What happened at RichardDawkins web.

[Whitney]

Out of interest Whitney, what are the figures like for active accounts here? Would you say this is a relatively small forum?

We average around 50 to 55 active users per day.  There are a 1900 active accounts but that just means they finished the registration process and I haven't pruned that list lately...if I didn't sometimes prune it (for the sake of being able to email those who have been inactive with a why don't you activate reminder) there would be a few thousand more accounts.

I would say it is a boutique forum

[SSY]

How many hits from guests and the like? I normally lurk for an age before joining forums.

[Dries]

Wait, what happend? Can someone tell me quite simple what happend if it's not too much trouble? I'm too lazy to read the whole thing. (I'm a slow english reader).

The short version is a whole bunch of drama that no one seems to be able to explain in full that seems to have had something to do with rogue forum admins at the richard dawkins forum.

Or the shorter version....HAF is better  

The roots of the problems at RDF are Richard Dawkins, Josh Timonen (designer and maintainer of RD site) and Andrew Chalkley a tech who works for Josh.

1) The volunteer staff on the forum were in no way responsible for the problem.
2) Probably nobody knows more than 95% of the whole story.
3) Josh has the managerial skills of a Hyena and that's an insult to a Hyena.
4) Andrew Chalkley has less EQ than Josh
5) Richard Dawkins lost the plot with the forum about 6 months after it was started and simply let it run itself.
6) He found out in Oct 2008 that the forum had evolved into something he did not like, he had a hissy fit, stupidity occured
7) The forum continued and thrived in spite of the total lack of help on the part of the RD & JT
In Feb 2010 Josh got fed up with the Forum as it was getting more hits than the front page 2000 vs 300 per day. He basically told the staff that the forum was being closed, there services were no longer required but plaese just carry on as normal for the next month.
9) One of the staff spilt the beans about the forum be closed by publishing Josh's PM on the forum.
10) The die was cast, people took sides and the sh!t hit the fan.
11) Josh fabricated a pile of bullshit that RD swallowed whole.
12) The forum was made read only, half a dozen members had there accounts deleted taking away over 40,000 posts.
13) The promised forum replacement is a total clusterfuck.

Quite accurate  roflol