If the offender(s) quit & RDF forums restored to normalcy...

[Fact-Man]

I would return to probably only read. I didn't really contribute [300+], unless you count the arguments for and against members' stance respectively. I became attached to the light blue layout, simple background, and quotidian diverse posts from new members. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I'm left with no emotional attachment with RDF if it deletes just about everyone's valuable posts. It was my home page.

Mine too. Just changed it to ratz. You can get the light blue layout by choosing prosilver on user options, BTW. I had to do that, I just couldn't read the tan on brown default. Age. It ain't for sissys.

It's giving me fits, very hard to read.

So what's "ratz" and how do I get it?

[Fact-Man]

Yes, I'd go straight back and continue to bicker with SD and the others in Politics & Current Affairs.

It's okay, we can do it here instead... and now our avatars are ARMED

Indeed, I feel much more comfortable taking on a superhero as Lt. Col. Richard Sharpe than a common woodpigeon.

The point's moot ... RDF will never re-emerge looking like it once did. The days of the Wild West are done. We can make the best of it here.

[Bella Fortuna]

I would return to probably only read. I didn't really contribute [300+], unless you count the arguments for and against members' stance respectively. I became attached to the light blue layout, simple background, and quotidian diverse posts from new members. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I'm left with no emotional attachment with RDF if it deletes just about everyone's valuable posts. It was my home page.

Mine too. Just changed it to ratz. You can get the light blue layout by choosing prosilver on user options, BTW. I had to do that, I just couldn't read the tan on brown default. Age. It ain't for sissys.

It's giving me fits, very hard to read.

So what's "ratz" and how do I get it?

Ratz is short for Rationalia.

[Russell]

I would return to probably only read. I didn't really contribute [300+], unless you count the arguments for and against members' stance respectively. I became attached to the light blue layout, simple background, and quotidian diverse posts from new members. I didn't really understand what was happening, but I'm left with no emotional attachment with RDF if it deletes just about everyone's valuable posts. It was my home page.

Mine too. Just changed it to ratz. You can get the light blue layout by choosing prosilver on user options, BTW. I had to do that, I just couldn't read the tan on brown default. Age. It ain't for sissys.

Thanks for that now I can read the posts

[CJ]

You missed an option Yes, because I like being part of the biggest atheist community on the web. If it all went back the way it was I'd go back, even if Josh were still in charge.

[NoDayJob]

I have to say that yes I would go back simply because the name “Richard Dawkins” often attracts theists perhaps to their doom, so to speak.
Perhaps I’m fortunate that I live in a place and with people where being an atheist is no problem at all but I don’t have the need to search out for other atheists’ moral support, nor do I feel oppressed by any local religious majority as some may be.

At RD.net, until now, I saw some pretty bizarre theistic beliefs but also often very entertaining, to which I too got an opportunity to prod them for even more daft thinking. Learning how other atheists deal with the same theistic assertions is often a great source of information.

I’m sorry I’m not sure if that makes me seem a bit unsociable or not towards other atheists in a community of atheists like this one, I don’t mean to be, but I think sooner or later I’d miss having some really stupid religious ideas around that even I have enough wits to have a go at.

[Mysturji]

What is this "normalcy" of which you speak? I know it not.
What the fuck would any of us know about normalcy?

[Apollonius]

No.

You can't un-wreck a shipwreck.

When you blow up a web hangout, it changes forever. People scatter and move on.

[mozg]

A domain name doesn't make a community. I've been an atheist for a long time. All my life, I've come to realize, although it took me a long time to self-apply that label. I never actually met another atheist until I was 18 years old and in college. I know less atheists than I've got fingers in real life, and although I've got friends and family I had never, ever been part of a community full of people like me.

Then I read The God Delusion and in the book there was a reference to RichardDawkins.net. On that website, I found a forum. For the first time in my life there was a community for me. A place where I just belonged.

That community was all of you guys. Wherever we all gather, that is our community. We are lucky that our community is of the mind, in cyberspace. We will show this Josh Timonen that he may take away a web forum, but he cannot kill our community without our help. He can sit in his quiet, perfect discussion area where he will never have to deal with a community again. I'm sure he'll enjoy the solitude.

[irreligionist]

I'd go back, but it would be a shadow of its former self. Whether I'd keep going back there would depend on who else returned.

[Gallstones]

Uhm, so where do we put the gun threads?

[truthinScience]

It's kind of a difficult poll to respond to. I certainly don't want to lose the valuable content there but it'd be pointless to return if no one else did. My true answer, then, would be option one and two.

ADD:

You missed an option Yes, because I like being part of the biggest atheist community on the web. If it all went back the way it was I'd go back, even if Josh were still in charge.

Yes, that too! Absolutely!

[SevenOfNine]

I am not going back there, because of the reprehensible behavior of Josh, and more recently Andrew, which has not been seen since the middle ages. It is at yet not totally clear how much RD knows about the childish, arbitrary dismissiveness and arrogance that these two "men" showed over a period of some months. To disrespect so many members (85,000) in such a characterless, cowardly way must be a near record on the net.

These "persons" oozed disregard for the aims, feelings, and mission of a very large community that was trying to build some sense into society. We tried to demolish [even a little] some very "sacred cows" that were long past their use-by date.

Nominally atheists, these characters kicked a "home goal" of epic proportions that can only make the touters of delusion and myth laugh themselves to exhaustion for many days to come. I hope Josh and Andrew enjoy their Templeton Prize. In a just and godly world, they should share a jail cell with Ken Hovind.

[Robert_S]

To disrespect so many members (85,000) in such a characterless, cowardly way must be a near record on the net.

I won't have that....

There was AOL's treatment of Usenet and Microsoft Internet Explorer. These kids have a lot to learn

[SevenOfNine]

To disrespect so many members (85,000) in such a characterless, cowardly way must be a near record on the net.

I won't have that....

There was AOL's treatment of Usenet and Microsoft Internet Explorer. These kids have a lot to learn

Well, I did say NEAR! Besides, at least MS and AOL had the style to delude the people they were screwing into thinking it was for their own good!!



WE KNEW we were being screwed and we liked it not.