New RDF website to be launched next week

[Bella Fortuna]

I can't sign in or register...



Not that it's a big deal.

[virphen]

I can't sign in or register...



Not that it's a big deal.

Did you try the forgotten password link?

Chances are they've brought over just the username and e-mail, which aren't encrypted in a user database, and set a default password you can't possibly guess.

[lordpasternack]

Because, Styrer, Richard Dawkins is an absentee landlord who would at most times want absolutely nothing to do with the nitty-gritty of the running of his site and he hates thinking about rules and regulations so much that he'd rather the bad ones were kept than be involved in changing them. I am paraphrasing words that he uttered himself and adding my own interpretation while trying to maintain a certain amount of discretion.

His approach to "running" the site was a main catalyst in both schisms that have come out of RD.net - both involving incompetent young men who had grown used to the utter lack of oversight and accountability - not to mentioned easily abused trust. Richard must be aware of this, but he shows no sign of changing his modus operandi of only getting involved when everything blows up in his face, grovelling a bit and happily taking some responsibility, and then walking away and taking virtually no further action.

You'd think he'd at least delegate to someone mature and perceptive the particular task of watching the watchers or something. I had a few times considered jokingly asking him if he could redirect me to the person whose job it was to give a fuck about the nitty-gritty of running his site - rules and all that shit - so I wouldn't feel any further need to trouble himself. Yes, I'm sure that would have gone down like a lead balloon. But perhaps that's what /mike's job is supposed to be…

Management is not exactly Richard's forte - and I have to confess it does give me a small bit of frisson to call a man more than three times my age "green" - in any respect...

Over and above that, he can be quite fickle and sometimes moved far more by his heart than his head.

[Styrer]

Because, Styrer, Richard Dawkins is an absentee landlord who would at most times want absolutely nothing to do with the nitty-gritty of the running of his site and he hates thinking about rules and regulations so much that he'd rather the bad ones were kept than be involved in changing them. I am paraphrasing words that he uttered himself and adding my own interpretation while trying to maintain a certain amount of discretion.

His approach to "running" the site was a main catalyst in both schisms that have come out of RD.net - both involving incompetent young men who had grown used to the utter lack of oversight and accountability - not to mentioned easily abused trust. Richard must be aware of this, but he shows no sign of changing his modus operandi of only getting involved when everything blows up in his face, grovelling a bit and happily taking some responsibility, and then walking away and taking virtually no further action.

You'd think he'd at least delegate to someone mature and perceptive the particular task of watching the watchers or something. I had a few times considered jokingly asking him if he could redirect me to the person whose job it was to give a fuck about the nitty-gritty of running his site - rules and all that shit - so I wouldn't feel any further need to trouble himself. Yes, I'm sure that would have gone down like a lead balloon. But perhaps that's what /mike's job is supposed to be…

Management is not exactly Richard's forte - and I have to confess it does give me a small bit of frisson to call a man more than three times my age "green" - in any respect...

Over and above that, he can be quite fickle and sometimes moved far more by his heart than his head.

Thanks.

I agree he can seem quite the idiot, and I've taken my shots at the fella along with granting him my support over time. At once worldly and well-versed, he can revert to the crassest of positions, even on his own site. Ever the punctillious grammarian, he was recently very cruel to a member called Bonzai, whose spelling of 'Dennett' (and a few other things) was not perfect. That Bonzai's English is at the almost native level, hard-won because he's a Chinese national living in Canada, did not cross the Prof's mind. That the Chinese and the Japanese (my wife's nationality is the latter) have problems visualising English because of their daily adherence to kanji and hiragana, and so have problems with what we consider 'easy spelling', never crossed his mind. The point, though, seems to me that he DOES actually contribute to his own site, however crassly. I'm sure you would agree that his conversing with you via PM is hardly the action of an aloof arsehole.

Dawkins' problem is that he has entrusted his reputation and image to a couple of juvenile ignoramuses, in whom he trusts absolutely. Pull him up for that very curious take on what loyalty is all about, by all means. I would have thought, though, that anyone who has learned so much from him and still counts him as a remarkable man would try harder to rescue him from his two sycophantic sponge-merchants. I'd have thought you'd have more pity for a 70-year old man being blinded by the creative bullshit of one or two 20 odd year olds feathering their own nests at his expense.

That goes for a lot here, not just you.

Styrer

[Rum]

The site uses his name and he is ultimately responsible. I have not been bothered too much with all the drama, but as an old regular on the RDF site bottom line is he let a community down, whoever was delegated to responsibility of the day to day running. I don't blame people who work for me when a system doesn't work. Its my job to make sure it does.

[Feck]

Most of the vitriol thrown was at his underlings .He chose to stand by and support them despite their obvious shortcomings .He still does.
Serious doubts have been raised about the people he trusts with his web sites . It seems by the almost universal disapproval of the new offering that the faith he has placed in certain individuals has been betrayed .

[lordpasternack]

Rum - what happened with the recent drama was more than a system failing to work - it was his protégés taking several wilfully spiteful actions that they knew would likely be frowned upon if only they were being overseen by their absentee landlord, and then abusing said absentee landlord's trust further by lying to him and/or wilfully allowIng him to be misled. For Richard to take full responsibility for ALL of his delegates' actions, including presumably their direct deceit with him, just seems like fashionable scapegoating to me. They are accountable adults - not children in his care. I think he should accept full responsibility for his non-management, while holding them responsible for actions taken implicitly against his will.

As per Richard's continued desire to want to make it his priority first and foremost to salve these young men's egos, even when they wilfully deceive him, well I ended up using the tactic of trying to punch the rose-tinted specs off his face. It may be something requiring a bit more subtlety…

[kiki5711]

Rum - what happened with the recent drama was more than a system failing to work - it was his protégés taking several wilfully spiteful actions that they knew would likely be frowned upon if only they were being overseen by their absentee landlord, and then abusing said absentee landlord's trust further by lying to him and/or wilfully allowIng him to be misled. For Richard to take full responsibility for ALL of his delegates' actions, including presumably their direct deceit with him, just seems like fashionable scapegoating to me. They are accountable adults - not children in his care. I think he should accept full responsibility for his non-management, while holding them responsible for actions taken implicitly against his will.

As per Richard's continued desire to want to make it his priority first and foremost to salve these young men's egos, even when they wilfully deceive him, well I ended up using the tactic of trying to punch the rose-tinted specs off his face. It may be something requiring a bit more subtlety…

LP

they may be playing "good cop, bad cop" game.. Where RD looks like the innocent party but actually agrees with the changes/but doesn't want everyone to know he does. The goal, I think, is to minimize community participation. There is no way that format can handle the amount of members and topics, anywhere near the old forum did. I don't think he's as gullible as you feel.

[lordpasternack]

Perhaps, perhaps, Kiki… Actually with respect to community participation and all that, I had yet another satirical response in the recesses of my mind to Richard's comments about people and their sense of entitlement - which of course remains, in Richard's head - more offensive than Josh and Andrews transgressions. I was going to say that if he had not intended to foster a sense of community in the end-users, and didn't want end-users to feel entitled to have a say in the direction of the site - and instead wished just to have the site more for his own personal aesthetic - well then I could give him some good ideas for how he could save a lot of money on hosting.

And what was he referring to about any offensive sense of entitlement, anyway? The presumptuous expectation that we could voice reasonable criticism on his site without being treated to the exceptional bad manners, spite, and utter incompetence of his protégés? The silly notion that the users of the site were entitled to be vouchsafed such niceties? I never understood quite what he was driving at with that remark, and something in me tells me that Richard may not even be so sure himself.

[Trolldor]

I think Richard has taken offense to those ideas that state "It may be Richard's site, but it should be run and organised how we want it to be. We are his all important cheer squad after all."

My only concern with the whole thing was the naivety with which they entered the venture, and then their exemplefied failure at dealing with it. What they need to admit is that Josh doesn't know what he's doing, he really doesn't. Any asshole can build a website, but to run a community-based website takes more than the leering look of an unshaven pedophile. Unless it's Wikipedia or MySpace, at which point those qualities make you perfectly suited for the job.

[Cunt]

I still think it's a bit disrespectful to presume that Mr. Dawkins did not know what was going on. Things went, and are going, exactly as he directs. I can't just pretend he is a dottering old fool who doesn't know what his forum, or his staff are up to.

Until he says different, I will assume that JT's actions are EXACTLY what Dawkins ordered.

I am darn near afraid to say it, but I think that you have some bias, lordpasternack (love?lust?) toward Mr. Dawkins. It may well be colouring your views.

The site is the way it is because that is the way the boss wanted it. Looking at it this way fits the facts, and allows me to continue to have a certain level of respect for Mr. Dawkins (though I admit I like him less now)

[lordpasternack]

I think Richard has taken offense to those ideas that state "It may be Richard's site, but it should be run and organised how we want it to be. We are his all important cheer squad after all."

I know - and I strayed from that type of conviction myself. The fact of the matter is that it has to be acknowledged that there has to be a bit of give and take if you want to foster any type of community, for any particular goal - somewhere between the extremes of: "It's my fucking site so you can just shut your fucking mouth and take what my little protégés mete out to you for voicing contrary opinions and like it" - and: "This site is for all of you, my pretties. Ask and you shall receive... after all, where would I be without you?"

[lordpasternack]

I am darn near afraid to say it, but I think that you have some bias, lordpasternack (love?lust?) toward Mr. Dawkins. It may well be colouring your views.

The site is the way it is because that is the way the boss wanted it. Looking at it this way fits the facts, and allows me to continue to have a certain level of respect for Mr. Dawkins (though I admit I like him less now)

I admit I do have bias, because I think I have a little insight into Richard's temperament, that I know him in some way enough to gauge that he wouldn't do such-and-such a thing or other. But of course, that's the same kind of trust I think Richard invested in Josh, and I'd be willing to accept if I was wrong, and be very disappointed. But my feelings aren't just based on passive observation of Richard, but from direct communication with him, where I pestered him about some things to do with the site - to the point of aggravation - and what seemed to come across between the lines was that he was mostly ignorant about affairs going on on the site, and he stated quite explicitly that he had no time for thinking about rules and regulations.

Also, that whole charade to do with the threads on what semen tastes like, seriously - and felching, and ass-to-mouth - which Richard and Josh eventually purged... Well, that was also symptomatic of their vast ignorance of forumland, and Richard's hands-off approach to running things. That went on for months and months before Richard finally decided that he didn't think discussing the gustatory properties of human ejaculate were really a worthwhile venture for his site. He didn't have a sudden change of heart. He just didn't have a fucking clue what was going on - not the foggiest idea, the faintest awareness. And it isn't too difficult to extrapolate a little from that scenario into others...

In a past post on this forum, I happened to lay into Richard and Josh's vast ignorance of the forum and say essentially that they didn't, and couldn't, have a clue what they were on about in their reasoning for why the forum had to be abolished - but that was another post and another topic...

PS. And if Richard ever cares to know the source of some of my particular character traits, then put simply, I blame my bastard ancestors. To name three that I seem to be carrying the legacy of - my paternal granda's dad was purportedly a flawed clever man with a wry sense of wit, who, when his son told him he needed a new carpet because the colour was fading, responded: "Paint it." And my gran is a very perceptive and feisty woman who says she prefers to tell it like it is, and once told one of her managers that she wasn't so desperate for a job that she had to work under an idiot like him. And my granda is a headstrong and often cynical bastard who says he can't have a proper relationship without the odd argument. And basically I'm all their fucking fault and there's nothing I can do about it now.

[Calilasseia]

I've given this new place a brief outing.

I have to say, it's bland in comparison to the old forum.

I can remember the days when I'd be facing down duplicitous supernaturalists in convoys after posting the sort of comments I've just posted up there. Indeed, over at RatSkep, I'm back in mortal combat with another duplicitous creationist, just like the good old days, and frankly, the excitement is now completely absent from RD's new site. Compared to the old forum, it's a mausoleum.

Even the old front page offered more discoursive combat than this.

[Deep Sea Isopod]

It's taking too long to change the page.