Happy Atheist Forum

I have noticed that there has been a little bit of debate about what happened at Richard Dawkins Forum. The link below takes you to the blog of Matthew Harrison who was on the staff at the time of the eruption and was previously an admin on the staff. He's a good bloke and what he has written here is as good and accurate description of events as you are likely to find.

http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.co ... open-soon/ (http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/)

Though there was already a thread (http://www.happyatheistforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=4516) about this here, it was only active for a couple of days, and was a few months before you joined (a belated welcome to you Tank, by the way!)  Supposedly they were going to keep the forum at richarddawkins.net as a read-only archive, but it appears to have been done away with entirely now.  Several of the members there were changing their avatars to images like the one below--

(https://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fgreenleafapps.com%2Fratskep-moved.jpg&hash=136f6f2379b0a1421f1b5b4d657c529372ae185b)

--and that might have prompted the admins to take down the forum altogether.  Conjecture on my part, but it would be in keeping with the behavior exhibited by what appear to be the two main culprits in this little web kerfuffle (not Dawkins himself, but his pet tech-boy and another of the same ilk.)

EDIT: I checked for the RichardDawkins.Net forum several times on the day that I posted this, and it consistently failed to appear.  That seems to have been a temporary situation, though the "read-only" status I would guess is permanent.

Well having been through the whole thing one of the most contentious speculations was (is) just how much RD did know about what was going on. And of course with now real information on the matter conspiracy theories run rife from planned in advance by RD to ''RD didn't know a thing'. I tend to fall in the camp that RD was continuously fed garbage by Josh Timonen and Andrew Chalkely (Chalkers) tagged alone behind. It was a great shame to see the community that was forming there destroyed for an unknown reason or unmitigated incompetence on the part of Josh.

And thanks for the welcome. I'm beginning to like this place.

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).

Quote from: "Cecilie"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  

Quote from: "Whitney"

Quote from: "Cecilie"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  :D

Quote from: "Whitney"

Quote from: "Cecilie"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  :D

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
8) 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.

Quote from: "Tank"HAF is better because it still exists  :headbang:

Quote from: "Whitney"

Quote from: "Tank"HAF is better because it still exists  :headbang:

Quite possible. Forum natural selection rules  

But seriously, why do you think HAF is still around?

[/quote]
Quite possible. Forum natural selection rules  

But seriously, why do you think HAF is still around?[/quote]

I suppose it would be too easy to say that it's the best atheist forum around (?)

Quote from: "Cecilie"I suppose it would be too easy to say that it's the best atheist forum around (?)

Easy, but accurate.

I think it's because we all try to uphold the expectation that people are to be treated with respect, as long as they're willing to reciprocate.

Failed on the quotation there. You get the point though.  

I can't put my finger on it yet. And I have yet to witness a drama of some kind to see how that is handled, which I suspect will shed some light on the relative longevity of HAF. Nice place though!

Quote from: "Whitney"

Quote from: "Cecilie"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  :headbang:

Quote from: "Tank"I can't put my finger on it yet. And I have yet to witness a drama of some kind to see how that is handled, which I suspect will shed some light on the relative longevity of HAF. Nice place though!

Most forums have a potential propensity for a cascade failure for one reason or another. It seems as they approach a certain size, stability decreases. Maybe too many mods spoil the broth? :p

This forum has been consistently small and therefore of concentrated quality for a long time (not to detract from the very level-headed moderation of course).

If HAF became a behemoth i think it would lose a lot of its identity and charm - that's not to say i don't welcome new faces here

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

Quote from: "karadan"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

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

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Whitney"

Quote from: "Cecilie"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  :D

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
8) 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