First reaction by Richard Dawkins.

[tnjrp]

I meant staff, will change it now.

Yep, non-forumites posting would've been a mean feat on a forum that requires registration...

Will read you "vitriolic, bitter & twisted" blog later. Have to rush a work-related matter through...

[Chauncey Gardner]

You're right that I don't know what they are thinking. That's how I don't know whether Richard is aware of the lies etc. But we don't need to be supernatural to know that we are being accused of things that didn't happen. I can't say what Richard thinks as a fact. But it is a fact that they have lied about reason for closing the forum, they have lied for months to the mods and they have even lied to Richard himself.

has it occurred to you that there might have been a very valid reason that josh and the RDF team had to suddenly back-track on the promise to keep the forum alive for 30 days and pull the plug?

Or are you so entrenched in your opinion that the RDF site administrator who has run and helped build one of the biggest atheist sites on the planet, suddenly went postal for petulant reasons and told Richard a few porky pies to cover his tracks?

When the dust settles and the red mist clears...I'm guessing you might be just a teeny weeny bit embarrassed by your recent blog posts about the RDF closure. I've read lot of message board comments and blog posts...even twitter posts...the majority of which refer back to your blog as "proof" everyone has been royally shafted. There's even people posting bullet point summaries of your points on this forum as if it is FACT.

If I was a betting man, my money would be on a rational and valid reason for Josh's actions this week (suddenly pulling the plug).

[95Theses]

You're right that I don't know what they are thinking. That's how I don't know whether Richard is aware of the lies etc. But we don't need to be supernatural to know that we are being accused of things that didn't happen. I can't say what Richard thinks as a fact. But it is a fact that they have lied about reason for closing the forum, they have lied for months to the mods and they have even lied to Richard himself.

has it occurred to you that there might have been a very valid reason that josh and the RDF team had to suddenly back-track on the promise to keep the forum alive for 30 days and pull the plug?

Or are you so entrenched in your opinion that the RDF site administrator who has run and helped build one of the biggest atheist sites on the planet, suddenly went postal for petulant reasons and told Richard a few porky pies to cover his tracks?

When the dust settles and the red mist clears...I'm guessing you might be just a teeny weeny bit embarrassed by your recent blog posts about the RDF closure. I've read lot of message board comments and blog posts...even twitter posts...the majority of which refer back to your blog as "proof" everyone has been royally shafted. There's even people posting bullet point summaries of your points on this forum as if it is FACT.

If I was a betting man, my money would be on a rational and valid reason for Josh's actions this week (suddenly pulling the plug).

Rubbish

many of us were on the site at the time, and read the civil whilst vocal comments on the changes, and first hand witnessed the actions that he took thereafter. He's given his reasons, and we have provided factual evidence that he is lying about it. Richard's own post on the front of the forums, is shown with evidence to be quote mined. If you were at all interested, a member here has a cached copy of that thread, which is nothing like what has been insinuated was said.

We've provided pictorial evidence that they redirected wget requests, which were being used to try and archive the site, to a rickroll.

We have provided evidence that the entire staff were lied to about upcoming changes.

Further, it isn't just Peter that has come out against this, it's the entire staff team, all of whom have the exact same story about events.

We still haven't received a plausible reason for deleting the audit trails of Josh and Andrew's actions, we still ahven't recieved a valid reason for shutting down PM's, we still haven't recieved a valid reason for the cneccesity of removing things like the science writing competition or Mazzilles many many evolutionary science links.

Yes some people said some nasty things about Josh, but this was on another forum, after all the events had transpired, and not the emotional outburst Richard has seen fit to post at the top of his site.

[GeneticJen]

He's been neglecting the forum for years. He made the front page what it is today, not the forum. And even if I announce that I have no idea why they locked the forum, that doesn't change the fact that the reasons they provided to the public were false. You can argue whether I'm right or not about why this happened, and of course I can accept the possibility that I've judged people wrongly and that I don't know everything, but it doesn't change observable reality. They were dishonest to us all, and that's what I'm highlighting.

[Fallible]

You're right that I don't know what they are thinking. That's how I don't know whether Richard is aware of the lies etc. But we don't need to be supernatural to know that we are being accused of things that didn't happen. I can't say what Richard thinks as a fact. But it is a fact that they have lied about reason for closing the forum, they have lied for months to the mods and they have even lied to Richard himself.

has it occurred to you that there might have been a very valid reason that josh and the RDF team had to suddenly back-track on the promise to keep the forum alive for 30 days and pull the plug?

You mean like this:

As I understand it, they pulled the plug when community members with privileges started causing havoc on the forum.

It's been explained to you more than once, by people who witnessed the chronology for themselves, that this is not what happened.

Or are you so entrenched in your opinion that the RDF site administrator who has run and helped build one of the biggest atheist sites on the planet, suddenly went postal for petulant reasons and told Richard a few porky pies to cover his tracks?

It would seem that you are quite entrenched in your opinion that several individuals are all lying or just confused about the actual course of events, despite evidence to the contrary.

When the dust settles and the red mist clears...I'm guessing you might be just a teeny weeny bit embarrassed by your recent blog posts about the RDF closure. I've read lot of message board comments and blog posts...even twitter posts...the majority of which refer back to your blog as "proof" everyone has been royally shafted. There's even people posting bullet point summaries of your points on this forum as if it is FACT.

If I was a betting man, my money would be on a rational and valid reason for Josh's actions this week (suddenly pulling the plug).

So far you've offered nothing besides mischaracterisations of a number of people involved as evidence of your opinion.

[ozewiezeloose]

He's been neglecting the forum for years. He made the front page what it is today, not the forum. And even if I announce that I have no idea why they locked the forum, that doesn't change the fact that the reasons they provided to the public were false. You can argue whether I'm right or not about why this happened, and of course I can accept the possibility that I've judged people wrongly and that I don't know everything, but it doesn't change observable reality. They were dishonest to us all, and that's what I'm highlighting.

Exactly.

[Chauncey Gardner]

by the way, re-posting other people's opinions and presenting them as FACTS is not smart or rational. unless you have been sitting beside Josh and richard all week this week and have OBSERVED what happened....please don't insult people on here by posting like that....at least have the courtesy to be RATIONAL......for example..try prefacing opinion by something like "as I understand it..."

I, however, was there when it happened. I read the announcement. I witnessed the dumbfounded staff explaining that it had nothing to do with them. I read the message from the admin to the staff, telling them not to make waves. I contributed to the thread criticising and questioning the move, although I did neither myself - if I recall correctly, my comment was a throwaway 'well ain't this a fine how d'ya do'. I saw no personal attacks on Josh, Dawkins or the other one. I saw that the thread was deleted (along with others), that the forum became read-only, that signatures were turned off, that certain members began to disappear. I saw the appearance of the further announcement from admin, claiming that the shut-down was due to imaginary unreasonable behaviour by the membership. Having registered on the night, I saw the influx of people here, and the comments made here AS A REACTION to the closure, quote-mined FROM HERE by Richard Dawkins or his employee and used retroactively for justification of the forum closure. The only thing I didn't see was the redirection of attempts to salvage contents to a Rick Astley video.

listen to yourself. How do you know that wget (the most common method of mirroring a site) didn't pick up on a form posted link to an astley video? is it because it "fits" with your irrational take on events? It is easier for you to speculate that Josh and his team secretly redirected wget to a rick astley video, while laughing manically and stroking his white cat?

YOU DON'T KNOW WHY they backtracked on their promise to keep the forum alive and pulled the plug. YOU ARE SPECULATING.

incidentally...Richard didn't connect the quote-mine from here as "the reason" the forum was suddenly shut down...he was using it as an illustrative example of the type of idiots they are dealing with...he clearly says This (the forum was shut down) is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if those same idiots posted the similar vitriolic shit-stirring slurry on the RDF forum before it was suddenly closed for comments.

Of course, that would spoil your so-called 1st hand knowledge of everything that happened. So it's easier for you to believe that Richard is lying or Richard has been lied to by Josh.

incredible.

[Mazille]

incidentally...Richard didn't connect the quote-mine from here as "the reason" the forum was suddenly shut down...he was using it as an illustrative example of the type of idiots they are dealing with...he clearly says This (the forum was shut down) is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if those same idiots posted the similar vitriolic shit-stirring slurry on the RDF forum before it was suddenly closed for comments.

We know for a fact that this was not what happened and if you bothered to look at the large part of the very first, now deleted criticism-thread, which has been saved by a number of ex-members and is freely available on this very forum you would know that too.
Keep on sticking to your opinion, but know that it is wrong.

In fact, here it is:

http://thinking-aloud.co.uk/temp/rdf.html

See for yourself. (About 8 pages or so are lost, but they pretty much went on in the same tone.)
Edit: Damnit. I just saw that this is only the first 9 pages. There's another one around with the first 20 or so pages...

[ficklefiend]

Why didn't he post relevant nasty comments that came in by PM or email or before the site closed?

I'm sure He and Josh got some bad ones, although from what I've seen people post they sent him, mostly they got quite long and calmly written letters.

[Chauncey Gardner]

He's been neglecting the forum for years. He made the front page what it is today, not the forum. And even if I announce that I have no idea why they locked the forum, that doesn't change the fact that the reasons they provided to the public were false. You can argue whether I'm right or not about why this happened, and of course I can accept the possibility that I've judged people wrongly and that I don't know everything, but it doesn't change observable reality. They were dishonest to us all, and that's what I'm highlighting.

there you go again with the kangaroo court logic.....And even if I announce that I have no idea why they locked the forum, that doesn't change the fact that the reasons they provided to the public were false.

What do you say to those who argue that you are so entrenched in your anger/irrational thinking/whatever that even if you find out the precise reason they suddenly back peddled on their promise (to keep the forum open for 30 days) and closed comments on the forum, they are all lying bastards anyway?

Thanks to your blog and others lapping up your take on events, the RDF team are already hung, drawn and quartered, before we even find out the precise sequence of events and what EXACTLY happened (not your speculations) in between the announcement that the forum will be kept alive for 30 days and suddenly closing comments.

[Mazille]

See my post above.

[Chauncey Gardner]

incidentally...Richard didn't connect the quote-mine from here as "the reason" the forum was suddenly shut down...he was using it as an illustrative example of the type of idiots they are dealing with...he clearly says This (the forum was shut down) is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if those same idiots posted the similar vitriolic shit-stirring slurry on the RDF forum before it was suddenly closed for comments.

We know for a fact that this was not what happened and if you bothered to look at the large part of the very first, now deleted criticism-thread, which has been saved by a number of ex-members and is freely available on this very forum you would know that too.
Keep on sticking to your opinion, but know that it is wrong.

How do you KNOW FOR A FACT that is what happened? Are you some sort of omnipotent, omnipresent, supernatural being who knows exactly what happened and exactly what everyone was thinking over the laast few days?

or are you, like others, knitting together a few events and passing judgement before knowing the FULL FACTS?

[Lozzer]

How do you KNOW FOR A FACT that is what happened? Are you some sort of omnipotent, omnipresent, supernatural being who knows exactly what happened and exactly what everyone was thinking over the laast few days?

Yes.

[klr]

...
YOU DON'T KNOW WHY they backtracked on their promise to keep the forum alive and pulled the plug. YOU ARE SPECULATING.

And therein lies a massive problem. They won't tell us. Standard procedure is that you tell people why you are backtracking on a clear promise. Don't you get angry with politicians when the do that, or even when they do give a reason that you don't like/don't agree with/don't believe?

incidentally...Richard didn't connect the quote-mine from here as "the reason" the forum was suddenly shut down...he was using it as an illustrative example of the type of idiots they are dealing with...he clearly says This (the forum was shut down) is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

Ah, crap. We have a copy of most the thread from RD.net before it was deleted, and there's nothing remotely like that in it. To someone coming at this from the outside, it would be assumed that the comment made here was in fact made back at RD.net.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if those same idiots posted the similar vitriolic shit-stirring slurry on the RDF forum before it was suddenly closed for comments.

Good grief. Now who's making unsubstantiated assertions? This is the best yet. Where's your evidence for this? Put up or shut up I say.

And our house rules on personal insults are basically the same as at the RD.net forum: Do not insult fellow forum members. Those idiots are all here.

[Robert_S]

incidentally...Richard didn't connect the quote-mine from here as "the reason" the forum was suddenly shut down...he was using it as an illustrative example of the type of idiots they are dealing with...he clearly says This (the forum was shut down) is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

It wouldn't surprise me in the least if those same idiots posted the similar vitriolic shit-stirring slurry on the RDF forum before it was suddenly closed for comments.

We know for a fact that this was not what happened and if you bothered to look at the large part of the very first, now deleted criticism-thread, which has been saved by a number of ex-members and is freely available on this very forum you would know that too.
Keep on sticking to your opinion, but know that it is wrong.

How do you KNOW FOR A FACT that is what happened? Are you some sort of omnipotent, omnipresent, supernatural being who knows exactly what happened and exactly what everyone was thinking over the laast few days?

or are you, like others, knitting together a few events and passing judgement before knowing the FULL FACTS?

I don't know FOR A FACT that you are not a lavender giraffe. I will make an assumption that you are somewhat like a primate. I am not sitting right nest to you, so I could, in principle, be wrong this. But I'm not.