Announcement about RDF Part 3.

[95Theses]

My impression on the letter, was that Richard was not necessarily referring to himself as the object of the quotes, nor was he saying that they had occurred on his own website.

But, admittedly, this is from the perspective of being a little late to the party.

Matthew Bailey

A) No he certainly wasn't reffering to himself, he was referring to Josh as the subject.

B) I think it's obvious he was trying to claim the website was shut down after the quotes when he says :

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.

When in fact we have a copy of some of the pages from the discussion thread on RDF before it was deleted from someones browser cache and it is nothing like what he implies in his little fabricated note. He's using quotes from another website, after the forum was closed as evidence for why the forum had to be closed ....

[JimC]

My take is that you should have all been able to vent here without that being used as ammunition against you. Rationalia has no treaty of extradition with foreign powers!

[klr]

My take is that you should have all been able to vent here without that being used as ammunition against you. Rationalia has no treaty of extradition with foreign powers!

And as I pointed out yesterday, it was always allowed to vent at third parties in this manner back at RD.net. So has RD suddenly changed his position on this matter, or is he employing double standards?

Or has he just still not realised that the offending comment never occurred on his website at all?

[NineOneFour]

Has anyone (else) seen the letter from Richard Dawkins on his forum?

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 0&t=110356

Matthew Bailey

No, why, what did it say?

[virphen]

My take is that you should have all been able to vent here without that being used as ammunition against you. Rationalia has no treaty of extradition with foreign powers!

Not even for pawiz?

[JimC]

My take is that you should have all been able to vent here without that being used as ammunition against you. Rationalia has no treaty of extradition with foreign powers!

Not even for pawiz?

It was tempting, so fucking tempting. Albania wanted him bad, but in the end we kept him, for the Lolz...

[Ilovelucy]

I emailed the guys at AAC for the non prophets podcast. I have a feeling they might cover this now that it's hit the news so I sent the a brief outline of what happened along with the links to Peter's blog. It might not do much as far as the Times reading plebs are concerned, but it will do a lot to get it out to the non theistic community.

[HrothgirOD]

May be of interest - Andrew Skegg is now claiming that Mods tried to lock out JT, and deelted logs. you may want to address this issue.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum ... ent-288186

[Theophilus]

It's been a while since I posted at the RD forum (I can't remember the name I used. It might have been "Quantal" but there again that could be somewhere else).

Anyway, I can understand why he might want a different type of website that is perhaps a little more business-like in nature. What I can't understand is why they couldn't have allowed a group to spin the forum off into an independent forum with links for a limited period back from the main site.

Oh well, that's the internet for you - full of emergent behaviour and unintended consequences.

[Ilovelucy]

May be of interest - Andrew Skegg is now claiming that Mods tried to lock out JT, and deelted logs. you may want to address this issue.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum ... ent-288186

You know what, those idiots can say what they like. No-one else in the atheist community takes them seriously anyway.

In other news:

http://www.xkcd.com/

[Crazyfrog]

...Oh well, that's the internet for you - full of emergent behaviour and unintended consequences.

Maybe but the outcome was entirely predictable, there are no excuses. It was a textbook case of a totally FUBARed project leading to a textbook case of a totally FUBARed outcome.

This was one of the world’s leading atheist forums with a community of 85,000 people, why the hell didn’t Dawkins get some advice before entrusting the changes to a couple of technical staff who, to say the least, have never shown any aptitude for people skills?

Due to their juvenile level of incompetence the forum is now no more, and Dawkins is as much to blame as the implementers.

Still smarting.

[Squawk]

In other news:

http://www.xkcd.com/

I just coffee'd my computer.

[Galaxian]

Well, as expected, the woo-gangsters have sniffed blood & are breaking out the champagne bottles:
http://christwire.org/2010/02/christian ... et-forums/
"Christian Prayer Forces Atheist Richard Dawkins to Close RichardDawkins.Net Forums
For years we warned atheists that we would take down their site entitled RichardDawkins.net, by the power prayer.
The atheists laughed and said prayer did not exist. They cursed us and said there was no God. I warned them time and again, and now, we see the true power of God as he has closed their sinful site, RichardDawkins.net.
For those of you who do not know, Richard Dawkins is one of the worst offenders before God. He promotes bestial relations. He thinks that a “less evolved” human man and a monkey woman had sexual relations to create us.
Evolutionists believe monkeys and humans procreated to give rise to you and me, and that this type of behavior is normal. That is why atheists also believe in such nonsense as homunculus, animals in the womb and why Richard Dawkins cusses in the face of Christians.
God has had enough of atheists and has heard our prayers. I would like to take this time to thank all of you who helped us organize the ChristWire Against Dawkins network.
... Those who stand against God stand against America, freedom and humanity. It is a blessing to see the atheists cursed and to know that a person filled with so much vitriolic hate as Richard Dawkins is have a miserable day. Glory.
When I organized the first ChristWire prayer day against Dawkins, this is the day of triumph I was shown. Praise to our Father."
It seems there's also a lot of disinformation being spread by RDF about the reasons for the lock-out.

[HrothgirOD]

But I've been told no one takes them 'seriously' so there's nothing to worry about... /sarcasm

[Katherine]

Message from one of my Facebook contacts:

Read a bit more about it and I think I can see what you are annoyed about. I would be too. New discussions are going to be subject to "editorial control"? As a supposed champion of "reason and science" I am surprised that he thinks advances in these areas are cultivated by stifling and controlling debate. I think you'll find the opposite is generally true. And as someone who presumably hates the way the church apparently stifled creative scientific discussion for centuries it's disappointing to see him clamp down on the free exchange of ideas.