Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[klr]

Well let's wait until we find out what Richard does and doesn't know.

I don’t feel that is necessary any longer. Richard decided to redecorate the forum side of the site and that is exactly what he intends to do and there were casualties.

The milk was spilt, the forum there is now dead, what might happen in RDF future is guesswork. Now it’s up to the casualties to accept the old home is gone and make a new one or not.

I don’t even see the point of writing to Richard about it anymore, as you don’t get to be a professor by changing your mind, you become one by proving your right and Richard is a man of that educational system.

Actually, RD has stressed time and time again that what makes science different from religion is the willingness/necessity to accept that one is wrong.

Of course, there may be a fine distinction between what usually happens in the pursuit of scientific truth, versus what often happens in the pursuit of an academic career. Just sayin' ...

Though I doubt anyone will be "clapping their hands raw" on this occasion.

Glad you got the reference.

Not in appreciation anyway ...

[gilthanass]

Well let's wait until we find out what Richard does and doesn't know.

I don’t feel that is necessary any longer. Richard decided to redecorate the forum side of the site and that is exactly what he intends to do and there were casualties.

The milk was spilt, the forum there is now dead, what might happen in RDF future is guesswork. Now it’s up to the casualties to accept the old home is gone and make a new one or not.

I don’t even see the point of writing to Richard about it anymore, as you don’t get to be a professor by changing your mind, you become one by proving your right and Richard is a man of that educational system.

Actually, RD has stressed time and time again that what makes science different from religion is the willingness/necessity to accept that one is wrong.

Of course, there may be a fine distinction between what usually happens in the pursuit of scientific truth, versus what often happens in the pursuit of an academic career. Just sayin' ...

Yep. Science is advanced by the new guys coming in and proving the old guys wrong, then spending their careers trying to continue to prove yourself right against the new new guys coming in and trying to prove YOU wrong. There is less individual mind changing than there is mind changing of the "consensus".

[Pensioner]

Well, I'm not going to stop reading his books. Sorry, there's good information in them. I used to buy them new though, and now I'll buy them used. No more of my cash for Dick Dawkins. I also won't be loaning them to friends or recommending them to others. I certainly can't hold Dawkins up as a positive example after what has happened. He's damaged his brand with many of his core supporters, and there's a price to pay for that. It is extremely unfortunate that price is going to harm what I consider a worthy cause...the promotion of both atheism and science...but he's tarnished now.

That

And me

[PsychoSerenity]

You will notice that the forum has in fact been closed to comments (not taken down) sooner than the 30 days alluded to in the letter. This is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'.

By the way is that thread being hosted anywhere specifically? It's the best evidence we've got about the way the forum members have been mistreated.

Can I have that link please?

Thinking Aloud isn't hosting it any more but I saved a copy just in case. I don't know how to host it though - it's a complete web page. I'll happily email the files to someone who knows how to share it out.

[ficklefiend]

I've just realised, because I wanted to finally check to make sure, that the quote mined from here of mine actually has nothing to do with what Richard has attributed it to. It was a very specific comment about one line which had been written in the announcement which I found patronising. That line does not appear in the announcement Richard has quoted.

I know I'm probably going on about this, but Richard's announcement will be there to see until the forum is disappeared and my name is attached to that quote.

I'm not going to delete my post because then it really does just become some faceless vitriol.

I'll stop mentioning it now.

[Made Of Stars]

Posted on Pharyngula:

Thanks to PZ for posting on this.

To those who say 'Dawkins is within his rights to shut down the forum': You're right. But you're missing the point.

The "Outrage", as Dawkins terms it, is not at the site being taken down, although there is some outrage at that.

The "Outrage" is at the way things have been done. These 'things' include:

+ Lying to the staff: We were promised consultation on the new format. We had started planning transition needs, worked on lists of tags so that old posts could be indexed to the new site, and tried to manage member concerns and expectations about the change. Ultimately, there was no consultation, just an announcement that the site would change, and we were no longer required (which is itself naive in the extreme)

+ Misrepresenting staff: There was no basis to assume that we would abuse our admin privileges through a transition, and absolutely no basis to flag this as a concern in the 'Announcement' made by 'admin'.

+ Banning individual staff and deleting their posts after they shared the 'instructions' not to resist change.

+ Demoting all the other forum mods ('blue mods') after the above event.

+ Locking the forum when dissent erupted.

+ Shutting down the PM system so people couldn't contact friends and arrange to meet elsewhere.

+ Disabling signatures and avatars that sprang up in an attempt to arrange off-site rendezvous.

+ Deleting (not suspending) dissenting members, including members who reasonably tried to contact Richard for an explanation.

+ Deleting admin logs recording the above actions. These could only have been reviewed by those involved, so why delete this evidence?

+ Continuing to disable the privileges of members who ask questions on the RD.net 'front page'. And deleting the admin logs of these actions.

+ Quote-mining the outraged posts of members who've regrouped elsewhere, and trying to pass them off as representative of all of our views.

+ Failing to provide any acknowledgement AT ALL of the thousands of man-hours provided free of charge by the staff. Not to mention the professional services offered by the staff with expertise in change management, communications, and software development. Expertise that could have helped avoid this cluster-fuck.

Personally, I'll now have 3-4 hours a day to spend doing other things than deal with reports, merge threads, deal with member emails, and moderate hot discussions between theists and atheists, creationists and evolutionary biologists, and conspiracy theorists and working scientists and engineers.

So I can't complain about that.

But what a shame to see it end in a way that was predicted and repeatedly flagged by a concerned staff.

Made of Stars
ex RD.net Forum Admin

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... nt-2300470

[95Theses]

I've just realised, because I wanted to finally check to make sure, that the quote mined from here of mine actually has nothing to do with what Richard has attributed it to. It was a very specific comment about one line which had been written in the announcement which I found patronising. That line does not appear in the announcement Richard has quoted.

I know I'm probably going on about this, but Richard's announcement will be there to see until the forum is disappeared and my name is attached to that quote.

I'm not going to delete my post because then it really does just become some faceless vitriol.

I'll stop mentioning it now.

It's ok I covered it for posterity here :

http://www.rationalia.com/forum/viewtop ... 15#p355577

[Strontium Dog]

I love your signature, still giggling after 30 minutes

It sure is first class.

Thanks

It is not my creation, however. The credit goes to Watching the English author, Karen Armstrong, and her eerily accurate summing up of British political thought.

Sorry to continue the derail, but I first saw that quote in the early 90s in the Private Eye cartoon Hom Sap, I would guess that pre-dates Armstrong's use?

[InYourFaceNewYorker]

Well let's wait until we find out what Richard does and doesn't know.

I don’t feel that is necessary any longer. Richard decided to redecorate the forum side of the site and that is exactly what he intends to do and there were casualties.

The milk was spilt, the forum there is now dead, what might happen in RDF future is guesswork. Now it’s up to the casualties to accept the old home is gone and make a new one or not.

I don’t even see the point of writing to Richard about it anymore, as you don’t get to be a professor by changing your mind, you become one by proving your right and Richard is a man of that educational system.

Actually, RD has stressed time and time again that what makes science different from religion is the willingness/necessity to accept that one is wrong.

Of course, there may be a fine distinction between what usually happens in the pursuit of scientific truth, versus what often happens in the pursuit of an academic career. Just sayin' ...

Actually, I called him out on something in the forum back in November when he'd gotten out of line in a flame war. He actually did say, in front of everyone, that he had been wrong to act that way and then he apologized.

J.

[95Theses]

You will notice that the forum has in fact been closed to comments (not taken down) sooner than the 30 days alluded to in the letter. This is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'.

By the way is that thread being hosted anywhere specifically? It's the best evidence we've got about the way the forum members have been mistreated.

Can I have that link please?

Thinking Aloud isn't hosting it any more but I saved a copy just in case. I don't know how to host it though - it's a complete web page. I'll happily email the files to someone who knows how to share it out.

It would be really helpful to be able to post that thread to refute the allegations that we were all behaving like slavering lunatics prior to the shut down.

Can anyone help host this?

[Peter Brown]

Actually, RD has stressed time and time again that what makes science different from religion is the willingness/necessity to accept that one is wrong.
Of course, there may be a fine distinction between what usually happens in the pursuit of scientific truth, versus what often happens in the pursuit of an academic career. Just sayin' ...

But there will be a lot of defending about a pet theory by peer review that such a man needs to be stubborn or determined to withstand the pressure if they believe their theory is right. If it was a wrong theory or out of date yes they can change their stance and not lose face, but you need to have a great deal of evidence to shake that sort of conditioning.

This is why I never bother arguing with the professors I used to know socially in Bangor and presumably why Richard never bothers arguing with creationists.

Sometimes you just have to agree to disagree and walk away from that battle of wills

[Jerome23]

Still reckon The Selfish Gene a fine, fine book. I can differentiate between Dawkins the author and Dawkins who made a mistake. Do buy his books - worth reading, even if The God Delusion a bit, er, not as well constructed as it should be (for good atheism read Dennett, or go read Scott Atran on religion). Don't mistake the science for the bloke: great writers can be utter prigs and pompus asses. Not saying Dawkins is, but he is acting like a bit of a pompous ass at moment.


I have to post my comment from the jREF though --
"However if the Richard Dawkins forum was NOT a social network or a community, perhaps RD should have been a little clearer than when he wrote on the forum about the forum:

“It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.”

He wrote a great deal more in exactly the same vein – you can to the forum and read his own words. Perhaps having “Join the Richard Dawkins Social Network” which was on the front page: the network was hosted at http://www.richarddawkins.net/social was a bad idea?

So if the RDF was not trying to run a Social network, perhaps they might have considered not having Richard Dawkins say publicly on said forum that they were, and setting up a social network?

j x

[HughMcB]

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'

Can you post the link for that here please?

[95Theses]

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'

Can you post the link for that here please?

I've asked alread, don't suppose you can host it or know someone who can do you? :

You will notice that the forum has in fact been closed to comments (not taken down) sooner than the 30 days alluded to in the letter. This is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in.

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'.

By the way is that thread being hosted anywhere specifically? It's the best evidence we've got about the way the forum members have been mistreated.

Can I have that link please?

Thinking Aloud isn't hosting it any more but I saved a copy just in case. I don't know how to host it though - it's a complete web page. I'll happily email the files to someone who knows how to share it out.

[PsychoSerenity]

I've just been re-reading what Thinking Aloud saved from the 'New Discussion Area, Death of the Forum' thread and it's a lot milder than I remembered it; there's barely a bad word in there and certainly no 'over-the-top hostility'

Can you post the link for that here please?

There is no link that I know of. I just saved the web page to my hard-drive because Thinking Aloud said he would only be hosting it briefly. I can email the files in a zip if you want to read it, and can pass it one to someone who can host it. I've just sent it to ozewiezeloose who can hopefully confirm if it works or not.