Dawkins Forum Implodes

[Triple Zero]

seems to be a LOT more drama involved, I came across this link on the xkcd forums:

http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/

apparently, in short, there's two groups involved. the server admins of the RD site, who care only about the RD foundation, are in contact with RD himself and manage the articles on the site or something and could give a shit about the forum. and then there's the moderators of the forum, who are volunteers and tried their best to moderate the huge community (which we know takes many hours of time), but like PD, the forum software started to get slower under the weight of the posts, and this could only be solved from the server admin's side. they told the mods they would involve them in finding a solution. but instead, the mods were kept out of the loop completely for a length of time, until finally they were simply told they weren't needed anymore and the forum would be replaced with a kind of tagged guestbook discussion software, which would basically kill of the entire community because people couldnt even start new threads anymore. this, in your typical monkey behaviour, was communicated only to the mods, while the userbase got an entirely different message (implicating the mods themselves), so when the mods crossposted the admin message to the userbase, shit hit the fan, server admins started deleting mod accounts (including posts), the entire userbase was in shock, panicked and started exchanging contact info to relocate somewhere else, for some reason the server admins also didn't want this to happen and so they locked the whole thing down.

it's beautiful monkey behaviour

[Requia ☣]

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.

So it's going to be a bit like Slashdot, right?!

I think you're confused, They're after quality.  Not a random mix of half truths and insane rants picked out by kdawson.

[Jean-Lustine d'Hadamard]

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.

So it's going to be a bit like Slashdot, right?!

I think you're confused, They're after quality.  Not a random mix of half truths and insane rants picked out by kdawson.

All mice an' men.

[Triple Zero]

Um, I really would advise you guys to read that blog post, there's going to be no improvement of quality, because they killed the community and "fired" the volunteer mods. There's no way that the (two) people that managed to kill off a huge community and pull this stunt are going to be able to successfully design any approval process that would yield better quality than what the forum had.

Not that I know, cause I never went to the place, but from reading that blog post, this is really your typical power-hungry lying nazi admin intrige drama shit we have seen so often on our trolling missions. Except in this case, the mods seem to be the good guys on the side of the users and the server admins are the nazis, kind of like a 2-3 step hierarchy or something.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

WOW, that was really something! I second the suggestion to read that blog post, because what went on there was an utter and amazing travesty. It's unclear how much Dawkins himself actually knew about what was going on. Even if you don't care about Dawkins or his forum, that blog post outlines in detail exactly what "doin it wrong" is all about when it comes to running a forum. The mods got screwed, the members got screwed, and possibly even Dawkins himself got screwed, all because one uninvolved website admin wanted to control everything.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Oooh, in addition it looks a bit like aforementioned admin may be looking to coattail on Richard Dawkins' fame by making his own name and opinions prominent on the new website. Very interesting! From everything I've read it sounds like Dawkins has been made a fool of by this admin, right down to being fed a line of bullshit including quote mining from OTHER forums for comments made after the closure and presenting them as reasons for the closure, and presenting insults that were directed at himself as if they were directed at Dawkins.

From the sounds of things Josh Timmons seems like a very unscrupulous man, and I hope Dawkins opens his eyes and deals with him as such. He may have singlehandedly made Dawkins the laughingstock of the Internet.

[Triple Zero]

that blog post outlines in detail exactly what "doin it wrong" is all about when it comes to running a forum.

it's really incredibly typical isn't it?

like TCC multiplied by MW to the power of CoG or something.

at least it serves to demonstrate it doesn't matter FUCK ALL whether you believe in omnipotent hypotheticals or not, everybody does the monkey-dance

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Ahhh, sweet humanity.

[Faust]

I'm seeing the tension and fallout from this on several of the bigger sites. Athiests in general irritate me but Daw Kin are amoungst the worst.
Theres a thread I am going to link to tonight on SA that I have been following, its one of the athiest threads in lassais faire, watching people going apeshit when agnosticism is proposed to be a more logical line of thought is both agonizing and hilarous... furymirth?

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I married a smug Atheist who, after failing to convince me to become an Atheist and mocking me for years, converted to Episcopalianism and then spent several more years trying to convert me to THAT.

[Freeky]

Wow.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Yeah. I have a fairly strong aversion to both Atheists and Christians, including Satanists.

[Freeky]

I would too, if that happened to me.

[Jasper]

I'm totally cool with almost any religion, on the condition that the people I'm talking to are decent and respectful.  Just a few weeks ago a mormon in my class took an interest in discussing whether the big bang ever happened, and all that noise, but he was civil about it and I showed him some evidence and he read it like a good chap, disagreed with it even though he had no rebuttal, which is fine by me.  It came down to "why do you care what I believe?", and I told him "because you vote".  But I was nice about it.  

[Remington]

I'm totally cool with almost any religion, on the condition that the people I'm talking to are decent and respectful.  Just a few weeks ago a mormon in my class took an interest in discussing whether the big bang ever happened, and all that noise, but he was civil about it and I showed him some evidence and he read it like a good chap, disagreed with it even though he had no rebuttal, which is fine by me.  It came down to "why do you care what I believe?", and I told him "because you vote".  But I was nice about it.  

I had an interesting discussion with a classmate about whether or not the Great Flood (mating pairs for every animal inside and Ark, etc) was logistically possible. I asked what all these animals ate for over a year, and he replies with "Manna". I lol'ed, much to his annoyance.

But I was otherwise nice about it. I didn't even go into the whole one-single-mating-pair-cannot-repopulate-an-entire-species thing.