Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[Wondering Fart]

I maintain (and hope) that Richard is just poorly informed. Hopefully he will become more informed and something will at least bend in our favor.

[Stephen]

Hugh, wasn't it you who authored the nice quote Julie had in her signature? Just curious, I'm not suggesting anything. If it was you, anyway, clearly nothing needs suggesting.

I am flabbergasted against the seat at all of this.

Actually I don't know what you're talking about? What was the quote? Its not in her sig now!

I'm sorry, I thought it was attributed to you. It was a quote in her signature, about her, that she was genuine, fun, bullshit-free, etc. Apologies for assigning it to you- the irony would have been obvious, that's what I was getting at.

[debunk]

Have you guys seen the announcement Richard made? It is now clear why such drastic actions were taken. I just want to personally thank the people who ruined it for the rest of us by sending Richard (and I'm guessing Josh, too) some nasty emails reminiscent of the ones Richard read aloud in The Genius of Charles Darwin. You know who you are. And after seeing some of the nasty names you called Josh here, it is now clear that many of you are not capable of talking about this in a reasonable manner.

Look, I don't agree with the changes being made. But the drastic actions being taken are a result of immature vitriol, it seems. I imagine that, had this not happened, we could have had some normal discussion on the forum on our thoughts about the changes being made. Instead, a select few ruined it for us.

Thank you, whoever you are, for making it come to this.

Julie

They weren't emails, they're quotes mined for a blogpost right here on rationalia, all posted after the forums were made read-only and after Josh deleted various accounts.

[Alan B]

I think this fiasco should be leaked to Fox News. The resultant glee from the goddidit crowd might make RD see sense and what an ass Josh has made of him.

[Wiðercora]

I think this fiasco should be leaked to Fox News. The resultant glee from the goddidit crowd might make RD see sense and what an ass Josh has made of him.

It's not that bad.

[NoDayJob]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

[macdoc]

amyonyango

Start here on catchup

Death of the Dawkins forum – The world’s busiest atheist forum closes
http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.co ... open-soon/

[Matt H]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

Not shrill, but wilfully ignorant.

[laklak]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

The term "petulant" springs to mind.

[debunk]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

He does seem a bit... militant all of a sudden.

[HughMcB]

Julie

every single quote came from here.

After Josh:

a) Removed PM Functionality
b) Deleted tens of thousands of science posts
c) removed signatures that attempted to give people another place to meet
d) Locked the forums and turned off search completely to make it nigh impossible to archive any content.
e) specifically forbade mods from helping people to arrange to go to a new forum
f) redirected archival programs to a Rick-roll


You can't even go and look at the very restrained actual thread on the forums about this, because they have deleted it completely.

What was written wasn't particularly nice, but it was a small sample of the thousands of posts here.

RD did exactly what the creationists do, quote mine and mis-represent to actual views of a body of people to make them seem to be right and the other side to be demons.

Yip, you're on the money here buddy. He has gone down immensely in my book.

InYourFaceNewYorker; tell me, if you had tens of thousands of your posts deleted containing vasts amounts of scientific insights in them and thousands of hours of hard work might you not of called Josh a little shit (in this fucking forum mind you) also?

Get to grips with the real world here. I'm sticking with the true heart and soul of the RDF forums, right here on this site. Josh and Richard can go take a running jump if they so wish, and as much as it pains me to say it (as I really do have great time for you) if you wish to blame us for this tits up mess, then you are free to join them.

[Fact-Man]

What is now to be done about the proposed Book of RDF?

Apart from the drama, posts would have to be rewritten so that RD(F) cannot claim any copyrights.

I thought particularly insightful/sciencey posts were going to be collated into a single publication...how could RD claim copyrights, or infringement thereof, or whatever?

Well, they couldn't, by no means, albeit they might hang you up in court over it for awhile, before their claims were dismissed as frivolous. But even that's doubtful, not many will pursue claims they know are worthless.

The law is clear, those who pen words own those words, unless they explicitly surrender their ownerhip of them in some formal expression, like a contract or a signed agreement.

RDNet neither has nor had any claim of copyright to anything that was posted on its forum by a member. Period.

[klr]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

Unfortunately, yes. And I didn't want to have to say that. It's a set-piece, carefully crafted for maximum effect, to provoke strong emotions. Unfortunately, it gives a very misleading take on events, although of course RD may not be aware of that.

[Paula1]

I have more than a few times defended Dawkins against friends' claims of his arrogance. I wonder if I was wrong.....

Does anyone else find RD "Shrill" all of a sudden?

He does seem a bit... militant all of a sudden.

I'd go as far as to say 'strident and aggressive'

[Valden]

Anyone seen this?...

Posted by: PZ Myers Author Profile Page | February 24, 2010 4:31 PM

I've written to Richard and Josh and suggested that preserving the existing forum content in a read-only archive would be a good move. It would be a bit much to expect it to be searchable, though: search is a huge performance hit on these sorts of sites.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... nt-2300106

Yes, I still don't like PZ that much though.

It would be nice if it would at least acknowledge our side of the story. Several of us (myself included) even posted on his blog about it.

Have you guys seen the announcement Richard made? It is now clear why such drastic actions were taken. I just want to personally thank the people who ruined it for the rest of us by sending Richard (and I'm guessing Josh, too) some nasty emails reminiscent of the ones Richard read aloud in The Genius of Charles Darwin. You know who you are. And after seeing some of the nasty names you called Josh here, it is now clear that many of you are not capable of talking about this in a reasonable manner.

Look, I don't agree with the changes being made. But the drastic actions being taken are a result of immature vitriol, it seems. I imagine that, had this not happened, we could have had some normal discussion on the forum on our thoughts about the changes being made. Instead, a select few ruined it for us.

Thank you, whoever you are, for making it come to this.

Julie

Josh is a liar, and Richard is a moron for even believing him.

Blaming the victims = not cool.

Did I really deserve to be completely deleted off the forum? I mean, really? How about the other peoples posts? Did they?

This is not about the forum changes, but how it was handled. Josh and Andrew handled it poorly, as they have no idea how to interact in a forum community. Of course people were going to be pissed and use naughty language.

The staff didn't even get a "thank you" for their hard work. Instead they were given a big "Fuck you, you're no longer needed" instead.

There's also lots of quote mining in Richards annoucment. Most of the nasty comments have come from this forum, not the other one. AFTER it was put into Read-mode.