Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[laklak]

The reazon carbon dateing is rong is becuz ALL THE WATUR FROM THE FLUD WENT DOWN IN THE VOLKANOS WHEN GOD DRANED THE WATUR FROM THE LAND!

Let's take a look at this shall we?

You have yet to produce a single peer reviewed publication in support of yor blind, ex-recto mythological assertions.

[Katherine]

The reazon carbon dateing is rong is becuz ALL THE WATUR FROM THE FLUD WENT DOWN IN THE VOLKANOS WHEN GOD DRANED THE WATUR FROM THE LAND!

Let's take a look at this shall we?

You have yet to produce a single peer reviewed publication in support of yor blind, ex-recto mythological assertions.

Oh come, come! I have this leaflet from the much-esteemed and reputable Mr R. Comfort! Case closed!

[Mazille]

The reazon carbon dateing is rong is becuz ALL THE WATUR FROM THE FLUD WENT DOWN IN THE VOLKANOS WHEN GOD DRANED THE WATUR FROM THE LAND!

Much better.

[Nora_Leonard]

Professor Dawkins, if you happen to venture this far into the site (it appears that you may have visited here), I hope you will take just a tiny moment to register the disappointment and disgust many of us feel.

Until now I have reserved my ire for the inept individuals who lied to your UNPAID moderation team (the ones who did the actual hard work which kept that clunking behemoth going - your pets couldn't even be bothered to provide a search function which worked, rendering the permission given by them to retrieve any useful information less than worthless), deleted members and their entire post history apparently in a fit of pique and removed any dissenting comments however mild. I haven't said much yet - others are so much more eloquent, and besides, you deserved the benefit of the doubt.

However, having read your message which is hopelessly one-sided and an almost reptilian display of schadenfreude, I have to tell you that I'll never buy a thing you write again. You will never receive another penny of my money. I'm sure this won't trouble you one iota - I am only one (pretty skint) person after all - no doubt I am 'hysterical' for saying such a thing. Please feel free to think of me in this way; it will not cause me any sadness at all, since your opinions on such things appear to be hopelessly out of touch with reality.

The fact that you could not pause, however briefly, during your rant to thank all those admirable individuals who gave of their time WITHOUT financial reward to keep that place going says all that needs to be said. I think it's a clear indication of just how much they were valued by you. But by us, the members who contributed to your coffers by donating money and buying your books and merchandise, who formed friendships and found comfort in the community they helped to flourish, they're nothing short of diamonds.

Please - continue to use the fact that a few individuals felt compelled to berate you in the strongest terms possible as an excuse to claim that there is 'something wrong' with all of us if it amuses you. A thread was started for members to discuss this change, and to vent their spleen, but it was pretty restrained. No one even said anything which broke any of the forum rules. It certainly wasn't a hotbed of hysteria. Nevertheless, it was entirely deleted. No one was allowed to level any criticism whatsoever at this cack-handed move. I'd rather not be a member of a place where at any moment the facade of reasoned discourse can be swept away at a moment's notice and the participants (even the mild-mannered ones) branded as hysterical for disagreeing. I won't be joining you in the Promised Land, and nor will scores of others.

This is a sorry state of affairs.

This is beautifully put, Fallible. I only hope he reads it!

All that stuff we left behind...

[orpheus]

FYI I posted this on PZ's blog...

Posted by: HughMcB Author Profile Page | February 24, 2010 3:40 PM

Just to get one thing clear....

This is the order in which events happened at RDF (I was there for the whole thing);

- Notification given to all members that RDF Forum was to close in 30 days, new "Discussion Board" would be highly regulated, new threads had to be pre-approved, any "chit-chit" posts which were deemed not valuable would be deleted. Members told not to try to migrate to another forum or promote alternatives. Users told to back up any posts they needed before it was all going to be deleted (despite the forum search function being down for months)

- Thread started by members to voice outcry, this was within Forum rules. Tensions were high but this was disillusionment rather than hostility.

- Mods tell members that they had no hand in any of this (as the masses were getting restless) and provide the pm they received to show that they were as in the dark, and more importantly completely disrespected, as the rest of us. They were essentially told "we don't need you anymore, don't let the door hit you on the way out"

- Josh rides in on his white horse, shuts down the entire website, deletes all dissent from the Forum and any (within Forum rules) criticism. Communication between members was cut, many of whom were unaware as to events or didn't know how to contact each other. Now users couldn't even track their own posts as they were shut out, now way to search any posts at all, by any means other than dicing through the whole forum.

- Josh deletes the mod Mazille and member CJ for their part in the criticism (Mazille for posting the pm and CJ for criticizing the treatment of mods on the RDF front page). nearly 20,000 posts lost by these two alone who were both high profile, high quality content posters.

- Members started to find each other on another website and slowly getting the word out to those who were wondering WTF was going on, while simultaneously furiously trying to back-up the Forum so that the couple of million strong user posts that were used as an educational database of hard science and wonderful creative ideas and knowledge.

- Josh continues to delete posts and prevents users from changing their profiles to indicate to others where we had all gone, mass censorship was underway. Even the logs of Josh's activities were deleted and recycle bins emptied so no trace of these could ever be recovered.

- Tensions mount on alternate forum where many RDF-ers gather, the dispicable behaviour by Josh and disrespect to the moderation team and members is voiced (and yes we did use some f-ing crude language)

- Finally Dawkins speaks out after numerous pleas from site staff (or should I say ex-staff) and members alike to stop the madness. This was met with essesntially the statement "My Joshie's a lovely boy and you've all been very mean to him, you should be ashamed, I'm glad I kicked you all to the curb now"

- New developments pending

On a personal note I would like to say I'm absolutely appauled at the mistreatment of RD's loyal fans by both Josh, and himself.

Tell me Richard, will the money saved in ditching the Forum be worth the losses incurred by s#$tting all over your biggest contributors?

What 85,000 ex-members x $0 ?

For a full detail of what happened read Peter Harrison's blog on the matter (Google it).

Thank you,
HughMcB

Bravo. Well-said.

[Katherine]

Hope Robert Byers doesn't get wind of all this!

[citruszest]

What kind of evolution are we talking about? Cosmic Evolution, Chemical Evolution, Stellar Evolution, Organic Evolution, Macro Evolution or Micro Evolution?

Hitler based his ideology on Evolution.

Darwin was a racist.

darwin recanted all that nonsense on his def bed anyway

[Matt H]

Hope Robert Byers doesn't get wind of all this!

He wouldn't understand any of it.

Drat! You made me comment when I said I had moved on. Damn thee!

[Banzai!]

have you all seen this drivel

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

[palindnilap]

That last announcement was appalling. Richard Dawkins is probably one of the best writers about evolution, but I just learned that he was also one of the worst psychologists. I didn't dare to say it before today, but I think that it shows also in his bully approach to fighting theism.

He just showed the only thing that was wrong about the RDF : that it was named after him. I am very sad for everything that is getting lost, but as for the forum name I say good riddance. Rationalia is my new home.

And all that was from the guy who thought of memes ??

[Banzai!]

tell me that the Joshturd didnt write that

[debunk]

This banana is perfectly formed to fit in the human hand, therefore (my) God.

QED.

You misspelled anus. Just sayin'

[Lazar]

And all that was from the guy who thought of memes ??

MY last post was going to be homeopathy has no evidential support.......Just like memes then really.....

[Wiðercora]

What kind of evolution are we talking about? Cosmic Evolution, Chemical Evolution, Stellar Evolution, Organic Evolution, Macro Evolution or Micro Evolution?

Hitler based his ideology on Evolution.

Darwin was a racist.

darwin recanted all that nonsense on his def bed anyway

Homo neanderthalensis was just an old man with arthritis.

[HughMcB]

Anyone seen this?...

Posted by: PZ Myers Author Profile Page | February 24, 2010 4:31 PM

I've written to Richard and Josh and suggested that preserving the existing forum content in a read-only archive would be a good move. It would be a bit much to expect it to be searchable, though: search is a huge performance hit on these sorts of sites.

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... nt-2300106