• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Merged RD Forum shutting down

zooterkin said:
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
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

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 said:
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
Click to expand...
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
Click to expand...
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.
 
Last edited:
technoextreme said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
technoextreme said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

technoextreme said:
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.
Click to expand...


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
 
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.
Click to expand...
Like for example? ;)
 
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.
 
Last edited:
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.
 
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.
 
Last edited:
zooterkin said:
I still wonder exactly how aware RD was aware of what the forum meant to the members.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Last edited:
zooterkin said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Soapy Sam said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.

Soapy Sam said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
 
Mr.Samsa said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

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.
 
remirol said:
Take a good look at all the hate posts that have been put up.
Click to expand...

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!"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom