Announcement about RDF Part 2.

[Feck]

If you are going to tell more people about this (like New Humanist, PZ Myers etc) please bring up the fact that Mazille, the moderator responsible for the science-writing award, was completely deleted from the forum, along with every post he ever made.

Does anyone know any decent bloggers at national newspapers that might cover something like this? I'm thinking the Guardian and the Independent would probably be the best bet.

There's always the Daily Mail:

"Pope Dawkins Destroys Own Church"

"God Hater Dawkins Replaces Forum With Polish Plumbers"



And I would rather we didn't end up in the papers or Interpol will find me .


To be honest I don't think anyone would care

And I would rather we didn't end up in the papers or Interpol will find me .

[macdoc]

Anyone know where Kevin Ronyne ( sic ? ) went?? best mod style....

[klr]

Anyone know where Kevin Ronyne ( sic ? ) went?? best mod style....

Ahem ...

EDIT: You are forgiven the misspelling. It's Ronayne (even my boss still gets it wrong).

[InYourFaceNewYorker]

Will someone explain to me in greater detail what the hell is going on here?

1. What happened? Did someone start a topic about how they couldn't get laid, or something else that blatantly broke the forum rules?

2. Are there current topics going to be vaporized in the memory hole, so to speak, instead of just locked?

3. Will the PM function still work? Will my current PMs remain, or will they be vaporized too?

4. Will we be able to post images? Moreover, what's going to become of my Richard Dawkins tribute art thread?

5. Will we still be able to comment on articles?

Julie

[virphen]

Will someone explain to me in greater detail what the hell is going on here?

1. What happened? Did someone start a topic about how they couldn't get laid, or something else that blatantly broke the forum rules?

2. Are there current topics going to be vaporized in the memory hole, so to speak, instead of just locked?

3. Will the PM function still work? Will my current PMs remain, or will they be vaporized too?

4. Will we be able to post images? Moreover, what's going to become of my Richard Dawkins tribute art thread?

5. Will we still be able to comment on articles?

Julie

1. No. The tech guys running the site arbitrarily decided to shut down the forum, in favour of a vague front-page system which will only let people start threads once it's been vetted by the Post Gestapo.

2. Everything is going in a month.

3. You can save your PMs by export now, and send about 1-2 a day it seems.

4. Goneburger in 29 days.

5. Yes. Unless you get banned for complaining about being treated like a piece of shit.

[klr]

Will someone explain to me in greater detail what the hell is going on here?

1. What happened? Did someone start a topic about how they couldn't get laid, or something else that blatantly broke the forum rules?

No.

2. Are there current topics going to be vaporized in the memory hole, so to speak, instead of just locked?

Yes, in 30 days. A few prominent posters have already had their entire posting record (well over 30K posts in total) nuked in an effort to silence/punish them, with detrimental effects on the threads that they had posted in.

3. Will the PM function still work? Will my current PMs remain, or will they be vaporized too?

Yes, for the aforementioned 30 days. But the powers-that-be have set the time gap between sending PMs at an hour, just to slow people down in trying to contact each other (presumably).

4. Will we be able to post images? Moreover, what's going to become of my Richard Dawkins tribute art thread?

The forum itself is now read-only.

5. Will we still be able to comment on articles?

Julie

Probably ...

[GeneticJen]

Will someone explain to me in greater detail what the hell is going on here?

1. What happened? Did someone start a topic about how they couldn't get laid, or something else that blatantly broke the forum rules?

2. Are there current topics going to be vaporized in the memory hole, so to speak, instead of just locked?

3. Will the PM function still work? Will my current PMs remain, or will they be vaporized too?

4. Will we be able to post images? Moreover, what's going to become of my Richard Dawkins tribute art thread?

5. Will we still be able to comment on articles?

Julie

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!

[Matt H]

Will someone explain to me in greater detail what the hell is going on here?

1. What happened? Did someone start a topic about how they couldn't get laid, or something else that blatantly broke the forum rules?

No. About a month ago, an email went around the staff, sent by Josh, which said changes were on the way. The first we common folk heard about it was yesterday, a few hours before the forum was locked.

2. Are there current topics going to be vaporized in the memory hole, so to speak, instead of just locked?
3. Will the PM function still work? Will my current PMs remain, or will they be vaporized too?
4. Will we be able to post images? Moreover, what's going to become of my Richard Dawkins tribute art thread?

Everything will be deleted within 30 days.

5. Will we still be able to comment on articles?

The forum is now read-only. Here is Josh's post on the forum:

http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 7&t=110313

And here is the extra paragraph that was sent to staff:

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.

[Valden]

Are they gonna actually censor/delete shit, too, or might the post I read have been in response to (very valid) concerns/complaints about censorship?

5 users and all their contributions have been deleted:

CJ
DarwinsBulldog
Valden
Kiki
Mazille

To be fair, I asked to be banned, because I no longer wanted anything to do with that forum.

I just wasn't expecting all my posts to be deleted too.

[Calilasseia]

Just thought I would pop in briefly.

I'm still gathering intelligence on all of this, and frankly, it's going to take some time to decide how I am going to respond, but I seem to recall informing the older members of the Mod team that I tend to operate in "Captain Remius" mode on such occasions. For those unfamiliar with the reference, watch The Hunt for Red October - you'll all find it illuminating in this respect.

Incidentally, those who are concerned about backup versions of my posts, should they disappear for some reason, I backed the important ones up offline as I posted them. So I have something like 1,300 juicy posts on evolutionary biology and abiogenesis (among other topics) ready to roll if there is a demand for them elsewhere.

However, be advised that I am more than a little aghast at proceedings as I have been learning more about this, and I have already had some interesting conversations with a couple of people about this. I'll ask the parties in question to keep their cards close to their chest, as I shall have some interesting bon mots to relate to you all in due course. Do try not to let the suspense become overwhelming, and simply note that, as Lady Emma Hamilton frequently said, "I like to surprise people".

[Matt H]

Yes, read Peter's blog, as well as Darkchilde's, Jerome's and the posts made by staff such as Topsy and Gallstones. They can sum it up better than I can.

[Matt H]

Cali, you're a legend. As I tried to tell Josh before he started deleting everything, you are one of the best things about that forum. Don't let it go to your head, though.

[Feck]

Just thought I would pop in briefly.

I'm still gathering intelligence on all of this, and frankly, it's going to take some time to decide how I am going to respond, but I seem to recall informing the older members of the Mod team that I tend to operate in "Captain Remius" mode on such occasions. For those unfamiliar with the reference, watch The Hunt for Red October - you'll all find it illuminating in this respect.

Incidentally, those who are concerned about backup versions of my posts, should they disappear for some reason, I backed the important ones up offline as I posted them. So I have something like 1,300 juicy posts on evolutionary biology and abiogenesis (among other topics) ready to roll if there is a demand for them elsewhere.

However, be advised that I am more than a little aghast at proceedings as I have been learning more about this, and I have already had some interesting conversations with a couple of people about this. I'll ask the parties in question to keep their cards close to their chest, as I shall have some interesting bon mots to relate to you all in due course. Do try not to let the suspense become overwhelming, and simply note that, as Lady Emma Hamilton frequently said, "I like to surprise people".

Thanks Cali now I am shivering with antici.........pation

[Valden]

Just thought I would pop in briefly.

I'm still gathering intelligence on all of this, and frankly, it's going to take some time to decide how I am going to respond, but I seem to recall informing the older members of the Mod team that I tend to operate in "Captain Remius" mode on such occasions. For those unfamiliar with the reference, watch The Hunt for Red October - you'll all find it illuminating in this respect.

Incidentally, those who are concerned about backup versions of my posts, should they disappear for some reason, I backed the important ones up offline as I posted them. So I have something like 1,300 juicy posts on evolutionary biology and abiogenesis (among other topics) ready to roll if there is a demand for them elsewhere.

However, be advised that I am more than a little aghast at proceedings as I have been learning more about this, and I have already had some interesting conversations with a couple of people about this. I'll ask the parties in question to keep their cards close to their chest, as I shall have some interesting bon mots to relate to you all in due course. Do try not to let the suspense become overwhelming, and simply note that, as Lady Emma Hamilton frequently said, "I like to surprise people".

[klr]

Just thought I would pop in briefly.

I'm still gathering intelligence on all of this, and frankly, it's going to take some time to decide how I am going to respond, but I seem to recall informing the older members of the Mod team that I tend to operate in "Captain Remius" mode on such occasions. For those unfamiliar with the reference, watch The Hunt for Red October - you'll all find it illuminating in this respect.

Incidentally, those who are concerned about backup versions of my posts, should they disappear for some reason, I backed the important ones up offline as I posted them. So I have something like 1,300 juicy posts on evolutionary biology and abiogenesis (among other topics) ready to roll if there is a demand for them elsewhere.

However, be advised that I am more than a little aghast at proceedings as I have been learning more about this, and I have already had some interesting conversations with a couple of people about this. I'll ask the parties in question to keep their cards close to their chest, as I shall have some interesting bon mots to relate to you all in due course. Do try not to let the suspense become overwhelming, and simply note that, as Lady Emma Hamilton frequently said, "I like to surprise people".

Thanks Cali.