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[Calilasseia]

Hi Guys,

Introducing myself. I am Chris Wilkins, and a journalist, that DanDare mentioned in a previous post. I have to say up front I was never a member of the RDF, but DanDare, a good friend of mine, was and informed me of this situation.

Since then I have written about it (http://www.casualravings.com) and done some of my own investigations, including contacting the mainstream media who, as a consequence, may be thinking about taking a look at this situation. When they publish something I will post it back here (assuming they do).

Thus this post. I also wish to state I am not taking sides in this.

I can say that the "other side's" perspective, whether you disagree with it or not, is that they had to do this for technical reasons and then you all behaved badly, especially due to the language used. They also are of the opinion (now don't get mad at me. I am only the messenger) that this is a small matter which will blow over, that you have overstated your importance to RDF, and that basically if you all leave RDF will not suffer one jot as in time others will replace you. Again, please don't get mad at me.

So to get some concrete facts about this is from all of you; how many of there are you that feel this strongly about what has happened? Does anyone have any numbers? And, this is a difficult one to measure, how will the RDF be affected by your departure? Will it continue on its merry way without you, or will it indeed be greatly diminshed?

I have other questions for you but I daresay this will do for now.

Cheers,

Chris.

I'll simply direct you to read the following, which is an accurate summary of events. Which I've reprised from my comments over at The Times, and edited to be somewhat more in keeping with the freewheeling atmosphere of Rationalia.

[1] The mod team was informed, months ago, that changes were to be made to the forum. However, details were not forthcoming. The mod team were not even shown basic screenshots of the protoptype new software in action, and all requests to provide the information we needed, in order to implement the changes being decided upon in as seamless a manner as possible, were simply ignored. I suspect a lot of foot soldiers in the IT world will be familiar with this scenario. Dilbert, anyone?

[2] When the public announcement was made to the forum membership, it was presented in such a manner as to suggest that the mod team assented in full to the changes that were being made, which was a blatant falsehood.

[3] When one of the moderators posted a message providing evidence to the membership that this was a blatant falsehood, said moderator was axed from the site. Not merely banned, but his entire user account destroyed, along with thousands of posts containing the very expositions of hard science that RD claims to be in favour of seeing more of.

[4] When forum members launched a thread critical of this move, the thread was summarily deleted, and several other users were expunged from the site, along with over 30,000 posts. Again, this included valuable material covering scientific topics, made accessible to the layman, of the very sort RD claims to be in favour of seeing posted. Which means that Josh Timonen, in deleting this material, was acting in direct contravention of the stated mission of his boss by destroying that material.

[5] Josh then placed the entire forum in read-only mode, wilfully destroyed information allowing members to maintain contact via other means, and in a move of truly juvenile petulance, redirected links intended to point to software backup portals to a Rick Astley video on YouTube (yes, he thought that rickrolling those wishing to back up their material constituted proper professional conduct).

[6] Members decanted in numbers to another forum, namely here at Rationalia, and vented their anger on that other forum..

[7] Josh lifted quote mined snippets from here, presented these to RD as if they constituted the substantive views of the exiled membership, whilst taking steps to ensure that his master never saw the substantive allegations against him with respect to the above-cited mendacious conduct, and took steps to hide his duplicity further, by destroying moderator log entries that would have revealed his wilful vandalism of the forum and its contents.

[8] RD, placing a faintly ridiculous amount of trust in this individual, accepted these quote mines as fact, without checking his sources independently, and posted the tirade that has since become newsworthy.

In short, RD bestowed plenary powers upon Josh Timonen, who wilfully and maliciously abused them to entrench his own position of power. By doing so, Timonen has inflicted enormous damage upon his master's reputation, and indeed upon his master's stated mission, as cited above. Indeed, Dawkins' enemies amongst the professional liars for creationism could not have wished for a better result, had Timonen been planted within RD's organisation by them as a mole. Twenty years' hard work by Dawkins, alerting people to the dangers of doctrine centred world views, and attempting to educate people about valid science in the face of duplicitous ideological attack, has in effect been flushed down the toilet by his protegé.

I think this encapsulates neatly the situation you are planning to report upon.

So who thinks that the RDF will be greatly depleted? Will it?

Well, given the comments I've seen being disseminated with respect to the parlous design of the RDF front page, which quite a few people competent in the world of web design regard as a nightmare, I suspect that the site's traffic will indeed plummet, because if there is one truism applicable to the web browsing public, it is this: websites that place obstacles in the way of their obtaining the content they seek, or handle their interactive input in a manner reminiscent of a 1970s Eastern European bureaucracy, will be ditched in favour or websites that provide content in a rapdi, fuss-free manner, and facilitate easy interaction. This is a lesson that is slowly dawning upon some corporations, though not all: some corporate websites are practically textbook examples of how not to load a website with needless bloat.

I've contributed to the front page, and can tell you that it's a pain in the arse to write for. Using HTML tags isn't a problem for anyone who is internet savvy, but when a far superior system in the form of board tags exists, as implemented on here and thousands of other forums/bulletin boards, which facilitates a much more polished and fluent style of contribution, why not use it?

Will this have a bad impact on the discussions that Richard Dawkins has formed over the last few years? That of a scientific and athiest [sic] stand against religion and creationism?

This suggestion is, not to put too fine a point on it, laughable.

The idea that people will abandon acceptance of valid, evidence-based science, or no longer pay heed to the dangers inherent in allowing doctrine centred world views to exert privileged and malign influence over human affairs, simply because they have developed a distaste for one particular messenger, is frankly absurd. Indeed, one of the valuable lessons that people have taken away from the Richard Dawkins Forums is that important decisions should be based upon evidence as opposed to uncritical acceptance of blind assertions, a message that I, in my time as moderator, endeavoured to bring home with particular force in the Debunking Creationism section of RDF. Indeed, I think you will find I have something of a reputation as a consequence of this activity.

Taking creationism on its own as a subject for the moment, the simple fact is that creationism is a doctrine based upon a lie at its heart, a lie that was made explicit by arch-charlatan Henry Morris, the founder of modern, corporate American creationism. I'll quote from one of his books to reinforce the point:

...the main reason for insisting on the universal Flood as a fact of history and as the primary vehicle for geological interpretation is that God's Word plainly teaches it! No geologic difficulties, real or imagined, can be allowed to take precedence over the clear statements and necessary inferences of Scripture.

(Taken from Biblical Cosmology & Modern Science, pp 32-33 (1970), emphasis added in above)

Basically, what this individual is saying, with the above words, is that when reality and doctrine differ, reality is wrong and doctrine is right. This is the central principle governing modern, corporate American creationism (and I emphasise here that American creationism IS a corporate entity, with well-funded and politically well-connected propaganda arms), and this is the principle that the professional liars for doctrine wish to instil as an operating principle within gullible, ill-educated followers, denied access to the truth about the valid science being misrepresented by this same corporate entity and its mouthpieces. These people are selling the idea that mythology counts for more than reality, and building lucrative careers on the back thereof. In short, the organs of corporate creationism are attacking science and all the gifts of the Enlightenment, with the deliberate aim of dragging Western Civilisation kicking and screaming back to the pre-scientific era, and putting in place an anachronistic, theocratic system of the sort that Europe rejected upon learning the bitter lessons of the Inquisition. If you think this is hyperbole on my part, then I can direct you to appropriate evidence in quantity. As John Derbyshire said in his article on the infamous Expelled propaganda screed:

When talking about the creationists to people who don’t follow these controversies closely, I have found that the hardest thing to get across is the shifty, low-cunning aspect of the whole modern creationist enterprise. Individual creationists can be very nice people, though they get nicer the further away they are from the full-time core enterprise of modern creationism at the Discovery Institute. The enterprise as a whole, however, really doesn’t smell good. You notice this when you’re around it a lot.

That is, if this dimishes his reputation and his support base, surely it has to impact the message that "evolution is real", that the flintstones is not a documentary?

Not to anyone who pays attention to issues instead of personalitites. Which is one of the lessons I've been trying to instil for the past 2½ years over at RDF. Namely, it doesn't matter who delivers the message, if the message being delivered is a true one. Usually, it is creationists who try to suggest otherwise, courtesy of acts of well poisoning and ad hominem attack, such as the scurrilous defamation unleashed upon Willard Libby, Nobel Laureate in chemistry, by the duplicitous Mike Riddle over at Arseholes in Genesis. Indeed, one of the contributions I posted over at RDF was the wholesale dismantling of the entire AiG web page on the subject, turning the critical laser upon the canards and wilful misrepresentations of valid science contained therein. Now since RD has explicitly stated in the past that he doesn't debate creationists (and I understand his argument about denying them the oxygen of publicity, which is what Philip Johnson openly admitted when he uttered words to the effect that he's happy with a draw in staged debates, so long as he plants seeds of doubt in people's minds), that task has been left to the poor bloody infantry, as it were, and I have some experience of this that you will be able to draw upon during the short life remaining of the current Richard Dawkins Forums. You might find it educational.

As a consequence of having engaged in that battle, I don't for one moment think I'll somehow 'unlearn' the knowledge I've acquired as a result of having thus participated, and I don't think anyone else who earned their own particular set of battle honours in that campaign will do so either. The concept is, I emphasise, frankly absurd.

I have even heard this might have a negative impact on the Atheist Convention in Oz? If so, what?

Well, the Atheist Convention will certainly provide a place where people unhappy with events will be able to make their unhappiness visible and public, to an extent that will probably come as a shock to RD. I gather he's been used to cosy settings surrounded by people who don't rock his boat, and he's likely to be given a crash course in navigating stormy seas over there, not least because Australians are well known for being forthright and to the point when they are passionate about an issue. Australians are renowned for possessing an extremely low bullshit tolerance level, and since one of the moderators whose account was trashed is an Australian, I think we can look forward to what could be called, in the sense of the apocryphal Chinese curse, "interesting times".

Er, that's not quite what I meant. I mean will it lesson [sic] the strength of his arguments to the general public.

I bloody well hope not. If these events do have such an impact, it will simply confirm how critical is the need to address bad education in the relevant scientific areas.

Put it this way. You grew up in backwoods Alabama. You really don't know what to believe. All those around you say creationism is the bee knees, and the right thing to believe in. But then you here about a book called, "The God Delusion" and this travelling English professor who has a different view. And you begin to wonder.

Quite a few of the people who came to the Richard Dawkins Forums as an escape from the relentless, non-stop Bible bashing that takes place in certain American states, will tell you that the social pressure to conform is not only strong, but in some of those places, reinforced with firearms. It takes a special brand of courage to swim against that sort of tide, and the Richard Dawkins Forums provided a means by which people in such a situation could do so in private, free from repercussions. That has now been taken away from them, which is another reason why Josh Timonen's Mongol-esque act of intellectual vandalism is all the more culpable, and in the eyes of many, criminally so.

Then you hear about how this same man, or his organisation, treated their supporters badly.

And this is precisely why Timonen's actions are, quite frankly, inexcusable. Because he has, as I stated above courtesy of my edited Times comment, flushed 20 years' hard work by his master down the toilet. As I stated in that comment, Timonen could not have inflicted more damage upon Dawkins' aspirations for a more secular, more scientifically literate future, if he had been planted within Dawkins' organisation as a mole by creationists.

This is going to sow a seed of doubt in such a person's head. And it this I was referring to.

Well, as I stated above, anyone who acquires at least some elementary thought capacity should be able to distinguish between valid ideas, tested to destruction in the hardest arena of them all, namely reality, and found via such testing to be valid, and the foibles of a few fallible human beings who cock up the dissemination thereof.

Is saying this is akin to "book burning" too strong? Obviously that conjurs up all sorts of nasty images.

Actually, Timonen's actions have been likened by some to the sacking of the Library of Alexandria. A comparison I am minded to agree with, knowing as I do the value of some of the material he is planning upon summarily discarding to suit his petty administrative convenience.

So you are in effect saying that, yes, this this will blow over, but in time this may be the beggining of the end of the forum? And thus have a great impact on the RD Foundation?

Do I understand you correctly?

The forum as it currently stands is dead. Its replacement, always assuming that this is something other than vapourware dreamed up by the part time cameraman and his recycled yuppie sidekick, is likely to be about as much use in comparison to the old forum as the proverbial fishnet condom, especially if it is based in any way upon the Byzantine excesses of the current front page.

Well, okay. They aren't actually burning dead trees. But they are erasing electronic information. Not a good thing if this body on information was more than a "forum" but a body of scientific papers, peer reviewed docs, reports, intellectual debates, etc. etc. If this is the case, for a scientist to be responsible for such an act, is truly amazing.

Well, Dawkins himself didn't perform the vandalism, Josh Timonen did that, along with his junior partner in crime Andrew Chalkley. The simple fact is that neither of these individuals bothered to expend any effort learning about the forum content, and consequently, assigned no value to its contents. Indeed, among the material that will vanish once the forum is killed off, is two million words written by myself, in which I presented large quantities of valid science, referencing around 400 peer reviewed scientific papers, presented around 50 of them in detail, and laboured long and hard to make that science accessible to persons lacking specialist knowledge. Fortunately, I had the foresight to back up my own writings, and some choice examples of the writings of others, offline: my own works were compiled offline and then posted, with backups extant on my own computer, and when I encountered sterling posts by other users, I took the liberty of preserving them for posterity. How fortunate that I did, it is not?

Dawkins, by posting the truly bizarre letter he did, has in effect underwritten the act of intellectual vandalism you will shortly witness. And yes, for a scientist to do this is, to use your works, "truly amazing". It's rather like watching the Pope gaze fondly on as one of his cardinals sets fire to a Gutenberg Bible.

How would Richard feel if people started burning his books, text that he crafted into literary works? I daresay he would be apopleptic with rage.

And doubtless would make instant recourse to the old aphorism, that I originally attributed mistakenly to Arthur Koestler before realising that the real author was Heinrich Heine, that "Where they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings". Words that I note with interest, whilst checking the actual, reference, were written in 1821. And which proved to be ominously prophetic. However, I supect that Dawkins will no longer be able to make recourse to this aphorism, without being reminded of the manner in which he assented to the casual discarding of the contributions of hundreds of people, people who, moreover, were the loyal foot soldiers in his infantry.

Wow. When I start checking out some of the information, it seems like a huge body of work. Of course it's value can be questioned and, I daresay, the RDF would question it.

Still doesn't justify junking it.

If Richard Dawkins were to question the value of the material you have read, this should ring disturbing alarm bells in your head.

As for who I work for, I am a freelancer. My own blog is at http://www.casualravings.com. And the fact I am a freelancer means I can took at things like this. If I worked for a big newspaper perhaps I wouldn't have been given permission to check it out because there isn't enough naked skin involved.

Ah, someone after my own heart in some respects. You should adopt one of my maxims. Namely:

Cynical, moi? Whatever gave you that idea?

The more I delve into this thing, the more I am convinced the crux of the issue is; what exactly was deleted?

When it is reported, "a forum was deleted" most people think, "whoopie do. So what?" because they assume, I suspect, that it is a bunch of inane comments about weather, football, what they did the on weekend, etc.

But if it can be clearly shown that the forum was in fact a body of information that was of worth, that in fact it contained scientific and intellectual discourse and investigation, then that changes everything.

Well I can cite one immediate example off the top of my head.

In the Evolution & Natural Selection section (which I also moderated, though with a far lighter touch than Debunking Creationism, because it was mostly populated by grown ups, and the ideological stormtroopers for doctrine were quickly relocated), one of the users whose entire posting history has been destroyed, namely CJ, pointed me to some interesting work, arising from a paper in Nature, on speciation mechanisms in Heliconius butterflies (he knew that as an entomologist, I would find this particularly interesting). His post contained a detailed exposition of the relevant scientific paper, and I followed shortly with an exposition of my own, from a related scientific paper that his searches led me to find. CJ's post was the opening post in that thread, but now it, and the exposition of that scientific paper, is now gone. The thread in question is here, and now unduly credits me with being the first poster in that thread, though if you read the end of my post, it becomes clear that there was a prior post by CJ, and that I was on the lookout for a freely downloadable copy of the paper he expounded upon. That post I refer to is now lost, along with about 13,000 others written by CJ, of which a good 6,000 or so were in a similar vein.

Oh, and the moderator whose posting history was axed, Mazille, organised a science writing competition on the forums, and I was a participant in the February edition of this. We are hoping to resurrect it here temporarily, before finding a new, more permanent home for it, and I have to say, that some of the entries were of sterling quality, considering that they were written by enthusiastic amateurs.

Of course, an even bigger cause for lament is the fact that tenured professional scientists contributed to this board. Off the top of my head, I can think of ck1 (evolutionary biologist), susu.exp (palaeontologist), Milford Wolpoff (palaeoanthropolgist), Thomas D. Schneider (molecular biologist) and Wesley R. Elsberry (evolutionary biologist). Others are almost certainly extant in the membership list, which itself will also disappear in due course.

To date I have not heard a concise detailed list of what was in there. Of course, this is why I am looking into this. And I know the Times would be far more interested in this whole thing if it can be shown that such a body of material was scrubbed clean.

Ask hackenslash for a list of relevant threads. He's been keeping a catalogue of them.

Which comes back to evidence and examples of stuff that went the way of the dodo.

If you're quick, there's a lot of material that gives you an insight into the standard of material being presented. Where else would you find enthusiastic amateurs not only discussing the latest braneworld cosmology of Neil Turok and Paul Steinhardt, but going to the trouble of downloading the original papers to read for themselves? Which I commented upon at length in several of my posts. Sadly, my tensor analysis is somewhat rusty, but I understand enough about the subject to realise that Steinhardt & Turok's papers are of momentuous importance in fundamental physics, and indeed, that they have massive import for the fatuous Kalam Cosmological Argument erected by purveyors of nebulous apologetic nonsense such as William Lane Craig.

Oh, and with respect to that other important part of Dawkins' mission, namely putting supernaturalist blind assertion in its place, I and at least two dozen others had a hand in that too. I've preserved offline relevant posts. I've just taken a look at the relevant folder, and in total, including the science posts, the debunking of creationist lies, and the examination of religious blind assertions, there are 1,780 files in my Dawkins Forum folder, occupying 30 megabytes of space. My total output on the Dawkins Forums probably runs to 200 megabytes. Others have contributions of a similar quantity to their name, and include their own expositions of valid science that they have alighted upon, I think you will agree, that tossing this lot into the bin, just because Dawkins has some fatuous idea that the forum is little better than a teenage chatroom, constitutes intellectual blindness of an extraordinary degree on his part.

[sifaka]

Not a good thing if this body on information was more than a "forum" but a body of scientific papers, peer reviewed docs, reports, intellectual debates, etc. etc. If this is the case, for a scientist to be responsible for such an act, is truly amazing.

The forum was only an electronic record of the wiliness of real scientists or knowledgeable amateurs to inform others. Removing the forum and the introduction of a censored and pre approved version was akin to placing a gag order on teachers having open questions classes on Darwinism, followed by a new regulation where only the authorised by committee version of Darwin's Theory could be taught.

Now how is that for a truly remarkable act by a scientist?

I am actually slightly concerned that you may be closer to the truth than we realise.

Does anyone remember a discussion where Richard may have made a few off-the-cuff remarks to people who disputed his description of "random"?

If anyone does remember that thread, can they check that it still exists?

Just sayin....

The thread still exists:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 14&t=97719

@ Chris, you should check it out, it's very interesting.

[Bella Fortuna]

I feel like I need a cigarette after Cali's post, and I don't even smoke.


('Tis most excellent, though!! )

[Mac_Guffin]

[Chris Wilkins]

Your comment about a book on the shelf triggered something I had meant to mention. There were plans afoot, indeed I had begun to compile material, for a book fo the forum, a kind of 'critical thinking manual'. It was to represent a means of honing one's bullshit filters against everyday assault, using common examples of the sort erected on the forum day-in, day-out. You can read more about it here. This would have been a valuable resource in itself, a kind of condensed version of the forum that could sit on the shelf next to your copy of The Portable Atheist. This project is for naught now.

Paul Almond, fantastic post.

Indeed.

Gawd. That's terrible.

[Chris Wilkins]

Your comment about a book on the shelf triggered something I had meant to mention. There were plans afoot, indeed I had begun to compile material, for a book fo the forum, a kind of 'critical thinking manual'. It was to represent a means of honing one's bullshit filters against everyday assault, using common examples of the sort erected on the forum day-in, day-out. You can read more about it here. This would have been a valuable resource in itself, a kind of condensed version of the forum that could sit on the shelf next to your copy of The Portable Atheist. This project is for naught now.

Paul Almond, fantastic post.

Indeed.

You know, I find the date on this post not coincidental; Jan 27th? A month ago? Is it possible that this is the real motivation behind what happened? I would really love some of you to comment on this?

Sure, perhaps you don't know and there is no proof. But who else finds the timing of the post suggesting a book suspicious?

[95Theses]

Your comment about a book on the shelf triggered something I had meant to mention. There were plans afoot, indeed I had begun to compile material, for a book fo the forum, a kind of 'critical thinking manual'. It was to represent a means of honing one's bullshit filters against everyday assault, using common examples of the sort erected on the forum day-in, day-out. You can read more about it here. This would have been a valuable resource in itself, a kind of condensed version of the forum that could sit on the shelf next to your copy of The Portable Atheist. This project is for naught now.

Paul Almond, fantastic post.

Indeed.

Gawd. That's terrible.

And now you see why we are angry. Not as Richard would have you believe because we are 'afraid of change'

It's pathetic and condescending for him to imply that it is. Oh, here is richard a couple of weeks ago coming to the forums for help researching his new kids book :

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 4&t=108904

104 replies helping him out, because people gave a shit.

[95Theses]

Your comment about a book on the shelf triggered something I had meant to mention. There were plans afoot, indeed I had begun to compile material, for a book fo the forum, a kind of 'critical thinking manual'. It was to represent a means of honing one's bullshit filters against everyday assault, using common examples of the sort erected on the forum day-in, day-out. You can read more about it here. This would have been a valuable resource in itself, a kind of condensed version of the forum that could sit on the shelf next to your copy of The Portable Atheist. This project is for naught now.

Paul Almond, fantastic post.

Indeed.

You know, I find the date on this post not coincidental; Jan 27th? A month ago? Is it possible that this is the real motivation behind what happened? I would really love some of you to comment on this?

Sure, perhaps you don't know and there is no proof. But who else finds the timing of the post suggesting a book suspicious?

I don't think so, the plan was to donate all proceeds from the book to the RDF.

[Chris Wilkins]

Now that is a wonderful story, and definitely something that may interest newspapers.

My story isn't going to interest any newspapers, but I'll tell it anyway.

I was born in a very religious area in southwest Pennsylvania in a town that had 300 homes, zero traffic lights and two churches. My family took me to church throughout my childhood and tried to make a believer out of me, but I never had the capacity. For a time, I tried. When that didn't work, I pretended. When that didn't work, I resigned myself to the hurtful things that other people said to and about me. I accepted that I would never be accepted, and I refused to ever call myself an atheist.

I didn't meet another non-believer until I went to college. Still didn't call myself an atheist, though. I got an engineering degree and a job and found myself surrounded by coworkers who wanted me to pray with them. I was in my early 20s, and I'd had enough. I had never heard of Richard Dawkins and the number of people like that I'd actually met was in the single digits. I finally admitted I was an atheist, and cemented my fate as an outsider in the community.

Then one day on the news I heard people talking about this book, The God Delusion. It wasn't easy, but I found a book store in my area that had a copy. Stuffed full or religious tracts and almost impossible to find, but I bought it. In that book there was a message about visiting RichadDawkins.net, which I did. On that website I found a forum, and I joined it. For the first time in my life I was in a community of people who were like me, where I instantly belonged.

I understand that Richard Dawkins can decide for himself how he wants his website to function. What I object to, and always will, is the behavior of Josh Timonen. The lies and lack of professionalism are bad enough. His efforts to destroy the community and its accumulated knowledge - to ensure that it will not exist on RD.net or anywhere else - are unforgivable. That Richard Dawkins has apparently approved of these efforts guarantees that Dawkins will no longer have my support in any form, monetary or otherwise.

I turn my back to those who seek to destroy.

Actually, I have to disagree with you. Such a story is of interest to newspapers. The "human touch" you know. By giving a specific story about a specific person it puts real meat on the bones of any story.

Thanks a ton for putting this up here.

[95Theses]

Actually, I have to disagree with you. Such a story is of interest to newspapers. The "human touch" you know. By giving a specific story about a specific person it puts real meat on the bones of any story.

Thanks a ton for putting this up here.

From RDF :

14 year old kid having huge problems with fundamentalist parents seeks help - http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 2&t=109935

[95Theses]

Mormon getting advice about the letter to his Bishop admitting his atheism :

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 3&t=103165

There are literally thousands of stories like this, quite apart from the science posts.

Are we to believe that these people are going to get an article published by the editor as a topic for discussion on RDF 2.0 ?

[CJ]

Hi

I had 13,889 posts deleted, my entire posting history. I joined RDF on Jan 16th 2007. I posted mostly in Welcome and for a long time made sure every new member got a 'welcome', the last time I worked it out it was around 3,500 or so people I had greeted. I created a boiler plate that showed people where the rules were and directed them to resource in the Evolution forum which I created and maintained. I was asked to join the staff be OBC and started as the first forum specific moderator for the Welcome page. In due course I went to global moderator. I left the staff during the purge of 2008 but remained an active member.

I also have a bit of a thing for statistics, being a business analyst in RL. Here is one example of the sort of thing I would do that has been vandalised by somebody (Josh Timonen or Andrew Chalkley). From my time greeting the n00bs I had formed some opinions about the ratios of ex-theists to never-theists and I would have guessed that the ex-theists slightly out numbered the never-theists, so I started a thread to find out. Here is a screen shot of the Original Post (OP) as it is now.



Here is a link to the thread http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 3#p2481543

As you can see the thread is now meaningless as the poll has gone but as you can fortunately see the first post acknowledges I created the poll.

Another post later in the thread is representative of the sort of posts made.



http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 4#p2482984

By sheer luck I took some screen shots of the poll and posted them with comments during the thread. Here is the last one I took.



And it did confirm my suspicions that ex-theists slightly out numbered never-theists and also my thoughts on the ratios of ex-theists by type, that a very high proportion were ex-catholic but by proportion of total theistic population there were way more Ex Jehovahs Witnesses revealing that even with shunning JWs are proportionally more likely to leave their Christian sect than any of those surveyed.

This 'fag packet' research is just the sort of thing that will be invaluable to historians in the future. The pre-meltdown backup will of course have all my posts intact.

I also created and maintained the Evolution Resources http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 71#p321071 at RDF, a little task I was immensely proud of. I initially did the work as CJ but when I left the staff a 'Service Account' EvoResources was set up so I could do the job. It is only because of this service account that the Evolution Resources thread was not deleted. But the effect of the deletion of my CJ account and all its posts can be seen here in this post http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 3#p2451813



The links in the article go to the OP of threads I created as CJ so now this is what. happens when you click on them.



So this is a tiny example of the damage done to the archive by Josh and/or Andrew and supported by Richard Dawkins. In addition one must also consider that the forum will vanish at some point if Richard Dawkins does not do something about it, the clock is ticking on the destruction of a unique resource of 2.4 million posts made by tens of thousands of people and read all over the world by who knows how many people! Only Richard Dawkins can stop this and at the moment there is no indication than he will. I can not believe that he is going to consign this unique record of the struggle between reason and faith and science and theology to oblivion, that would be unforgivable, absolutly unforgivable.

Any questions?

Regards
Chris

Link to the service account EvoResources http://forum.richarddawkins.net/memberl ... le&u=93301

[Chris Wilkins]

Actually, I have to disagree with you. Such a story is of interest to newspapers. The "human touch" you know. By giving a specific story about a specific person it puts real meat on the bones of any story.

Thanks a ton for putting this up here.

From RDF :

14 year old kid having huge problems with fundamentalist parents seeks help - http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 2&t=109935

Goodness

[Chris Wilkins]

Mormon getting advice about the letter to his Bishop admitting his atheism :

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 3&t=103165

There are literally thousands of stories like this, quite apart from the science posts.

Are we to believe that these people are going to get an article published by the editor as a topic for discussion on RDF 2.0 ?

That is amazing. I myself was sent to a Jesuit boarding school for 5 years. Now that's indoctrination for you. But I grew up, and one I day I decided it was waste of time.

Actually, my brother and I were sitting in mass when we were in our early twenties. We hadn't been to mass for a long time. And this was the obligatory annual Christmas mass. He turned to me and said, "I realised why I haven't been to mass for a long time."

I naturally asked why. He answered, "Because it's so boring." And the greater problem was were too big by this time for mum to seperate us in church to stop us from laughing and talking.

[CJ]

Mormon getting advice about the letter to his Bishop admitting his atheism :

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 3&t=103165

There are literally thousands of stories like this, quite apart from the science posts.

Are we to believe that these people are going to get an article published by the editor as a topic for discussion on RDF 2.0 ?

That is amazing. I myself was sent to a Jesuit boarding school for 5 years. Now that's indoctrination for you. But I grew up, and one I day I decided it was waste of time.

Actually, my brother and I were sitting in mass when we were in our early twenties. We hadn't been to mass for a long time. And this was the obligatory annual Christmas mass. He turned to me and said, "I realised why I haven't been to mass for a long time."

I naturally asked why. He answered, "Because it's so boring." And the greater problem was were too big by this time for mum to seperate us in church to stop us from laughing and talking.

You see!!! That is what the forum really was about, people telling there stories! Where will they tell them now? I read thousands of stories like that, literally thousands and there all going to be destroyed by Dawkins!