Please help: original sources needed, and knowledge

[klr]

I think a bit of context is needed at this point. Why did we end up with two separate discussion areas (the forum and the "front page") in the first place? I think the answer is probably (as with some other things) that "it just happened that way", and this in itself might give an insight to the way the RD.net operation has been run.

There are front page articles dated as far back as April 2006 or thereabouts, but the submission of comments on those does not seem to have started at that point. It's probable that this only happened with the release of The God Delusion in late September 2006. The forum was also started around that time. The God Delusion had a link to the RD.net website, and this is probably what brought a lot of people there in the first place, including myself. I posted a few comments on front page articles at first, but once I found the forum, I didn't really look back. The front page had the obvious advantage of being the first thing that most people saw when they visited, but the user and post numbers don't lie: The vast majority of people preferred the forum when it came to actively participating in discussion. That has been true for a very long time, and the gap was only growing, despite the technical issues that the forum suffered for the last 7 months or so. Some people posted frequently on both, but most forum users hardly ever posted on the front page, and vice versa.

To begin with, you didn't even need to authenticate yourself when posting on the front page. That is to say, you didn't need to login first - there were no user accounts - and you could basically "sign" yourself as anyone at all each time you submitted a comment. This was a bizarre oversight, and eventually (in late 2006), the inevitable started to happen: People started to sign themselves as someone else to make mischief, and eventually even as Richard Dawkins. This was completely predictable. Since I'd already had some dealings with Josh Timonen in terms of supplying video clips of Irish and UK TV programs, I felt confident enough to suggest to him that he introduce a login system based on forum accounts. If you wanted to post on the front page, you just created an account on the forum first, if you hadn't done so already. A simple and elegant solution, and not just at the technical level, as it made life easier for everybody. So simple in fact that it should have been blindingly obvious from a long way out. Anyway, he took up the suggestion (which others may have made as well), and that fixed that problem.

So the front page and forum shared a user base, but nothing else. It didn't have to be that way. There are other web sites where people comment on news and feature articles, with the comments are integrated into a wider discussion forum. Each set of comments relating to a particular article is actually just another forum thread. It has always seemed the obvious way to go, at least to me. You don't have to write or maintain two different systems, as was done at RD.net. There, the forum was based around off-the-shelf software packages which were written and maintained by communities of developers. These packages have very large user bases - we use the same basic set-up here. So there are also big communities of users prepared to offer mutual support and advice. In contrast, the front page environment at RD.net seems to have been largely written by just one person, who also had a lot of other things on their plate. And frankly it showed. Even with the best will in the world, this could never match what was produced by an entire community. As a discussion environment, it was very far behind the forum in many respects. That was one of the reasons why I never used it much, once I discovered the forum.

That's enough for now, but I might post more tonight if I have the time. For what it's worth, I completely agree with lordpasterneck's reaction to RD's assertion, namely that if the forum in it's current state was a source of potential legal bother to RD, then that would be ironic indeed.

[klr]

Disclaimer: Apologies if this is more than you bargained for, but I'm not exactly known for concise explanations . Anyway, I'll finish the job tomorrow.

[Gurdur]

Disclaimer: Apologies if this is more than you bargained for, but I'm not exactly known for concise explanations . Anyway, I'll finish the job tomorrow.

The more, the better, please. More! Many thanks!

[klr]

Disclaimer: Apologies if this is more than you bargained for, but I'm not exactly known for concise explanations . Anyway, I'll finish the job tomorrow.

The more, the better, please. More! Many thanks!

Will do. I've just been in meetings for the past 5 hours, so my brain is not exactly in working order. I've committed to giving plenty more detail this evening though, and so I shall.

[klr]

Righteyo. Just back from a walk in the night air, and my head is finally cleared. I suppose the next thing to talk about is the Great Schism/Purge of Oct. 08 (aka The October Revolution - a new one to me). This only relates to the forum, but it's important to know something about it. Why? First, it's the single most important event in the history of RD.net, after the current episode of course. Secondly, there are some similarities between then and now, and some key differences as well. The schism has already been referred to in passing earlier in the thread. That quote from RD about the importance of the on-line community came from his initial public statement on the matter.

Give me a few minutes to get my thoughts in order on this one ...

[klr]

A brief (and somewhat selective) chronology of events:

* During a forum software upgrade in late 2007 or thereabouts, Obscured By Clouds (OBC) surreptitiously introduces a new forum area: "Veterans". This is positioned as a sub-forum underneath "Off-Topic" (OT). OT is the part of the RD.net forum where people just basically hung out and had a good time - chatting, joking, talking about "non-serious" matters. OT is open to any registered user, but membership of Veterans is restricted to those with 2,000 posts or more.

* By May/June 2008, enough forum members have qualified for membership of the Veterans forum that it begins to take off, with threads initially focusing on personal matters. In OT generally, people start to "push the envelope" in terms of what is considered "acceptable". One classic, long-running example: What does semen taste like? Some people even begin to compete with each other in terms of starting the most "out there" threads. All this content is text-based - no explicit pictures or videos.

* June 2008: Someone (identify yourself if you want to ) starts a thread in Veterans dealing with bondage and suchlike, and another about erotic writings. These provoke the first serious shit-storm of protest from users, and some disquiet from a few staff. This goes on for a few months, with discord waxing and waning.

* Eventually, there is a major dust-up in August 2008, after some users opposed to the tenor of the forum continue to press their objections. In response to a very reasoned post from one such objector, OBC blows a gasket, and inter alia taunts the user with the promise that he'll give them Josh Timonen's phone number, but that this will do them no good. Note: You won't find this thread on RD.net as it was later deleted (see below). But I have saved copies of this and other posts. Just ask ...

* Only a few hours after this, OBC claims that he is being pressured by the "prudes" (his term), and affects to give in to them. Without any consultation, he restricts access to Off-Topic (and thence Veterans) in a manner which is plainly unworkable. Even after rowing back on this in the face of massive protests, his revised solution of having two different Off-Topic areas creates inevitable discord, which festers from then on.

* October 7th 2008. Sometime in the early evening, GMT. Richard Dawkins logs in, and is seen to browse the Veterans forum. This is unprecedented, as he has hardly ever been seen outside his "own" area and the "General Discussion" area. He stay in Veterans for what seems a long time. Some users actually post in Veterans threads, "inviting" him to join in the proceedings. In retrospect, this may not be the best decision they ever made ...

* October 8th 2008. Late in the evening. A notice is posted on the forum by OBC, but from Josh Timonen. There is to be a radical change in policy re forum content. Discussions on sexual matters are out, save for those related to professional studies. The phrase "... if it wouldn't fly on the Discovery Channel ... " is included in the statement. Naturally, this draws a considerable response.

* Very quickly, all hell breaks loose when OBC removes the entire Off-Topic area (including Veterans) from public view. From here, the course of events is well documented in this thread:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 0#p1428880

For some reason, the original notice is missing, although the first reply by lordpasternack quotes it in part. Richard Dawkins' first response is the post already mentioned above, namely:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 9#p1429959

In this, RD states that he was contacted directly by a group of forum users, and that neither he nor Josh were aware of certain threads. Later on in another post (can't find it yet), he states that he never intended for all of the Off-Topic content to be removed, only that which was deemed objectionable/unacceptable.

* About a day later, people are surprised to find that certain swear words are now appearing as a string of asterisks. It turns out that OBC has unilaterally applied a wank fnoglet (a built-in forum feature) as a censorship measure. This is quickly reversed, but OBC finally falls on his sword. OBC leads an exodus to the new "Thinking Aloud" forum, which he had already set up in the immediate aftermath of the initial policy change being imposed.

* Reaction to the changes continues in the form of debate on the above thread, and on a follow-on thread. While many Off-Topic threads are restored to public view in the days and weeks following, some threads (including all of Veterans) are not restored, and are eventually deleted for good.

Postscript: How did OBC ever become the forum administrator in the first place? I don't know, but I susepct one J. Timonen might be able to shed some light on that ...

[Gurdur]

Many thanks indeed, kir, and please keep on describing all this, I am paying very careful attention to all this. I will be using it, albeit a little later, but none of this is in vain, and I appreciate your efforts.

[klr]

Many thanks indeed, kir, and please keep on describing all this, I am paying very careful attention to all this. I will be using it, albeit a little later, but none of this is in vain, and I appreciate your efforts.

I was looking last night for a summary notice that was posted a few days after this blow-up. Here it is. It was posted under the admin account, but clearly signed by Richard Dawkins:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 5#p1437985

"Wayne" is Wayne Marsala, aka "Obscured by Clouds".

This struck me as a very honest and clear summary of what happened, and still does. Nothing that's happened since - even during the past couple of weeks - has made me change my view. Some people at the time strongly disputed his assertion that there could have actually been legal bother over the sort of explicit content that so concerned him. I saw no reason to dispute his claim, and still don't. It struck me as a very plausible explanation indeed. To some extent, where people stood on this issue depended on whether they were "pro-" or "anti-" the intervention. Anyway, he stuck to his guns, and was consistent in his position throughout. He allowed open debate on the matter for as long as people wanted, as long as it stayed more or less within the forum rules and guidelines. As far as I can recall, this episode did not penetrate that far into the internet conciousness, let alone the mainstream media.

NOTE: One thing confused me when looking up these old posts. The tech. support forum is open to all (even guests), but you have to be logged in to see it listed in the main index. I guess that's one thing that's never going to be fixed.

During all this time, the "front page" area continued much as it had been - a more or less separate entity. It's quite possible that many of the people who frequented the front page were not even aware that there was such an upheaval on the forum at the time, for it had no direct impact on them at all. Apart from making use of the personal message (PM) facility on the forum, most of them rarely visited it. Amongst the forum staff (and presumably with the knowledge and consent of Josh Timonen), there had been occasional suggestions about implementing some sort of formal moderation to the front page, but it never came to much. As I recall, there was someone appointed at one stage, but he had to withdraw from the internet for a while due to real-life issues, and any prospect of dedicated moderation evaporated at that point. With the front page lacking all but the most rudimentary tools for tracking and managing posts and user complaints, there was little appetite amongst forum staff for spending their time on the front page. Such work that was done was mostly by Josh Timonen himself (I think), with some assistance from a couple of forum admins.

At the start of 2009 (New Years Day I do believe), I was approached by the then forum head administrator Richard Prins, and asked if I wanted to take up the new role of Front Page moderator, which would also include other related duties. Now, I'd previously been on the staff from January 2007 to July 2008, and was an administrator for much of that time. This is how I know about certain things, as well as other things that I've not mentioned . After some of my experiences whilst on the staff (mostly towards the end), I was rather apprehensive about going back in any capacity. But I was heartened by the fact that Richard Dawkins had shown clear leadership and direction (as I saw it) during the upheaval in October, and that things were probably now very different in terms of how the forum/site was now being managed. So I decided to give it my best shot.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go off and to some research to refresh my mind on certain facts and sequences of events. That means I'll be back tomorrow to complete this narrative. After this, there is still the matter of the hacker episode from last August, but others might be better placed to discuss that than I would. I was long since out of the loop by then.

[Gurdur]

Many thanks indeed, kir. This will really help me.

[klr]

I've just had a scan back through some of the front page threads from last year. A year on, and my humour is no better when reading them.

Before I first posted on the front page in my new role, I'd been scoping the place out for at least a week, trying to get a better handle on the dynamics of the place - who were the main players, and who was aligned with whom. And what the level of discourse was like. There was incisive thinking and intelligent argument on view, but also lots of rudeness, insults, derailing, and other disruptive behaviour which would have not been tolerated on the forum. Below is a link to my first moderation post on the front page. Note that all timestamps on comments are U.S. West coast time, which I would be 8 hours ahead of.

http://richarddawkins.net/articleCommen ... ge3#316673

Oddly enough, this does not seem to have brought any immediate reaction of note, which in retrospect surprises me. I had been under the impression that I'd made this comment at least a day later - as in a couple of hours before the shit hit the fan. Now it seems that is not the case at all. Although the tenor of this post was obviously harsh, it was also quite deliberate (I suspect some people might find that hard to believe ). I wanted to send a clear signal about what was coming down the track, and convey no sign of weakness or prevarication. Once I had their attention, I could switch to more restrained but no less firm language, which I did. The front page had had no moderation of note since its inception, and a culture had developed which would very likely bring a serious reaction at the first sign of proactive moderation being introduced. I presumed that Richard Dawkins and Josh Timonen would understand this only all too well, and that they would back me up - why else did Richard Dawkins agree to the suggestion of front page moderation in the first place? Indeed, Richard Dawkins posted more on the front page than the forum, so I took it that he was already very well acquainted with the culture on the front page. Still, I had taken the precaution of getting a notice published first on the forum, which clearly stated that there would be moderation along the lines of what was already in place on the forum itself. That way there could be no backing down on the basic principle. I would have liked to have had a front page notice published as well by Josh Timonen, but I had good reason to think that he mightn't be too enthusiastic about having to announce this to the front page regulars. And/or that he might fudge things in some way, perhaps trying to water down the changes, or muddy things to the extent that I wouldn't know where I stood. Such was my reasoning, right or wrong. I was in fact right about his (and Richard's) lack of enthusiasm. Just not as much as I should have been, which was a very serious mistake on my part.

The forum notice is long since gone BTW. I referred to it in one of my later front page posts, but the link no longer works. So much for my precaution in getting something on the public record. I should have kept a copy . There was a thread on the forum to basically congratulate me here:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 7#p1649727

This also contains a link to the defunct notice, and couple of other posts seem to have been deleted as well, since I can see myself having quoted a post which is not visible at all.

Back on the front page, here is where the "fun" starts, after I had removed copies of a spoof image which someone had been cross-posting on a number of front page articles:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleCommen ... ge2#317106

I'm not going to say much more here. Read the next number of pages, until the point where Richard Dawkins and Josh Timonen basically back down. I should point out that there were insults directed against me in threads other than this one, but in the absence of a proper search facility, it might be very difficult to find them now. At no point then or afterwards did either Richard Dawkins or Josh Timonen acknowledge that the behaviour of the front page users was out of line, let alone apologise to me personally. And I complained bitterly to Josh Timonen about the fact that I was being subjected to this abuse, and that it was being made all the worse by the fact that he and Richard Dawkins appeared to be giving in to it. More than that, I was basically left to figure out for myself that I was surplus to requirements - complicated back-story there.

I should state that not only had I previously been on the forum staff for 18 months, but I had also done some work behind the scenes on a couple of important matters. I never got any real thanks for most of this work. It seems I am not the only one who went above and beyond without ever getting so much as word of gratitude in return. It's been said that Richard Dawkins is very good at observing the social niceties, but there appear to be limits to this.

It goes without saying that the culture of the front page did not improve in any material way after this. In fact if anything, it got worse. And to top it all off, only a few days afterwards, no less a person than Richard Dawkins himself got rather annoyed with people who were derailing a discussion for their own amusement:

http://richarddawkins.net/articleCommen ... ge3#322295

I don't know about you, but when a thread degenerates into in-group, cliquish, bar-room willy-waving between a few individuals who all seem to know each other (but apparently don't like each other very much), I'm off. This is not a chat room, it is a thread about the Darwin 200 pamphlet. Very probably there is nothing more to be said on-topic, in which case I'm ready to move out.

Brilliant. He not only acknowledged the sort of behaviour which (presumably) prompted him to agree to front page moderation in the first place, but did so using language which while accurate, would have been completely off-limits for myself or anyone else tasked with moderation.

A second postscript concerns the attempt to apply user-based moderation, whereby any comment that was flagged by 5 users would automatically be moved out of the main comment thread, into a separate "alternate" thread. A sort of permanent "sin-bin" if you like. You'll see a link to it in some articles. Since Richard Dawkins has expressed strong reservations about the system of trial by jury (which I share), it seemed very odd that he would sanction this type of moderation. Anyway, the inevitable happened, with users eventually turning on each other. I'm reliably informed that they even targeted a couple of posts by Richard Dawkins, at which point the automatic moving off comments was switched off.

[Gurdur]

A great many thanks again. I assure everyone who has helped me in this thread, especially kir, that I will be very certainly using all this information. I need to build a watertight case, and one with achievable goals, and also seperately put the public record straight. I will blog my reports early next week.

All the background information really helps me judge the importance, relevance, and history of issues; and I assure you, none of this is wasted.

I would also like to say very clearly here:
I am not on a crusade against Dawkins. Yes, I do make sharp criticisms of his actions. But I try to keep it sensible and not emo; and productive, not destructive.

I am concerned for all atheists overall. Not just the RDF folk, though I am extremely impressed in just how FAST and well you all have coped as a group, and implemented viable alternatives (RationalSkepticism and Rationalia), and done that all with a minimum of fuss and dispute (if you disagree, you should have seen the IIDB meltdown -- it took well over 2 years to really settle down, while you lot have achieved that within one WEEK).

So I am coming from the angle of what is good for atheists, especially secular humanists, overall. Which includes setting the public record straight.

Again, many thanks, all, and please do go on giving the info here.

[lordpasternack]

Gurdur - I'm not sure whether you're confused about this or not - but this forum is just over a year old now, and is actually a grandchild of RD.net.

We came from a spat over the guidelines in sexual content on RD.net back in October 2008, followed by a subsequent exodus from that faction in February 2009 after the main admin went berserk for a short spell.

[Gurdur]

Dammit, I typed out a long long reply to you and the bloody machine just ate it. Bugger. Sorry. Will come back later and will try typing out that long reply again.

[Gurdur]

OK, let's try again. Hopefully my machine does not eat this one.

Thanks, lordpasternack, for the comments, and again thanks for also correcting me beforehand on one major mistake I made confusing the rd.net site with the actual legal RDF. I will be putting the public record straight both for myself (my own mistakes) and for media mistakes and so on, quite soon, in my blogged reports.

Let me explain my remarks. I knew Rationalia existed a year beforehand, but I am still very amazed at just how well everyone coped on the whole with the situation.

Within one week: everyone reacted blazingly fast; first there was the huge influx into Rationalia, then the starting up of RationalSkepticism, and a reasonably amicable formation of both a split and a very informal partnership simultaneously. There has been mostly an absence of spite, powerplays, general arseholery, and so on.

In comparison, the IIDB explosion:
- took over 2 years to really settle down
- resulted in the formation of 4 entirely new boards, with nasty board wars, powerplays and general vicious infighting
- affected 2 already pre-existing split-off boards hard, and affected 2 other pre-existing boards to a lesser degree


Now just why the entire RDF / Rationalia crowd coped so well and so above all effectively is something I do have some theories on, and I will blog my theories as to why that was so when I do my big summary.

[klr]

Dammit, I typed out a long long reply to you and the bloody machine just ate it. Bugger. Sorry. Will come back later and will try typing out that long reply again.

Save backup copy regularly to disk. Many have learned the hard way.

I had a lucky escape last night when I was typing out that last post of mine. Just as I was finishing it off, I accidentally closed the browser tab. I thought for a moment I'd lost it all, but it turns out Firefox allows you to retrieve the most recent tabs you've closed, in the state they were last in.

Then I immediately saved a copy before going any further.