Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[z8000783]

Josh's mistake is that is misread the the feeling of the Moderators but he won't be punished for that, quite the reverse in fact, When RD finally makes some sort of announcement he will be right behind Josh. My own feeling is that RD found the forum an embarrassment which is why he hardly ever showed up, and he has finally found a way to be rid of it.

John

Exactly that.

Sorry, I can't connect the dots there guys. Why would Richard Dawkins find the forums an embarrassment? I've heard him say on a number of occasions that it is hard to get a group of atheists together for any concerted purpose, and he knew he had achieved it there. I assume he didn't show up much because he's busy doing other things.

I said it was a feeling. You may right that he was busy. I know no more but it will become clear when he speaks.

John

[cowiz]

Latest Update from Josh and it seems that it was the RDF mods who caused all the trouble - you bastards, you killed RDF

Update: 2010-02-23
A few points to clear things up.

We originally posted a private message to the moderators only asking them not to use the information in the foundation's database to cause trouble, email Richard en masse, ask all of the users to go to a separate forum, or anything like that. We take the privacy of the users' data held by the foundation seriously—to that end the data shouldn't be used to solicit and promote other services. This is not what our users signed up for. This was only directed toward the small group of moderators, who had the access to the administration panel. Against the foundation's wishes, they turned around and posted this message publicly in the forum, and many people misinterpreted this to be directed at regular users. We were not telling the regular users what they could and couldn't do, they were all welcome to move to a separate forum. This public posting of personal communication, along with several inappropriate posts made by our very own moderators, convinced the foundation to close the forum down and make it read-only.

We had hoped to keep the forum functioning until the transition to the new site. Having no forum for 30 days is not what we had hoped would happen. But without being able to trust our own moderators for the forum's final month before the transition, we were left with no other option. A few accounts have been deleted along with their posts due to the nature of their posts. We're sorry that a few had to ruin it for the many.

The decision to revamp the forum was made by The Richard Dawkins Foundation. We are looking to make a new discussion area that is easier for people to find quality content related to our mission. We understand that for some of you it was a place to hang out and converse with like minded people but we are not looking to be a social network. There are many other sites that provide this service.

As the foundation continues to grow, there will be changes. But our focus will always be to promote reason and science. We are working to get the new site up as soon as we can, and we will keep you posted on the estimated launch date.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation

[Spearthrower]

I said it was a feeling. You may right that he was busy. I know no more but it will become clear when he speaks.

John

Aye, I agree with that 100%. I wrote to him to ask him to make his feelings known about this episode so that everyone knows where they stand and people don't blow things out of proportion. I think he's going to have to comment at some point, whether he wants to or not.

[95Theses]

'They were all welcome to move to another forum'


Yeah right you fucking lying wankstain. thats why you shut down PM's and removed signatures was it? to help us move somewhere else?

this prick is just out and out lying now, I think he's starting to realise that this might come back to haunt him now it is apparent we aren't going to lie back and take it from his lordship.

[Mr.Samsa]

Latest Update from Josh and it seems that it was the RDF mods who caused all the trouble - you bastards, you killed RDF

Update: 2010-02-23
A few points to clear things up.

We originally posted a private message to the moderators only asking them not to use the information in the foundation's database to cause trouble, email Richard en masse, ask all of the users to go to a separate forum, or anything like that. We take the privacy of the users' data held by the foundation seriously—to that end the data shouldn't be used to solicit and promote other services. This is not what our users signed up for. This was only directed toward the small group of moderators, who had the access to the administration panel. Against the foundation's wishes, they turned around and posted this message publicly in the forum, and many people misinterpreted this to be directed at regular users. We were not telling the regular users what they could and couldn't do, they were all welcome to move to a separate forum. This public posting of personal communication, along with several inappropriate posts made by our very own moderators, convinced the foundation to close the forum down and make it read-only.

We had hoped to keep the forum functioning until the transition to the new site. Having no forum for 30 days is not what we had hoped would happen. But without being able to trust our own moderators for the forum's final month before the transition, we were left with no other option. A few accounts have been deleted along with their posts due to the nature of their posts. We're sorry that a few had to ruin it for the many.

The decision to revamp the forum was made by The Richard Dawkins Foundation. We are looking to make a new discussion area that is easier for people to find quality content related to our mission. We understand that for some of you it was a place to hang out and converse with like minded people but we are not looking to be a social network. There are many other sites that provide this service.

As the foundation continues to grow, there will be changes. But our focus will always be to promote reason and science. We are working to get the new site up as soon as we can, and we will keep you posted on the estimated launch date.

The Richard Dawkins Foundation

Absolutely!

I mean, it was the only option Josh had left. The mods reposted the message meaning that the members saw that we had been treated like crap, and naturally Josh had to lock down the entire forum, delete a number of members with all of their posts, and remove the full functionality of the PM feature.

We drove him to it, we are as much to blame...

God he's such a fucking jackass.

[Spearthrower]

Absolutely!

I mean, it was the only option Josh had left. The mods reposted the message meaning that the members saw that we had been treated like crap, and naturally Josh had to lock down the entire forum, delete a number of members with all of their posts, and remove the full functionality of the PM feature.

We drove him to it, we are as much to blame...

God he's such a fucking jackass.

Yep - tens of thousands of people are in the wrong just so he can pretend he was right all along.

[heyjude]

Latest Update from Josh and it seems that it was the RDF mods who caused all the trouble - you bastards, you killed RDF

Update: 2010-02-23
A few points to clear things up.

We originally posted a private message to the moderators only asking them not to use the information in the foundation's database to cause trouble, email Richard en masse, ask all of the users to go to a separate forum, or anything like that. We take the privacy of the users' data held by the foundation seriously—to that end the data shouldn't be used to solicit and promote other services.
.....

The Richard Dawkins Foundation

is there anyone at RDF to read that message?... must be pretty empty over there now...

[Darkchilde]

What will happen when the people who made the forum happen and be the community it was, will not join in their new sanitized area? I will not go there, as there will be nothing for me.

I loved the debunking and science sections of the forum most of all. Especially the Debunking Creationism section was one of the busiest ones on the forum! That's where some of the most interesting posts were made, like Cali's bombs; when Mazille had the idea for the science competition, we all thought that it was a great idea, and pitched in our ideas of how to go about it, and it was picking up, with very interesting submissions.

What Josh wants to do is a boring, neat science front page area. That's all well and good, if I wanted that there are plenty of blogs that do the same and in a much more interesting format, and I can read the science news myself on sciencedaily, space.com and other sites, put them up on my blog and comment and write about it. It is the same thing with what Josh wants to do, anyone with a blog can do it. And those without a blog can do it too, as anyone can register on wordpress or blogger and open up a blog.

What I like is a forum community. It is to read up and see other people's comments and posts, and most of all the silly threads which were great. I loved the LOLcats, and read it, I want to talk about Avatar and Star Trek and Doctor Who, and whether cats are better than dogs or whatever little thread there is. You don't go to a forum just to be serious, but also to relax, let yourself free, speak your mind, and many times be freer on the forum than in rl, because of various reasons. Be able to vent and rant when things are not going your way, be able to just write about anything and everything.

Let alone that the RD forum was a welcoming place for new atheists, for people struggling with their newfound atheism, and they were helped through by the community.

[Mr.Samsa]

What will happen when the people who made the forum happen and be the community it was, will not join in their new sanitized area? I will not go there, as there will be nothing for me.

I loved the debunking and science sections of the forum most of all. Especially the Debunking Creationism section was one of the busiest ones on the forum! That's where some of the most interesting posts were made, like Cali's bombs; when Mazille had the idea for the science competition, we all thought that it was a great idea, and pitched in our ideas of how to go about it, and it was picking up, with very interesting submissions.

What Josh wants to do is a boring, neat science front page area. That's all well and good, if I wanted that there are plenty of blogs that do the same and in a much more interesting format, and I can read the science news myself on sciencedaily, space.com and other sites, put them up on my blog and comment and write about it. It is the same thing with what Josh wants to do, anyone with a blog can do it. And those without a blog can do it too, as anyone can register on wordpress or blogger and open up a blog.

What I like is a forum community. It is to read up and see other people's comments and posts, and most of all the silly threads which were great. I loved the LOLcats, and read it, I want to talk about Avatar and Star Trek and Doctor Who, and whether cats are better than dogs or whatever little thread there is. You don't go to a forum just to be serious, but also to relax, let yourself free, speak your mind, and many times be freer on the forum than in rl, because of various reasons. Be able to vent and rant when things are not going your way, be able to just write about anything and everything.

Let alone that the RD forum was a welcoming place for new atheists, for people struggling with their newfound atheism, and they were helped through by the community.

I know I'm going to be an active user there. Everyone needs to be aware of the latest scientific advances in homeopathy, aromatherapy etc, how vaccines cause autism and how tin foil prevents the government from reading your mind!

If I don't post these very important articles, then who will?!

[GeneticJen]

Several thousand views of the blog entry now.

Searches bringing people to the forum:

reality is my religion
http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com
dawkins forum closed
dawkins forum shut down
atheist
peter harrison magic
timonenfail
homeopathy what is the harm
cseti photo
peter harrison magic ebooks
busiest atheism forum closed
reptilian thermonuclear
reptile aliens
busiest atheism forum
crested gecko shedding
josh moderators mazille forum

Most traffic is coming from places like redit, and popular atheism websites like The Friendly Atheist.

[Durro]

And just in case it hasn't been mentioned, either Josh or Andrew (Chalkers) while logged on as "Admin" have gone through and erased the records of their admin actions. All of the deleted posts, deleted threads, summary banning of specific members and deletion of their entire post history, locking out of the Mods, shutting down the PM system, etc etc, has now been removed from the Admin logs. Unfortunately for Josh/Andrew, one of the recently evicted Forum Admin staff was still able to access the Forum and saw the cover up of their grievous actions happening. It smells very much as though they are deleting evidence of their heavy handed and patently unfair actions.

And to clarify one other issue, non of us ex-Mods resigned. We did our best to try and inform the membership what was really happening behind the scenes and Topsy, Mazille, Gallstones and Darwinsbulldog to name a few had posts not only removed but deleted by Josh/Andrew. We tried desperately to communicate with Josh/Andrew, but our pleas for explanations went unanswered and about 40 minutes after the membership was shut out, the entire Mod team were too. We couldn't PM, post, edit posts or perform mod actions. We were able to view the Mod and Admin logs (The latter for the 4 admin guys only) but not do anything except add a comment in a member's usernotes - a few of us left Andrew/Josh some love letters and requested communication, which have been ignored as well. We did not resign. We were shafted like the rest of the membership, but at least tried to go down fighting.

Durro

[charlou]

...interesting list of searches there.

[Agrippina]

Hey Durro, there you are!!!

[Peter Brown]

Is it just me?... or is all this deleting critical posts, banning people on the Facebook page, and EVERYTHING that has happened, smack of someone with some serious problem? Can any of the psych specialists out there address this? I mean, it's like paranoia taken to the n-th degree, like a kid with his finger on the button. It seems very very irrational....

I'm not defending Josh... I'm just saying it's majorly weird shit. Well - unless you're talking about a fundamentalist muslim dictator...

Seems like normal kneejerk reactions to problem solving management to me. Often hidden forums have clauses regarding not being allowed to post what is posted there into the public domain backed up with a banned account threat.

The loss of a few thousand informational posts is a shame but nothing compared to the whole site getting trashed. It is like burning down a city library far as I’m concerned.

[Darkchilde]

I know I'm going to be an active user there. Everyone needs to be aware of the latest scientific advances in homeopathy, aromatherapy etc, how vaccines cause autism and how tin foil prevents the government from reading your mind!

If I don't post these very important articles, then who will?!