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Merged RD Forum shutting down

tsig

a carbon based life-form
tsig
Joined
Nov 25, 2005
Messages
39,049
I never posted very much there but I'm sad to see it go:


"Dear forum members,

We wanted you all to know at the earliest opportunity about our new website currently in development. RichardDawkins.net will have a new look and feel, improved security, and much more."

"The new discussion area will not be a new forum. It will be different. We will be using a system of tags to categorize items, instead of sub-forums. Discussions can have multiple tags, such as "Education", "Children", and "Critical Thinking". Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed. The approval process will be there to ensure the quality of posts on the site. This is purely an editorial exercise to help new visitors find quality content quickly. We hope this discussion area will reflect the foundation's goals and values."

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=110313

All comments have been cut off.
 
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Richard Dawkins Forums Closed down

Hello all,

Due to some overlap I thought that you all might be interested to hear of the developments over at RDF, a forum that while primarily for atheists also had a thriving debunking paranormal section and that Randi was a member of.

it was the busiest Atheist forums on the net, and had 85,000 members and garnered over 2,000 posts a day.

Last night the Admin, Josh Timonen posted this to the moderators :

Dear forum moderators,

We wanted you all to know at the earliest opportunity about our new website currently in development. RichardDawkins.net will have a new look and feel, improved security, and much more. Visits to the site have really grown over the past 3 1/2 years, and this update gives us an opportunity to address several issues. Over the years we've become one of the world's leading resources for breaking rational and scientific news from all over the net and creating original content. We are focusing on quality content distribution, and will be bringing more original articles, video and other content as we grow.

The new RichardDawkins.net will have a fully-integrated discussion section. This will be a new feature for the site, similar to the current forum, but not identical. We feel the new system will be much cleaner and easier to use, and hopefully this will encourage participation from a wider variety of users.

We will leave the current forum up for 30 days, giving regular users an opportunity to locally archive any content they value. When the new website goes live, you are welcome to submit these posts as new discussions. The forum will then be taken down from the web. You will not loose your username on the new system.

The new discussion area will not be a new forum. It will be different. We will be using a system of tags to categorize items, instead of sub-forums. Discussions can have multiple tags, such as "Education", "Children", and "Critical Thinking". Starting a new discussion will require approval, so we ask that you only submit new discussions that are truly relevant to reason and science. Subsequent responses on the thread will not need approval—however anything off topic or violating the new terms of service will be removed. The approval process will be there to ensure the quality of posts on the site. This is purely an editorial exercise to help new visitors find quality content quickly. We hope this discussion area will reflect the foundation's goals and values.

We're confident that these changes will improve the site experience and we look forward to seeing what you do with the new system.

We know that this is a big decision. We know some of you moderators will be against this change. We ask that you respect our decision and help make this transition as smooth as possible. These decisions have all been approved by our organization, and we ask that you don't add to our work by causing trouble.

We will not be migrating moderator roles to the new discussion site. Again, we're sure this might come as a shock, and we hope you don't take it personally. We can't thank you enough for your contributions to the old forum. The new system will not require a large team of moderators, as the discussion area will be more focused. We encourage you to contribute to the new discussions area, and are welcome to flag inappropriate activity for review.

Please understand that this transition is going to be a lot of work for us. I'm sure as you read this, you will have a lot of questions and concerns. We also know that this is a change from what we had been discussing previously. This announcement does not require a response, but we wanted you to be aware. Please do not email Richard with complaints, we have discussed this transition thoroughly with him, and he is currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand. Please do not attempt to inflame the users, start any petitions, or "relocate" groups of users to a separate forum. Do not use any of the data held by the foundation (such as email addresses) through the control panel to cause any trouble. Any behavior of this kind will not be tolerated. We don't expect you to do these things, but we say all of this only to discourage any well-intentioned moves that would only frustrate the situation.

Many thanks again.

Josh Timonen
Andrew Chalkley
The Richard Dawkins Foundation
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As this appeared to be both rude and condescending, and due to the fact that for months Josh had been personally assuring the mods that very soon new forums with a working search function was coming, to have this thrust upon them was a shock.

A thread discussing this was quickly started, which was in the majority critical of the way this was being handled.

in response to this Josh shut down the forums, removed all critical posts and made it read only and removed the PM function.

The upshot is that members who have spent years battling for reason wether as members or mods now no longer have any way of contacting friends they made on the forums.

This is not the way to build a community.

A few managed to get word out that we were joining a new forum for now before those threads got burnt along with the other books and all dissent quashed.

Thread is at Rationalia but I can't post a link as I don't have enough posts under my belt here, i mainly lurk.
 
They explicitly lied to the mods for months about the changes.

They felt the need to threaten the mods and tell them not to contact Richard, despite the fact that some of them were in regular contact with him prior to this.

They banned members with over 10k useful posts for expressing dissent (Edited : and deleted every single post they ever made)

And they have made the forums read only and removed all PM functions over night.

Imagine if that happened here.
 
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Boo hoo. You don't like how a forum is run, go somewhere else.
 
It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.
 
Once again, it may be just that I am not reading closely enough, but most of the claims in your second post seem to be new and additional claims to those made in your first post.
 
Sledge said:
Boo hoo. You don't like how a forum is run, go somewhere else.
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Well it's not so much 95theses doesn't like how they are running their forum rather that they aren't running the forum now.... they've closed it.... :)
 
The claims in the second post are the actions he has taken, the post was the very first that the mods had heard of it, after being promised for months that a new forum was coming with a search function that actually worked.

Yes, of course we can go elsewhere, but a little warning would have been nice. Some of the Mods have been there for years dedicating hours and hours every single week keeping a forum with 85,000 members in check, these people volunteered for no personal benefit and have just been discarded.

Even if they wanted to quash dissent, then stopping people posting was one thing, but to delete over 10k posts by one mod alone from the science forum just for expressing dissent over the sudden move smacks of petty vandalism.

Rationalia.com has a big thread all about this if anyone is interested in reading the full story, I still can't link.
 
And of course I can't resist: this Forum has a well established membership with a lot of overlap with the subjects discussed at the Dawkins forum, folks are quite welcome to register here.
 
I believe the JREF long ago implemented a system which produces the desired similar end-result (public-facing/googleable portion of the forum about desired topics, private section about cats and pooper) without quite so draconian measures (ie. no private section, new topics must require approval).

I'm certainly interested in hearing what recursive prophet has to say about this, since RDF was held up so frequently by him in many discussions as an example of how "well" a system could work. I guess it wasn't working according to the guys who paid the bills, after all. :oldroll:
 
95theses said:
They explicitly lied to the mods for months about the changes.
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Of course. Wouldn't you? If it were dollars coming out of my pocket to run the forum, I damn well wouldn't announce an unpopular decision one second ahead of time to anyone who had the keys to cause damage.

They felt the need to threaten the mods and tell them not to contact Richard, despite the fact that some of them were in regular contact with him prior to this.
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Inaccurate representation of events. They told the mods, quote:
Josh said:
Please do not email Richard with complaints, we have discussed this transition thoroughly with him, and he is currently on tour in Australia and New Zealand.
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95theses said:
They banned members with over 10k useful posts for expressing dissent (Edited : and deleted every single post they ever made)
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You seem to be under the impression that shutting a forum down allows posts to remain regardless of the software, data, or machine it's hosted on being present.

And they have made the forums read only and removed all PM functions over night.
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Should've done that in the first place. I believe (as others have noted) that they were excessively naive to believe that such an announcement wouldn't cause boundless Internet Rage among the forum members. Between the schools of "one agonizing rip" and "a series of excruciating jerks", I fall firmly into the former.

Imagine if that happened here.
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I'd say "well, :talk034:" and move on with my life. But, it must be said, I think the JREF has implemented an elaborate system for the express purpose of avoiding the need to do something like this.
 
RDNet - Richard Dawkins site is gone for a while

Any refugees from the science forums there - a group of us are trying to land in a new area for a bit and keep in touch...

please email me at macdoc@macdoc.com and post any info you might have up here - your nick from RDNet net so we know which villians are present and accounted for :biggrin:

trying to gather emails so we can keep people informed.

I know a few here are members there as well....help appreciated.

Apparently it is going to be renewed with more of a science orientation ....yay.:thumbsup:
 
Darat said:
It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.
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And a tad assholish to think there was something wrong with an outcry and that you have the right to make the forum read only to prevent people from criticizing your decision.

It reminds me a lot of the IIDB debacle.
 
remirol said:
But, it must be said, I think the JREF has implemented an elaborate system for the express purpose of avoiding the need to do something like this.
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Nobody at RD.net has established that there was a need to change the forum at all.
 
godless dave said:
And a tad assholish to think there was something wrong with an outcry and that you have the right to make the forum read only to prevent people from criticizing your decision.
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Oh, dear, you appear to have misunderstood the concept of "rights" entirely. On a private forum, them who pays the bills has all the rights.

I don't think for a moment anyone believes that shutting down the forum will stop any outcry, nor that there was anything _wrong_ with users being upset because the forum is going away. The outcry is quite understandable -- this is a major change on very short notice, and people are _going_ to be upset. I don't intend to pass judgment on whether this is a change for the better or not; I simply don't know (though I would be inclined to note that the measures are significantly more draconian than here, which doesn't fill me with optimism).

However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner. The thing is, the decision's made and done. In situations like that, there's a difference between knowing that an outcry is going to occur, and being willing to host the outcry while it's occurring.
 
godless dave said:
Nobody at RD.net has established that there was a need to change the forum at all.
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The forum was obviously not accomplishing the purposes the people who pay for it wanted it to accomplish. Thus, there's a need to change the forum.

Whether they regain their userbase and readership after this change will (partly) determine whether or not this was a change for the better.
 
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remirol said:
Oh, dear, you appear to have misunderstood the concept of "rights" entirely. On a private forum, them who pays the bills has all the rights.
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Of course they do. I'm talking about moral rights, not legal rights.

remirol said:
I don't think for a moment anyone believes that shutting down the forum will stop any outcry, nor that there was anything _wrong_ with users being upset because the forum is going away. The outcry is quite understandable -- this is a major change on very short notice, and people are _going_ to be upset. I don't intend to pass judgment on whether this is a change for the better or not; I simply don't know (though I would be inclined to note that the measures are significantly more draconian than here, which doesn't fill me with optimism).

However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner.
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So what?
 
remirol said:
The forum was obviously not accomplishing the purposes the people who pay for it wanted it to accomplish. Thus, there's a need to change the forum.
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Then it would be nice of them to explain what that purpose is so we can see why it's so obvious.

It also would have behooved them to look at what purpose the forum did accomplish, and decide if that's something they want to support. From what I saw of that forum, it did accomplish a purpose, one that I would have thought Richard Dawkins would have been happy to be involved with.

If they didn't like paying for it, they could have raised money from forum users - as long as they didn't do it like IIDB, where they raised a bunch of money and then changed the forum anyway.
 
godless dave said:
Of course they do. I'm talking about moral rights, not legal rights.
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Ah, so because of some nebulous concept of morality (an inherently subjective thing), the people who pay the bills to host the forum and aren't getting what they want from that forum should simply continue to pay the bills while everyone who doesn't pay the bills bickers over whether or not the bill-payers' decision is the right thing to do.

So what?
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So it means that they made their decision, and they aren't interested in being berated on their dime for a decision they aren't going to change. What's so unusual about this? Are you willing to pay for people to shout at you? You'd be one of the first.
 
remirol said:
Ah, so because of some nebulous concept of morality (an inherently subjective thing), the people who pay the bills to host the forum and aren't getting what they want from that forum should simply continue to pay the bills while everyone who doesn't pay the bills bickers over whether or not the bill-payers' decision is the right thing to do.
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If they don't want to look like douchebags, yes.

remirol said:
So it means that they made their decision, and they aren't interested in being berated on their dime for a decision they aren't going to change. What's so unusual about this?
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It's not unusual. Being an ******* is extremely common.

remirol said:
Are you willing to pay for people to shout at you? You'd be one of the first.
Click to expand...


Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.
 
godless dave said:
Then it would be nice of them to explain what that purpose is so we can see why it's so obvious.
Click to expand...

How do you know they don't intend to do that when the new site arrives?

It also would have behooved them to look at what purpose the forum did accomplish, and decide if that's something they want to support.
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Are you really willing to assert that the powers-that-be did not look at their forum extensively before they made this decision? REALLY?

If they didn't like paying for it, they could have raised money from forum users
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You've conflated being willing to spend money with being willing to host a particular service in a particular form. Donation drives only address the former, not the latter.
 
godless dave said:
If they don't want to look like douchebags, yes.

It's not unusual. Being an ******* is extremely common.
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I see we've inserted some more subjectivity in here that now appears to be entirely within the realm of personal opinion. I refer you to my earlier posts, and specifically the words "less than rational".

Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.
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See above WRT the difference between being willing to host the outcry, and being aware the outcry is going to occur.
 
remirol said:
How do you know they don't intend to do that when the new site arrives?
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That's a little too late, don't you think?

remirol said:
Are you really willing to assert that the powers-that-be did not look at their forum extensively before they made this decision? REALLY?
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It sure looks that way.

remirol said:
You've conflated being willing to spend money with being willing to host a particular service in a particular form. Donation drives only address the former, not the latter.
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Money is the only reason you gave for not wanting to host the forum, and I can't think of any other reasons.
 
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remirol said:
I see we've inserted some more subjectivity in here that now appears to be entirely within the realm of personal opinion. I refer you to my earlier posts, and specifically the words "less than rational".
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Yes, feelings are subjective. Congratulations on that philosophical insight.


remirol said:
See above WRT the difference between being willing to host the outcry, and being aware the outcry is going to occur.
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And I know of no reason, aside from being a thin-skinned control freak, that someone would not be willing to host the outcry.
 
godless dave said:
That's a little too late, don't you think?
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Why should it be?

It sure looks that way.
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And what evidence precisely do you provide for this assertion?

Money is the only reason you gave for not wanting to hos the forum, and I can't think of any other reasons.
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remirol said:
However, it is the internet, and upset forum users have a tendency to express their displeasure in, how you say, a less-than-ideal manner, and in cases like this, also in a less-than-rational manner. The thing is, the decision's made and done. In situations like that, there's a difference between knowing that an outcry is going to occur, and being willing to host the outcry while it's occurring.
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1) You appear to have made up your statement out of thin air. I've requoted what I've said just so you can think about it for awhile.
2) Argument from ignorance fails. Just because you can't think of reasons doesn't mean there aren't some.

Yes, feelings are subjective. Congratulations on that philosophical insight.
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Excellent. Since we both agree, we can discard all the subjectivity as a reason to take any action due to lack of rationality.

And I know of no reason, aside from being a thin-skinned control freak, that someone would not be willing to host the outcry.
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That's a combination of false dichotomy and argument from ignorance. Try again?
 
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Darat said:
It's a shame they've closed down the forum, and I do think they were a tad naive if they thought they could post such an announcement and there not be quite an outcry.
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What? All changes here have been met with aplumb and dignity.








Oh, where oh, where is my [sarcasm] tag?
 
godless dave said:
...snip...

Nobody required Josh to read the posts criticizing his decision.
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But he was also not required to let people post those criticisms in a place in which he was in control.


(I don't know how the RDF was structured so my comments may be wrong.)
 
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