Richard Dawkins Forum

[floppit]

I went for a quick squiz (heheheheheh). It's kind of hard to remember he's a scientist, a biologist - it looks almost wall to wall sociology of both religion and an advertising, preaching atheism. If atheism had priests he'd be a self appointed high priest, strangely in line with the forum behaviour (forum, discussion, blog - a journey with one man ever more central, authoritative and powerful).

It'd be interesting if one day he woke up and went home, back to science, articles from the science part of his head, discussions about science issues, the passion for something over riding the passion against.

[charlou]

It'd be interesting if one day he woke up and went home, back to science, articles from the science part of his head, discussions about science issues, the passion for something over riding the passion against.

Not that I object to criticism of religion, but yes this too, and nicely put.

[lordpasternack]

It'd be interesting if one day he woke up and went home, back to science, articles from the science part of his head, discussions about science issues, the passion for something over riding the passion against.

Not that I object to criticism of religion, but yes this too, and nicely put.

+1

I've been heckling him about this privately, actually.

I think Ilovelucy put it quite trenchantly here:

The RDFRS mission:

MISSION: Support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering.

Seems more like this to me:

MISSION: SupportOccasionally refer to scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome eradicate religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and human suffering.religion,

Ah well, it's their site.

http://www.rationalskepticism.org/post4 ... l?#p489478

I also sent Richard an email just the other day on this general topic:

Right now, there is a topic open on male circumcision in the Discussions section of your site. A normally controversial topic, with interesting, rousing and some downright inflammatory debating points to be heard - it has been quite banal (but I suppose quite reassuringly unanimously against the practice) - and it will be lucky to see the other side of 50 comments, and the discussion will be promptly buried with the next mere trickle of equally transient and mostly poorly populated discussion. 

And despite the little message in the spiel on submitting discussions - about not submitting discussions that have already been held - you can't honestly expect someone to trawl the site for this long-dead discussion if they have something to say on the topic, and expect them to expect someone to pick up on any reply they may make to the thread. The entire platform is not designed with this in mind - despite the fact that most online discussion arenas are, and have been for, oh, maybe getting on for two decades now. Despite the fact that the old forum had these very basic structures built in...

But anyway - for more substantive compare and contrast material - here is the discussion on male circumcision on the old forum, which started here: http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 531#p19425

And seemed to peter out, here, when the fourth incarnation of the thread was locked (threads were locked when they reached 1000 posts to ease strain on the server): http://forum.richarddawkins.net/viewtop ... 2#p2328952

The discussion thread spanned, on-and-off, ALMOST THREE YEARS, and ALMOST 4000 POSTS. And there is real solid material and debate contained therein - evidence laid out and debated. It was a real sustained conversation, rather than a briefly titilating desultory exchange. And I think it's safe to say that with the discussion area in its current format, you won't even come within several hundred country miles of repeating that kind of depth and stamina, and indeed overall quality. This is just one example of what you discarded when in your own vast ignorance, you decided to discard the old forum format, and trust the judgement of profoundly incompetent and inexperienced dolts to come up with the current format.

So yeah…

[lordpasternack]

And a bit less recent:

It is such a shame you feel you have to compromise so much on your site - compromise the furtherance of reason and science - in your striving to protect the cause of 'Reason and Science' - which is a far more fuzzy and subjective concept known mostly unto yourself and your close colleagues - which appears to have something to do with atheism; secularism; anti-religious sentiment; Richard Dawkins, his works, and his public image; some gestures towards the appreciation of the aesthetics of science; and a smattering of some unwarranted self-importance from parts - all subject to the ever-nagging, broaching on paranoid, fear of the ominous presence of those ghoulish Charity Commissioners... 

And I sent this lovely zinger to the moderator team fairly recently, too:

I'm sorry to have to be so presumptuous as to turn the tables on your usual ethos here - where I as a user have the nerve to try to advise you. It's apparent that there's an ethos in here whereby it's your job to discuss and second-guess between YOURSELVES what users want, and to tell users that your site is user-friendly, and to convince users, or just baldly presume that they damn well want what you want to give them. Because you just KNOW...

The whole approach is rather like a man trying to second-guess between his mates at the pub what satisfies his wife in bed, without actually talking with HIS WIFE, and when none of his mates have actually screwed the wife in question. So I'm sorry to interject with this false sense of entitlement of mine to share this with you - as someone who occasionally flutters through your site and feels the palpable crapness that has lost you well over half of your overall traffic since the inception of the new site, which practically everyone outside of your little clique KNEW was a bad idea right at the outset.

And more on a side note. I consider this as more pointless buzz to detract from the fact that the revamped main site has more or less continued to prove itself a howling mistake borne of the circle-jerking of a few individuals either too hubristic or naive to realise it. It's offensively bad. I can't stress this enough. I'm surprised you've even managed to tally ANY growth - which you surprisingly have done, only in the last two months (not to a very great extent though). Well done. I'll be FLABBERGASTED if it continues in any significant way.

I already am flabbergasted that Richard was ever even remotely impressed by anyone involved in that decision and the building of the site enough to allow you to form the little exclusive, insular, self-important, self-congratulatory clique that you have here. Flabbergasted that he still sees fit to continue to lend you this privilege when most of you would be far better replaced by individuals out there amongst those great unwashed masses. It has been apparent in many ways that the combined views of all those ordinary atheists and skeptics out there have been MUCH more informed than yours. You don't deserve the amount of credence that Richard has implicitly invested in you. You really are not special. You're judgement is MANIFESTLY not worth exalting. SELF-EVIDENTLY. There's no reason to presume, given the evidence, that you even have any insight more special than MINE as to what the 'vision' for the site should be. You are vastly overrated so far as I'm concerned, and could do well with assessing that evaluation in your own mind. I mean that very sincerely, and I hope it has some desired impact, one way or another.

[Geoff]

I think you're mellowing in your old age, lp...

[Ronja]

It's called the "discussion" area.

Hah! Discussion my foot... a few timid exchanges at best.

[Ronja]

Thanks for the info, LP, and you are spot on.

[Feck]

The whole approach is rather like a man trying to second-guess between his mates at the pub what satisfies his wife in bed, without actually talking with HIS WIFE, and when none of his mates have actually screwed the wife in question.

I make no comment i'm just bumping it

[tattuchu]

lp, you use big words, and not only that but you seem to know what they mean

[The Curious Squid]

I really hate the feeling I get when I see the site referenced. I didn't know who Richard Dawkins was until I read The God Delusion and at the time he was successful in changing my life by pushing me off the fence of atheistic indifference towards religion, introduced me to countless brilliant people and proceeded to educate me on a daily basis about science, religion and quality of life before promptly showing himself to be emotionally retarded to the point where he crippled his own standing with his supporters and showed himself to be a complete moron with regards to both critical thinking and reason where controversial issues were involved. Who gives a fuck about his site, he lost my respect a long time ago and I hope the conceited little dick realises some day that he had a chance to make such a massive impact on humanity and instead he opted to preserve an undeserving "honourable" reputation by compromising erudite conversation as well as creativity and free speech. We've done well since leaving RDF but it always angers me when I think about what that place had and what it could have been. Fuck Richard Dawkins.

[Twoflower]

I really hate the feeling I get when I see the site referenced. I didn't know who Richard Dawkins was until I read The God Delusion and at the time he was successful in changing my life by pushing me off the fence of atheistic indifference towards religion, introduced me to countless brilliant people and proceeded to educate me on a daily basis about science, religion and quality of life before promptly showing himself to be emotionally retarded to the point where he crippled his own standing with his supporters and showed himself to be a complete moron with regards to both critical thinking and reason where controversial issues were involved. Who gives a fuck about his site, he lost my respect a long time ago and I hope the conceited little dick realises some day that he had a chance to make such a massive impact on humanity and instead he opted to preserve an undeserving "honourable" reputation by compromising erudite conversation as well as creativity and free speech. We've done well since leaving RDF but it always angers me when I think about what that place had and what it could have been. Fuck Richard Dawkins.

Well said! Dawkins is a selfish arrogant prick.

[Svartalf]

Man, homosexual and gerontophile, you"re one rather disgusting cephalopod.

[lordpasternack]

I think there's more complexity behind the curtain, Squid. Richard is ignorant and naive about online communities and discussion forums. His own views have wavered around quite a bit over the past months and years… Some of you will remember that he was once practically dead against the idea of moderation on the front page… 

His views seem to have been tussled this way and that by those within his inner circle - and my main conclusion about those within his inner circle is that they are a hell of a lot more ill-informed, ignorant, hubristic and naive in this context than practically any one of us chosen at random. They just happened to be at a certain place at a certain time, and caught his eye over something, and he subsequently formed emotional attachments to them and lent them a fair whack of trust and privilege that they likely aren't fully deserving of. Similar to the scenario with Josh. Richard has a tendency to romanticise people - and to defend them tooth and nail, all the way to the $300K embezzlement scandal.

Except in this case I don't think his advisers are quite so flagrantly taking the piss and manipulating him. I think they're mostly misguided, and both them and Richard have unwittingly conspired to create this little circle of smug circle-jerkers, utterly convinced of their skill, importance and worth in this area, who just know what's best and don't need nor want anyone else's input. It's their 'vision' that'll guide them - even if it's the astigmatic leading the partially sighted...    

Richard is naive, over-trusting, easily manipulable, easily impressed, and easy to draw praise out of, by default. He is also, as men of seventy go, still quite fuckable, and attractive in other ways. The latter draws people towards him - the former causes him at times to keep the wrong people in his centre of gravity, and also to damage the humility of otherwise well-meaning suitors, if I could put it that way. If you don't watch yourself you could let yourself be flattered a little silly by him, and let him uncritically trust you, and you could become complacent and lose sight of a few important things because of that. I think that's some of the dynamic. I think that's part of what's happening behind the scenes here. 

Trust me - I have a window into his soul…    

[The Curious Squid]

I'd sooner believe you have a pair of binoculars aimed at his window but I hear what you're saying and still some what disagree with it.

[lordpasternack]

A pair of binoculars?! Fuck off! What do you take me for? And I do have a life, and other interests and preoccupations, for heaven's sake…












… I just check the hi-res webcam embedded into the lamp-post across the road from his house a few times a day…