First reaction by Richard Dawkins.

[Mr.Samsa]

RD is smart and I'm guessing he will be more selective in who can become a moderator on the new RDF...which is actually a good and positive thing. I've read a lot of blogs and comments about the changes at RDF..many appear to be ex-moderators who are understandably upset at losing their privileges and standing/power within the comunity....which is one thing...but some reacted in totally the wrong way and are whipping up a mob-mentality with the rest of the community that might work on some...but not the intelligent ones. So, I reckon the new RDF community will be well worth joining and will thrive...

just saying.

Thanks for that. Now I'm sure that you either:

a) Haven't read the details of the situation and are completely fucking oblivious to what happened, or
b) Have read the details, but are willfully misrepresenting them for some other purpose (to get a rise, to annoy people, to be a jackass, etc).

In other words, the only way your posts would carry any worth or significance is if I printed them all off and used them to wipe my ass after taking a massive shit.

[Chauncey Gardner]

Please read the facts first - they are readily available here and elsewhere - and don't rely on the official line.

erm...I hope it's not too embarrassing for you if I point out that YOU DON'T KNOW THE FACTS. blog posts by peter harrison or others does NOT constitute FACT.....they are OPINIONS klr....they are 3rd party accounts by people who weren't event there...you know....a bit like the bible. And I hope that irony doesn't fly over your head.

I wasn't sitting beside josh for the last week. I wasn't sitting beside richard when he was writing his recent letter about things. I HAVE read a lot of different opinions from many sides....e.g. richard, josh, people who are spouting seriously shitty slurs against the rdf team and richard and others who are clearly upset and are presenting how they see things.

Seriously guys....go for a long walk at the weekend...and think about how petulant and irrational many of you are coming across.

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..."

[GeneticJen]

Reaction to the reaction:

http://bit.ly/drscUe

[virphen]

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..."

Many of us were online, as it was all happening, watching it happen.

i.e. OBSERVING.

Sure nobody knows exactly what was rattling around inside the skulls of the sysops as they performed their very quixotic forum operations, but the saga as related by Peter and the mods who were in position at the time gels perfectly with what a number of us OBSERVED.

[Horwood Beer-Master]

Please read the facts first - they are readily available here and elsewhere - and don't rely on the official line.

erm...I hope it's not too embarrassing for you if I point out that YOU DON'T KNOW THE FACTS. blog posts by peter harrison or others does NOT constitute FACT.....they are OPINIONS klr....they are 3rd party accounts by people who weren't event there...you know....a bit like the bible. And I hope that irony doesn't fly over your head.

I wasn't sitting beside josh for the last week. I wasn't sitting beside richard when he was writing his recent letter about things. I HAVE read a lot of different opinions from many sides....e.g. richard, josh, people who are spouting seriously shitty slurs against the rdf team and richard and others who are clearly upset and are presenting how they see things.

Seriously guys....go for a long walk at the weekend...and think about how petulant and irrational many of you are coming across.

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..."

We may not have first-hand accounts of what was going on with Josh or Richard in terms of behind the scenes decision-making while all this was happening - none of us were "sitting beside" them irl. But we do have multiple, mutually-supporting first-hand accounts of how Josh treated forum staff/members.

How is this not good enough for you?

[klr]

Please read the facts first - they are readily available here and elsewhere - and don't rely on the official line.

erm...I hope it's not too embarrassing for you if I point out that YOU DON'T KNOW THE FACTS. blog posts by peter harrison or others does NOT constitute FACT.....they are OPINIONS klr....they are 3rd party accounts by people who weren't event there...you know....a bit like the bible. And I hope that irony doesn't fly over your head.

I wasn't sitting beside josh for the last week. I wasn't sitting beside richard when he was writing his recent letter about things. I HAVE read a lot of different opinions from many sides....e.g. richard, josh, people who are spouting seriously shitty slurs against the rdf team and richard and others who are clearly upset and are presenting how they see things.

Seriously guys....go for a long walk at the weekend...and think about how petulant and irrational many of you are coming across.

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..."

In the course of the many threads here on this matter, we've quoted all the facts that we have at our disposal. In certain areas, we've had to make reasonable guesses, because the facts have been denied to us. Don't forget that science doesn't need to see all the facts either, something which RD himself has stressed on numerous occasions. We are entitled to make inferences where facts are not available.

RD.net is an a position to prove or disprove many of our assertions by making the information at it's disposal available for public scrutiny. You can bet your bottom dollar it won't do that. Instead, we get a diatribe from RD which contains a number of untruths (very likely unwitting) and wild assertions.

As I pointed out in another thread a while ago, RD is a fine one to talk when it comes to insulting people. What was said on this forum about Josh Timonen (which RD falsely implies was said on RD.net) would have been perfectly permissible on RD.net if it had been uttered about someone not on that forum. Do unto others and all that.

I go for plenty of long walks, thank you very much. Stop being so condescending. BTW, I was a moderator and admin on RD.net for 18 months, and have first-hand experience of the dynamics and personalities all the way up to RD himself.

[Chauncey Gardner]

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

Please give us your definition of "havoc", just for the record.


Are questions "havoc"?
Is criticism "havoc"?
Is clarifying what the staff did-or-did-not know "havoc"?
Was trying to point people in the direction of another forum "havoc"?
Is personal communication "havoc"?
Is trying to archive content "havoc"?
Is trying to seek clarification from the website owner "havoc"?
Is protesting account deletions "havoc"?

Please do tell us.

All your points refer to what's being posted on peter harrisons' blog and repeated by others. I'm not saying they aren't correct...I'm saying they aren't rational.

Peter Harrison isn't an omnipotent supernatural being who knows everything josh did and thought during the last week. Ditto for the others whipping up an angry mob frenzy.

Equally I wasn't sitting beside Josh all week but standing back and looking at the situation rationally....I would deduce that many people's comments are clouded by anger and further fuelled by idiots posting opinion as if it was FACT. I would also deduce that it's highly unlikely that Josh suddenly went postal for petulant reasons and it's more likely he was reacting to vandalism by people with privileges on the RDF.

For the idiots on this thread....THAT'S MY OPINION....I'm NOT claiming that's fact.

Like I said earlier...it's embarrassing to see so much backstabbing and irrational rants from people who claimed to belong to a forum like the RDF.

[GeneticJen]

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.

[Chauncey Gardner]

Please read the facts first - they are readily available here and elsewhere - and don't rely on the official line.

erm...I hope it's not too embarrassing for you if I point out that YOU DON'T KNOW THE FACTS. blog posts by peter harrison or others does NOT constitute FACT.....they are OPINIONS klr....they are 3rd party accounts by people who weren't event there...you know....a bit like the bible. And I hope that irony doesn't fly over your head.

I wasn't sitting beside josh for the last week. I wasn't sitting beside richard when he was writing his recent letter about things. I HAVE read a lot of different opinions from many sides....e.g. richard, josh, people who are spouting seriously shitty slurs against the rdf team and richard and others who are clearly upset and are presenting how they see things.

Seriously guys....go for a long walk at the weekend...and think about how petulant and irrational many of you are coming across.

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..."

In the course of the many threads here on this matter, we've quoted all the facts that we have at our disposal. In certain areas, we've had to make reasonable guesses, because the facts have been denied to us.

that's not how it comes across.

from an outsider looking in, people appear to be knitting together mostly opinion (not facts) that suit their anger to fuel an angry mob frenzy.

when the red mist settles, I would hope that most of you would acknowledge that the reaction is way over the top and irrational. Being angry about the changes is an explanation, but not an excuse. being angry about the sudden plug pulling of the forum by the RDF team, for reasons you can only speculate upon is simply pathetic. Particularly for a group of people who like to think they are free thinking and rational.

[tnjrp]

hold on a second...let me get this straight....you're saying I'm the one shit-stirring?

You could've quite easily left out several references to childish behaviour of the RDF refugees out of your post and still met the same bottom line. You chose to include them, despite knowing full well they are inflammatory. So, "shit-stirring", yes. Obviously I could phrase it in a kinder way, but that seemed merely a suitable response of the sort you fully must've expected to get.

you don't know that's the case but you are happy to believe that is the case based on a flurry of vitriolic bitter and some twisted comments by people who weren't sitting right beside josh for the last week

I've based not single one of my comments on the decable on anything "vitriolic" or particularly "bitter". "Twisted" is of course a possibility, in which case I should think quite a few of the former moderators are in fact lying their arses off about how things came about.

Considering the RD foundation is all about evidence based logic, I won't embarrass you by pointing out how ironic it is that you would be SO judgemental based on the accounts of people who weren't there

Such as the former moderators, you mean? Ah well, maybe they indeed weren't there. After all, they could be lying en masse.

I have a huge amount of respect for Richard Dawkins as a scientist, author and individual

As do I, within reason of course. I don't think he's above critisism tho, if such warrants itself.

just saying.

Indeed.

[Fallible]

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.

[fuck you & fuck your god]

Reaction to the reaction:

http://bit.ly/drscUe

Peter, is this correct?

were posted by members who aren’t even RDF members

[DoctorE]

It was like only ~2 weeks ago when they said ALL POSTS would be INTACT on a NEW FORUM.
Then BANG the forum is axed, WTF happened.

[GeneticJen]

Reaction to the reaction:

http://bit.ly/drscUe

Peter, is this correct?

were posted by members who aren’t even RDF members

I meant staff, will change it now.

[klr]

Please read the facts first - they are readily available here and elsewhere - and don't rely on the official line.

erm...I hope it's not too embarrassing for you if I point out that YOU DON'T KNOW THE FACTS. blog posts by peter harrison or others does NOT constitute FACT.....they are OPINIONS klr....they are 3rd party accounts by people who weren't event there...you know....a bit like the bible. And I hope that irony doesn't fly over your head.

I wasn't sitting beside josh for the last week. I wasn't sitting beside richard when he was writing his recent letter about things. I HAVE read a lot of different opinions from many sides....e.g. richard, josh, people who are spouting seriously shitty slurs against the rdf team and richard and others who are clearly upset and are presenting how they see things.

Seriously guys....go for a long walk at the weekend...and think about how petulant and irrational many of you are coming across.

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..."

In the course of the many threads here on this matter, we've quoted all the facts that we have at our disposal. In certain areas, we've had to make reasonable guesses, because the facts have been denied to us.

that's not how it comes across.

How much of the content here and off-site have you read? In particular, have you read Peter Harrison's blogs?

from an outsider looking in, people appear to be knitting together mostly opinion (not facts) that suit their anger to fuel an angry mob frenzy.

Charming. You seem to have no problem making crude unwarranted generalisations against us, but cry foul if you perceive that something is asserted without rock-solid court-of-law standard proof.

when the red mist settles, I would hope that most of you would acknowledge that the reaction is way over the top and irrational. Being angry about the changes is an explanation, but not an excuse. being angry about the sudden plug pulling of the forum by the RDF team, for reasons you can only speculate upon is simply pathetic. Particularly for a group of people who like to think they are free thinking and rational.

Another pathetic generalisation. There are plenty of people here who have been quite reasoned most or all of the time. I challenge you to find anything in any of my posts in the last 2 1/2 days that would be evidence of "red mist".

BTW, I agree with other posters. You are being recklessly inflammatory. Pot, kettle, black and all that.