Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[klr]

I have never been a great follower of resurrection stories so I suspect the RD forum is dead as a trout.

I’m just hazarding a guess here but I suspect that the RD.net forum became too much administrative trouble (all those software fuck-ups), too damned big and cost too much money to be sustained. If so, it would have been helpful to be told so. It also would have been polite to have tried to have found a new home for it.

It used bog-standard software from top to bottom - forum, database and server - which was either free to use or very cheap. And very widely used and supported. If there really was a will to fix it, there is no question in my mind (or in other's) that it could have been done. One can only conclude that Josh and co. had no interest in the forum, and nothing "invested" in it.

[I'm With Stupid]

I have never been a great follower of resurrection stories so I suspect the RD forum is dead as a trout.

I’m just hazarding a guess here but I suspect that the RD.net forum became too much administrative trouble (all those software fuck-ups), too damned big and cost too much money to be sustained. If so, it would have been helpful to be told so. It also would have been polite to have tried to have found a new home for it.

Yeah, but that would involve an admittance from Josh that he couldn't handle the job he was hired to do, and the possibility that someone else who could would offer to step in.

[Dr. Kwaltz]

http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/

Please share the link to the post with as many people as possible so they know what really happened, and so more people can find us!

Thanks Peter!
That was a great write-up, now I am really up to date on the events!

[ozewiezeloose]

So why were these people deleted?

Maz showed that Josh had broken promises and lied to staff. Josh silenced him. CJ explained this on the front page. Josh silenced him. I imagine the others were similar.

I want to be deleted now. Fuck my posts. Most of them weren't that substantial anyway.

[GeneticJen]

One can only conclude that Josh and co. had no interest in the forum, and nothing "invested" in it.

Bingo. Give the man a biscuit.

[virphen]

So why were these people deleted?

Maz showed that Josh had broken promises and lied to staff. Josh silenced him. CJ explained this on the front page. Josh silenced him. I imagine the others were similar.

I want to be deleted now. Fuck my posts. Most of them weren't that substantial anyway.

Personally, I'm waiting to see what transpires. If I'm not satisfied I'll post protests on the main sites until they ban me too.

[InYourFaceNewYorker]

How much do you want to bet that this is why Josh defriended me on Facebook? I bet he defriended other RDFers too, because of worry that he would get flack from them (I haven't said anything to him).

How do I archive my posts?

[Matt H]

Remember that Josh squatted over the main site like a mother hen. If somebody made a comment he didn't like, he could just remove it with very little fuss. There weren't many people there and those that were tended to be sycophantic to Josh. I know; I used to be one of them. Remember the happy birthday messages Richard used to put up? And all the thankyous?

The forum, on the other hand, was something that Josh never really understood or wanted. He always retained supreme powers, of course, but he hired volunteers to moderate it for him. And it got popular. Lots of people got involved, even moderately famous atheists like Sam Harris and Robin Ince came along to write a few messages. There were some great scientific and philosophical discussions, not to mention the personal accounts of people escaping from cults in the Faith & Religion forum. Josh didn't like the idea of the forum being vastly more popular than the main site, with an independent staff to boot. So he brought forward these new changes to rebuild RichardDawkins.net to his liking.

Using a forum as a substitute for a real website is sloppy and lazy.

[GeneticJen]

How much do you want to bet that this is why Josh defriended me on Facebook? I bet he defriended other RDFers too, because of worry that he would get flack from them (I haven't said anything to him).

How do I archive my posts?

He did defriend loads of people after a few wrote on his wall, including me.

[klr]

One can only conclude that Josh and co. had no interest in the forum, and nothing "invested" in it.

Bingo. Give the man a biscuit.

I am a keen student of human behaviour and motivation. It comes with the analyst part of my job (that's as in programmer/analyst, not psycho-analyst). RD, Josh and his techie cronies were really the only people that mattered in making the big decisions, and that was painfully obvious a long way out.

Remember that Josh squatted over the main site like a mother hen. If somebody made a comment he didn't like, he could just remove it with very little fuss. There weren't many people there and those that were tended to be sycophantic to Josh. I know; I used to be one of them. Remember the happy birthday messages Richard used to put up? And all the thankyous?

The forum, on the other hand, was something that Josh never really understood or wanted. He always retained supreme powers, of course, but he hired volunteers to moderate it for him. And it got popular. Lots of people got involved, even moderately famous atheists like Sam Harris and Robin Ince came along to write a few messages. There were some great scientific and philosophical discussions, not to mention the personal accounts of people escaping from cults in the Faith & Religion forum. Josh didn't like the idea of the forum being vastly more popular than the main site, with an independent staff to boot. So he brought forward these new changes to rebuild RichardDawkins.net to his liking.

Right on the money Matt.

EDIT: You can imagine how recommendations that the Front Page be folded into the forum (a logical action) were anathema to him.

How much do you want to bet that this is why Josh defriended me on Facebook? I bet he defriended other RDFers too, because of worry that he would get flack from them (I haven't said anything to him).

How do I archive my posts?

Apparently this has indeed happened.

As for archiving: Nineberry is working on a global archive.

[virphen]

How much do you want to bet that this is why Josh defriended me on Facebook? I bet he defriended other RDFers too, because of worry that he would get flack from them (I haven't said anything to him).

Just when you think the snivelling shit couldn't fall any lower in my estimation, you hear more.

[Wiðercora]

I've been reading Peter Harrison's blog post on the issue...This Josh Timonen, or whatever, sounds like a right knob : /

[ozewiezeloose]

Remember that Josh squatted over the main site like a mother hen. If somebody made a comment he didn't like, he could just remove it with very little fuss. There weren't many people there and those that were tended to be sycophantic to Josh. I know; I used to be one of them. Remember the happy birthday messages Richard used to put up? And all the thankyous?

The forum, on the other hand, was something that Josh never really understood or wanted. He always retained supreme powers, of course, but he hired volunteers to moderate it for him. And it got popular. Lots of people got involved, even moderately famous atheists like Sam Harris and Robin Ince came along to write a few messages. There were some great scientific and philosophical discussions, not to mention the personal accounts of people escaping from cults in the Faith & Religion forum. Josh didn't like the idea of the forum being vastly more popular than the main site, with an independent staff to boot. So he brought forward these new changes to rebuild RichardDawkins.net to his liking.

YES! The forum was a big help for me in discussions with some creationist relatives and friends of mine, and I always felt like - maybe - I would be able to 'help' the occasional creationist/biblical literalist that came over to the forum (and I think we actually did help at least a few). Apparently, rd.net wasn't meant to actually help anyone.

I need more alcohol.

[Heresiarch]

Using a forum as a substitute for a real website is sloppy and lazy.

This is something that I probably wouldn't disagree with. However, using a real website as a substitute for a forum is also sloppy and lazy.

[SnowLeopard]

The forum, on the other hand, was something that Josh never really understood or wanted. He always retained supreme powers, of course, but he hired volunteers to moderate it for him. And it got popular. Lots of people got involved, even moderately famous atheists like Sam Harris and Robin Ince came along to write a few messages. There were some great scientific and philosophical discussions, not to mention the personal accounts of people escaping from cults in the Faith & Religion forum. Josh didn't like the idea of the forum being vastly more popular than the main site, with an independent staff to boot. So he brought forward these new changes to rebuild RichardDawkins.net to his liking.

Using a forum as a substitute for a real website is sloppy and lazy.

It just makes me too angry to think of everything that is about to be deleted from the face of the internet. As someone else mentioned this is really is just basically like burning down a library.

All those people that came to RDF as a safe haven after they had come out to their family about being atheists. Or were asking for advice on how to break it to their familys. Just before it was locked there was a young guy that was telling the story of how his mother wouldn't let him be a volunteer at Camp Quest because she is deeply christian. What's that poor bastard meant to think now.

Sorry all future people you are now just going to have to deal with it on your own.

Now I am even more angry.