fact that some of them were in regular contact with him prior to this.

They banned members with over 10k useful posts for expressing dissent (Edited : and deleted every single post they ever made)

And they have made the forums read only and removed all PM functions over night.

Imagine if that happened here.

[Sledge]

Boo hoo. You don't like how a forum is run, go somewhere else.

[Darat]

It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.

[Matthew Best]

Once again, it may be just that I am not reading closely enough, but most of the claims in your second post seem to be new and additional claims to those made in your first post.

[Darat]

Boo hoo. You don't like how a forum is run, go somewhere else.

Well it's not so much 95theses doesn't like how they are running their forum rather that they aren't running the forum now.... they've closed it.... :)

[95theses]

The claims in the second post are the actions he has taken, the post was the very first that the mods had heard of it, after being promised for months that a new forum was coming with a search function that actually worked.

Yes, of course we can go elsewhere, but a little warning would have been nice. Some of the Mods have been there for years dedicating hours and hours every single week keeping a forum with 85,000 members in check, these people volunteered for no personal benefit and have just been discarded.

Even if they wanted to quash dissent, then stopping people posting was one thing, but to delete over 10k posts by one mod alone from the science forum just for expressing dissent over the sudden move smacks of petty vandalism.

Rationalia.com has a big thread all about this if anyone is interested in reading the full story, I still can't link.

[Darat]

And of course I can't resist: this Forum has a well established membership with a lot of overlap with the subjects discussed at the Dawkins forum, folks are quite welcome to register here.

[Sledge]

Well it's not so much 95theses doesn't like how they are running their forum rather that they aren't running the forum now.... they've closed it.... :)

So problem solved. :D

[Darat]

The link to the refugees from the RDF seems to be this one: http://rationalia.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=75&sid=2047b45dc6e70beaf1d06c4ff4f81945

[Apathia]

Yikes! I hope that doesn't give the JREF any ideas.

[Professor Yaffle]

See also:

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=168049

[remirol]

I believe the JREF long ago implemented a system which produces the desired similar end-result (public-facing/googleable portion of the forum about desired topics, private section about cats and pooper) without quite so draconian measures (ie. no private section, new topics must require approval).

I'm certainly interested in hearing what recursive prophet has to say about this, since RDF was held up so frequently by him in many discussions as an example of how "well" a system could work. I guess it wasn't working according to the guys who paid the bills, after all. :oldroll:

[remirol]

They explicitly lied to the mods for months about the changes.

Of course. Wouldn't you? If it were dollars coming out of my pocket to run the forum, I damn well wouldn't announce an unpopular decision one second ahead of time to anyone who had the keys to cause damage.

They felt the need to threaten the mods and tell them not to contact Richard, despite the fact that some of them were in regular contact with him prior to this.Inaccurate representation of events. They told the mods, quote:
Please do not email Richard with complaints, we have discussed this transition thoroughly with him, and he is currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand.

They banned members with over 10k useful posts for expressing dissent (Edited : and deleted every single post they ever made)

You seem to be under the impression that shutting a forum down allows posts to remain regardless of the software, data, or machine it's hosted on being present.

And they have made the forums read only and removed all PM functions over night.Should've done that in the first place. I believe (as others have noted) that they were excessively naive to believe that such an announcement wouldn't cause boundless Internet Rage among the forum members. Between the schools of "one agonizing rip" and "a series of excruciating jerks", I fall firmly into the former.

Imagine if that happened here.I'd say "well, :talk034:" and move on with my life. But, it must be said, I think the JREF has implemented an elaborate system for the express purpose of avoiding the need to do something like this.

[macdoc]

Any refugees from the science forums there - a group of us are trying to land in a new area for a bit and keep in touch...

please email me at macdoc@macdoc.com and post any info you might have up here - your nick from RDNet net so we know which villians are present and accounted for :biggrin:

trying to gather emails so we can keep people informed.

I know a few here are members there as well....help appreciated.

Apparently it is going to be renewed with more of a science orientation ....yay.:thumbsup:

[Sledge]

Question: what is this thread supposed to achieve?

[Darat]

Paradise.

[godless dave]

It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.

And a tad assholish to think there was something wrong with an outcry and that you have the right to make the forum read only to prevent people from criticizing your decision.

It reminds me a lot of the IIDB debacle.

[godless dave]

But, it must be said, I think the JREF has implemented an elaborate system for the express purpose of avoiding the need to do something like this.

Nobody at RD.net has established that there was a need to change the forum at all.

[Professor Yaffle]

Paradise.

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

[remirol]

And a tad assholish to think there was something wrong with an outcry and that you have the right to make the forum read only to prevent people from criticizing your decision.

Oh, dear, you appear to have misunderstood the concept of "rights" entirely. On a private forum, them who pays the bills has all the rights.

I don't think for a moment anyone believes that shutting down the forum will stop any outcry, nor that there was anything _wrong_ with users being upset because the forum is going away. The outcry is quite understandable -- this is a major change on very short notice, and people are _going_ to be upset. I don't intend to pass judgment on whether this is a change for the better or not; I simply don't know (though I would be inclined to note that the measures are significantly more draconian than here, which doesn't fill me with optimism).

However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner. The thing is, the decision's made and done. In situations like that, there's a difference between knowing that an outcry is going to occur, and being willing to host the outcry while it's occurring.

[remirol]

Nobody at RD.net has established that there was a need to change the forum at all.

The forum was obviously not accomplishing the purposes the people who pay for it wanted it to accomplish. Thus, there's a need to change the forum.

Whether they regain their userbase and readership after this change will (partly) determine whether or not this was a change for the better.

[remirol]

They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.

That explains why I can see it by the dashboard light.

[Cleon]

Paradise.

Apparently Mr. Dawkins' coal train has hauled it away.

[remirol]

Apparently Mr. Dawkins' coal train has hauled it away.

... to Newcastle? right, right, OK, i'll stop, srs thread is srs

[godless dave]

Oh, dear, you appear to have misunderstood the concept of "rights" entirely. On a private forum, them who pays the bills has all the rights.

Of course they do. I'm talking about moral rights, not legal rights.


I don't think for a moment anyone believes that shutting down the forum will stop any outcry, nor that there was anything _wrong_ with users being upset because the forum is going away. The outcry is quite understandable -- this is a major change on very short notice, and people are _going_ to be upset. I don't intend to pass judgment on whether this is a change for the better or not; I simply don't know (though I would be inclined to note that the measures are significantly more draconian than here, which doesn't fill me with optimism).

However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner.

So what?

[godless dave]

The forum was obviously not accomplishing the purposes the people who pay for it wanted it to accomplish. Thus, there's a need to change the forum.

Then it would be nice of them to explain what that purpose is so we can see why it's so obvious.

It also would have behooved them to look at what purpose the forum did accomplish, and decide if that's something they want to support. From what I saw of that forum, it did accomplish a purpose, one that I would have thought Richard Dawkins would have been happy to be involved with.

If they didn't like paying for it, they could have raised money from forum users - as long as they didn't do it like IIDB, where they raised a bunch of money and then changed the forum anyway.

[remirol]

Of course they do. I'm talking about moral rights, not legal rights.

Ah, so because of some nebulous concept of morality (an inherently subjective thing), the people who pay the bills to host the forum and aren't getting what they want from that forum should simply continue to pay the bills while everyone who doesn't pay the bills bickers over whether or not the bill-payers' decision is the right thing to do.

So what?So it means that they made their decision, and they aren't interested in being berated on their dime for a decision they aren't going to change. What's so unusual about this? Are you willing to pay for people to shout at you? You'd be one of the first.

[godless dave]

Ah, so because of some nebulous concept of morality (an inherently subjective thing), the people who pay the bills to host the forum and aren't getting what they want from that forum should simply continue to pay the bills while everyone who doesn't pay the bills bickers over whether or not the bill-payers' decision is the right thing to do.

If they don't want to look like douchebags, yes.


So it means that they made their decision, and they aren't interested in being berated on their dime for a decision they aren't going to change. What's so unusual about this?

It's not unusual. Being an ******* is extremely common.

Are you willing to pay for people to shout at you? You'd be one of the first.


Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.

[remirol]

Then it would be nice of them to explain what that purpose is so we can see why it's so obvious.

How do you know they don't intend to do that when the new site arrives?

It also would have behooved them to look at what purpose the forum did accomplish, and decide if that's something they want to support. Are you really willing to assert that the powers-that-be did not look at their forum extensively before they made this decision? REALLY?

If they didn't like paying for it, they could have raised money from forum usersYou've conflated being willing to spend money with being willing to host a particular service in a particular form. Donation drives only address the former, not the latter.

[remirol]

If they don't want to look like douchebags, yes.

It's not unusual. Being an ******* is extremely common.

I see we've inserted some more subjectivity in here that now appears to be entirely within the realm of personal opinion. I refer you to my earlier posts, and specifically the words "less than rational".

Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.

See above WRT the difference between being willing to host the outcry, and being aware the outcry is going to occur.

[godless dave]

How do you know they don't intend to do that when the new site arrives?

That's a little too late, don't you think?


Are you really willing to assert that the powers-that-be did not look at their forum extensively before they made this decision? REALLY?

It sure looks that way.


You've conflated being willing to spend money with being willing to host a particular service in a particular form. Donation drives only address the former, not the latter.

Money is the only reason you gave for not wanting to host the forum, and I can't think of any other reasons.

[godless dave]

I see we've inserted some more subjectivity in here that now appears to be entirely within the realm of personal opinion. I refer you to my earlier posts, and specifically the words "less than rational".

Yes, feelings are subjective. Congratulations on that philosophical insight.



See above WRT the difference between being willing to host the outcry, and being aware the outcry is going to occur.

And I know of no reason, aside from being a thin-skinned control freak, that someone would not be willing to host the outcry.

[remirol]

That's a little too late, don't you think?

Why should it be?

It sure looks that way. And what evidence precisely do you provide for this assertion?

Money is the only reason you gave for not wanting to hos the forum, and I can't think of any other reasons.
However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner. The thing is, the decision's made and done. In situations like that, there's a difference between knowing that an outcry is going to occur, and being willing to host the outcry while it's occurring.

1) You appear to have made up your statement out of thin air. I've requoted what I've said just so you can think about it for awhile.
2) Argument from ignorance fails. Just because you can't think of reasons doesn't mean there aren't some.

Yes, feelings are subjective. Congratulations on that philosophical insight.

Excellent. Since we both agree, we can discard all the subjectivity as a reason to take any action due to lack of rationality.

And I know of no reason, aside from being a thin-skinned control freak, that someone would not be willing to host the outcry.

That's a combination of false dichotomy and argument from ignorance. Try again?

[kmortis]

It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.
What? All changes here have been met with aplumb and dignity.








Oh, where oh, where is my [sarcasm] tag?

[Darat]

...snip...

Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.

But he was also not required to let people post those criticisms in a place in which he was in control.


(I don't know how the RDF was structured so my comments may be wrong.)

[Darat]

What? All changes here have been met with aplumb and dignity.



...snip....

I know it may come as a shock to some folks here but this island of clam and rationality is quite rare on the internet, you are not typical.

[Cuddles]

island of clam

I think the forum needs a new tagline.

[Darat]

What "Land of the typos"?

[remirol]

"The Chowder of Reason"

[stijndeloose]

Oh, dear, you appear to have misunderstood the concept of "rights" entirely. On a private forum, them who pays the bills has all the rights.

Err... isn't the RDF funded by private contributions, many of which - presumably - come from people who use the forum?

[AvalonXQ]

Please do not attempt to inflame the users, start any petitions, or "relocate" groups of users to a separate forum.

This is the part that really bothers me. You're wanting to shut down your forum, where real people have made real friends and formed a real community. Why not give them the tools to relocate elsewhere if they don't like your decision?
Prohibiting them from doing that, and taking steps to make that difficult/impossible to do, can be interpreted no other way than a Major Jerk Move.

[Professor Yaffle]

That's twice in the last day or so I have seen the word clam in a so-called "typo". I suspect Scientology infiltration.

[Darat]

Get back to baking.

[remirol]

Err... isn't the RDF funded by private contributions, many of which - presumably - come from people who use the forum?

There's a difference between donating to the Foundation and donating specifically to its forum. When you donate to the Foundation, you're saying "take this money and use it as you see fit to enhance the Foundation". It is entirely possible that this action will cause some people to be no longer willing to donate/contribute to the Foundation, which is completely their right.

[macdoc]

AvalonQX
Quote:
Please do not attempt to inflame the users, start any petitions, or "relocate" groups of users to a separate forum.
This is the part that really bothers me. You're wanting to shut down your forum, where real people have made real friends and formed a real community. Why not give them the tools to relocate elsewhere if they don't like your decision?
Prohibiting them from doing that, and taking steps to make that difficult/impossible to do, can be interpreted no other way than a Major Jerk Move.

Exactly - many of have thousands of hours and posts and hundreds of friends and now not even a chance to swap emails and where to re-organize.

A word to those not involved or members there - far more than meets the eye politically and the treatment of the mods was atrocious some of whom are very senior scientists with thousands of hours of effort put into the Dawkins site.

And please - if you can't make a constructive comment don't comment at all....I and others who spend a lot of time on Dawkins are extremely annoyed and don't appreciate the comments from the chattering class here..:mgbanghead

There is a lot of value lost and some very correctly pissed off people. Playing the fool here does not present an inviting refuge for those looking for a new place to gather.....

I'm speaking as someone with 10,000+ posts there.

••••

Darat thanks for your input :thumbsup:

[cj.23]

And of course I can't resist: this Forum has a well established membership with a lot of overlap with the subjects discussed at the Dawkins forum, folks are quite welcome to register here.

I had mentioned the JREF to former RD.net posters within minutes of it happening (i was Jerome over there, I won the Science writing contest for which I am still absurdly proud!) ;)

Details and links on my blog here

http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/the-end-of-an-era-richard-dawkins-forum-to-close/

EDIT: And now you will be stuck with a lot more of me posting here! ;)

cj x

[stijndeloose]

AvalonQX


Exactly - many of have thousands of hours and posts and hundreds of friends and now not even a chance to swap emails and where to re-organize.

A word to those not involved or members there - far more than meets the eye politically and the treatment of the mods was atrocious some of whom are very senior scientists with thousands of hours of effort put into the Dawkins site.

And please - if you can't make a constructive comment don't comment at all....I and others who spend a lot of time on Dawkins are extremely annoyed and don't appreciate the comments from the chattering class here..:mgbanghead

There is a lot of value lost and some very correctly pissed off people. Playing the fool here does not present an inviting refuge for those looking for a new place to gather.....

I'm speaking as someone with 10,000+ posts there.

••••

Darat thanks for your input :thumbsup:

YES! I agree, wholeheartedly. Many of us are regrouping over at www.rationalia.com now. I'm there, too, and I've been here for a while as well.

It's crap that you can't even search the forum decently to save posts to you hard-drive. :mad:

[stijndeloose]

It is entirely possible that this action will cause some people to be no longer willing to donate/contribute to the Foundation, which is completely their right.

Probable rather than possible, methinks. And I will be one of them.

[Piscivore]

... this island of clam... is quite rare on the internet...

Why else do you think I come here?

[Beerina]

They explicitly lied to the mods for months about the changes.

They felt the need to threaten the mods and tell them not to contact Richard, despite the fact that some of them were in regular contact with him prior to this.

They banned members with over 10k useful posts for expressing dissent (Edited : and deleted every single post they ever made)

And they have made the forums read only and removed all PM functions over night.

Imagine if that happened here.


One thing I liked was the mods wouldn't ban you here just for pissing them off by getting in their face through sarcasm and the logical conclusions of their faulty ideas. Normal discussions, anyway.

[95theses]

Of course. Wouldn't you? If it were dollars coming out of my pocket to run the forum, I damn well wouldn't announce an unpopular decision one second ahead of time to anyone who had the keys to cause damage.

Inaccurate representation of events. They told the mods, quote:




You seem to be under the impression that shutting a forum down allows posts to remain regardless of the software, data, or machine it's hosted on being present.

Should've done that in the first place. I believe (as others have noted) that they were excessively naive to believe that such an announcement wouldn't cause boundless Internet Rage among the forum members. Between the schools of "one agonizing rip" and "a series of excruciating jerks", I fall firmly into the former.

I'd say "well, :talk034:" and move on with my life. But, it must be said, I think the JREF has implemented an elaborate system for the express purpose of avoiding the need to do something like this.

Can I nest quotes on this forum? it doesn't appear to allow me to do anything but quote your replies, which is going to be difficult to follow.

I wanted to address each point specifically but they don't make sense out of context and without being able to show what you quoted of me.

Some brief points though :

Shutting down the forum will occur in 30 days to allow people to archive past content, however in a fit of pique Josh the admin has physically deleted the accounts and posts of people that complained, including mods with over 10k posts in the science forums. These posts are not archivable or viewable at all anymore, just because they complained publicly about the decision. It's as if they didn't exist at all.

One of the top mods has posted in the thread on rationalia tha they have been warned that any attempt to contact Richard Dawkins (who they have previously had many conversations with) will result in the Admin - Josh - removing their account and wiping all their PM's/Posts from history making it impossible for them to get anything back before the forum shuts down.

It's possible to change things without acting like a massive jerk, throwing the toys out of the pram, which is precisely what josh has done.

[Beerina]

Question: what is this thread supposed to achieve?

Shame on the admins of the Dawkins forum?

An attempt to shout so loudly as to gain the attention of Dr. Dawkins himself to take a look at what his doofs are doing with his good name?


Both sound reasonable to me.

[remirol]

Can I nest quotes on this forum? it doesn't appear to allow me to do anything but quote your replies, which is going to be difficult to follow.

You can use the multiquote feature to quote them both, but unfortunately this version of vBulletin doesn't have nested quoting. I think people have used the "reply in PM" feature (which, oddly, _does_ have nested quoting) and copy-pasted the text in the past, but that's an ugly workaround.

Shutting down the forum will occur in 30 days to allow people to archive past content, however in a fit of pique Josh the admin has physically deleted the accounts and posts of people that complained, including mods with over 10k posts in the science forums. These posts are not archivable or viewable at all anymore, just because they complained publicly about the decision. It's as if they didn't exist at all.

As I understand it there was a short period following the announcement during which the forums were still accessible; then, not long after, the forums were made "read-only".

Were the deletions before or after he closed the forums? If "before", there's a simple explanation: he thought that stopping individual people would make the general outcry stop. (Which, as others have noted, is hopelessly naive. If he didn't want discussion of the topic to take place on that forum, the "make the boards read-only" should've been the _first_ option, not the latter.)

One of the top mods has posted in the thread on rationalia tha they have been warned that any attempt to contact Richard Dawkins (who they have previously had many conversations with) will result in the Admin - Josh - removing their account and wiping all their PM's/Posts from history making it impossible for them to get anything back before the forum shuts down.

The quote from the announcement indicates that attempts to contact him regarding the forum change are proscribed, which is perfectly understandable. Can you post the text of the actual warning from that thread?

[stijndeloose]

As I understand it there was a short period following the announcement during which the forums were still accessible; then, not long after, the forums were made "read-only".

I wish they were simply made 'read only'. Basically, though, ALL the functionality is going. I can't use the 'view your posts' and 'view active topics' functions, I can't search the forum for any posts I want to save, and I can't PM other members.

Were the deletions before or after he closed the forums? If "before", there's a simple explanation: he thought that stopping individual people would make the general outcry stop. (Which, as others have noted, is hopelessly naive. If he didn't want discussion of the topic to take place on that forum, the "make the boards read-only" should've been the _first_ option, not the latter.

It's not only naive. It's immoral. It's authoritarian, and insulting to many members and mods who put time and effort into many of the VERY informative posts they put on the forum - voluntarily, i.e. with-out being paid for it.

[95theses]

Some were banned before and some after the forum was locked for good.

Even still, a simple revoking of posting rights would have sufficed. For example DarwinsBulldog had something like 13k of serious science posts with links to published papers on evolution. All gone, wiped clean. No need at all apart from pure spite at being criticized publicly. At least 4 other posters with huge track records are wiped clean too, not had posting privileges revoked, their entire record wiped clean. Current conservative estimate is over 30k of posts that up until last night were regarded as some of the most useful and educational on the site.

Regarding the ban on contacting RD :


Bloody Hell.

So he right royally ****s over both you and the entire mod team and you are still prepared to listed to his directives from on high telling you not to contact Richard?

At the very bloody least Richard owes you and the other mods a personal thanks and explanation for what happened. You spent so much time moderating his forums for no personal gain and then they do that to you?

I'd be right on the email to Richard.

**** Josh, besides who knows what he's actually telling Richard?

No I'm not emailing Richard at the moment. If I do that, I'll be deleted and lose all my posts (some of which I am copying) and these contain lots of information about the forum eg data on how it's grown. This is important info that needs to be kept if ever there's a discussion about why the forum was axed.

[Sledge]

Shame on the admins of the Dawkins forum?

An attempt to shout so loudly as to gain the attention of Dr. Dawkins himself to take a look at what his doofs are doing with his good name?


Both sound reasonable to me.

Shame on the admins requires people here to care, and for the admins to care what we think. I'm not sure either of those criteria will be met.

As for attempting to gain the attention of Dr. Dawkins, wouldn't an e-mail to him be a better approach?

[cj.23]

Shame on the admins requires people here to care, and for the admins to care what we think. I'm not sure either of those criteria will be met.

As for attempting to gain the attention of Dr. Dawkins, wouldn't an e-mail to him be a better approach?


Anyone emailing Richard Dawkins immediately has there entire posyting history removed, and is "removed from history." That fact, and that fact alone suggests to me that Richard Dawkins must be fully aware and complicit in the situation...

j x

[tsig]

What? All changes here have been met with aplumb and dignity.








Oh, where oh, where is my [sarcasm] tag?

Well there was a little weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.

[Myriad]

Anyone emailing Richard Dawkins immediately has there entire posyting history removed, and is "removed from history." That fact, and that fact alone suggests to me that Richard Dawkins must be fully aware and complicit in the situation...


Not necessarily. It's reasonably likely that his emails pass through other hands.

Respectfully,
Myriad

[Dunstan]

This is really bizarre and ham-handed behavior.

Yes, they have the right to do it. But it's a dumb way to behave if you're trying to build a community. And threatening to punish people for merely expressing their views to Dawkins, no matter how politely they do so, is not exactly consistent with promoting critical thinking. Email your MP to complain about faith schools or paying for a papal visit, but don't email Dawkins to complain about his website!

[cj.23]

Not necessarily. It's reasonably likely that his emails pass through other hands.

Respectfully,
Myriad


Yes of course, good point -- the same people responsible for the botchd handling of the whole matter, and people who really might not want RD to hear the anguished howls of protest ;)

cj x

[zooterkin]

Well, I must apologise, I signed up for RDF yesterday, and it was clearly the straw that broke the camel's back. Didn't even get a chance to post.

I can still sign in there, but everything is read-only, and there's nothing on the forum overview page announcing what's happened. You have to go into a forum to see the Announcement at the top, which has now been updated with this:
Update: We had intended to leave the forum fully-funtioning for 30 days, but due to the inappropriate posts by some users and moderators, we have decided to leave the forum in a read-only state. You can still download and archive your posts and private messages, but the ability to enter new posts has been disabled. It's unfortunate that it had to come to this. We know that change can be difficult and sometimes frightening, but we are all very excited about the direction of the website and the future.

[shadron]

Of course. Wouldn't you? If it were dollars coming out of my pocket to run the forum, I damn well wouldn't announce an unpopular decision one second ahead of time to anyone who had the keys to cause damage.

I would think that if they wanted to make major changes a smarter way to go about it would be to seek consensus over an extended period of time. For a forum, the size of the readership is the one statistic which means anything. Dawkin's name is a draw, but the community is based on its size and its quality, nothing more. The moves here would seem to be an attack on both, and I'll be surprised if that forum is ever reckoned to be as great as it was last week ever again. The damage is done. If they reverted back tomorrow, they'd have still lost.

[shadron]

Not necessarily. It's reasonably likely that his emails pass through other hands.

Respectfully,
Myriad

Personally, if I were RD I would be royally pissed off if someone was taking concrete action on the basis of emails addressed to me that they were intercepting, unless I'd have agreed to it beforehand.

[fls]

I would think that if they wanted to make major changes a smarter way to go about it would be to seek consensus over an extended period of time.

Consensus? On a skeptics' forum? Are you insane?

Linda

[Myriad]

The oddest thing about this is the apparent attempt (however inept or halfhearted) to keep people from leaving. "We're closing the bar, turning off the music, and turning out the lights, but please sit tight and don't discuss going anywhere else."

Complete apathy, I can understand (though of course I don't agree). The unfortunate reality is that people who are not involved in a online community generally do not value that online community. Not its existence, nor its output. What a thousand members might see as tens of thousands of brilliant insightful posts can seem, to an eager junior executive with Big Plans, as about as valuable as a basement full of old newspapers. (Just as in previous times and places, five thousand residents' vibrant neighborhood could be seen through the distorted lens of a freeway planner as a blighted slum badly in need of "urban renewal".) The results, as in this case, are heartbreaking to read about.

But the "don't talk about leaving" oddness doesn't mesh with that. You can lock people out of an Internet forum, but trying to lock them in is more than a little foolish.

Respectfully,
Myriad

[cj.23]

Well, I must apologise, I signed up for RDF yesterday, and it was clearly the straw that broke the camel's back. Didn't even get a chance to post.



AH! So it was YOUR fault Zooterkin. I was egotistically wondering if RD had just gone apoplectic when a Christian (me) won the RD.net Science Writing Contest with my essay "Damning Darwin" - http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/damning-darwin-the-perils-of-myth-making-in-the-history-of-science/

:)

cj x

[macdoc]

Pretty wild over at rationalia
It's at Part two already which means over a thousand posts ...:boggled:

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=9007

that was started yesterday!!!

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=8864

sample

Re: Announcement about RDF Part 2.
by HughMcB » Tue Feb 23, 2010 3:52 pm

Katherine wrote:
I've notified New Humanist magazine about this news, and they want me to send them an e-mail with further details. Would anyone like to contribute?


The main thing I'd like mentioned is that Dawkins so avidly promoted having an atheist community and a place to promote reason and rational thought amongst the masses, yet his two techies showed neither of these qualities when they single handedly succeeded in tearing down that whole idea.

Whats more is that the manner in which they executed this, by deleting thousands of valuable posts of any dissidents (who were well within their *********** right to do so and were some of the most valuable members) by wiping clean their user profiles. This coupled with locking everyone out of the forum and having no means to recover all our thousands of man-hours and invaluable posts is *********** disgraceful. Hitler would be proud!

PS I hope Josh Timonem gets gonorrhea from *********** a cow (yes cows get gonorrhea, I checked!).

some pretty pissed off people...talk about kicking apart a hornets nest.....:garfield:

[zooterkin]

AH! So it was YOUR fault Zooterkin. I was egotistically wondering if RD had just gone apoplectic when a Christian (me) won the RD.net Science Writing Contest with my essay "Damning Darwin" - http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2010/01/08/damning-darwin-the-perils-of-myth-making-in-the-history-of-science/

:)

cj x


Actually, it might have been you, after all. :) Having checked the time I signed up, I realise it was over an hour after the announcement was posted.

[Mr.Samsa]

How do you know they don't intend to do that when the new site arrives?

Are you really willing to assert that the powers-that-be did not look at their forum extensively before they made this decision? REALLY?

You've conflated being willing to spend money with being willing to host a particular service in a particular form. Donation drives only address the former, not the latter.

The admins did not look at the site extensively, I'd be surprised if they even scanned over the site. They messaged the mods about a month ago announcing that they were planning on shifting the forum to a new and better location. They asked for input and we gave them a lot of advice about what people wanted, where the most popular areas are, what not to do etc.

When we mentioned that the members can become quite riotous when presented news in a condescending way (i.e. treating them like children and making it difficult to save their work), they will split - like last October when we lost a significant proportion of our members.

The admin replied with "What happened last October?" - in other words, if the admin only knew one thing about the forum, it should have been that event. Regardless, they didn't know anything about what certain sub-forums were for, why the "tech-support" forum would not be better handled off site, etc etc. After a month, when all the mods had presented things that they thought were important to the forum, things that need to be fixed and things that could be done without given enough notice, the admin returned and presented that notice - ignoring everything we had said and not responding to any of it.

They knew what they wanted before even looking at the forum. They wanted a bigger front page discussion board. What happened in the forum was irrelevant, despite it having 10x as many members and 10x as many posts per day.

Then, as 95Theses noted, when some mods voiced their concerns over the change (in a rational way, usually without even swearing and never getting personal), they were instantly banned and all posts deleted.

It was just childish.

Don't get me wrong, I understand it's Richard Dawkins' money and foundation so he can do whatever he likes to it. I don't even have a problem with being told my services are no longer necessary. But you can't just spit on a loyal fanbase and delete years of contributions because they don't agree with you, then expect them to come back. Or worse, figure "**** it, we'll get other people".

The whole thing was just a result of terrible management and not having a clue about what the members were there for.

[a_unique_person]

I believe the JREF long ago implemented a system which produces the desired similar end-result (public-facing/googleable portion of the forum about desired topics, private section about cats and pooper) without quite so draconian measures (ie. no private section, new topics must require approval).

I'm certainly interested in hearing what recursive prophet has to say about this, since RDF was held up so frequently by him in many discussions as an example of how "well" a system could work. I guess it wasn't working according to the guys who paid the bills, after all. :oldroll:

No, no, no, no, no. They totally destroyed the JREF forums, and the mods are still going full steam ahead to destroy this forum totally after their highly successful first round of changes. Due to their extreme incompetence, however, they haven't achieved the final ends yet.

[Sledge]

Anyone emailing Richard Dawkins immediately has there entire posyting history removed, and is "removed from history." That fact, and that fact alone suggests to me that Richard Dawkins must be fully aware and complicit in the situation...

j x
Ok, and so what? The forum is closed anyway, so what does it matter if your posting history is removed?

[shadron]

Consensus? On a skeptics' forum? Are you insane?

Linda

Well, perhaps a little more consensus than they achieved?

[Mr.Samsa]

Ok, and so what? The forum is closed anyway, so what does it matter if your posting history is removed?

Probably because some people on the internet put thought and effort into their posts?

The most obvious would be the members over there who have formed collaborations on research projects, academic articles etc where their original thoughts and messages might still be important for documentation, or even just sentimental reasons. Then there are the numerous users there that met their current spouses there and would like to save their conversations, PMs etc.

In short, there were some people who spent a lot of time there and naturally they made some very important posts - the importance of which were either academic, personal or sometimes a mixture of both. Some of the posts that were deleted were contact details between collaborators, which may have been lost and difficult to try to find again.

So yes, it's the internet so it's not as important as a sick child in a hospital or starvation in Africa, but when people are kicked in the balls it's sometimes nice to have an ice pack handy.

[stijndeloose]

Ok, and so what? The forum is closed anyway, so what does it matter if your posting history is removed?

Errr, what?! Not all posters have saved their favorite contributions to their hard disk and with the "Search", "View your posts" and "View active topics" functions disabled, this has become virtually impossible now.

I do not care THAT much about my personal history (though there were a couple of things I would've liked to save to my HD), but there were plenty of, say, Cali's posts, or Hack's, or Susu's that I would've loved to save to my hard-disk.

[95theses]

Here is what one of the Admins had to say about it all :

Yesterday, I was celebrating. The House of Commons advised that the government should stop NHS funding of homeopathy. I was on a high all day, what a result! But by the end of the day, I was brought back down to Earth as I discovered that the world’s busiest atheist forum was being closed down, and that the disgusting evening was to be filled with lies, censorship and cowardice.

Breach of Rule 4 removed. Full article can be found here:http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/

Continues ....

[cj.23]

Ok, and so what? The forum is closed anyway, so what does it matter if your posting history is removed?

Because 30,000 posts are gone. And many of these, especially by Darwinsbulldog, were serious weighty essays on science, society and evolution, which are irrecoverable now. This is the 21st century equivalent of book-burning. We can still access the forum: copies are boing made of everything by teams of diligent volunteers - but their posts are gone forever, in a pointless act of digital vandalism. WHy if the forum was locked was it ever necessary to delete them? :(

j x

[Xephyr]

Sounds like RDF.net committed 'herding-cats' suicide.

A lot of membership will be dropped, and perhaps that's exactly what Dawkins et al wanted for the purpose of 'control of content'. It's his right as owner of the site and his name association that goes alongside.

However, the difficulty of 'herding cats' may be permanently lost at that particular site now due to the bad taste left in a number of its memberships' mouths. And that's a shame, as it was definately the largest atheist community on the internet... collecting support from every corner of the globe - including its financial support.

But make no mistake, this Josh-admin person would not/could not take any step and/or knee-jerk decision whatsoever without Dawkins' go-ahead first... Josh knows what side his bread is buttered on.

Dawkins' ass is on the line legally, not his assigned admin/tech aids. He gives the 'okay' to any moves before they are made, particularly such drastic ones as the current situation unfolded. He has to in order to protect his investment.

His envision of a user-controlled rational and scientific topic approach is understandable, and the only way to accomplish something like that is to shape it into a blog/discussion format rather than an open public forum.

I don't doubt that Dawkins probably cringed at some of the content in his forum... and perhaps eventually threw his arms in the air and just simply gave up. And then his devoted followees (Josh et al) tossed in their pitch to scrap the forum idea altogether (as it was a thorn in their sides anyways).

How the ending was handled (lockout etc) was, most likely, a last minute mutual agreement between Dawkins and his admin in order to keep the shutdown as clean as possible, as they probably recognized the direction it was turning within a matter of hours and said "screw it", proceeded to lock it down and delete all criticism for (outward appearance) PR purposes.

But still just the same... I can't help but wonder if this move was done due to a pompous academia attitude that he's attempting to accomplish, rather than a community-based gathering of various global walks of life. He may no longer want it to be a haven for non-theists to gather, but instead just a marketing site for book promos, lectures, t-shirts, etc., alongside a small collection of tete-a-tete exchanges for good measure.

Just my $.02
:eusa_think:

[Sledge]

Because 30,000 posts are gone. And many of these, especially by Darwinsbulldog, were serious weighty essays on science, society and evolution, which are irrecoverable now. This is the 21st century equivalent of book-burning.No it isn't. This is the 21st century equivalent of people throwing out trash they don't want in their front room. We can still access the forum: copies are boing made of everything by teams of diligent volunteers - but their posts are gone forever, in a pointless act of digital vandalism. WHy if the forum was locked was it ever necessary to delete them? :(

j x
Based on what I've seen here? Because people keep whining.

[cj.23]

No it isn't. This is the 21st century equivalent of people throwing out trash they don't want in their front room.


It's not whining to complain about an act of digital vandalism. The fact that the posts were removed without any warning, to people who had acted loyally as volunteers? How doe sit constitute removing trash from your living room? These were the posts and work of the mods of the site, not just members remember? I don't see why I sohould care _I'm not even an athesit, but I do strongly. And we could debate the IIDB debacle here, we sure as hell can debate the Dawkins one?

cj x

[Sledge]

It's their forum. You simply don't have any rights other than the right to not go there. If you don't like that, start your own forum. And frankly, if the posts that have been lost were so important, why hadn't you archived them already?

[cj.23]

It's their forum. You simply don't have any rights other than the right to not go there. If you don't like that, start your own forum. And frankly, if the posts that have been lost were so important, why hadn't you archived them already?

I did not lose any posts: ironically all mine remain :) However there is an interesting legal point here; given that copyright is vested in the author, can deletion occur? I can find no disclaimer to that effect?

cj x

[Tricky]

While I regret the loss of so many millions of hours of input by so many posters, the message should be clear to everyone.

Back up your own work.

If you have composed a post that is a literary masterpiece, it is YOUR duty to preserve it. Only yours. Not RDF's. Not JREF's.

[KoihimeNakamura]

I did not lose any posts: ironically all mine remain :) However there is an interesting legal point here; given that copyright is vested in the author, can deletion occur? I can find no disclaimer to that effect?

cj x

Yes. There's a disclaimer in the EULA you sign when you join a forum.

[TheDaver]

What the Hell is drama over the Richard Dawkins forum doing here? Get a life.…

[plumjam]

God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders to perform;....


...Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his work in vain;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain.

- William Cowper

[Darat]

I did not lose any posts: ironically all mine remain :) However there is an interesting legal point here; given that copyright is vested in the author, can deletion occur? I can find no disclaimer to that effect?

cj x

There is no issue at all in regards to the copyright in deleting the posts, there could just about be an issue in regards to the terms and conditions if people had paid or otherwise contracted with the RDF for a hosting service but even that is tenuous given that most sites that allow you to post content will have a ".... reserves the right to remove, edit, move or close any post, thread or article for any reason at any time...." statement anyway.

[Dragoonster]

That's really terrible. Sure, their site their right but some of the responses in this thread are heartless and simplistically reductive, and assuming the value of a forum isn't different for different people. Have never visited that site but had a similar experience on a gaming site when one mod went crazy and mass-deleted accounts and posts. This situation is arguably worse as it's a measured action, and possibly authorized by the site owner.

And their request for users to not regroup on alternate forums is ridiculous. They must need wheelbarrows to carry their balls around.

For recovering posts that were deleted, perhaps the wayback machine would have them saved? http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

[Darat]

I hadn't realised how big the RDF had grown, from the article:

31/01/10 – 22/02/10 number of posts: 62,367
(average posts per day): 2,834

That was quite a busy forum.

[stijndeloose]

I hadn't realised how big the RDF had grown, from the article:

31/01/10 – 22/02/10 number of posts: 62,367
(average posts per day): 2,834

That was quite a busy forum.

It was huge, and had become a bit of a sanctuary for ex-creationists/theists looking for sound rational arguments. Also, we had the occasional creationist/theist-with-doubts dropping by. The forum was a big help to a great many people, and had become quite a community. RD commented in 2008, saying:

It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.

That was very true. Not very true now.

[zooterkin]

Another update to the announcement, today, or last night (the forum doesn't seem to show the time of edits).
Update: 2010-02-23
A few points to clear things up.

We originally posted a private message to the moderators only asking them not to use the information in the foundation's database to cause trouble, email Richard en masse, ask all of the users to go to a separate forum, or anything like that. We take the privacy of the users' data held by the foundation seriously—to that end the data shouldn't be used to solicit and promote other services. This is not what our users signed up for. This was only directed toward the small group of moderators, who had the access to the administration panel. Against the foundation's wishes, they turned around and posted this message publicly in the forum, and many people misinterpreted this to be directed at regular users. We were not telling the regular users what they could and couldn't do, they were all welcome to move to a separate forum. This public posting of personal communication, along with several inappropriate posts made by our very own moderators, convinced the foundation to close the forum down and make it read-only.

We had hoped to keep the forum functioning until the transition to the new site. Having no forum for 30 days is not what we had hoped would happen. But without being able to trust our own moderators for the forum's final month before the transition, we were left with no other option. A few accounts have been deleted along with their posts due to the nature of their posts. We're sorry that a few had to ruin it for the many.

The decision to revamp the forum was made by The Richard Dawkins Foundation. We are looking to make a new discussion area that is easier for people to find quality content related to our mission. We understand that for some of you it was a place to hang out and converse with like minded people but we are not looking to be a social network. There are many other sites that provide this service.

As the foundation continues to grow, there will be changes. But our focus will always be to promote reason and science. We are working to get the new site up as soon as we can, and we will keep you posted on the estimated launch date.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation

[cj.23]

85,000 members by the end, and very busy traffic wise. Undercover Elephant and Obscured by Clouds were both ex-JREFer's instrumental in it's success (there were probably others) but they had left bnefore the end - OBC was the first admin with Richard Prins and Kevin Ronayne as far as i recall.

I can understand people on the JREF not wanting to get dragged in to other forum politics - this is the IIDB debacle (or the RRS one when Greydon hit Sapiernt) all over again - but for a lot of people (not so much me, but the atheists) there is a feeling of bewilderment and betrayal. The JREF will welcome many of those people i am sure.

cj x

[95theses]

Here is what one of the Admins had to say about it all :



Continues ....

Err hi,

I had full permission to post the article and I only posted it in full because I couldn't link it as I didn't have enough posts to do so.

As it was i had to try and work round the rules to get a link to it in by missing off the start of the URL. but, you've included the link yourself now, so thats fine. Thanks.

[amb]

Question: what is this thread supposed to achieve?

Some people like yours truly who have spent at least three years posting there and in the process making friends with some posters, it's a sad day.
What will happen to my 4500 or so posts? I was purged of around 800 posts the last time some schmuck, R D himself actually, decided to clean the place up. :(

It's nice to have a place/shoulder to cry on, Ok? :p

[amb]

85,000 members by the end, and very busy traffic wise. Undercover Elephant and Obscured by Clouds were both ex-JREFer's instrumental in it's success (there were probably others) but they had left bnefore the end - OBC was the first admin with Richard Prins and Kevin Ronayne as far as i recall.

I can understand people on the JREF not wanting to get dragged in to other forum politics - this is the IIDB debacle (or the RRS one when Greydon hit Sapiernt) all over again - but for a lot of people (not so much me, but the atheists) there is a feeling of bewilderment and betrayal. The JREF will welcome many of those people i am sure.

cj x
Glad to see you are here Jerome. Your posts never fail to raise my eyebrows. Hope you're well buddy. angelo. disguised as amb. :) :)

[cj.23]

Good to see you Angelo! Hope the world treating you well. I am suffering from mild disillusionment - but we have seen it all before -- http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/death-of-an-atheist-forum-the-lessons-of-history/

Anyway take care mate!

cj x

[Sven]

I can't believe the animosity I'm witnessing. People lost something that was dear to them and aren't able to post in their regular forum precisely because that's what they lost, and they get told to get a life and stop whining?

If you don't care and it doesn't concern you then why are you commenting on this topic?

[Professor Yaffle]

I can't believe the animosity I'm witnessing. People lost something that was dear to them and aren't able to post in their regular forum precisely because that's what they lost, and they get told to get a life and stop whining?

If you don't care and it doesn't concern you then why are you commenting on this topic?

You call this animosity? That's just sideline sniping...

:D

[Sven]

No, I wouldn't call statements like "What the Hell is drama over the Richard Dawkins forum doing here? Get a life.…" sideline sniping. Our definitions may differ.

[Professor Yaffle]

I would probably have agreed with you not that long ago, but then I became a moderator and learnt what true animosity is.

:D (note smiley. It tends to indicate when a person is not intending to be taken entirely seriously....)

[Sven]

Heh, while I don't agree with you I do understand what you mean ;)

[patrick767]

hmm... from the outsider looking in perspective, this part seems to be the most unreasonable, the most likely to have just been an overzealous admin's angry response:

A few accounts have been deleted along with their posts due to the nature of their posts. We're sorry that a few had to ruin it for the many.

Deleting every post someone has ever made is okay because they made a few "bad" posts recently? Really?

We understand that for some of you it was a place to hang out and converse with like minded people but we are not looking to be a social network. There are many other sites that provide this service.

This part is understandable on the one hand. They don't want to be a social network. That's fine. On the other hand, they apparently didn't care about the reality, that their forum had in fact become a large social network, whether they wanted it to be or not. As their members were using the site in that way, dismissing it so abruptly is a good way to lose those people's support. From a PR stand point, that's just a dumb move.

[Professor Yaffle]

I agree; the deleting of all posts of people they banned struck me as a petty act of spite. They acknowledged that people saw their posts as valuable, by giving them time to back them up, then deleted the history of anyone who was critical. It's not a standard practice to delete all posts of banned members (unless they are spammers) and no reason for it as far as I can see apart from spite - or maybe as a warning to others to keep their mouth shut.

Not a nice way for a forum to end.

[Sven]

Not only did they delete those accounts and posts, they deleted the admin logs that showed they did.
About backing up posts, if you try to back up the forum using wget you get redirected to a rickroll site since early this morning.

[fls]

So how does one go about backing up all their posts on a forum?

ETA: It is relatively easy for me to download my PM's, but I don't see an easy way to do it with my posts.

Linda

[shadron]

Because 30,000 posts are gone. And many of these, especially by Darwinsbulldog, were serious weighty essays on science, society and evolution, which are irrecoverable now. This is the 21st century equivalent of book-burning. We can still access the forum: copies are boing made of everything by teams of diligent volunteers - but their posts are gone forever, in a pointless act of digital vandalism. WHy if the forum was locked was it ever necessary to delete them? :(

j x

I might point out that the information is not likely irretrievably gone. There are no doubt backups that could be used to extract the data. The problem would be:

1. It's on or around Dawkins.net servers, therefore in the hands of the "enemy", so to speak. But then so was the entire forum itself. It is not yet proven that the real owner is the enemy.
2. You'd need a database wizzo to write appropriate software to extract it. That would be a easy one for any number of people on this forum, let alone Dawkins, even if it required illegally reverse-engineering the database info. Unless it was encrypted.

[Sven]

So how does one go about backing up all their posts on a forum?

ETA: It is relatively easy for me to download my PM's, but I don't see an easy way to do it with my posts.

Linda

Forum software itself rarely offers that option, you have to use third-party programs like HTTrack or wget.

[GreyICE]

I can't believe the animosity I'm witnessing. People lost something that was dear to them and aren't able to post in their regular forum precisely because that's what they lost, and they get told to get a life and stop whining?

If you don't care and it doesn't concern you then why are you commenting on this topic?
Welcome to the JREF. Target rich, sniper approved.

[Cleon]

You call this animosity? That's just sideline sniping...

:D

Yeh. If you want animosity, just go into the Politics forum and say something vaguely positive about the Palestinians.

[GreyICE]

Yeh. If you want animosity, just go into the Politics forum and say something vaguely positive about the Palestinians.

You antisemitic terrorist-loving kitten killing villain!

:p

[Vorticity]

In case it hasn't been noted, I'd just like to point out that RD is on board with the actions of his admins:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110356

[Sven]

Welcome to the JREF. Target rich, sniper approved.

Notice how I signed up for the JREF forums almost a year before you did? :P

[Checkmite]

I can't believe the animosity I'm witnessing. People lost something that was dear to them and aren't able to post in their regular forum precisely because that's what they lost, and they get told to get a life and stop whining?

If you don't care and it doesn't concern you then why are you commenting on this topic?

Hey, this is our forum; you came to us with this, we didn't come to you. If you choose to post it, it's open season for anybody's thoughts, whatever they may be.

The JREF nearly shut down the forum once, because it was becoming a headache (by some accounts). It didn't shut down, ultimately; but the mere fact that it was even considering doing so has caused people to leave in disgust. We've been down your road and already know what's at the end of it.

You may have thought of the RD forums as a "community", but the RDF's statement pretty much makes it clear that they never intended it as such and aren't interested in running that kind of site. Be gracious and go start the community you always wanted on your own free-from-being-erased website.

[Sven]

In case it hasn't been noted, I'd just like to point out that RD is on board with the actions of his admins:


RD quotes a post from another forum there (rationalia) and doesn't actually quote the message that was sent to the moderators. It doesn't mention deleting the accounts and posts of moderators because they voiced their discontent in a reasonable way.

[AvalonXQ]

Notice how I signed up for the JREF forums almost a year before you did? :P

Notice how he has over 6,000 posts and you have fewer than 20?
It doesn't mean much if you get a membership card and never show up for the meetings.

[Sven]

Hey, this is our forum; you came to us with this, we didn't come to you. If you choose to post it, it's open season for anybody's thoughts, whatever they may be.

The JREF nearly shut down the forum once, because it was becoming a headache (by some accounts). It didn't shut down, ultimately; but the mere fact that it was even considering doing so has caused people to leave in disgust. We've been down your road and already know what's at the end of it.

You may have thought of the RD forums as a "community", but the RDF's statement pretty much makes it clear that they never intended it as such and aren't interested in running that kind of site. Be gracious and go start the community you always wanted on your own free-from-being-erased website.


I didn't come to you with anything, I'm replying to regular posters here that don't seem to understand that some people are upset because something they've worked very hard for is being taken away from them.

About the RDF's statement that they never intended the forums to be a community (which is a self-contradicting statement imo, either that or they don't understand what a internet forum is), here's what RD himself had to say back in 2008:

"“It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.”"

Sure sounds like it was never their intention for it to be a community, right?

[Sven]

What does the number of posts have to do with him saying "welcome to the jref" when I've been a member for almost 3 years?

Maybe I should have added more emoticons to my post?

[AvalonXQ]

In case it hasn't been noted, I'd just like to point out that RD is on board with the actions of his admins:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110356

That's a very dishonest post by Dawkins.
Dawkins implies that:
a) They sent a polite letter informing folks about the RD.net overhaul.
b) They got rude, nasty responses like the one Dawkins quoted in response to (a).
c) They responded to (b) with an early shut-down of the forum, deleting posts and preventing people from staying connected to each other.

IN FACT what happened was:
a) They sent the letter informing folks about the RD.net overhaul.
b) They got a negative, but usually civil and reasoned reaction.
c) They responded to (b) with an early shut-down of the forum, deleting posts and preventing people from staying connected to each other.
d) Rude, nasty responses like the one Dawkins quoted appeared on other forums in response to (c).

I hope reasonable people can see the difference. It doesn't surprise me that Dawkins can't.

[AvalonXQ]

What does the number of posts have to do with him saying "welcome to the jref" when I've been a member for almost 3 years?

If you haven't been attending the meetings, it's perfectly reasonable for people to say "welcome" when you actually show up -- regardless of what date appears on your membership card.

[cj.23]

You may have thought of the RD forums as a "community", but the RDF's statement pretty much makes it clear that they never intended it as such and aren't interested in running that kind of site. Be gracious and go start the community you always wanted on your own free-from-being-erased website.


I have sympathy Checkmite; this si anot a JREF issue, but

However if the Richard Dawkins forum was NOT a social network or a community, perhaps RD should have been a little clearer than when he wrote on the forum about the forum:

“It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.” (October 2008)

He wrote a great deal more in exactly the same vein – you can to the forum and read his own words. Perhaps having “Join the Richard Dawkins Social Network” which was on the front page: the network was hosted at http://www.richarddawkins.net/social was a bad idea?

So if the RDF was not trying to run a Social network, perhaps they might have considered not having Richard Dawkins say publicly on said forum that they were, and setting up a social network?

cj x

[macdoc]

Apologies if this has been posted already..been trying to regroup

..a very clear explanation from someone on the frontline and inside the backroom of what went down.

Death of the Dawkins forum – The world’s busiest atheist forum closes

http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/

People are royally pissed including myself a poster with 10k of posts some of which took an hour to write and support.....:mgbanghead

and ongoing regrouping and discussion here

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=75

[vwgub]

In case it hasn't been noted, I'd just like to point out that RD is on board with the actions of his admins:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110356

What a *********** wanker. Not you Vorticity, but Richard Dawkins.

[vwgub]

Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose you found yourself described as an “utter twat” a “suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum inside a dead skunk that’s been shoved up a week-old dead rhino’s twat.” Or suppose that somebody on the same website expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat. Also to “trip you up and kick you in the guts.” And imagine seeing your face described, again by an anonymous poster, as “a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one.”



Me: You really take this kind of thing seriously. O'rly. I thought you had some *********** skin

[Hokulele]

I have a funny feeling this will make TAM 8, er, a bit more likely to be dramatic.

[95theses]

That's a very dishonest post by Dawkins.
Dawkins implies that:
a) They sent a polite letter informing folks about the RD.net overhaul.
b) They got rude, nasty responses like the one Dawkins quoted in response to (a).
c) They responded to (b) with an early shut-down of the forum, deleting posts and preventing people from staying connected to each other.

IN FACT what happened was:
a) They sent the letter informing folks about the RD.net overhaul.
b) They got a negative, but usually civil and reasoned reaction.
c) They responded to (b) with an early shut-down of the forum, deleting posts and preventing people from staying connected to each other.
d) Rude, nasty responses like the one Dawkins quoted appeared on other forums in response to (c).

I hope reasonable people can see the difference. It doesn't surprise me that Dawkins can't.

It's quote mined from Rationalia too, as you say the original RDF thread was civil but vocal. Then Josh :

a) Removed PM Functionality
b) Deleted tens of thousands of science posts
c) removed signatures that attempted to give people another place to meet
d) Locked the forums and turned off search completely to make it nigh impossible to archive any content.
e) specifically forbade mods from helping people to arrange to go to a new forum
f) redirected archival programs to a Rick-roll


which resulted in the vitriol at Josh being posted on Rationalia. Not exactly fair enough, but extremely different to the way RD portrays it in his whine about the bad things people said about his friend.

Proof is here :

rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=9149&p=355615#p355577

add an http and a www in the usual way to get it to work as i still can't post links.

[Cleon]

http://rationalia.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=75&t=9149&p=355615#p355577


There ya go. (You can post linkage after you've made 15 posts.)

[95theses]

There ya go. (You can post linkage after you've made 15 posts.)

Thank you kindly.

I actually first registered here because I was in a huge debate at RDF with a guy called 'Limbo' about Psi, and 'Goats and Sheep' but I came here and discovered an enormous thread doing the exact same here so it seemed a bit superfluous to be doing it on two sites at the same time :D Edited to add - to the exact same guy, Limbo.

I imagine some of you know of him, I don't know if he still posts here, he gave up trying to convert us.

[vwgub]

Thank you kindly.

I actually first registered here because I was in a huge debate at RDF with a guy called 'Limbo' about Psi, and 'Goats and Sheep' but I came here and discovered an enormous thread doing the exact same here so it seemed a bit superfluous to be doing it on two sites at the same time :D

I imagine some of you know of him, I don't know if he still posts here, he gave up trying to convert us.


Not really sure if Limbo is still posting. (Don't visit General Skepticism much) But I'm wondering what you think the rational behind this move by RD was? One of the statement by the admin struck me hard that they were trying to create a comment section more open to a wider range of people (paraphrase from memory). If that is what they want then what they are going to get is Youtube commentary and 4chan drivel.

[Region Rat]

Thank you kindly.

I actually first registered here because I was in a huge debate at RDF with a guy called 'Limbo' about Psi, and 'Goats and Sheep' but I came here and discovered an enormous thread doing the exact same here so it seemed a bit superfluous to be doing it on two sites at the same time :D

I imagine some of you know of him, I don't know if he still posts here, he gave up trying to convert us.

Goats?

You came to the right place.:)

[cj.23]

Thank you kindly.

I actually first registered here because I was in a huge debate at RDF with a guy called 'Limbo' about Psi, and 'Goats and Sheep' but I came here and discovered an enormous thread doing the exact same here so it seemed a bit superfluous to be doing it on two sites at the same time :D Edited to add - to the exact same guy, Limbo.

I imagine some of you know of him, I don't know if he still posts here, he gave up trying to convert us.


Don't worry 95Theses, I'll take over - I'm Jerome x

[cj.23]

But I'm wondering what you think the rational behind this move by RD was? One of the statement by the admin struck me hard that they were trying to create a comment section more open to a wider range of people (paraphrase from memory). If that is what they want then what they are going to get is Youtube commentary and 4chan drivel.


They already have that on the comment section of the front page. The forum you had to register for... mind oyu I think you had ot register for comments too, just less modded...

[cj.23]

I have a funny feeling this will make TAM 8, er, a bit more likely to be dramatic.


Dunno, RD failed to show for TAM London. Mind oyu so did I - no money - but I was never down as a guest!

j x

[cj.23]

Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose you found yourself described as an “utter twat” a “suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum inside a dead skunk that’s been shoved up a week-old dead rhino’s twat.” Or suppose that somebody on the same website expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat. Also to “trip you up and kick you in the guts.” And imagine seeing your face described, again by an anonymous poster, as “a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one.”



Yeah happens to me whenever i post on the rationality of theism, and that's just the mods! :D

cj x

[vwgub]

Yeah happens to me whenever i post on the rationality of theism, and that's just the mods! :D

cj x

But what would you do if I did?

[vwgub]

What kind of person say this about themselves.

RD:as a greatly liked and respected person

[Sven]

What kind of person say this about themselves.

RD:as a greatly liked and respected person

I think he's referring to his webmaster (and the person who caused all of this as far as I can tell), Josh Timonen.

Edit: And no, I don't consider his IT guy and cameraman to be greatly liked and respected.

[cj.23]

What kind of person say this about themselves.

RD:as a greatly liked and respected person

An extraordinarily modest man? :jaw-dropp

cj x

[vwgub]

I think he's referring to his webmaster (and the person who caused all of this as far as I can tell), Josh Timonen.

Edit: And no, I don't consider his IT guy and cameraman to be greatly liked and respected.

Even so I would think RD would you know like maybe base his opinion on you know what's that word you know what I'm talking about like.....


EVIDENCE

[Sven]

Even so I would think RD would you know like maybe base his opinion on you know what's that word you know what I'm talking about like.....


EVIDENCE

I agree 100%. I wonder if he's aware that all the abusive comments he's quoting came not from the RD forums but from rationalia.com, and that they were all posted AFTER Josh shut down the forums, deleted the accounts of a few moderators that had dared voice their discontent, and wiped out his tracks by deleting the admin logs.
If I find out he is aware of this I'll lose a great deal of respect for him.

[Cleon]

FWIW, guys, my heat goes out to ya. I'm really sorry the RDF did this to you, and as suddenly as they did. :(

I've often wondered what would happen if Randi finally decided to pull the plug on this place; I know damn well I would be really upset, and I'm sure others would be too (even some of those who spend a great deal of time griping about it).

[95theses]

FWIW, guys, my heat goes out to ya. I'm really sorry the RDF did this to you, and as suddenly as they did. :(

I've often wondered what would happen if Randi finally decided to pull the plug on this place; I know damn well I would be really upset, and I'm sure others would be too (even some of those who spend a great deal of time griping about it).

That's not even what everyone is so pissed about though.

Imagine Randi promised a new improved JREF Forum for 8 months that everyone was excited about and then, suddenly sent a guy that had no previous input to the forum along to fire the staff and inform everyone that the JREF Forums were going to an article system, with said new guy in charge of personally approving all new threads in your new 'article' based discussion forums. Imagine the members started a civil but vocal thread about developments that was immediately wiped out completely by the new admin.

Then, imagine that said new guy threatened all the mods not to allow people to discuss moving to a more open forum, and when they told the members they had received this warning, this new guy then perma banned and deleted 5 prolific posters with a total of 30k posts under their belts. All the posts, links to published papers etc just gone, in an instant. Not even banned to quieten them, deliberately erased their entire post history.

Then the new guy locks the forum and makes it read only, and removes all PM functionality to stop members from swapping contact details with each other, and upon noticing that some members had added signature details of a new forum to congregate in now this one was shut, deleted all signatures from the board.

Now, after all this, someone tries to run a software archiving program to archive the posts (as specifically said was to be allowed by the admin) but instead of getting the posts, this new admin redirected the program to a rick-roll.

Then, after all this a few people, on a different website, called this new admin some pretty unsavory things, but Randi then posts on the now locked JREF forums quoting these posts and claiming they were from the JREF in response to the letter about the changes, represent the majority of the forum users and staff, and are the reason the forum had to be locked down.

THAT's why we are pissed and not going quietly into the night, not just because he wants to take his website in a new direction.

[JihadJane]

The Reptiles' revenge?

Amazing!

[vwgub]

The Reptiles' revenge?

Amazing!

:D otherwise POT

[orpheus]

That's not even what everyone is so pissed about though.

Imagine Randi promised a new improved JREF Forum for 8 months that everyone was excited about and then, suddenly sent a guy that had no previous input to the forum along to fire the staff and inform everyone that the JREF Forums were going to an article system, with said new guy in charge of personally approving all new threads in your new 'article' based discussion forums. Imagine the members started a civil but vocal thread about developments that was immediately wiped out completely by the new admin.

Then, imagine that said new guy threatened all the mods not to allow people to discuss moving to a more open forum, and when they told the members they had received this warning, this new guy then perma banned and deleted 5 prolific posters with a total of 30k posts under their belts. All the posts, links to published papers etc just gone, in an instant. Not even banned to quieten them, deliberately erased their entire post history.

Then the new guy locks the forum and makes it read only, and removes all PM functionality to stop members from swapping contact details with each other, and upon noticing that some members had added signature details of a new forum to congregate in now this one was shut, deleted all signatures from the board.

Now, after all this, someone tries to run a software archiving program to archive the posts (as specifically said was to be allowed by the admin) but instead of getting the posts, this new admin redirected the program to a rick-roll.

Then, after all this a few people, on a different website, called this new admin some pretty unsavory things, but Randi then posts on the now locked JREF forums quoting these posts and claiming they were from the JREF in response to the letter about the changes, represent the majority of the forum users and staff, and are the reason the forum had to be locked down.

THAT's why we are pissed and not going quietly into the night, not just because he wants to take his website in a new direction.

Yes. Well said.

[vwgub]

Now, after all this, someone tries to run a software archiving program to archive the posts (as specifically said was to be allowed by the admin) but instead of getting the posts, this new admin redirected the program to a rick-roll.



WTF WTF WTF WTF

P.S. I think this admin is on this site.

[amb]

I agree; the deleting of all posts of people they banned struck me as a petty act of spite. They acknowledged that people saw their posts as valuable, by giving them time to back them up, then deleted the history of anyone who was critical. It's not a standard practice to delete all posts of banned members (unless they are spammers) and no reason for it as far as I can see apart from spite - or maybe as a warning to others to keep their mouth shut.

Not a nice way for a forum to end.
And we all thought Hitler and the Nazis were dead. I wonder if this will effect RDs future book sales? :p

[amb]

Because 30,000 posts are gone. And many of these, especially by Darwinsbulldog, were serious weighty essays on science, society and evolution, which are irrecoverable now. This is the 21st century equivalent of book-burning. We can still access the forum: copies are boing made of everything by teams of diligent volunteers - but their posts are gone forever, in a pointless act of digital vandalism. WHy if the forum was locked was it ever necessary to delete them? :(

j x

I met Rob recently. No one was more enthusiastic than he on the RD Forum.
I feel very sad for him and the enormous time he put into that place. I read elsewhere he was dismissed. I met Rob in a book store in the science section, in a way promoting R Ds latest book. The Greatest Show On Earth. I bet he feels very disillusioned right now. :(

[Mr.Samsa]

I met Rob recently. No one was more enthusiastic than he on the RD Forum.
I feel very sad for him and the enormous time he put into that place. I read elsewhere he was dismissed. I met Rob in a book store in the science section, in a way promoting R Ds latest book. The Greatest Show On Earth. I bet he feels very disillusioned right now. :(

Yeah poor Rob has been having a pretty crap time of things lately, even without the whole "Monster Josh" thing.

On the bright side, Rob's last action as a mod was to ban Chalkers as a troll. :D

[95theses]

Yeah, out of everyone DarwinsBulldog is the one I feel worst for.

From what I read, the guy arrived as a Theist a few years ago, worked his way through the arguments for both sides and became an atheist, and then dedicated himself to helping others learn the knowledge he had acquired there.

As well as ending up as a mod, he had 13.5k posts explaining science to people who wanted to learn about it in an accessible way. He was always around somewhere posting actual science from real published papers and explaining it to people who needed it.

Then he gets entirely deleted from the record along with all his posts for having the temerity to question the new direction.

Hats off to the man though, banning the new tech weenie from his own site because he was to inept to prevent mods from being able to do that was a fitting way to go down.

[Mr.Samsa]

Then he gets entirely deleted from the record along with all his posts for having the temerity to question the new direction.

Hats off to the man though, banning the new tech weenie from his own site because he was to inept to prevent mods from being able to do that was a fitting way to go down.

Whilst I agree with all your sentiments, to be fair to Josh and Andrew, DarwinsBulldog was arguably the only one that was understandably banned - obviously banning an admin is kind of against the rules.. (although deletion was far more than necessary).

And in his defence, although no formal discussion was had between the mods, I think we all agreed that Andrew met the criteria for a Troll and banning him was entirely justified :D

[Michael C]

Times Online reports:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/richard-dawkins-unleashes-tirade-against-fans.html

[AvalonXQ]

Times Online reports:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/richard-dawkins-unleashes-tirade-against-fans.html

Sounds like the writer of the article just read Dawkins' post, and is happy to accept his lies.

[lpetrich]

I've not been very active in Richard Dawkins's board, but I had lived through the IIDebacle, as some call it. That issue was eventually resolved when the Internet Infidels Board of Directors agreed to hand over most of the board to certain of the admins. It is now the Freethought and Rationalism Discussion Board or FRDB, and it is still in action.

I think that Richard Dawkins and Josh Timonen ought to have considered that, instead of planning to create some blog-like board. And if James Randi or his successors wish to divest themselves of this board, they ought to consider that solution also.

[technoextreme]

Because 30,000 posts are gone. And many of these, especially by Darwinsbulldog, were serious weighty essays on science, society and evolution, which are irrecoverable now. This is the 21st century equivalent of book-burning. We can still access the forum: copies are boing made of everything by teams of diligent volunteers - but their posts are gone forever, in a pointless act of digital vandalism. WHy if the forum was locked was it ever necessary to delete them? :(

j x
Grow up. If they were really that important they wouldn't be floating out in the internal ether right now. Was the entire Dawkins forum ignorant of things called hard disk failures which would has created missing posts on other forums?
I hope reasonable people can see the difference. It doesn't surprise me that Dawkins can't.
Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.

[Dragoonster]

Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.

So why are you whining about the whining? Irony or just ignorant nihilism?

[AvalonXQ]

Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.

Scenario 1: Dawkins uses abusive posts as a reason to delete users and interfere with their ability to contact each other.
Scenario 2: Dawkins deletes users and interferes with their ability to contact each other, leading to abusive posts.
Slight difference.

[cj.23]

Grow up. If they were really that important they wouldn't be floating out in the internal ether right now. Was the entire Dawkins forum ignorant of things called hard disk failures which would has created missing posts on other forums? {/quote]

I am quite growed up, I'm 40! Apart from being rude, how old are you? Are you old enough to be on the interwebs unsurpervised? :) Of course many of us had back ups. The majority of the discussionw ere not. How many of your posts on this forum are backed up? I did not lost any: if I had I would have been able to go tot my back ups -- but in the heat of argument with acreationist few bother I suspect.

[quote=technoextreme;5656161]
Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.


Bit like when that chappy flew a plane in the WTC? Bloody whining yanks hey? Or that funny german blok invaded Poland?:D Of courese anyone who moans about any percieved injustiuce is just a useless whiner, like people who report crimes ot the police, hey? You really have a screwed moral system dude... This si just an internet thing, and we all know "the interwez is seriosu business." I'm sure we will have an amusing Encylcopedia Dramatica story, and sure it's no big deal - bt your response if actually thiought through is pretty terrifying. I siuspect you are just being cynical and stupid however.

The Times carries the story here - http://timesonline.typepad.com/science/2010/02/richard-dawkins-unleashes-tirade-against-fans.html - I'll grab a proint edition lkater see what coverage if any there. :)

cj x

[zooterkin]

I saw this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8535384.stm) today, and wondered if the British Library has any copies of RDF saved.

[lector]

Another update to the announcement, today, or last night (the forum doesn't seem to show the time of edits).

Update: 2010-02-23
A few points to clear things up.

We originally posted a private message to the moderators only asking them not to use the information in the foundation's database to cause trouble, email Richard en masse, ask all of the users to go to a separate forum, or anything like that. We take the privacy of the users' data held by the foundation seriously—to that end the data shouldn't be used to solicit and promote other services. This is not what our users signed up for. This was only directed toward the small group of moderators, who had the access to the administration panel. Against the foundation's wishes, they turned around and posted this message publicly in the forum, and many people misinterpreted this to be directed at regular users. We were not telling the regular users what they could and couldn't do, they were all welcome to move to a separate forum. This public posting of personal communication, along with several inappropriate posts made by our very own moderators, convinced the foundation to close the forum down and make it read-only.

We had hoped to keep the forum functioning until the transition to the new site. Having no forum for 30 days is not what we had hoped would happen. But without being able to trust our own moderators for the forum's final month before the transition, we were left with no other option. A few accounts have been deleted along with their posts due to the nature of their posts. We're sorry that a few had to ruin it for the many.
The decision to revamp the forum was made by The Richard Dawkins Foundation. We are looking to make a new discussion area that is easier for people to find quality content related to our mission. We understand that for some of you it was a place to hang out and converse with like minded people but we are not looking to be a social network. There are many other sites that provide this service.
As the foundation continues to grow, there will be changes. But our focus will always be to promote reason and science. We are working to get the new site up as soon as we can, and we will keep you posted on the estimated launch date.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation

This sounds eerily familiar.

The waxing & waning of an American food forum called eGullet might have been instructive to the Dawkins people. Those who do not learn from history....

[cj.23]

This sounds eerily familiar.

The waxing & waning of an American food forum called eGullet might have been instructive to the Dawkins people. Those who do not learn from history....

I don't know the egullet story, but I have seen all this before -- http://jerome23.wordpress.com/2010/02/24/death-of-an-atheist-forum-the-lessons-of-history/ - in the IIDB misey in 2008

cj x

[technoextreme]

Bit like when that chappy flew a plane in the WTC? Bloody whining yanks hey? Or that funny german blok invaded Poland?:D Of courese anyone who moans about any percieved injustiuce is just a useless whiner, like people who report crimes ot the police, hey? You really have a screwed moral system dude... This si just an internet thing, and we all know "the interwez is seriosu business." I'm sure we will have an amusing Encylcopedia Dramatica story, and sure it's no big deal - bt your response if actually thiought through is pretty terrifying. I siuspect you are just being cynical and stupid however.

x
No I actually think you are a bunch of sad pathetic people complaining about this when there are other things in the world more important than the closing of your favorite forum.
Of course many of us had back ups. The majority of the discussionw ere not. How many of your posts on this forum are backed up? I did not lost any: if I had I would have been able to go tot my back ups -- but in the heat of argument with acreationist few bother I suspe
One and the only reason that is backed up is because it took the hours of work that you guys supposedly are crying that you lost.

[95theses]

No I actually think you are a bunch of sad pathetic people complaining about this when there are other things in the world more important than the closing of your favorite forum.


I guess it could be worse.

We could be complaining about complaining about this when there are other things in the world than complaining about the complaining about the closing of a forum.

[cj.23]

No I actually think you are a bunch of sad pathetic people complaining about this when there are other things in the world more important than the closing of your favorite forum.

Actually I think you are failing to understand the sheer level of anger and upset, in fact betrayal felt by Dawkins' fans. It's a nuisance and sad to me, but as I don't rate Dawkins much except as a good writer and science journalist it's not a huge loss, but I feel immensely strongly for all my good friends, especially those who risk a great deal for coming out as atheists.


One and the only reason that is backed up is because it took the hours of work that you guys supposedly are crying that you lost.


Then you are a very sensible person, and I sincerely commend you on your grasp of 21st century realities (and I mean that, no sarcasm - you are clever enough to deal with stuff, and I wish more could adopt the 'back it up or lose it' attitude' )- but others do not have your wisdom on this issue. Sorry if I was harsh before, but emotions run high on this whole issue (now reaching a lot of the mainstream British press online editions) - more than any web spat I have ever seenbefore achieve...


Attempt to back up data now are being rickrolled by Dawkins admin - rather funny, but also stupid.
cj x

[UndercoverElephant]

Highly amusing. :D

They should have left me in charge of it... ;)

[cj.23]

Hey UE,

yes they should. Made The Times today - http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article7041878.ece

Rather impressive for a forum meltdown!

cj x

[Prometheus]

I saw this story (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8535384.stm) today, and wondered if the British Library has any copies of RDF saved.

Appears not to: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/

The Wayback Machine also has nothing substantive (You can see the thread titles from index pages, but not the actual threads/posts themselves).

[amb]

No I actually think you are a bunch of sad pathetic people complaining about this when there are other things in the world more important than the closing of your favorite forum.
Like for example? ;)

[Soapy Sam]

Jref.

(Sorry, but you did rather set that one up...)


I was registered at RDF, but rarely posted, one site being all I can keep track of.

I recall how highly emotions ran here before the Skeptical Community breakaway. Funny how like churches, Net forums are in that respect- schismatics, all of us.

I am surprised that RD seems to have failed to actually appreciate the intensity of feeling internet communities engender.
I recall Randi was much the same- but Randi had no real reason to be savvy in that sense. I think he has learned a lot since then. One might have hoped RD would have too. The fact is that successful forums create their own agenda.

The maligning of Timonen should be dropped, IMO. Whatever he did, I expect he had his reasons. It does sound like he overreacted, but until I know for certain what was being done by the mod / admin team - and do even they all know what they were all doing yet? - I think it's best for all the lost souls to get in the various lifeboats and await clarification.
I get the impression what we have here is a communications failure of a high order.

I can understand RD's desire for a less chaotic board- but that implies more control. And control , especially by one person, appears to be lethal to the growth of online community.
I wish him success with the new project, but I am sceptical it will ever be as valuable as what has been abandoned.

[amb]

Agree. I doubt very much if it reaches a tenth of membership as it had before this fiasco.
It seems that all they want is discussions between scientists of a certain caliber.

[zooterkin]

I still wonder exactly how aware RD was of what the forum meant to the members. His response suggests to me that of someone who's been shown a highly selective view of the situation, focusing on the more vitriolic reactions. Out of context (and, to be frank, in some cases even in context) these reactions seem wildly out of proportion to the changes as described by the administrator. Pouring abuse on Dawkins is not going to improve the situation in any way, but I don't know who can explain the situation to him in terms that he'd understand. I think, as a side issue, though a possibly significant one, this is a case where uncivil language is counting against the people who are, from my limited understanding of the ins and outs, largely entitled to complain.

[UndercoverElephant]

I still wonder exactly how aware RD was aware of what the forum meant to the members.

Dawkins had no clue what was going on on that board. How else could the situation have arisen where somebody like myself (an outspoken and bloody-minded critic of Dawkins' pseudo-philosophical position) ended up in charge of the board two weeks after it was set up and remained there for nearly two years? For much of the time I was there that board was home to some very high quality discussions about the interface between philosophy and science, but there was never any sign that Dawkins himself was ever aware of this. He did not visit the philosophy section of his own board.

[Dragoonster]

I still wonder exactly how aware RD was of what the forum meant to the members. His response suggests to me that of someone who's been shown a highly selective view of the situation, focusing on the more vitriolic reactions. Out of context (and, to be frank, in some cases even in context) these reactions seem wildly out of proportion to the changes as described by the administrator. Pouring abuse on Dawkins is not going to improve the situation in any way, but I don't know who can explain the situation to him in terms that he'd understand. I think, as a side issue, though a possibly significant one, this is a case where uncivil language is counting against the people who are, from my limited understanding of the ins and outs, largely entitled to complain.

Apparently the pouring of abuse (which may have been just a trickle) happened only after the draconian measures taken by the web admins. Dawkins has unwittingly or wittingly accepted that flawed timeline of events to justify the forum closure, even though such vitriol happened only after the forum closure. This makes Dawkins either:

An incompetent manager
A hypocrite
An a-hole
A very poor researcher
Clueless about the internet

Or some combination of these.

So yeah, it's usually wise to restrain uncivil language, as it may lead to bad repercussions. It isn't as obvious that one should have to time-travel to the future to restrain future uncivil language concerning draconian changes that are indefensibly applied in the present but that in the future will be revisionistly described as justified by future uncivil language.

[UndercoverElephant]

Clueless about the internet


is what he is.

[Mr.Samsa]

The maligning of Timonen should be dropped, IMO. Whatever he did, I expect he had his reasons. It does sound like he overreacted, but until I know for certain what was being done by the mod / admin team - and do even they all know what they were all doing yet? - I think it's best for all the lost souls to get in the various lifeboats and await clarification.
I get the impression what we have here is a communications failure of a high order.

The mods were aware of all the actions of each other as we were in contact off-site throughout the entire thing, reporting back every action we had taken and every response we had received (the details of which are still saved and recorded).

The summary of the situation is that Josh made a surprise announcement about the closure of the forum and the eventual deletion of the data, and suggested that all the mods were on board with this. This obviously caused a bit of a backlash against us, so one moderator presented evidence to show that we were unaware of the new changes (the message we received asking us to pretend we were onside with Josh and stating us not to dissent in any way or to contact Richard at all, or direct members to another site). After seeing this, Josh deleted this member and his entire contribution to the site.

He may have had his "reasons", but whatever reasons they were, they were not rational nor justified. Following this he froze the forum, disabled the search feature and signatures, and hobbled the messaging feature. In addition to installing a rickroll into the database making it impossible for nontechnical laymen to save large chunks of data from the forum using archive managers.

Basically, he acted like a child.

I can understand RD's desire for a less chaotic board- but that implies more control. And control , especially by one person, appears to be lethal to the growth of online community.
I wish him success with the new project, but I am sceptical it will ever be as valuable as what has been abandoned.

If you had a chance to read through the thread that was started initially in reply to the announcement of a new discussion board, you'll find that a number of members were excited about the new changes. There were a few upset people, some were confused, and a minority were angry (at the mods, not Josh) - but the thread was moderated and it was all under control.

Then when the mods pointed out that we were not informed of the changes and had not been deceiving the members of the forum, Josh deleted this thread.

I agree that calling him nasty names serves no real purpose, but calm, reasoned and rational emails and messages were sent to Richard with no reply until that god-awful "Outrage" message - which demonstrated that Richard didn't care about facts, he only cared about what Josh had to say. Bearing in mind that those "nasty" comments made about Josh were taken out of context, and made a day or two AFTER the forum had shut down - so they obviously could not have been the reason FOR the forum shutting down.

[zooterkin]

I agree that calling him nasty names serves no real purpose, but calm, reasoned and rational emails and messages were sent to Richard with no reply until that god-awful "Outrage" message - which demonstrated that Richard didn't care about facts, he only cared about what Josh had to say.

Does RD read his own email, or does someone filter it for him? I'm not sure he necessarily is aware of the facts.

[remirol]

Does RD read his own email, or does someone filter it for him? I'm not sure he necessarily is aware of the facts.

Sadly, I suspect he is quite aware of the facts. What has happened is a classic case of poor communication -- and it can be mostly laid at the door of the forum members who decided to go "on tilt" and start venting vitriol out every available pore in a frenzy of Internet Rage.

As UndercoverElephant mentioned above, Dawkins looks like a person who's clueless about the Internet. The way you get to be one of those people is by, well, not spending a lot of time on the Internet. Makes sense so far, right?

Take a good look at all the hate posts that have been put up. Seriously. How much of that sort of thing do you think Dawkins hears from people he would normally respect on a day-to-day basis? Now, how much of that sort of thing do you think he hears from rabid religious fundamentalists who are off their rocker?

Those of us who spend or have spent a lot of time on the Internet are used to seeing posts like that. We immediately discard it as "standard overreaction" and move on from there, looking for the posts that contain actual content. But someone who _isn't_ used to seeing posts like that from his 'own side' is going to react far more strongly to them. And that's because someone who spends most of his time in the real world knows adults don't behave that way -- and thus, rather than discard it as "just overreaction", is likely to overreact himself to it and conclude that something is very, very wrong with those people.

I am sure there were a number of civil posts, emails, etc. sent. And it's a shame that they were drowned out by the hatred and irrationality. But the reality is this: everyone who posted angry screeds and started abusing privileges in order to "draw attention" to something that they (incorrectly) presumed was taking place without RD's knowledge just wasn't thinking critically. And they cost everyone else their opportunity to be heard.

[Dragoonster]

Take a good look at all the hate posts that have been put up.

Take a good look at the time (and location) they were put up and the time the administrators went ape-**** on the forum. You're getting your cause and effect reversed.

Let's say I meet someone on the street and punch him in the face.
He says "you bastard, you punched me in the face!"
I say "I punched you in the face because you called me a bastard!"

[Darat]

Take a good look at the time (and location) they were put up and the time the administrators went ape-**** on the forum. You're getting your cause and effect reversed.

Let's say I meet someone on the street and punch him in the face.
He says "you bastard, you punched me in the face!"
I say "I punched you in the face because you called me a bastard!"

That's only because you are a materialist and believe in this "cause and effect" crap.

[JihadJane]

I think Dawkins also needs to get a sense of humor. The extended rat's bottom analogy is very funny and will hopefully end up chronicled alongside other famous insults such as:

"The prime minister clings to data the way a drunkard clings to lampposts. Not for illumination but to keep him standing up." Romano Prodi on Silvio Berlusconi

or

"He's nothing more than a well meaning baboon." General McCellan on Abraham Lincoln

or

"An empty suit that goes to funerals and plays golf." Ross Perot talking about Dan Quayle

or

"It's like being savaged by a dead sheep." Denis Healey on being attacked by Geoffrey Howe.

[zooterkin]

Sadly, I suspect he is quite aware of the facts. What, all of them?

As UndercoverElephant mentioned above, Dawkins looks like a person who's clueless about the Internet.

Exactly. Which means he probably does not understand the implications of the proposed change from a forum to a front page with comments for the existing users, nor does he seem to understand the timeline of what happened. Some, at least, of the comments he is reacting to were not posted on RDF but on other sites, but may have also been emailed to him. There are no responses to the reasoned posts that were emailed to him. Which is why I suggest it looks as though someone has said, "Look what these nasty people said, when I was only trying to make things better." He may have agreed to the proposed changes as explained to him, or even requested them, but his bafflement at the reaction shows he did not understand what they meant.

If you think that shows he is aware of all the facts, then I'm confused by your reasoning.

[remirol]

Take a good look at the time (and location) they were put up and the time the administrators went ape-**** on the forum. You're getting your cause and effect reversed.

No. No, I'm not. Not at all, in fact. And this post serves to illustrate just how out of touch with reality some Internet users really are.

Even assuming everything you say is true (and I am leaving the jury out on this; this is just for the sake of argument for the moment) the actions that were taken are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Some accounts were deleted and the forum was locked. The forum was going away anyway.

The response to these actions was completely disproportionate, to someone who walks in the real world. It is understandable that users will be upset about the forum being closed. And the closing wasn't handled gracefully. But in the end, adults do not conduct themselves in that manner in the real world for something so trivial as an account being deleted 30 days early.

They just don't. You can't walk up to your boss's boss and repeat some of those angry screeds word-for-word without being fired. You simply can't. And that's the real point here -- the RDF population that chose to fly off the handle and post a bunch of personal hate attacks has cost the rest of that population a chance to be heard.

[remirol]

Exactly. Which means he probably does not understand the implications of the proposed change from a forum to a front page with comments for the existing users, nor does he seem to understand the timeline of what happened.

I am certain he does understand at least some of the implications. And because of the hostile comments posted, he's now dead-certain that it's the right thing to do. Way to go. RDF fanboys. Way to go.

Some, at least, of the comments he is reacting to were not posted on RDF but on other sites, but may have also been emailed to him. There are no responses to the reasoned posts that were emailed to him.That's because he made his decision. Holy crap, do none of you work in a position with any responsibility over a large number of people? I doubt he has TIME to go through the flood of responses and answer each one individually, much less wade through the ones that are "You scum-sucker, i hate you", etc. My inbox at work is constantly flooded; I use aggressive filtering and short responses to make sure I can actually deal with everything in the right order. If you recall, the original announcement said "please don't email Richard directly". There's a reason for that, and the most logical reason is not that the people in charge were trying to hide things from Richard. He knew there'd be upset people; he just didn't want to be overrun with complaints when the decision was already made.

Which is why I suggest it looks as though someone has said, "Look what these nasty people said, when I was only trying to make things better."That's the point. The nasty people drown out the sane people. They always do. Most Christian fundamentalists don't go around carrying signs, picketing, and frothing at the mouth, but that's the mental picture we all have when someone says "fundie", isn't it?

Now, let's be clear. I'm not trying to defend the decision itself, and I think that the way the forum stuff has been handled is decidedly poor. But I do understand this -- when you want to get someone in power's attention, the worst way in the world to do it is to post hate-filled walls-o-text and try to escalate the emotional tone of the situation.

[95theses]

To highlight the unfairness of the 'Outrage' post, have a look at this.

Richard Implies that the barrage of insults caused the site to have to be shut down early. For example he uses this one :

Or that others expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat

And yet, when one looks to the source, at rationalia, that was posted after the RDF forums were closed you find it in context :


The bottom line is that I personally am far more offended by Josh's 'handling' of this debacle than I am of the initial decision.

When someone tells me they know that change can be frightening in order to at both times shut me up and patronise me, I get the sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails down their throat.

So, yeah, bad handling.



(I'm glad you've sent a letter. A few well known names with calm and honest opinions might at least wake RD up to what has been done, even if he doesn't care)

not a glowing bit of praise surely, but neither quite as vitriolic as Richard makes out is it?

[Dragoonster]

No. No, I'm not. Not at all, in fact. And this post serves to illustrate just how out of touch with reality some Internet users really are.

Even assuming everything you say is true (and I am leaving the jury out on this; this is just for the sake of argument for the moment) the actions that were taken are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Some accounts were deleted and the forum was locked. The forum was going away anyway.

Just about every particular fracas is minor in the grand scheme of things. But since you're assuming things for the sake of argument, also assume the following: A concerted effort was made to prevent former RDneters from relocating their community, before and after the premature forum closure--the PM system was intenionally slowed to a crawl, sigs suggesting alternate sites were deleted, and the initial letter warned that it would be unacceptable for mods to attempt to facilitate relocation, even though the forums were going to be coming down. Also warned anyone from contacting Dawkins. Also initially ensured that archiving would be allowed, but then the admins made simple archive attempts redirect to a rickroll. So, there's that too.

The response to these actions was completely disproportionate, to someone who walks in the real world. It is understandable that users will be upset about the forum being closed. And the closing wasn't handled gracefully. But in the end, adults do not conduct themselves in that manner in the real world for something so trivial as an account being deleted 30 days early.

How are mere words disproportionate to actual actions? No one firebombed Dawkins' home. No hackers shut down his site.

And yes, in the real world adults conduct themselves in that manner even for what appears trivial to others. Ever watch MSNBC, Fox, CSpan, or ESPN? There's verbal vitriol everywhere, the world isn't an unemotional bastion of pure and sober formal rhetoric only inhabited by Vulcans. Nor by the way was Dawkins' response to this mess, it was full of condemnation and dismissal, and generalized insults as well.

They just don't. You can't walk up to your boss's boss and repeat some of those angry screeds word-for-word without being fired. You simply can't. And that's the real point here -- the RDF population that chose to fly off the handle and post a bunch of personal hate attacks has cost the rest of that population a chance to be heard.

A chance to be heard? Where, how? The forum was shut down, people were warned not to contact Dawkins, or even attempt to relocate members. Presumably some contacted him anyway, he didn't reply and didn't modify his stance from the rather heavy-handed admin stance. The media reports on this so far take Dawkins' timeline and rationale as correct, despite calm explanations in comment sections noting that this is simply not so.

So...exactly where and how would you prefer the population have been heard? And why should any population be expected to have ultimate control over all its members, so as to risk even one offensive member from disturbing the delicate sensibilities of the abusive (who apparently have no such requirement of being delicate themselves)?

This whole thing is full of remarkable hypocrisy, irony, incompetence, and coldness. I've never even posted or visited RDnet, and aside from a few quotes have never read anything by Dawkins. But those affected have legitimate complaints to make, even if a few of them go overboard or get personal. Unfortunately the message being trotted out is one you seem to have fallen prey too--that a bunch of rabid crazed hate-spewing monsters forced poor Dawkins et al to close the forum. That's very far from the truth.

It isn't very important in the grand scheme of things. It is though very interesting that one of the premier champions of evidence-based rationalism has exhibited no such response in his own house. It's also interesting as a case-study on evolution of forum closure, those affected, the importance of handling such carefully, and so on. The interesting thing about some stances in this thread is that the admonition of a few vitriolic loud-mouths is being used to dismiss the entire reaction as overblown. That's like dismissing all complaints about the Iraq War because of Cindy Sheehan, or all faithful because of Pat Robertson...or all atheists because of Richard Dawkins.

[remirol]

not a glowing bit of praise surely, but neither quite as vitriolic as Richard makes out is it?

Dude. In what real world do you walk up to someone and say "When you say that, it makes me want to ram a fistful of nails down your throat."?

Seriously! Think about it.

[JihadJane]

Dude. In what real world do you walk up to someone and say "When you say that, it makes me want to ram a fistful of nails down your throat."?

Seriously! Think about it.


Who has walked up to anyone anywhere and said that?

[remirol]

How are mere words disproportionate to actual actions? No one firebombed Dawkins' home. No hackers shut down his site.

This is what I mean by out of touch with reality. If you haven't understood it from what I've posted already, I'm just not sure you ever will. The real world isn't the Internet, and vice versa. What passes by as "mere words" on the Internet doesn't fly in polite society, and never will.

And yes, in the real world adults conduct themselves in that manner even for what appears trivial to others. Ever watch MSNBC, Fox, CSpan, or ESPN?Really? I don't recall ever hearing about a "fistful of nails being shoved down someone's throat" on any of those channels. Nor about "scum-sucking rectum", or any of the other fabulous over-the-top statements that have been made so far.

And if you're going to hold up the idiots like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, well, you know there's a reason a lot of people look at them as idiots who pander to the extremists. I bet it has a lot to do with what they say.

Now, that said -- Adults do not conduct themselves in that manner in any professional environment I've worked in. Again, would you go to your boss's boss and say those things to him? Really? How's the unemployment line these days?


So...exactly where and how would you prefer the population have been heard?That's the population's job to figure out -- which they have already done quite nicely WRT rationalia, here, etc. But they also should have spent some effort trying to bring their fringe elements under control, rather than cheering them on from the sidelines.

No, no group can control all its members. But the sane elements should have immediately been shouting "STOP! STOP! Stop the personal attacks!" -- and instead, all I've seen was encouragement.

Unfortunately the message being trotted out is one you seem to have fallen prey too--that a bunch of rabid crazed hate-spewing monsters forced poor Dawkins et al to close the forum. That's very far from the truth.It also isn't what I said. The rabid crazed hate-spewing monsters have caused Dawkins to stop listening. The forum was going to be closed no matter what.

The interesting thing about some stances in this thread is that the admonition of a few vitriolic loud-mouths is being used to dismiss the entire reaction as overblown. Also not what I said. You may not have been addressing it to me, but I feel the need to make certain of this.

[Dragoonster]

Dude. In what real world do you walk up to someone and say "When you say that, it makes me want to ram a fistful of nails down your throat."?

Seriously! Think about it.

In this analogy he didn't say that to the object of his anger. He said that to a fellow also affected by the object's decision, on a completely different "street". The object had to work to find what was said, he could've chosen to simply keep about his business and only deal with what was said directly to him. If it's such a minor thing, why actively seek out evidence post-facto to reinvent the justification? It would've been better to cite examples from the actual forum in question, too bad the admin deleted it!

I have managed people, not sure if 30-40 count as many. But I was midmanagement and yes, some of those real workers of mine would cuss and be very angry at some decisions made. Did I dismiss them as uncouth rabble or fire them? No, I tried to defuse their anger, first by explaining the rationale behind the decision*, and only if that didn't work by stating that the decision wasn't going to be reversed, and trying to work with them on how they could manage it and not be too negatively affected.

*In this case a response from Dawkins et al would've been to explain why they deleted 30,000+ posts as a respone to a half-dozen contentious posts, or why they were taking active measures to thwart relocation. They made no effort to do this. They were poor managers of the community.

[JihadJane]

The insults are an irrelevant red herring.

[remirol]

In this analogy he didn't say that to the object of his anger. He said that to a fellow also affected by the object's decision, on a completely different "street".

If we're going to be precise about the analogy, he shouted that from a soapbox through a megaphone. It wasn't just to one person, after all, it was a public comment. And suddenly we're back in the land of "Things that aren't said by people who don't want to have others think they're disturbed". Hell, you can say that to just one person and they'll look at you a bit funny, like "Wow, anger issues much?"

I have managed people, not sure if 30-40 count as many. But I was midmanagement and yes, some of those real workers of mine would cuss and be very angry at some decisions made.How many of them suggested to their co-workers they'd like to ram a fistful of nails down your throat? And how many of them just said things like "that's a *********** stupid decision"? See the difference?

Did I dismiss them as uncouth rabble or fire them? No, I tried to defuse their anger, first by explaining the rationale behind the decision*, and only if that didn't work by stating that the decision wasn't going to be reversed, and trying to work with them on how they could manage it and not be too negatively affected.30-40 is not really what I was thinking of -- you can actually make time to speak individually to the angry people in a group of 30-40. I'm thinking more like 500-600 -- where you KNOW you cannot address each person's concerns individually. In RDF's case, it was what, something like 85,000 members?

[Dragoonster]

This is what I mean by out of touch with reality. If you haven't understood it from what I've posted already, I'm just not sure you ever will. The real world isn't the Internet, and vice versa. What passes by as "mere words" on the Internet doesn't fly in polite society, and never will.

Society isn't always, or doesn't always need to be polite, from my experience, when it comes to reactions to things giving personal affront. Some things deserve strong reactions, did this? Perhaps not.

Really? I don't recall ever hearing about a "fistful of nails being shoved down someone's throat" on any of those channels. Nor about "scum-sucking rectum", or any of the other fabulous over-the-top statements that have been made so far.

And if you're going to hold up the idiots like O'Reilly and Limbaugh, well, you know there's a reason a lot of people look at them as idiots who pander to the extremists. I bet it has a lot to do with what they say.

Yes. But do O'Reilly or Olbermann make you dismiss all conservatives or liberals? Why should they set the debate or the reaction of people who should dismiss them? In this case Dawkins did not dismiss the vitriolic few, he used them as an example of the many.

Now, that said -- Adults do not conduct themselves in that manner in any professional environment I've worked in. Again, would you go to your boss's boss and say those things to him? Really? How's the unemployment line these days?

Perhaps factory work was less high-society than whatever work you do, but I experienced, and delivered, plenty of angry vile at terrible conditions and decisions. Perhaps it's that your business is run more competently than mine was, or than Dawkins' forum was, so you don't face as much rightful anger.

No, no group can control all its members. But the sane elements should have immediately been shouting "STOP! STOP! Stop the personal attacks!" -- and instead, all I've seen was encouragement.

It was already a fait accompli. The admins had already screwed the pooch, went way overboard themselves.

I'll just ask you this--what if anything do you think would've changed if there had been no personal attacks levied anywhere?

If nothing else one thing they accomplished was demonstrating that Dawkins can use such minority vitriol in a dishonest manner.

It also isn't what I said. The rabid crazed hate-spewing monsters have caused Dawkins to stop listening. The forum was going to be closed no matter what.

Also not what I said. You may not have been addressing it to me, but I feel the need to make certain of this.

Sorry if I misunderstood your position.

[plumjam]

Edited for rule 12.

[JihadJane]

Edited response to modded post.

[Dragoonster]

If we're going to be precise about the analogy, he shouted that from a soapbox through a megaphone. It wasn't just to one person, after all, it was a public comment. And suddenly we're back in the land of "Things that aren't said by people who don't want to have others think they're disturbed". Hell, you can say that to just one person and they'll look at you a bit funny, like "Wow, anger issues much?"

Really? I say brutal things like that all the time to friends, or on message boards. Have called GW several terrible things for one example.

How many of them suggested to their co-workers they'd like to ram a fistful of nails down your throat? And how many of them just said things like "that's a *********** stupid decision"? See the difference?

I wouldn't know what they suggested to their co-workers, as I wasn't spying on them. As a common worker I'd hear some "I'd like to beat his ass" for current supervisors at the time. It was a very high stress, underpaid job which required a lot of venting, but no one acted on it.

I do see the difference, but also see it as similar venting. It's a human response.

30-40 is not really what I was thinking of -- you can actually make time to speak individually to the angry people in a group of 30-40. I'm thinking more like 500-600 -- where you KNOW you cannot address each person's concerns individually. In RDF's case, it was what, something like 85,000 members?

That's true, but his response didn't actually respond to any of the criticism. Even supervising hundreds or thousands of people, if one of your minions made egregious errors that seriously upset most of them, wouldn't you respond to those errors and not imply that it was all the fault of the workers?

You might, or corporations might whose bottom-line is dollars, if they feel the response to such a non-response would be insignificant to profitability. I guess I thought Dawkins' bottom-line was rationality and fair debate, so his response seems antithetical to what he's most known for, and to the purpose that his "employees" in the form of users had gravitated to his site for.

[remirol]

Society isn't always, or doesn't always need to be polite, from my experience, when it comes to reactions to things giving personal affront. Some things deserve strong reactions, did this? Perhaps not.

As I've said before, I think the users have every reason to be upset. It's not easy when a social community is effectively completely obliterated. But at the same time, I think many should have expressed their displeasure in a more constructive manner.

It's OK to be angry. It's even OK to show it (contrast, again, "that's *********** stupid" with "fistful of nails") to a degree. But you gotta make sure people are willing to lsiten to you. :/

Yes. But do O'Reilly or Olbermann make you dismiss all conservatives or liberals? Why should they set the debate or the reaction of people who should dismiss them?Not me; I recognize that they're entertainment, as opposed to actual logic. But it's also important to note that I walk in the same world they do ("real world", not "TV america") and I can understand that they're just shouting for attention.

Dawkins really is clueless about the Internet. He doesn't walk in this world.

Perhaps factory work was less high-society than whatever work you do, but I experienced, and delivered, plenty of angry vile at terrible conditions and decisions.This actually is probably the (unexpected) best way there is to illustrate the difference. I've worked on factory floors _and_ in corporate America's conference rooms. And like the Internet, the factory floor is a completely different world. What is tolerated and "normal" there would horrify people who aren't used to it -- because a lot of what's said there _isn't_ said in polite society. And even on the factory floor, the people who can control their anger and get themselves heard will rise to the top -- because the floor needs people who can walk in both worlds, who can serve as an interface between the floor and the conference room. If the people in the conference room directly heard what's said on the floor, they'd flip their lids.

That's exactly what's happened in this case. On the Internet, the "fistful of nails" remark is an amusing turn of phrase. But in the real world, it's something completely different -- and all the forum members who weren't good at controlling their anger made an effort to be heard by the "conference room." Well, it heard 'em... and it flipped its lid, predictably.

I'll just ask you this--what if anything do you think would've changed if there had been no personal attacks levied anywhere? I can't predict the future, sadly. Perhaps nothing would've changed. What I can say is that at least people would've been listening. Right now, though, the lines of battle have been drawn and everyone's got their ego invested in it. That means there won't be any backing down on either side, and that's a loss for everyone concerned.

[Ysidro]

The insults are an irrelevant red herring.

And taken out of context to make them even more vile than they already were.

And it's working.

*takes notes, joins a political party*

In other news, my girlfriend just gave me a copy of The God Delusion last night. I haven't read Dawkins before. If his arguments in that book are as specious, full of cherrypicked quotes, and misunderstanding of cause and effect, I may just want to take it back. It's not going to effect the fact I'm an atheist, but I'd rather not fill my head with ill-reasoned arguments.

[Dragoonster]

Edited quote of modded post.


Heh. I just want to make clear I'm not a RDF refugee, have never been to the site. I'd never associate with such uncouth angry forum-destroyers!

[remirol]

Really? I say brutal things like that all the time to friends, or on message boards.

Just sayin'. Are these friends also ones who walk in the Internet world?

I wouldn't know what they suggested to their co-workers, as I wasn't spying on them. As a common worker I'd hear some "I'd like to beat his ass" for current supervisors at the time. It was a very high stress, underpaid job which required a lot of venting, but no one acted on it.

I do see the difference, but also see it as similar venting. It's a human response.See response to other post. Basically, the reason you can see it for what it is because you've _been_ there. But Dawkins doesn't use the Internet, so he sees it quite, quite differently.

That's true, but his response didn't actually respond to any of the criticism. Even supervising hundreds or thousands of people, if one of your minions made egregious errors that seriously upset most of them, wouldn't you respond to those errors and not imply that it was all the fault of the workers?This assumes that Dawkins considers Josh's actions to be errors. I'm trying to avoid debating the precise circumstances around the issue because it'll take a lot of detective work on my part to dig up the exact sequence of events, and to try to correlate both sides' stories and ferret out what -actually- happened (sorry, but I know better than to take either side's word as gospel on this).

I guess I thought Dawkins' bottom-line was rationality and fair debate, so his response seems antithetical to what he's most known for, and to the purpose that his "employees" in the form of users had gravitated to his site for.As noted above, I lack the information to make a substantive assessment.

[readme.txt]

http://www.archive.org/

If you want to recover old posts at any time even if the forums are closed.

[Dragoonster]

As I've said before, I think the users have every reason to be upset. It's not easy when a social community is effectively completely obliterated. But at the same time, I think many should have expressed their displeasure in a more constructive manner.

It's OK to be angry. It's even OK to show it (contrast, again, "that's *********** stupid" with "fistful of nails") to a degree. But you gotta make sure people are willing to lsiten to you. :/

I agree, but it seemed like the ship had sailed at that point.

Dawkins really is clueless about the Internet. He doesn't walk in this world.

Yeah, once again this seems to be one of the major causes of how everything got so dramatic.

This actually is probably the (unexpected) best way there is to illustrate the difference. I've worked on factory floors _and_ in corporate America's conference rooms. And like the Internet, the factory floor is a completely different world. What is tolerated and "normal" there would horrify people who aren't used to it -- because a lot of what's said there _isn't_ said in polite society. And even on the factory floor, the people who can control their anger and get themselves heard will rise to the top -- because the floor needs people who can walk in both worlds, who can serve as an interface between the floor and the conference room. If the people in the conference room directly heard what's said on the floor, they'd flip their lids.

That's exactly what's happened in this case. On the Internet, the "fistful of nails" remark is an amusing turn of phrase. But in the real world, it's something completely different -- and all the forum members who weren't good at controlling their anger made an effort to be heard by the "conference room." Well, it heard 'em... and it flipped its lid, predictably.

That's an excellent observation. I remember one of my fellows going up to another floor's deskjob area and using the same language and impropriety he'd been using on the factory floor. The husband of one of the women he'd done this too met him after work and threatened to beat him with a tire iron for what he'd said (which I won't repeat)!

However in this case the top floor of Dawkins did make some statements in the past that suggested he valued the community, or undestood some of its purpose or draw. Maybe he didn't, or maybe he did get upset precisely for your reasons, community be damned.

I can't predict the future, sadly. Perhaps nothing would've changed. What I can say is that at least people would've been listening. Right now, though, the lines of battle have been drawn and everyone's got their ego invested in it. That means there won't be any backing down on either side, and that's a loss for everyone concerned.

From looking through all this the loss was already guaranteed for one side. The "positive" that might develop from this is in a dissection of the events and the forum admins/Dawkins response. As well as how its been presented in the media, sort of a contest of which "truth" to present--the reknowned celebrity vs. the rabble or independent bloggers. And not a conciliation of any sort, but that wasn't going to happen after the initial forum blow-up. But perhaps at least a lesson (one more among hundreds) on how NOT to handle a forum shut-down. As well as responses by both sides afterwards.

And perhaps a slight pop of the Dawkins balloon. I don't know much about him or his fans but now and then get the sense he's a bit revered. It's always good to realize no one is infallible. And that a person can be respected in one area but criticized in another.

Since this is the most agreeable exchange we've had I think I'll bow out.

[JihadJane]

And like the Internet, the factory floor is a completely different world. What is tolerated and "normal" there would horrify people who aren't used to it -- because a lot of what's said there _isn't_ said in polite society.

Is this naive and innocent Dawkins you portray really so easily manipulated by his minions?

One of the main complaints against Dawkins is that he often seems unable not to be insulting to those he disagrees with. Indeed, he has made a career out of it!

It is, therefore, hard not to see his outrage at the expressions outrage as fabricated, for political reasons. I would expect better from a critical thinker.

[readme.txt]

James Randi has more magical powers than Richard Dawkins.

[Rrose Selavy]

http://www.archive.org/

If you want to recover old posts at any time even if the forums are closed.

Er..no..according to this earlier post in this thread:
Appears not to: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/ (http://www.webarchive.org.uk/ukwa/)

The Wayback Machine also has nothing substantive (You can see the thread titles from index pages, but not the actual threads/posts themselves).

[remirol]

One of the main complaints against Dawkins is that he often seems unable not to be insulting to those he disagrees with. Indeed, he has made a career out of it!

It is, therefore, hard not to see his outrage at the expressions outrage as fabricated, for political reasons. I would expect better from a critical thinker.

It appears that you've reiterated the tu quoque response that was already moved to AAH once, and added on some CT-quality material as a bonus. :oldroll:

[readme.txt]

Er..no..according to this earlier post in this thread:

Darn, my bad.

[Cuddles]

If you recall, the original announcement said "please don't email Richard directly". There's a reason for that, and the most logical reason is not that the people in charge were trying to hide things from Richard. He knew there'd be upset people; he just didn't want to be overrun with complaints when the decision was already made.

But that's not what the original announcement said. That's what the the message to the moderators said. If they had asked the membership in general not to email Dawkins then your explanation of not wanting him inundated with complaints would be plausible. But directing it only at the very small group of people who you have trusted to run the forum for years? Not plausible at all. It rather suggests instead that they didn't want anyone, even just a few people with relevant knowledge and experience, to communicate in any way with Dawkins.

What it seems to be to me is simply a case of bad management. Dawkins and Josh apparently had very little interest in the forum. They paid for it and made sure it kept working, but otherwise had nothing to do with it. When they came up with a new idea, they didn't bother talking it through with the people actually involved in the day to day running of the forum, and instead just handed down instructions from on high.

In fact, it's not even necessarily fair to say it was bad management. That assumes that the point of running the website and forum is to keep its members happy. If you instead assume that Dawkins was focussed on the content of the site itself and doesn't really care who spends their time commenting on it, it's no longer really a case of bad management, and simply a case of not caring about the feelings of bunch of anonymous people that you have no interest on. It then comes down to nothing more than opinion. Those who spent time and effort there are annoyed at the lack of consideration shown to them, while those in charge continue not caring in the slightest how those people feel, or even whether they exist or not.

It may be argued that this is a bad attitude to take and will affect his popularity and the popularity of his website. However, this just doesn't affect that many people. The forum had a membership of around 80-90 thousand. In January Dawkins stated (http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5000) that The God Delusion has sold over 2 million copies just in English (I don't know if it's been translated to other languages). As far as Dawkins is concerned, 80 thousand people is barely more than a rounding error.

Should he care? Well, it would certainly be nice to have shown them a bit more respect and courtesy, no matter how few people it involves. But from his perspective I imagine he simply has no idea where all the hate has come from, due to what seems to be an insignificant technical change to a website only affecting a small number of people.

[cj.23]

http://www.archive.org/

If you want to recover old posts at any time even if the forums are closed.


Thanks readme.txt We tried that, but it does not actually work: I can get the tread lists but not the posts. I had put too much faith in it actually

cj x

[zooterkin]

If you instead assume that Dawkins was focussed on the content of the site itself and doesn't really care who spends their time commenting on it, it's no longer really a case of bad management, and simply a case of not caring about the feelings of bunch of anonymous people that you have no interest on. It then comes down to nothing more than opinion. Those who spent time and effort there are annoyed at the lack of consideration shown to them, while those in charge continue not caring in the slightest how those people feel, or even whether they exist or not.

You may well be right that he didn't care, but if that's the case, why did he pretend to by making this much quoted comment a couple of years ago:
“It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.” (October 2008)

I still think he doesn't have the full picture, that he's delegated the responsibility and is trusting the person he's delegated to; it's not obvious that what might appear to a non-internet-savvy person as a minor change to the format could actually destroy the community that had developed. Whether he would care any more if he had the full picture is another matter.

[rwguinn]

You may well be right that he didn't care, but if that's the case, why did he pretend to by making this much quoted comment a couple of years ago:

I still think he doesn't have the full picture, that he's delegated the responsibility and is trusting the person he's delegated to; it's not obvious that what might appear to a non-internet-savvy person as a minor change to the format could actually destroy the community that had developed. Whether he would care any more if he had the full picture is another matter.
You do have to give him full credit for one thing:
He is backing his employee with his statements. Unlike most employers, certainly public sector employers, he is not publicly throwing his manager to the wolves.

[JihadJane]

"Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

[varwoche]

I guess it could be worse.

We could be complaining about complaining about this when there are other things in the world than complaining about the complaining about the closing of a forum. Indeed. The hypocrisy is so bare naked that one has to marvel at the lack of self-awareness.

[Darat]

Oh how I wish the people complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining would just shut up!

[AvalonXQ]

Oh how I wish the people complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining would just shut up!

Stop whining about that already.

[remirol]

Oh how I wish the people complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining would just shut up!

Kwitchermetabitchin'.

[Prometheus]

As I've said before, I think the users have every reason to be upset. It's not easy when a social community is effectively completely obliterated. But at the same time, I think many should have expressed their displeasure in a more constructive manner.

It's OK to be angry. It's even OK to show it (contrast, again, "that's *********** stupid" with "fistful of nails") to a degree. But you gotta make sure people are willing to lsiten to you. :/

Not me; I recognize that they're entertainment, as opposed to actual logic. But it's also important to note that I walk in the same world they do ("real world", not "TV america") and I can understand that they're just shouting for attention.

Dawkins really is clueless about the Internet. He doesn't walk in this world.

This actually is probably the (unexpected) best way there is to illustrate the difference. I've worked on factory floors _and_ in corporate America's conference rooms. And like the Internet, the factory floor is a completely different world. What is tolerated and "normal" there would horrify people who aren't used to it -- because a lot of what's said there _isn't_ said in polite society. And even on the factory floor, the people who can control their anger and get themselves heard will rise to the top -- because the floor needs people who can walk in both worlds, who can serve as an interface between the floor and the conference room. If the people in the conference room directly heard what's said on the floor, they'd flip their lids.

That's exactly what's happened in this case. On the Internet, the "fistful of nails" remark is an amusing turn of phrase. But in the real world, it's something completely different -- and all the forum members who weren't good at controlling their anger made an effort to be heard by the "conference room." Well, it heard 'em... and it flipped its lid, predictably.

I can't predict the future, sadly. Perhaps nothing would've changed. What I can say is that at least people would've been listening. Right now, though, the lines of battle have been drawn and everyone's got their ego invested in it. That means there won't be any backing down on either side, and that's a loss for everyone concerned.

^^This^^

I agree with all of this.

remirol, I'm curious, since you work in this area, what is your take on Josh's deleting the admin logs which showed which deletions were made, and when. Why would he find it necessary to do that? It seems suspicious to me, because I can't think of any reason he'd need to do that if not out of dishonesty or perhaps childish lashing out. Is there a more mundane/practical reason that I'm unaware of?

[Lothian]

Just in case this forum has the same problem and we lose all our posts I have collected all my best ones and reposted them in a tweet.

[zooterkin]

Just in case this forum has the same problem and we lose all our posts I have collected all my best ones and reposted them in a tweet.

What did you use the spare 120 characters for?

[Lothian]

What did you use the spare 120 characters for?It was 124. The laughing dog smilie didn't translate.

[zooterkin]

It was 124. The laughing dog smilie didn't translate.

That's good, there's room for mine, and still 122 left over.

[Lothian]

That's good, there's room for mine, and still 122 left over.123. You spelt it wrong.

[zooterkin]

I was saving two copies, for redundancy, like you did.

[Mr.Samsa]

@remirol: It's probably important to note that the "disproportionate" anger that you're referring to was produced by only 2 people. In other words, out of 80,000 members of the community that was treated like garbage, over 99.9% of them responded with reasoned comments and emails to Richard, or remained silent.

Find me any other group as large as that where only two people make outrageously negative comments (the result of which was met with a large effort by ex-mods and other interested members of the community rallying around sending PMs, creating stickied threads etc, asking people to stop with the over the top comments as they are not helping our cause). So these comments were not encouraged, and the members even stated in following posts (before Richard's silly "Outrage" announcement) that their comments were over the top and retracted them.

A similar situation would be a group of 80,000 volunteer workers who have just been told that not only is their help no longer required, but we're also going to knock down a couple of the wells you built and burn a few crop fields because you disagreed with our plans to change our venture. This resulted in all these volunteer workers trying to find somewhere to discuss the events and somewhere in the midst of some quiet little pub 2 people sat down and said, "Man, that dude was a bit of a douche".

Then the head honcho overhears this and says "What a vile crowd of volunteers we had! Who would dare call this fine gentleman a douche?!"

The point of that initial line of discussion, however, was to highlight the fact that the "vile insults" were not the cause of Josh shutting down the forum early as the comments were made days after the forum was shut down.

[Soapy Sam]

While this seems like a major catastrophe to the RDF regulars- and will certainly be seen as a major event by many posters on JREF, it is apt to seem very small beer indeed to the world at large.
I do wonder though, how RD's many opponents will handle it? Right now, some of his keenest supporters are in the huff with him, to say the least- some perhaps permanently disillusioned. Many outright angry. But there are people out there in the real world who already hate the man with a passion.
It seems he- or the "RDF" whatever the actual difference is- have just handed his opponents a major propaganda coup.

As a reader of his books for thirty plus years, I confess I am disappointed and surprised by the way this has been handled. While I agree with Remirol's points about the real world as opposed to the internet, I would have expected RD to have a better grasp of the likely effect of the letter to the mods, which seems to have been the critical dropped match that ignited the blaze. If he was involved in drafting that, then I can't understand what he was thinking.*

Maybe RD genuinely had no idea of the level of the mods' contribution. It's quite likely- but this is a man who introduced computer models to illustrate evolution in his books in the early 1980s. This is the man who conceived the "meme" concept, comparing biological replicators with information. He must be aware that net culture is not the same culture to be found amidst the dreaming spires of academe. Having associated with the likes of David Colquhoun who stresses the huge value of internet forums to the sceptical worldview, he has to have a better grasp of netiquette than most people his age.

It all seems most odd.

*ETA- Given that Josh Timonen, a sysadmin, unquestionably was involved in drafting it- and absolutely has to have understanding of net culture- I have to wonder if he was thinking at all.

I'd ask Darat, out of curiosity- what result would you anticipate if you (or perhaps Jeff) sent that to the mod team?

[Mr.Samsa]

Whilst I've seen a few newspapers articles that hadn't done their research writing about how "people are angry at the change in forum software", I haven't actually seen any of Dawkins' major opponents responding - however, I have actually seen some rather pleasant threads in heavily Christian forums popping up.

Most tend to be fairly sympathetic to the loss of such a large and pretty welcoming forum, and seemed to be in agreement that the change was a Bad Thing.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling that this will change over the next week or two when the crazies come out to play..

[Rat]

As a reader of his books for thirty plus years, I confess I am disappointed and surprised by the way this has been handled. While I agree with Remirol's points about the real world as opposed to the internet, I would have expected RD to have a better grasp of the likely effect of the letter to the mods, which seems to have been the critical dropped match that ignited the blaze. If he was involved in drafting that, then I can't understand what he was thinking.
I was about to correct you on the "thirty-plus years" until I realized I'm older than I thought I was. Damn. Anyway, I agree, and it's really quite disappointing to me. I've been a great fan of Dawkins for many years, and this seems at this stage to reveal feet of clay that I wasn't expecting. I was disappointed with the closing of the forums, but could accept that it was his site alone. But it has been handled with a tactlessness and lack of care that I actually find shocking. If Dawkins is fully aware of everything that's happened, let alone if he was aware of the original message sent to mods, then he is at best a bit of a tit. And that saddens me.

[amb]

I think Dawkins also needs to get a sense of humor. The extended rat's bottom analogy is very funny and will hopefully end up chronicled alongside other famous insults such as:

"The prime minister clings to data the way a drunkard clings to lampposts. Not for illumination but to keep him standing up." Romano Prodi on Silvio Berlusconi

or

"He's nothing more than a well meaning baboon." General McCellan on Abraham Lincoln

or

"An empty suit that goes to funerals and plays golf." Ross Perot talking about Dan Quayle

or

"It's like being savaged by a dead sheep." Denis Healey on being attacked by Geoffrey Howe.

This man is extremely hard to beat when it comes to vitriol. This man lived and breathed insults. Our recent esteemed PM none other than Paul Keating.

http://www.webcity.com.au/keating/

[amb]

Oh how I wish the people complaining about the people complaining about the people complaining would just shut up!

Granted.......oops.....wrong thread. :p

[remirol]

remirol, I'm curious, since you work in this area, what is your take on Josh's deleting the admin logs which showed which deletions were made, and when. Why would he find it necessary to do that? It seems suspicious to me, because I can't think of any reason he'd need to do that if not out of dishonesty or perhaps childish lashing out. Is there a more mundane/practical reason that I'm unaware of?

There's really no useful reason. I delete my logs every so often, but I delete them with the Big Hammer -- ie. the whole thing, without regard to content. I do this mostly so it's a bit easier to review what's happened recently, as opposed to a couple months ago. As I understand it, the entries were carefully excised? Silly.

What's interesting are two other aspects. 1) The action wouldn't be useful to conceal the fact that some members previously existed and had been deleted; after all, one of the deleted accounts was a moderator. It can be safely assumed that people will remember him. 2) With the forum lockdown in effect, are those logs even accessible to anyone except Josh?

It really makes little sense even from a dishonest perspective, and that's one of the things that strikes me as odd about it all.

[remirol]

@remirol: It's probably important to note that the "disproportionate" anger that you're referring to was produced by only 2 people.

Statement not supported by the evidence. Even *I* have seen countless signatures and the like floating around various boards, many of which are, oh, how you say, a smidge over the top. And I'm really not following the situation anywhere but this thread.

[remirol]

There's really no useful reason. I delete my logs every so often, but I delete them with the Big Hammer -- ie. the whole thing, without regard to content. I do this mostly so it's a bit easier to review what's happened recently, as opposed to a couple months ago. As I understand it, the entries were carefully excised? Silly.

What's interesting are two other aspects. 1) The action wouldn't be useful to conceal the fact that some members previously existed and had been deleted; after all, one of the deleted accounts was a moderator. It can be safely assumed that people will remember him. 2) With the forum lockdown in effect, are those logs even accessible to anyone except Josh?

It really makes little sense even from a dishonest perspective, and that's one of the things that strikes me as odd about it all.

Something occurred to me earlier today, however -- while this isn't related to a logs, it does come from a technical perspective. His action barring wget may not have been designed so much to prevent people from backing up their posts as to stop people simultaneously hoovering all the bandwidth at once *and* driving the server CPU into the ground with all the database requests. Eighteen billion posts (a rough estimate of the forum's contents, admittedly) all being grabbed in sequence can do that sort of thing.

I'm not Josh so I can't speak for sure about his motives, but if I saw either my bandwidth clog up or my CPU get run over, I would close and lock that particular avenue as well.

[Prometheus]

Something occurred to me earlier today, however -- while this isn't related to a logs, it does come from a technical perspective. His action barring wget may not have been designed so much to prevent people from backing up their posts as to stop people simultaneously hoovering all the bandwidth at once *and* driving the server CPU into the ground with all the database requests. Eighteen billion posts (a rough estimate of the forum's contents, admittedly) all being grabbed in sequence can do that sort of thing.

I'm not Josh so I can't speak for sure about his motives, but if I saw either my bandwidth clog up or my CPU get run over, I would close and lock that particular avenue as well.

That makes sense. Too bad RDF didn't have the foresight to apologize in advance for shutting the forum, and include an offer to sell back up copies to any member who wanted one. They could have made a bundle for the foundation instead of stirring up all this animosity.

[95theses]

I just posted the following over at our new forums in response to someone saying that maybe Richard was getting a lot of flack about the tone of some posts on RDF (which I actually disagree with, but forget that)

It pretty much sums up how I feel at the moment, and why I'm so annoyed :


And yet there was no reason to behave like an utter lying prick (as someone at RDF certainly has)

If Richard had come on the board and said :

'Hello everyone, I'm taking a lot of flak for these forums, so I'm afraid I'm going to need to shut it down. We will assist you to transfer it to another domain under someone else's name if you can find a candidate to do that, and we will be starting a new discussion board with moderated submissions. Thanks for all your help, sorry it had to end like this'

Everyone would have shrugged and gone about their business.

All this lying to staff behind their backs, quote mining people, vandalizing peoples hard work on science related topics etc etc was pointless, unnecessary and childish.

[95theses]

Well well well,

A forum member managed to get the thread about the changes out of their browser cache, and has now posted it online.

See for yourself the outrageous things the forum members said that required the early closing of said forum.

[95theses]

http://thinking-aloud.co.uk/temp/rdf.html

had to make 2 posts to get to 15 so I could link it.

It's hardly the vitriol his pack of lies post on the front page named 'Outrage' suggests is it?

[Agular]

Yes, it may have been this, that, or the other thing how it was handled, but it sure is time to move on and get over it at this point. Sheesh!

[Agi Hammerthief]

Question: what is this thread supposed to achieve?
to see how this community reacts to the debacle over there?

which gives people from RDF an idea if they will like it here?


while I'm at it:

doing something you have the right to do =/= doing the right thing

this includes
* pulling the plug on a forum you "own"
* quote mining people and distorting the sequence of events to defend the disgraceful way in which you pulled the plug

[95theses]

Yes, it may have been this, that, or the other thing how it was handled, but it sure is time to move on and get over it at this point. Sheesh!

As an atheist and a skeptic I am very attached to the ideas of honesty and evidence.

I think it is important that if we catch an extremely prominent atheist skeptic quote mining and lying, being dishonest and ignoring blatant evidence in order to try and present a warped view on events of any sort we should call them on it publicly and not sweep it under the carpet just because they are prominent.

It's about holding people to the standards they profess to adhere to, and ask others to follow.

If Randi was doing the same I imagine you would be calling him on it too.

For me it's gone beyond hurt feelings about a forum closing, it's become about Richar blatantly ignoring evidence and quote mining because it suits his interest.

[Dragoonster]

Yeah, if Randi started selling snake oil in order to keep railing against snake-oil sellers people who'd respected him would be understandably aggravated. Particularly if such remarkable hypocrisy was being misconstrued by the media.

I don't have any vested interest in Dawkins either way (or Randi) but this is a big deal concerning his integrity. And unfortunately from that, the integrity of atheists as perceived by a large set of society, be they theists or lay skeptics who might otherwise be inclined to not dimiss atheist arguments out of hand. Even folks who don't care much about Dawkins have reason to be interested in the current goings-on.

[Rat]

Yes, it may have been this, that, or the other thing how it was handled, but it sure is time to move on and get over it at this point. Sheesh!
Time to move on? After a couple of days? If a year had passed with no developments and you said this, fair enough. But after less than a week?

[Fiona]

I agree. It does not really matter whether people *should* care about forums and the communities that form on the net: the fact is that they do. We all know this, even those who do not allow it to matter to them (or if they do not, it is hard to see how they missed it). I have not been to the forum under discussion but it seems that people put in a lot of time there: volunteered as mods and presumably worked as hard as the mods do here: made the board a part of their lives, as many do here too. It would be strange indeed if the were not upset and angry if that was taken away without warning or consideration. Yes the owner has the right, as others have acknowledged: but that does not excuse him from a charge of treating people very badly indeed.

[Soapy Sam]

I was about to correct you on the "thirty-plus years" until I realized I'm older than I thought I was. Damn. Anyway, I agree, and it's really quite disappointing to me. I've been a great fan of Dawkins for many years, and this seems at this stage to reveal feet of clay that I wasn't expecting. I was disappointed with the closing of the forums, but could accept that it was his site alone. But it has been handled with a tactlessness and lack of care that I actually find shocking. If Dawkins is fully aware of everything that's happened, let alone if he was aware of the original message sent to mods, then he is at best a bit of a tit. And that saddens me.

Fiona- I feel Rat's post quoted above nicely summarises what a lot of JREF posters may be feeling. Me, for one. RD is something of a hero to many of us- either for his high profile public atheist stance or (more importantly for me personally) as a defender and explainer of neoDarwinism. We hold the man to (perhaps unrealistically) high standards of integrity - and in this it appears he has let us down.
That is not yet established beyond doubt, as we really don't know to what extent he was aware of the events that the board mods witnessed unfolding in real time.
I feel many people want to demonise Josh Timonen precisely because doing so lets RD off the hook. Timonen is the eminence grise behind the throne. Easier to blame the man nobody knows, than accept as Rat says that the king may have feet of clay. I think Timonen screwed up technically by overreacting -likely to a combination of abuse and server overdemand- but that doesn't make him a baby munching maniac, merely someone who made a PR blunder, possibly for what seemed like good reasons at the time.

During our own several upgrade events it has been evident that frustration- even fear- builds very fast among regular posters if they feel they are being kept in the dark about what's going on or what's being planned. A forum poster is powerless. He uses an environment- even lives in it- and to suddenly realise it can be pulled out from under him is as unnerving as the first tremor of a real world earthquake- to some. To others , it's a minor nuisance; same reason "Second Life" matters so much to some folk and is of little interest to others.
It's a very hard mindset to understand- even to believe exists- if you're not part of it yourself. I don't think RD ever has been (which is in no sense a criticism, merely a fact). I'm disappointed by that. I would have expected him to be more savvy about that- especially given the 2008 quote about the value of the community aspect.

[Fiona]

That is fair enough Soapy: I do not have any strong opinion of Dawkins, really, but I realise many do. Although my last sentence was critical of him as owner, my post was more concerned with what Rat was talking about in the one above it: the idea that folk should just put it behind them and move on is unrealistic I think.

I accept that Dawkins may not know this: I was myself surprised how important a board can become, and it puzzled me for ages. But it is still my view that, whether you understand that or not, you should treat people with basic courtesy and consideration. His board presumably depended on the work of volunteers, as does this one. Whatever his understanding of emotional attachment, he surely must be able to recognise that folk gifted him their time and effort. A little appreciation would become him.

But really I feel for those who have been dispossessed and that was my main point.

[Rat]

...I was myself surprised how important a board can become, and it puzzled me for ages....
Puzzled how others found it important, or how you found it important? I assume the former from the earlier "even those who do not allow it to matter to them" bit, but in that case would be myself puzzled.

Many people, as has been pointed out, live in societies (even in the US) where admitting atheism, let alone discussing it, is almost impossible. Some in, for example, Middle Eastern countries would risk their lives to do so. Finding like-minded people to discuss it with would be impossible without such forums. Speaking more for myself, I find discussions here (though I read them more than take part) that I could not have with most of my acquaintances, colleagues, etc. Not necessarily because such subjects are taboo, but because they have no interest in them, and I would be considered sad even for bringing them up.

It is trivially true that if one forum disappears, then one might find similar discussions on other forums. But after following or participating in a forum for any length of time, one tends rightly or wrongly to consider other members as (perhaps 'almost') friends. It's a separate group of friends to those in real life, or wherever, but is nonetheless real. I can therefore easily understand an outcry when that group of friends is taken away, albeit that that venue was Dawkins's to take away. To be honest, even if the original 30-day period were there, and people could discuss other venues, various people would end up in various places, and the memes and habits and indeed atmosphere of the original forum are largely lost. When the inhabitants are actively prevented from swapping contact details and the like, however, I can easily understand an angry response of the kind that was seen, even if I can't necessarily excuse some of the things that have been said.

[Soapy Sam]

I'll be intrigued to see if RD's public statements on all this undergo changes in the near future. The original "Outrage" letter is understandable if all he had seen was a selection of the most inexcusable commentary, but I can't help thinking that Australia (where I understand he is) seems to have plenty articulate sceptics who will give him a fuller explanation of the view from the bottom.
His problem is that having strongly supported and praised Timonen, he may find it very hard to accept that the truth - as so often - may be more complicated than he thought.
If he concludes that there has been misjudgement on RDF's side, he must apologise for that and accept personal responsibility for it. To blame Timonen now would seem weaselish indeed. It isn't the JTF, it's the RDF.

At the least, some personal thanks and apology to the moderators is clearly in order.

[Prometheus]

Puzzled how others found it important, or how you found it important? I assume the former from the earlier "even those who do not allow it to matter to them" bit, but in that case would be myself puzzled.

Many people, as has been pointed out, live in societies (even in the US) where admitting atheism, let alone discussing it, is almost impossible. Some in, for example, Middle Eastern countries would risk their lives to do so. Finding like-minded people to discuss it with would be impossible without such forums. Speaking more for myself, I find discussions here (though I read them more than take part) that I could not have with most of my acquaintances, colleagues, etc. Not necessarily because such subjects are taboo, but because they have no interest in them, and I would be considered sad even for bringing them up.

It is trivially true that if one forum disappears, then one might find similar discussions on other forums. But after following or participating in a forum for any length of time, one tends rightly or wrongly to consider other members as (perhaps 'almost') friends. It's a separate group of friends to those in real life, or wherever, but is nonetheless real. I can therefore easily understand an outcry when that group of friends is taken away, albeit that that venue was Dawkins's to take away. To be honest, even if the original 30-day period were there, and people could discuss other venues, various people would end up in various places, and the memes and habits and indeed atmosphere of the original forum are largely lost. When the inhabitants are actively prevented from swapping contact details and the like, however, I can easily understand an angry response of the kind that was seen, even if I can't necessarily excuse some of the things that have been said.

This is the strangest part for me. Can there be any sensible reason for that?

[Soapy Sam]

Hard to see one, unless it involved genuine fear of serious real world enemies of RD (and I don't doubt they exist) getting in touch with each other. But such people probably already are.

I don't know if it's technically feasible to enable PMs and posts while disabling downloads. If so, that would seem like the way to deal with too many simultaneous back up attempts.

The last thing you need in a situation where major change is planned, is to utterly alienate your staff- and that brings us back to what I called "The dropped match", the letter to the mods. The more I read that, the more I realise how truly dim it is.

On the other hand , it's clearly not the the work of a cynical Machiavelli, (who would have kept telling the mods what they wanted to hear right up to the minute he pulled their privileges), but of someone rather naive about the realities of human nature.
Yep, it's exactly what a nerd or an academic might write. Clueless, but more to be pitied than scolded.

[amb]

That makes sense. Too bad RDF didn't have the foresight to apologize in advance for shutting the forum, and include an offer to sell back up copies to any member who wanted one. They could have made a bundle for the foundation instead of stirring up all this animosity.

I'm reading a book at the moment titled.......How To Lose A War. This fiasco will one day be included in a follow up book. :p

85.000 members in the forum, I bet the new version will battle to have at most, around 5-10 thousand members, and that will be mainly because of Richards popularity if nothing else. :p