Xephyr
Muse
- Joined
- Nov 15, 2009
- Messages
- 856
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
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
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?
