• 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

Sven said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
vwgub said:
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
Click to expand...

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.
 
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).
 
Cleon said:
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).
Click to expand...

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.
 
95theses said:
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.
Click to expand...

Yes. Well said.
 
95theses said:
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.
Click to expand...

WTF WTF WTF WTF

P.S. I think this admin is on this site.
 
Professor Yaffle said:
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.
Click to expand...
And we all thought Hitler and the Nazis were dead. I wonder if this will effect RDs future book sales? :p
 
cj.23 said:
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
Click to expand...

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. :(
 
Last edited:
amb said:
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. :(
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
95theses said:
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.
Click to expand...

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
 
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.
 
cj.23 said:
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
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...
Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.
 
Last edited:
technoextreme said:
Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.
Click to expand...

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.
 
technoextreme said:
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.

technoextreme said:
Scenario 1: People whined.
Scenario 2: People whined.
Nope not much difference.
Click to expand...


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
Click to expand...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom