RDFUBAR apologetics
Offline Split from this thread: http://www.rationalresponders.com/forum/19801
Hi Andrew, thanks for your reply. I split this thread to avoid hijacking the welcome thread.
natural wrote:We've heard the terrible news about the coup d'etat at the RichardDawkins.net Forums (RDF)!
There is so much misinformation going round about this.
Indeed. Sadly, a hefty dollop of it is coming from RD himself. This is a very disheartening turn of events. I never expected him to stoop this low. I hope he comes around, instead of trying to save face. Humility and honesty are very important traits in my opinion. Perhaps the most important... I'll have to think on that.
I'm a huge Dawkins fan. He stands for nearly identical values as I do. But I can't let that blind me to the fact that I believe he is in the wrong on this issue.
natural wrote:We sympathize deeply with the plight of all the members of that whole vibrant community, who have been so rudely uprooted and tossed out.
Not tossed out - a new system is on the way,
This is like an employer saying, "Oh, we didn't lock anyone out. In a month they'll be able to work again, under 'new' management. ... No, they won't be getting paid in the mean time."
Is the forum currently in read-only mode such that the community can no longer interact on the forum? Yes? Then they've been tossed out.
but due to the incredibly childish reaction of some members (including moderators) the forums were switched to read only immediately.
That'll teach 'em! "Well, Johnny! I told you to stop speaking out of turn. Now the whole class has detention because of what you did! I hope you're happy, young man." Ridiculous. I've never respected such ham-handed injustice. Even when I was 6 I knew it was wrong.
natural wrote:We've heard that even long time moderators have had their entire accounts deleted,
Yes people had their accounts deleted. This was in response to them blocking the admins IP addresses and deleting all the server logs to hide their tracks.
Do you have any evidence of this? I've heard that Josh Timonen was the one tinkering with the logs.
Honestly, Andrew, I'm afraid that I trust the refugees on this one. It's going to take more than a simple counter-assertion to convince me that they do not have legitimate grievances. I'm open to the possibility of being convinced, but IMO the weight of evidence so far clearly favours the community and disfavours the RD.net higher-ups, unfortunately including Dawkins himself.
Indeed sad, but that's why the forums are in read only mode. Could the situation have been handled better? Yes. Was the reaction to the news WAY over the top? Yes.
I've read dozens and dozens of reports from dozens and dozens of different people, and found very few of them to be 'over the top'. I think you drastically undervalue the importance of community. Indeed, it is this undervaluation that I believe is at the root of the problem. Some people don't seem to 'get it'. I wonder if I would be able to explain it.... I'm thinking of writing a blog about the topic. If nothing else, hopefully some good may come of this, if it brings this important topic to the surface of discussion and opens the eyes of some of the more 'elite' atheists out there who consider this some sort of 'trivial' issue.
By the way, I'm only very vaguely aware of who you are (no offense!). Would you mind disclosing if you have any connection to the RD.net tech staff or to Dawkins? I have noticed people like Paula Kirby and PZ Myers following along on the face-saving apologetics, and frankly I find it quite disturbing. I wonder whether you have a similar connection of some kind.
Thanks again for replying, even though I currently disagree. I look forward to any evidence you can link to.
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I just happened to see a post on http://www.atheistnetwork.com that Jake wrote in December of 09. If you aren't familiar with the man, you should know that he played an important role in the formation of RRS and Infidel Guy. He also has very little money. At times his forums have been within the top three most visited atheist forums in the world. In the post I'm referring to Jake talks about how his site needs major changes.
Here is the post: http://www.atheistnetwork.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=28850
Here's the relevant section...
The decision Jake made was a little easier on the community than the approach of RDF. It preserves the community, the RDF method breaks up the community. Kudos to Jake for not fracturing his group.
There is plenty of room here for fans of Richard Dawkins on RRS to start their own topics. If you're topics suck we'll remove you, not everyone.
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Mr Skegg appears to be a friend of Mr Timonen - this if the first appearance of the part of the story where 'mods' were blocking and deleting logs. Interesting. Mr Skegg didn't mention this until well after it was mentioned that users were being deleted and logs destroyed by the Timonen/Chalkley IPs. A simply google search would confirm this as the story early in the telling
Mr Skegg has been posting such stuff for the past 48 hours or so. Something of a shit bomb, in that it's a single delivery of 'fact' and then little or no later interaction