Announcement about RDF Part 3.

[Mr.Samsa]

Beautiful, Michael. Precisely my sentiments.

Cheers Hack, your posts around here and over at PZ's blog have been excellent too

[Weaver]

Mr. Samsa - well said.

[NineBerry]

What's the talk about rickroling?

I haven't noticed being sent to some rickrole site while backing up the forum.

[Mr.Samsa]

Mr. Samsa - well said.

Cheers Weaver

What's the talk about rickroling?

I haven't noticed being sent to some rickrole site while backing up the forum.

When people have tried to use general archive managers they've ended up downloading Rick Astley videos. There was a screenshot of it somewhere in another thread.

[Agrippina]

Very well put MrS

[Skinny Puppy]

Excellent letter and I agree with everything you said except about returning to that ‘oasis’.

Richard has shown with his recent post (Outrage) that he is either not in the loop or is doing everything that he’s professed to be against over the years. I give him no leeway whatsoever, now or in the future.

He spent years denouncing the very thing he’s engaged in now. Regardless of what he does in the future, he’s besmirched his name forever in my books. I class him now into the same category as I do rabid Christian fundamentalists that only see what they want to see and only say what they themselves want to hear.

He has lost touch with reality and is simply preaching unfounded, un-researched and unacceptable dogmatic rhetoric, yet he condemns Christians for the same narrow-mindedness that he himself is now showing.

[Chauncey Gardner]

What's the talk about rickroling?

I haven't noticed being sent to some rickrole site while backing up the forum.

I've seen a few people mention it as "proof" that josh is a bad guy.

It could have originated on peter harrisons blog....but the rants on the web are so rampant, I maybe wrong on that. it's possible a rickrolled video link was picked up by wget (a popular site mirroring tool) but I think it's highly unlikely Josh would redirect anyone viewing the forum to a rick roll video.

the whole thing is beyond farce now...I think a lot of people are going to feel a teeny weeny bit silly next week when the dust settles and the red mist clears.

[Chauncey Gardner]

Excellent letter and I agree with everything you said except about returning to that ‘oasis’.

Richard has shown with his recent post (Outrage) that he is either not in the loop or is doing everything that he’s professed to be against over the years. I give him no leeway whatsoever, now or in the future.

He spent years denouncing the very thing he’s engaged in now. Regardless of what he does in the future, he’s besmirched his name forever in my books. I class him now into the same category as I do rabid Christian fundamentalists that only see what they want to see and only say what they themselves want to hear.

He has lost touch with reality and is simply preaching unfounded, un-researched and unacceptable dogmatic rhetoric, yet he condemns Christians for the same narrow-mindedness that he himself is now showing.

wow...so richard is hung, drawn and already quartered. why don't you guys just drag him to the top of a hill and crucify him?

I didn't agree with the wording of dawkins "outrage" letter, but, I don't think I've witnessed such fickleness in my life. everyone's queuing up to stab richard and josh in the back....

some community. eh?

[Mr.Samsa]

Excellent letter and I agree with everything you said except about returning to that ‘oasis’.

Richard has shown with his recent post (Outrage) that he is either not in the loop or is doing everything that he’s professed to be against over the years. I give him no leeway whatsoever, now or in the future.

He spent years denouncing the very thing he’s engaged in now. Regardless of what he does in the future, he’s besmirched his name forever in my books. I class him now into the same category as I do rabid Christian fundamentalists that only see what they want to see and only say what they themselves want to hear.

He has lost touch with reality and is simply preaching unfounded, un-researched and unacceptable dogmatic rhetoric, yet he condemns Christians for the same narrow-mindedness that he himself is now showing.

I know, I'm still a little torn on the issue of returning. What happened was so pointless and destructive, but RDF was always such a great resource for me, so if they can build something like that again I think I would be stupid not to take part. This is assuming the venture is successful however, but I really don't think Josh will be able to handle moderating all the new threads.

[ozewiezeloose]

wow...so richard is hung, drawn and already quartered. why don't you guys just drag him to the top of a hill and crucify him?

I don't like crucifixes. And I'm still thinking troll.

More

[HughMcB]

So that's him, eh? Ginger twat.

Sssshhhh! Lak!

They're watching you!

[HughMcB]

I know a number of people have tried messaging Richard, but after reading the "Outrage" announcement and sitting on it for a few hours, I simply can't sit back and not say anything to him. I apologise if I'm stepping on anyone's toes by sending this message, or if I've said anything that is incorrect or counterproductive, but here is what I sent:

...[snip]...

I doubt he'll read it all as it's much too long, and I seriously doubt he'll reply, but I figured I should post it here in case the next announcement is "Some Wanker Just PMed Me" - so if things get worse from this point on, it's probably my fault...

Great letter...

BTW.. how could things get worse?!

[laklak]

So that's him, eh? Ginger twat.

Sssshhhh! Lak!

They're watching you!

No worries, I'm in my tinfoil lined office, dressed in non-conductive lycra.

[Flora]

I know a number of people have tried messaging Richard, but after reading the "Outrage" announcement and sitting on it for a few hours, I simply can't sit back and not say anything to him. I apologise if I'm stepping on anyone's toes by sending this message, or if I've said anything that is incorrect or counterproductive, but here is what I sent:

Dear Prof. Dawkins,

I know you are busy with your current tour throughout Australia and New Zealand, and I know the events of the forum are not a high priority for you at this time, so I will try to keep this brief.

There have already been a number of members who have messaged you with extensive details of the event that took place so I will try not to repeat information of which you are already aware, but I feel that your representation of events in your "Outrage" post is so far removed from reality that I could not leave it without trying to reason with you.

The short version is: people are not angry about the change in forum software. In fact a lot of people really are quite excited about this. The vitriol, the anger and the protests were in direct reply to the way they were poorly treated.

To expand on this, in your post, the basic timeline of events appears to be "Announcement of a new website structure" then "Nasty comments being made about Josh". In reality, the timeline of events following the announcement included the creation of a thread where the members congregated to discuss how upset they were, how confused they were and how excited they were over the new changes. There was some anger in this thread, but it was reasonably mild and it was all aimed at the moderators. I should mention that I am/was a moderator of this forum and I, along with my fellow volunteers, were shocked and confused to find ourselves thrust into this situation where we were forced to defend ourselves by pointing out that the new changes were as much a surprise to us as they were to the members (whilst we had been promised "new and exciting changes coming soon", we had no real details of what was to happen).

So, whilst trying to defend ourselves, a moderator posted the message Josh and Andrew had sent to us as evidence of our innocence. This act was met with the immediate deletion of this moderator's membership and his entire post history being removed. The forum was then locked and the thread where everyone was trying to understand what the new changes entailed was deleted. In protest, a member went to the front page asking the admin to explain their decision as it seemed highly unjust and unnecessary - this member was then deleted, along with his entire posting history.

On the forum, people were eager to contact their friends, internet adversaries, even research collaborators to try to exchange details or to organise a meeting point to discuss what had just occurred. However, they found that the Private Messaging feature has been limited to what seems to be about 1 post being allowed to be sent per every 12 hours. All signatures were removed after people had left details about where they can be contacted and found if people wished to do so. On top of this, when people attempted to archive the remaining posts in the forum (at this stage, 30-40,000 posts had been deleted over the space of a couple of hours) they found that someone had stored the Rick Astley video clip "Never Gonna Give You Up" onto the forum database (a common internet meme where people pretend to link to some site or location of information, only to be met with Rick Astley - otherwise known as a "rickroll"), making it impossible to save any data unless you could write your own code to get around this.

After numerous prolific posters had been deleted without warning nor reason, after the search system had been taken down and the messaging feature had been disabled beyond practical functionality, some people gathered on an external site and vented their frustrations at a person who they saw as not only treating them very poorly, but also a person who seemed intent on making it impossible for them to retain their contacts they had made over their years here at the Oasis.

Now here I should note that I in no way condone the nasty messages that were made about Josh (although I do feel that taken out of context in your announcement they appeared worse than they were in context - however, still ultimately inexcusable), but you have to understand that RDF was a community of people who valued science, reason and rationality. To accuse them of becoming rabid animals when faced with the prospect of change not only does the members a disservice, but I also feel it does you and this Oasis you built a disservice. If the people were becoming angry because the person who owns this entire website wants to change/remove the forum section, then I would join you and tell them to stop acting like children.

But this is not what the people are angry about. The people who have dedicated not only thousands of hours of their time supporting your goals, but also donated significant sums of money to the foundation, those who have literally risked their lives to come to this forum and to expand their knowledge of science (by using dummy IP addresses in the Middle East to avoid being arrested), came online on Monday to find a couple of users they don't recognise deleting members and thousands of posts without reason. In other words, those who dedicated a substantial amount of time to supporting you, felt like they were given a kick in the teeth for their loyalty.

I understand if this message doesn't change your view of the situation, and I do apologise for it being much lengthier than I had hoped for, but if there is one point I can try to drive home then it is this: the change in forum software is absolutely irrelevant to the events that transpired, all that matters is that the members here were treated like something you step in on a farm when valuable information was wiped from existence before their very eyes.

The internet is a wonderful new place in this world, and the information that is stored here is no longer meaningless strings of text - it is books, research, knowledge. The wanton deletion of this information invokes the same feelings of the members here as those of the people unfortunate enough to live through the days of book burnings. This is why we are angry, not because of some silly software change.

Again, I apologise for taking up so much of your time with this message, I know you have much more important matters to attend to. I wish you all the best with your tour and I hope the new discussion board proves to be highly successful for the foundation - I know that personally I will be there when it opens doing everything I can to help.

Thank you for listening,
Michael O.
("Mr.Samsa" - Ex-forum moderator)

NOTE: The opinions I have stated in this post are purely my own and I do not speak on behalf of the members, nor do I speak for any of the other ex-moderators.

I doubt he'll read it all as it's much too long, and I seriously doubt he'll reply, but I figured I should post it here in case the next announcement is "Some Wanker Just PMed Me" - so if things get worse from this point on, it's probably my fault...

Excellent and accurate summary. Have you considered posting this in full as a comment on Peter's blog and also on Pharyngula? I would.

[Skinny Puppy]

Excellent letter and I agree with everything you said except about returning to that ‘oasis’.

Richard has shown with his recent post (Outrage) that he is either not in the loop or is doing everything that he’s professed to be against over the years. I give him no leeway whatsoever, now or in the future.

He spent years denouncing the very thing he’s engaged in now. Regardless of what he does in the future, he’s besmirched his name forever in my books. I class him now into the same category as I do rabid Christian fundamentalists that only see what they want to see and only say what they themselves want to hear.

He has lost touch with reality and is simply preaching unfounded, un-researched and unacceptable dogmatic rhetoric, yet he condemns Christians for the same narrow-mindedness that he himself is now showing.

I know, I'm still a little torn on the issue of returning. What happened was so pointless and destructive, but RDF was always such a great resource for me, so if they can build something like that again I think I would be stupid not to take part. This is assuming the venture is successful however, but I really don't think Josh will be able to handle moderating all the new threads.

I have no qualms whatsoever if anyone wishes to return. The cause of promoting atheism is greater than any of our personal feelings.

Each of us needs to make that decision based upon what each of us feels is in their own, and the foundations, best interests and shouldn’t pass judgment on others.

At this point in time I would have hoped that Richard would have looked at all of the facts before condemning us all. He could have posted a letter much differently from the one he did and should have looked at the issue the same way that he asked us to do when we question religion.

He didn’t do that and sent out a letter of condemnation instead. It’s a mean-spirited letter and does his reputation no justice.