I run a blog, not an open forum, and I’m reminded once again why I prefer the former.
The Richard Dawkins site is revising their forum. This substantial change is causing a great deal of unwarranted anxiety — people are unhappy (which is fair enough) and complaining, and many are flocking to a new open forum, which is also just fine. They’re also complaining to me, which is odd. So I’ll say a few words.
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First and foremost, it is not my site, and it is not your site. It is Richard Dawkins’ site. People have lost sight of the fact that Dawkins has his own views on how the site should function, and he has the right and even the obligation to try and shape it to his goals. If you don’t like it, fine, go somewhere else. I know, that sounds so cavalier, but that’s the reality of it all. Richard spends the money to keep it going. He’s the boss.
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There has been a lot of vilification of Josh Timonen going on, which does not win my sympathy. Josh is a good guy, and he’s neck-deep in work for the RDF — not just the richarddawkins.net site, and not just the forum, which only represents about a quarter of the daily visits to the site overall. Yet the forum represents most of the drama and trouble in maintaining the whole business. If it’s not reflecting Dawkins’ vision, and if it’s a headache to maintain, you have to appreciate why they would think revising it would be a smart idea.
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I’ve been active in forums on the web in the past, and I’ve also played a role as a moderator. It takes a lot of work to keep a forum afloat. Every one I know of follows one of two paths: a slow decline into quiet apathy, or a rapid growth in membership and activity which leads to an eventual implosion into chaos, acrimony, and drama as disparate interests try to tug the forum in different directions. The forums at richarddawkins.net should not have competing interests, but only one: that of the Richard Dawkins Foundation. I think the recent changes are intended, in part, to remind participants of that.
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The forums are not going away, but they are going to change in character. That hurts if you have an attachment to the old forums, but this is reality, and reality is dynamic and change happens all the time. Adapt or die. Who knows, the new format may be even better than the old — try it!
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You can always just come to Pharyngula and chat here. Or any of the other atheist sites on the net. The community is not going away and is not harmed by a change in one outlet for its expression, and if it is, then it’s not much of a community, now is it?
So, move on. Adapt. Express yourselves wherever. Check out the new RDF discussions when they emerge later. This is not a crisis, it’s a change.
Richard Dawkins expresses his opinion.
One very weird thing about this whole contretemps is how people are treating Josh like some evil Rasputin. Josh and Richard are on very good terms, and Richard has clear opinions on how the site should be run — and there is no doubt about who is in charge.
This sounds like a job for the CFI Library.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Inquiry#CFI_Institute
I believe American Atheists maintains a library as well. They and CFI should probably both get copies if available. (And a British organizatation or two.)
Paul that’s an excellent idea! Will you contact them? If not, I will.
They offer a Certificate of Proficiency in Critical Inquiry? I think we all deserve an honorary one.
:D
I’ve now read that. That’s everything except for the quoting of the letter to the mods? Wow. How notrageous.
#503
Its the 13 consecutive pages with not a single post missing right up to the minute they took the forums down for all the ‘abusive’ comments being made ……
those were all that were saved in the cache on her browser.
Um, guys?
http://thinking-aloud.co.uk/temp/rdf.html
(I don’t know the proper tags)
That is only one page and one post for me. There is nothing else there but the opening post. What’s going on…
I don’t know, it works for me, it’s straight from the cache and not screen shots.
I’m using Chrome btw.
Wow… I don’t know how to scroll…
Ignore me, please…
With the sudden collapse of the Richard Dawkins Forum (the biggest forum of its kind on the internet), many members have banded together and started their own forum. We have all the old moderators from RDF and all of our old friends are back together;
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/index.php
We are somewhat new and improved there. We are still committed to the guidelines allowing criticism of ideas but not attacks on the person. Now we have been able to rationalise the structure without the Richard Dawkins sales/fan aspect and with wider science range. On the old site there was General Science and then evolution and biology. The new site now includes Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology and more. The area on religion is more comprehensive and focussed as is the scope of topic areas for debunking creationism, pseudo science and other enemy of reason stuff.
Read the full story of the collapse of the old forum and controversy with Richard Dawkins here; http://www.rationalskepticism.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=454
They are now deleting comments even in front page.
http://richarddawkins.net/latestComments
The godless guru -thread, see post (while it’s there):
Comment #464561 by njwong on February 27, 2010 at 10:25 pm
What’s more they are even deleting comments complaining about the deleting of comments.
Free-thinking oasis my arse.
it’s more fitting of AiG or the rapture-ready boards than free thought.
‘Fuck the evidence if it disagrees with our propaganda’ appears to be the new RDF motto
I forget, if people make polite comments that disagree with PZ Meyers does he routinely delete them here?
Oh, no, because unlike Dawkins he has some integrity it seems.
Dawkins on the horror of quote mining and why it is dishonest.
Hypocrite.
@ grh123 #463
While I think it’s nice of you to be sticking up for the staff against Richard, can i just point out that Topsy was one of the unpaid admins that got fired and is now being accused of the vitriol by Richard.
The fact that you took her comments to be defending Richard I think is interesting, because she is as angry about it as the rest I believe.
This is the sort of Vitriol laden thug that Richard speaks of is his ludicrous message ………….”
As a member of RDF for some 3½ years I am aware of Topsy’s role at the forum and also the frustration and anger the ex-moderators are expressing at rationalia.com so I’m afraid I don’t know why you are highlight this or what your point is. Even more than that I am impressed by their relative calm and rational response to this affair which should be recognised and applauded rather than dismissed in such a desultory way by Dawkins.
Where I diverge from Topsy’s hypothesis is that Dawkins was misled. As I mentioned previously it would be unrealistic to expect Dawkins let alone Timonen, to be Masters of change management or even recognise that it might be useful in these circumstances. However there have been previous incidents on the forum where Dawkins had to step in to calm matters down and during this time it was made very clear to him that the proposed changes were not the cause of the unrest at that time but the methods, or lack of them by which the changes were communicated to the Admin team and the forum membership.
It appears that Dawkins and Timonen have decided for whatever reason best known to themselves, to ignore these lessons from experience which is ironically that is the sort of wilful ignorance that Dawkins frequently castigates theists for. What is worse though is to imply that the reason for the changes is due to the vitriol expounded by a small minority when in fact that is obviously not the case.
Dawkins may be “pretty savvy about this internet stuff” (PZ’s words on Rationalia) but it doesn’t seem like he’s really comfortable with internet culture? Wanting to get rid of the social and ‘trivial’ aspects of an internet community seems as wrongheaded as trying to do away with social interaction at scientific meetings.
@ John
Yeah, my bad, on rereading your comment I realised that you were an RDF member, I thought that you were just defendng Topsy as an outsider. Unfortunately I couldn’t edit m comment to reflect that.
@ Windy
Dawkins himself said :
“It is a community, and that is a valuable part of it. Many of our forum threads have an atmosphere of friends going out for a drink and chatting. I think that is valuable, and I don’t think we should insist on sticking to serious topics. That would be a good way to stifle the sense of community, and that would be a real shame.”
-Richard Dawkins, 2008
» SC:
Witness [Greg Laden and sidekick Stephanie Z’s] continuing tendency to side reflexively with the powerful and belittle those objecting to disrespect and abuses of power.
That is a very good bit of analysis, SC, thanks for pointing that out.
One other thing, harkening back to Greg’s bogus antisemitism discussion, is this absolute gem from him:
Oh, the irony.
that’s one word for it
@Carlie
Aah. Not quite the same thing that.
There are indeed things I would rather not etc. I never, ever put them anywhere public or semi-public on the net and never have.
Indeed so. Don’t commit them to the Interwebs or Usenet.
Peter Beattie@515:
That reads like intentional irony. In fact, it read’s like Greg’s style of intentional irony.
Up to a month ago, I would have assumed that he was being ironic if, he wrote that, and poking a little fun at Stephanie. Even now I’m not sure.
Unfortunately, Greg’s blog has stopped making much sense to me on such topics. He seems to be a parody of himself, and to think he’s clever, but also to be pretty serious about belittling anybody who disagrees.
Not a good combination.
Simon Gardner,
OK, fair enough, that’s your choice. Why do you assume everyone else should choose the same?
Ok, Simon. Your choice is to never share. Other people might choose to share under a pseudonym. Why is that an inferior choice? Let’s take a recent example: on another thread, clinical depression and ways to treat it came up. Let’s say I’d had depressive episodes before, and wanted to offer some advice based on my own experiences. If writing under my real name, I might not do that at all because I wouldn’t want that to somehow come up on a first page of Google results, just because I don’t want that to define me, or there might be certain people (boss, close relative I never told about it, etc.) who I’d rather not know. But I’d do so under a pseudonym, because even though someone who wanted to badly enough could trace it and figure it out, not many people would go through that effort and I’m comfortable enough sharing in that semi-protected environment. That’s just one example of how pseudonyms can make things better for discourse overall.
A clarification of 518… if I was being very charitable to Greg, I’d have guessed that he was making fun of SC for being worried about how people might take his antisemitism comments, and at Stephanie for taking the same kind of “oversensitive” stance. (That would at least be constent, if wrong.)
But given how much he seems to be hypocritical about such things, who the fuck knows what he means? He does seem to be oblivious to his own hypocrisy.
For example, the breaking point in the previous dustup was when I said that IF we took some things he and Stephanie said seriously, THEN we should conclude that it’s less sexist to call Stephanie his bitch than his sidekick. All hell broke loose over a counterfactual, where I clearly was NOT saying that Stephanie really was “his bitch.” (Although I didn’t clearly rule it out, either.)
I can see people being sensitive about such things, but it was especially ironic in light of the fact that Greg had said weird shit to me about wanting to squeeze my “floppy ears” until my eyes “tear up” and so on. He clarified that he was quite pointedly comparing me to an ill-behaved dog that must be painfully punished.
Apparently, I owed Stephanie an apology for counterfactually suggesting that something which I clearly disagreed with might imply something like that about her, but it’s okay for Greg to use literally dehumanizing rhetoric—about physically abusing a particularly ill-behaved dog—about me. (And to clarify unapologetically that yes, that was exactly what he meant to do.)
Whee. I think that Greg should refrain from intentional irony for a while. There’s too much unintentional irony flying around to expect people to know the difference.
Also, Simon, there’s another great example. SC said a lot of things that I assume that she’d totally back up with her IRL identity; however, she got dragged through the mud due to GL being a total ass to the point that people who had never read anything she wrote were calling her a terrible anti-semite. That’s bad enough damage to try and control with one’s avatar; can you imagine if that had been linked to her real name? That could have caused some lasting, serious damage, and not because she was saying things she shouldn’t have been, but because rumors and misunderstandings can fly faster on the internet than even verbal rumors.
What Carlie said in #520.
One of the great things about the internet is that people can talk about things that they normally wouldn’t talk about with their boss, co-workers, or family.
For example, being gay, or being an atheist, or whatever.
This allows people to not conform to oppressive rules about what’s respectable and what’s not, and to set a good liberalizing example for others.
If we all refrain from saying things that anybody might fairly or unfairly use against us, that’s giving in to some really nasty cultural pressures.
There’s a reason for freedom of anonymous and pseudonymous speech—even our current Supreme Court recognizes that. (Look up “Publius” and various very important anonymous or pseudonymous pamphlets in the run-up to the American Revolution.)
Not having anonymous free speech means that we will systematically give in to the tyranny of the majority more often, in lots of small ways and a few big ones.
That would be A Bad Thing.
On principle, I prefer to say what I think needs to be said, and to do it anonymously or pseudonymously if I think that’s prudent. (Which, sadly, I often do.)
Thanks, Paul and Carlie. By the way, I brought this up at the time, but I’m still perplexed by it. This was the context in which he made the initial insinuation:
I simply cannot grasp what about my stating that I don’t find it tricky to avoid being racist in any way while opposing religion would lead any sane person to assume that. Oddly enough, I don’t believe he included this statement in his “private letter” (which, given that he admitted more than once to not having read the exchanges in question, either before or after posting it, I strongly suspect was composed in large part by the sidekick).
*This was just below where he said: “I’ve read about 5% of this discussion between you and Stephanie.”
Breaking News!
An Apologie by Richard Dawkins:
http://richarddawkins.net/articles/5165
I apologize for misspelling ‘Apology’
I have to alert clients and potential employers that if they google my real name, among other things, they’ll find out I’m involved in an vast conspiracy against…well…everyone who isn’t involved in that conspiracy. Some of the claims made about me are that I engaged in some truly horrifying crimes.
Most people laugh, either because they think I’m joking or because they understand the craziness of the Net, but I wonder how much business and potential jobs I’ve lost because once upon a time, I made the mistake of posting under my real name. Some people may decide not to even bother considering me because of the libelous things written about me by a loon.
Caine @ 273
Sorry, I don’t think that even makes sense.
I know enough to believe that (for some) perspective has gone out the window.
Caine, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Perhaps I could tell you a story or two about my life that would put a little perspective on this relatively meaningless and overblown issue. Perhaps you could tell me some stories too, as I’m sure many of the Pharygulytes could.
I used the expletive first – and those who live by the sword should expect to die by it – but I don’t think I aimed up specifically at you. If, however, you took personal offence at this, I apologise. Is that what you mean’t by “fucking myself” (I’ve already tried the only other meaning for that expression, and no matter how flexible and well-proportioned I am, it just won’t work)?
What I won’t do, though, is withdraw the remark about people really needing to get over themselves. Perhaps they might need counselling, if it proves difficult. You know, from a psychologist. In the same room. As them.
Caine @ 273
Sorry, I don’t think that even makes sense.
One should never EVER speak in absolutes! I know enough to believe that (for some) perspective has gone out the window.
Caine, I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Perhaps I could tell you a story or two about my life that would put a little perspective on this relatively meaningless and overblown issue. Perhaps you could tell me some stories too, as I’m sure could most people, sad to say.
OK. I used the expletive first – and those who live by the sword should expect to die by it – but I don’t think I aimed up specifically at you. If, however, you took personal offence at this, I apologise. Is that what you mean’t by “fucking myself” (I’ve already tried the only other meaning for that expression that I understand, and no matter how flexible and well-proportioned I am, it just won’t work)?
What I won’t do is withdraw the remark about people really needing to get over themselves. Perhaps they might need counselling, if it proves difficult. You know, from a psychologist. In the same room. As them.
Just saying.
Hmmm… I love a double post just as much as the next person.
Finally managed to get a login, been trying since comment 404 on Feb 25th!
What kind of login procedure lets you register and eventually after a long delay get an authentication email, which of course gets hidden in the spam folder, which when you click on the link tells you your login has expired and to re register, and then and only then informs you someone already has that username? This one, on several occasions. On another of my many attempts, I replied to the authentication email within 5 minutes only to be told my login had again expired!
I got here eventually though, and will comment even if I’ve nothing on topic to add.