News coverage

[CJ]

I felt absolutely sick reading the article in The Guardian today. The journalist swallowed what Richard wrote hook, line and sinker. Couldn't be arsed to do any research. Disgraceful how they can get away with it, seeing how much money they get.

It is enlightening how badly reported this whole event has been.

[Crazyfrog]

What do you think? Did Richard want to kill the forum because with books coming from it, it would have gone from helping him to competing with him?

Although there were clearly other factors at play, I do now wonder if Chris is on to something. Perhaps RD was also concerned about the book?

When the suggestion of a book was first put forward I thought it a great idea but did ponder on what RD’s reaction might be. Suddenly all this content out on bookshelves, with his name stamped over it. It would make a great read for many people but possibly not in-keeping with the brand he was trying to nurture. Or maybe RD also thought it was a good idea and wanted to reserve his options on publishing a similar book (“this is my forum”, and he could also control what went into the book).

Perhaps it was a case of “let’s kill lots of birds with one stone”. Make changes to help alleviate technical problems, prevent people from compiling the book, remove data from the public domain and start the forum again with more moderation in place – to retain tight control on exactly what gets posted in future. Unfortunately he didn’t anticipate that his minions would make such a mess of it, and instead of quietly taking control of the situation he’s now got everyone analysing exactly what went on.

Or am I reading too much into it?

Edit: Something else, blocking communications between members would help prevent a coordinated attempt to download data before deletion, and deleting thousands of posts at the slightest excuse would fit too. Also making a hoo-ha about the forum running wild would enable RD to distance himself from anything that might get published.

Edit: Edit: To give Chris credit for already suggesting a lot of this, sorry only just reread your post.

[ficklefiend]

Ugh, I only just saw this one, I don't know if it's already been linked... the observer?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... -of-crowds


In my book it's definately the worst one yet. You know, with being mis-quoted called a lynch mob and all.

[Bella Fortuna]

Chinese Whispers... gets more unlike reality with every telling. And all the comments to correct that (bless 'em for being so fastidious!) just get ignored...

[ficklefiend]

Chinese Whispers... gets more unlike reality with every telling. And all the comments to correct that (bless 'em for being so fastidious!) just get ignored...

Simon's in there already of course! He's greased lightening on a news story.

[maiforpeace]

Chinese Whispers... gets more unlike reality with every telling. And all the comments to correct that (bless 'em for being so fastidious!) just get ignored...

I mentioned this earlier - I don't understand why no one has been pro-active and gone to a paper to give them the real story. Instead, everyone keeps on posting responses to correct all of these bad articles. Not everyone reads the comments.

There are plenty of news outlets who would be interested in running this story, now that it's come out in UK media.

[Bella Fortuna]

Chinese Whispers... gets more unlike reality with every telling. And all the comments to correct that (bless 'em for being so fastidious!) just get ignored...

I mentioned this earlier - I don't understand why no one has been pro-active and gone to a paper to give them the real story. Instead, everyone keeps on posting responses to correct all of these bad articles. Not everyone reads the comments.

There are plenty of news outlets who would be interested in running this story, now that it's come out in UK media.

It's clear comments aren't read, because I see the same thing on every site: We post clear, concise, articulate and thorough responses refuting what was in whatever article, with citations and evidence, and the next ten comments after say things like, "Oh yes, those horrible people; poor Professor Dawkins to have been subjected to such potty-mouthed unjust behaviour."

[ficklefiend]

Oh, I'm not at all surprised that none of these UK hacks give a flying fuck what the truth is. UK press has nothing to do with the truth.

(My pet theory is our lack of opinion-based TV news means it's all forced into the papers. So the US gets FOX news, and we get a laughable print media.)

Times online, looks like he's nabbed the quotes of another article rather than the source. Sometimes they spin the truth, sometimes they don't even give it a fleeting glance.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/s ... 043753.ece

[lordpasternack]

My own take on the "lock down" was simply that the entire mod staff quit in protest at their treatment; immediatly a handful of people posted things like, "so can we say felch and cunt now?," knowing that there would be no reprimand from mods; the Admins knew that leaving the forum editable for another 30 days without any moderators would turn the site into a serious embarrassment as disaffected people took advantage of the lack of policing. If you want to give the benefit of the doubt, the "actions of the moderators" that official announcements claim caused the lock down could simply be that they quit.

This isn't the case. I believe a mod (can't remember which one) had said as much in your cached thread, and Topsy also made a comment in the "Fisting and tossing salad" thread stating the sentiment essentially that staff would still remove material such as porn and illegal stuff, and stuff that might be construed to affect RD's reputation - they just wouldn't be doing anything else.

I just tried to search for Topsy's posts on RD.net, only to find that there's just 1 shown.

[Chris Wilkins]

There is of course another possibility. The forum was created as a research tool and has now gone beyond its usefulness, Dawkins is now through the research phase and moving on to the exploitation phase and he wants to get the data out of the public eye. We may all have been taken for mugs in the most unethical way possible. The proof of this conjecture will be the publishing of a book by Dawkins at some point based, at least in part on posting in the forum.

Now that is an truly AMAZING possibility. If he was to use the info in one of his books in the future, and it could be proven it came from somewhere else, he would open up himself up to a claim of plagarism, for sure, no matter what the terms of the forum are.

That would certainly be a great follow up story.

[CJ]

There is of course another possibility. The forum was created as a research tool and has now gone beyond its usefulness, Dawkins is now through the research phase and moving on to the exploitation phase and he wants to get the data out of the public eye. We may all have been taken for mugs in the most unethical way possible. The proof of this conjecture will be the publishing of a book by Dawkins at some point based, at least in part on posting in the forum.

Now that is an truly AMAZING possibility. If he was to use the info in one of his books in the future, and it could be proven it came from somewhere else, he would open up himself up to a claim of plagarism, for sure, no matter what the terms of the forum are.

That would certainly be a great follow up story.

Remember you heard it here first!

[Thinking Aloud]

My own take on the "lock down" was simply that the entire mod staff quit in protest at their treatment; immediatly a handful of people posted things like, "so can we say felch and cunt now?," knowing that there would be no reprimand from mods; the Admins knew that leaving the forum editable for another 30 days without any moderators would turn the site into a serious embarrassment as disaffected people took advantage of the lack of policing. If you want to give the benefit of the doubt, the "actions of the moderators" that official announcements claim caused the lock down could simply be that they quit.

This isn't the case. I believe a mod (can't remember which one) had said as much in your cached thread, and Topsy also made a comment in the "Fisting and tossing salad" thread stating the sentiment essentially that staff would still remove material such as porn and illegal stuff, and stuff that might be construed to affect RD's reputation - they just wouldn't be doing anything else.

I just tried to search for Topsy's posts on RD.net, only to find that there's just 1 shown.

Fair enough - aside from recovering that thread, I've not really been paying attention to the details!

There is of course another possibility. The forum was created as a research tool and has now gone beyond its usefulness, Dawkins is now through the research phase and moving on to the exploitation phase and he wants to get the data out of the public eye. We may all have been taken for mugs in the most unethical way possible. The proof of this conjecture will be the publishing of a book by Dawkins at some point based, at least in part on posting in the forum.

Now that is an truly AMAZING possibility. If he was to use the info in one of his books in the future, and it could be proven it came from somewhere else, he would open up himself up to a claim of plagarism, for sure, no matter what the terms of the forum are.

That would certainly be a great follow up story.

However it would be entirely speculation, verging on conspiracy theory. I think most people affected would just like to have the facts laid out - the reasons behind the decision to modify the forum are ultimately irrelevant to the grievances of ex-members, and none of our business.

[Alan B]

There is of course another possibility. The forum was created as a research tool and has now gone beyond its usefulness, Dawkins is now through the research phase and moving on to the exploitation phase and he wants to get the data out of the public eye. We may all have been taken for mugs in the most unethical way possible. The proof of this conjecture will be the publishing of a book by Dawkins at some point based, at least in part on posting in the forum.

Now that is an truly AMAZING possibility. If he was to use the info in one of his books in the future, and it could be proven it came from somewhere else, he would open up himself up to a claim of plagarism, for sure, no matter what the terms of the forum are.

That would certainly be a great follow up story.

Remember you heard it here first!

Agreed!

[CJ]

There is of course another possibility. The forum was created as a research tool and has now gone beyond its usefulness, Dawkins is now through the research phase and moving on to the exploitation phase and he wants to get the data out of the public eye. We may all have been taken for mugs in the most unethical way possible. The proof of this conjecture will be the publishing of a book by Dawkins at some point based, at least in part on posting in the forum.

Now that is an truly AMAZING possibility. If he was to use the info in one of his books in the future, and it could be proven it came from somewhere else, he would open up himself up to a claim of plagarism, for sure, no matter what the terms of the forum are.

That would certainly be a great follow up story.

However it would be entirely speculation, verging on conspiracy theory. I think most people affected would just like to have the facts laid out - the reasons behind the decision to modify the forum are ultimately irrelevant to the grievances of ex-members, and none of our business.

If the forum were used for research purposes without informing the contributors it would represent a breech of ethical guidelines. However it is pure speculation at this point, I'm just putting it on the record for future reference.

[Chris Wilkins]

Ugh, I only just saw this one, I don't know if it's already been linked... the observer?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/20 ... -of-crowds


In my book it's definately the worst one yet. You know, with being mis-quoted called a lynch mob and all.

Here. Stuck this comment in at the Guardian. Dunno if it will do any good.


ChrisWilkins ChrisWilkins

28 Feb 2010, 5:05PM

There are some facts to add here which some have aluded to but not the whole story.

The original story came out because I, a freelance journalist, brought it to the attention of Hannah Devlin, a Science Editor at the Times. At first there was not much interest at the forum being closed as it wasn't deemed newsworthy enough.

However, I stuck up a blog about it anyway, http://www.casualravings.com/.

Then Dawkins came out with his statement. Hannah saw it and wrote it up on her blog, unfortunately getting some of the chronology wrong. Then the Guardian and Telegraph copied that, and then finally James here also copied the original error.

The accusations about the lack of research are totally valid.

The chronology went like this;

The announcement released about the changing of the forum
Criticisms about the change within the forum. Mild and with thought.
The announcment the forum will be shut due to the mild criticisms.
Extreme abuse in other forums
Dawkins statement.

The claim in Dawkins' statement that he closed the forums down because of the abuse is inaccurate. The abuse came AFTER. This is important.

If he had gone into the forums at the beginning and said, "Fellas, what's up? You all seem to be upset. Let's talk about it and sort it out" then there would never have been a blow up, and never any story.

To date there have been repeated requests to discuss this with Dawkins from the forum members, all of them falling on deaf ears.

Perhaps the abuse was extreme (some of it was). But Dawkins has his amount of blame in this affair.

From my discussing this with many ex-forum members they strike me as a mostly decent bunch that it would be possible to have a good chat and find a solution. In fact, in the original Dawkins Forum abuse of people was strictly forbidden.

For me this was more a gross failure in customer relations than anything else.

One side point. It amuses me how the main stream media accuses bloggers of copying their content when they do it too.