Here we are again, at the start of the end...

[Jobar]

Hello, all, from an old wanderer of the net; I started posting on a Commodore 64 back in the early nineties. I figure Rationalia makes the twentieth board I've posted on, give or take.

I extend my sympathy to all those who were displaced by the closure of RD; I was registered there but had only a handful of posts, so most of you won't recognize me. But I went through the IIDeBacle a few years back, which was as painful to we former Internet Infidels as this situation is to all of you, I'm sure.

I'm one of the administrators at the Secular Cafe board; Rationalia admins, we exchange links with many other freethought boards, if you'd be interested in doing this, see the link to the Secular Cafe thread which Aca posted today. (added- http://www.secularcafe.org/showthread.php?t=5642)

Given my responsibilities there, I won't be a frequent poster here; but I'll try to drop in from time to time.

Jobar.

[AshtonBlack]

Welcome!!

[Matt H]

What happened at IIDB? Maybe history is just repeating itself.

[Jobar]

At the time (the latter half of 2007), IIDB was the biggest freethought/atheism board on the net, and was on the Big Boards list as one of the thousand largest on the net.

The Secular Web, of which IIDB was a part, was owned by a Board of Directors. For a long time they left the running of the discussion board to the admins there, with only occasional input. But one admin, The Other Michael (Michael Moore- no, not *that* one) was elected to the BoD- and over time came to think of himself as the Great High Muck-A-Muck, ruling over IIDB with no dissension allowed.

To make a very long, complex, and dramatic story short, he got another BoD member booted out, and banned her from IIDB, with extreme prejudice. If he had refrained from banning her from the discussion board things might well have settled down- but unfairly banning her raised a storm of protest, which caused a tyrannical clamp-down on dissenters, which led to the damndest shit-storm you ever saw, with nearly all the serving admins and a majority of serving mods resigning, and a large portion of longtime posters leaving the board. (I had over ten thousand myself, and others had many more.)

The Secular Cafe board, where I'm an admin, is one of the places many of that exodus have settled down.

For all the gory details, one can join the Rants'n'Raves board, at rantsnraves dot org, and look for their Qauttro [sic] Formaggi forum; there's a wiki there with all the information laid out. (However, unless you enjoy boards like 4chan's /b/, you won't much like the rest of that board. It's run by, and for, anarchists and trolls; fair warning.)

[Jobar]

Not sure I'm allowed, but let's try to post a link to that RnR wiki on the IIDeBacle:
http://rantsnraves.org/wiki/index.php/IIDebacle

You may have to be a member of that board to read it, but try the link anyway.

[Boadacia!]

Caused my divorce that! - Playing with my Commodore 64 in bed.

Welcome!