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http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm (http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm)

Finally he rumbled the little shit. This is sweet, so sweet!

Quote from: "Tank"http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm

Finally he rumbled the little shit. This is sweet, so sweet!

Must admit to a bit of schadenfreude upon hearing this.  

Quote from: "Velma"

Quote from: "Tank"http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm

Finally he rumbled the little shit. This is sweet, so sweet!

Must admit to a bit of schadenfreude upon hearing this.   lol

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Velma"

Quote from: "Tank"http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm

Finally he rumbled the little shit. This is sweet, so sweet!

Must admit to a bit of schadenfreude upon hearing this.   lol

Okay, maybe more than a bit.  

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Velma"

Quote from: "Tank"http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/10/22/31283.htm

Finally he rumbled the little shit. This is sweet, so sweet!

Must admit to a bit of schadenfreude upon hearing this.   lol

A bit.... Dawkins dedicated his latest book to Josh. This is going to be ugly. What a shame. He's got talent too.

Quote from: "Sophus"A bit.... Dawkins dedicated his latest book to Josh. This is going to be ugly. What a shame. He's got talent too.

Which one? Dawkins or Josh? Josh was/is an absolute wanker.

Quote from: "Tank"

Quote from: "Sophus"A bit.... Dawkins dedicated his latest book to Josh. This is going to be ugly. What a shame. He's got talent too.

Which one? Dawkins or Josh? Josh was/is an absolute wanker.

Apparently so, which is why I was saying it's a shame Josh turned out to be a scumbag because he's also talented. It's going to be harder for him to find a job now.

EDIT: No wait. Invite him to Florida where he can run for governor on the Republican ticket.    (We have an embezzler running for governor presently)

Huge thread developing here http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news- ... ml#p532057 (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/dawkins-sues-josh-timonen-t14455.html#p532057) and Josh Timonen has joined up and joined in.

I'm trying to remain pragmatic. Having said that, unlike some, I didn't have over 10,000 posts summarily deleted. I do feel a bit of guilty pleasure.

Quote from: "url=http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/dawkins-sues-josh-timonen-t14455-400.html#p533322]hackenslash[/url]"]

Quote from: "joshtimonen"Have you ever sat back and watched tons of people discuss lies about you?

Actually, most of the membership here have some experience of that, given some of the things that we were smeared with wholesale by you in the aftermath of the late unpleasantness, so yes, we understand completely.

QuoteIt's horrible.

Indeed, especially when it isn't actually true, and the version of events published doesn't actually reflect what occured.

Here's Josh's response (http://joshtimonen.com/post/1387207318/the-ultimate-betrayal):

QuoteThe Ultimate Betrayal

It’s a sad, sad day today.  All I’ll say at this point is that the truth will prevail.  It won’t begin to fix the damage that’s been done, but the truth will prevail.  

With the internet, you can so easily spread outrageous lies, destroy someone’s reputation, self-worth and dignity, and not even have any evidence to back up your malicious attacks.  And it amazes me that so many people are so quick to spew venom about people and a situation they know nothing about.  Even after my name is cleared, the words and attacks will remain.  

A quick aside about the closing of the RichardDawkins.net forum:  I can understand that this decision was devastating to many of the forum users, and for that I am sorry.  It was never our intention to hurt anyone through that process, it was purely a political decision.  It’s frustrating to have been the fall-guy for this.  I am not Richard Dawkins, I am not the Richard Dawkins Foundation Board of Trustees, and I did not act independently.  This was a decision made by the organization, that I then executed.  I kept my mouth shut through all of the personal attacks to protect the foundation, and to not get personally involved.  The decisions that were made by RDF had nothing to do with my personal opinions or feelings on forums or content.  They were based solely on protecting Richard Dawkins, RDF, and their reputations.

This year has certainly been the darkest time of my life, the ultimate betrayal, and then the hordes of mostly-anonymous internet users decide to pile it on.  It’s making it very hard for me to see the light at the end of this tunnel, where I might regain some kind of hope for humanity, and find motivation again to dedicate my life to improving it in some small way.

I’ve never had irreconcilable enemies before, ever.  This is new for me.  I’ve never before been the target of a baseless vendetta.  But I’m dealing with it as sanely and calmly as I possibly can.  

I worked myself to the bone over the last four years to promote reason and science, hoping that my small role in this movement could affect some lasting positive change.  I refuse to let this smear campaign destroy me.  I created the Scarlet Letter “A” icon and its associated campaign to bring us all together, not tear us apart.  I hope to be able to continue on that mission.

This lawsuit is a joke, and completely ridiculous.  The accusations are baseless and unfounded.

I will be releasing a public statement soon through my legal team Costa Abrams & Coate, LLP.  

Josh Timonen

PS: I have registered on several forums under the name “joshtimonen” (rationalia, rationalskepticism, JREF, etc).  Yes, it’s me.

PPS: I should note that RDF have apparently removed my name off of articles that I wrote on RichardDawkins.net.  Both ‘Surviving Jesus Camp’ and ‘Expelled Overview’ say they were written by “The Richard Dawkins Foundation” and not me personally.  And they’ve also taken the line off of the website which stated “Designed by Josh Timonen”.  Lovely.  

It screams guilty to me.  

[spoiler:3debn47v]Maybe this'll make Josh drop by the Happy Atheist Forum.[/spoiler:3debn47v]

So when do you think this story will hit mainstream news media? Nobody outside the atheist community is talking about this. EDIT: Now they are (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/an-ungodly-row-dawkins-sues-his-disciple-2115632.html). I bet we see lots of talk about this on FOXy tomorrow.

This is my favorite comment (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/dawkins-sues-josh-timonen-t14455-260.html) from the RS website:

Quote from: "Varangian"Here are a few suggested book titles for RD:

The Selfish Josh.
The Expensive Employee.
The Blind Employer.
Unweaving the RDF.
The Auditor's Tale.
The Josh Delusion.
The Greatest Blow to RDF: The Evidence for Embezzlement.

PZ Myers has just registered with the forum and gotten in on the fun (http://www.rationalskepticism.org/news-politics/dawkins-sues-josh-timonen-t14455-1180.html) too.

[youtube:uamzhui8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kn1hFLtWFTM[/youtube:uamzhui8]

Done by one of the members at RatSkep

I LOVE it when people about whom an argument is raging, get involved. It's like pouring petrol on a fire. Surely this is the best thing about the internet?

Wow.

 :pop:

Ooooh:

[youtube:31lvpyx6]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrDUv3rPkmE[/youtube:31lvpyx6]

Does the ugliness of Sam Harris' new book (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211) have something to do with atheists no longer hiring Josh Timonen?  

I am all very excited.

Would anyone here like to contribute to Timonen's legal defense fund (http://dawkinssuestimonen.com/)?
 

^^ That link has the latest updates on the case for those who wish to follow it.

Quote from: "Sophus"Here's Josh's response (http://joshtimonen.com/post/1387207318/the-ultimate-betrayal):

QuotePPS: I should note that RDF have apparently removed my name off of articles that I wrote on RichardDawkins.net.  Both ‘Surviving Jesus Camp’ and ‘Expelled Overview’ say they were written by “The Richard Dawkins Foundation” and not me personally.  And they’ve also taken the line off of the website which stated “Designed by Josh Timonen”.  Lovely.  

It screams guilty to me.  

I don't know much of the background on this but If I were innocent I wouldn't be signing up for a lot of forums trying to defend my name; I'd let the courts prove I was not in the wrong.  I also wouldn't be making public statements before my lawyer okayed my public statement (lol, that's stupid even if you are innocent).

I quoted the above to point out one thing.  He was a salaried work for hire (according to the law suit) work for hire means that all of the work you do is the sole property of those who are paying you.  Getting to have your name on work for hire projects is at the sole discretion of your client; just like if you were working as an employee of the company. Even if he is innocent him making a big fuss about his name being removed should be reason enough for no one to ever hire him again because they won't want him bitching if they decide to take his name off their website for whatever reason they may have.

Quote from: "Sophus"Does the ugliness of Sam Harris' new book (http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Landscape-Science-Determine-Values/dp/1439171211) have something to do with atheists no longer hiring Josh Timonen?  

::wonders how I can get my business card to Dawkins::

Thanks for the link, Sophus.  I'm looking forward to reading the opposition to the demurrer.  The demurrer itself reads as if Dawkins' lawyer didn't do his homework as well as he should have. Then again, of course it would.  None of this makes the Timonen look any more honest, and really the demurrer basically says, "Legally, the defendants were entitled to take the plaintiffs for a ride."

Wow. This is an ugly thread. You guys don't hold back. Anyone actually know this guy, Josh? I'd be interested in knowing why people seem to hate him so much. I have never heard of him, never seen his name that I can recall, and don't know who he is. So why all the dogpile on this guy?

Edited to add: I can't speak for anyone else here, but in all honesty I can't imagine how I would react/act if people, by the hundreds, were splattering me all over the internets like this. It's difficult to judge how an "innocent" or "guilty" person would act in a situation such as this.

Quote from: "McQ"Wow. This is an ugly thread. You guys don't hold back. Anyone actually know this guy, Josh? I'd be interested in knowing why people seem to hate him so much. I have never heard of him, never seen his name that I can recall, and don't know who he is. So why all the dogpile on this guy?

Edited to add: I can't speak for anyone else here, but in all honesty I can't imagine how I would react/act if people, by the hundreds, were splattering me all over the internets like this. It's difficult to judge how an "innocent" or "guilty" person would act in a situation such as this.

Josh Timonen used to run both the store and the entire website for the Richard Dawkins foundation.  He's the one who closed down the old Richard Dawkins' forum, deleted the entire posting histories of those who complained when he announced his plan, and then disabled the PM system so people could not get in touch with each other - he then proceeded to erase the admin logs so no one could tell who had done what.  Pretty much as if the manager of a popular club announced he was going to shut down the club, then proceeded to vaporize any one who complained and then erased everyone's cell phones so they could not contact anyone they had become friends with at the club.  I've had dealings with him and IMO, he's little more than a sniveling weasel.

I was on staff there when it happened.  This (http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/) is the best account of what happened that I've read.

Quote from: "Velma"

Quote from: "McQ"Wow. This is an ugly thread. You guys don't hold back. Anyone actually know this guy, Josh? I'd be interested in knowing why people seem to hate him so much. I have never heard of him, never seen his name that I can recall, and don't know who he is. So why all the dogpile on this guy?

Edited to add: I can't speak for anyone else here, but in all honesty I can't imagine how I would react/act if people, by the hundreds, were splattering me all over the internets like this. It's difficult to judge how an "innocent" or "guilty" person would act in a situation such as this.

Josh Timonen used to run both the store and the entire website for the Richard Dawkins foundation.  He's the one who closed down the old Richard Dawkins' forum, deleted the entire posting histories of those who complained when he announced his plan, and then disabled the PM system so people could not get in touch with each other - he then proceeded to erase the admin logs so no one could tell who had done what.  Pretty much as if the manager of a popular club announced he was going to shut down the club, then proceeded to vaporize any one who complained and then erased everyone's cell phones so they could not contact anyone they had become friends with at the club.  I've had dealings with him and IMO, he's little more than a sniveling weasel.

I was on staff there when it happened.  This (http://realityismyreligion.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/locked-entry-will-open-soon/) is the best account of what happened that I've read.

Wow. He sounds like a dick.

Velma, thanks for the information. I spent about twenty minutes reading up on things, starting from the link you posted. I'm beginning to see why there is so much animosity toward Josh Timonen now! I really never heard of the guy. I can only go by what you and others have posted. Since you had direct interaction with him, I guess you'd know about all of that mess first hand. It's amazing things got so crazy over there.

Looks like things are going to come back around to bite him now.

Quote from: "McQ"Velma, thanks for the information. I spent about twenty minutes reading up on things, starting from the link you posted. I'm beginning to see why there is so much animosity toward Josh Timonen now! I really never heard of the guy. I can only go by what you and others have posted. Since you had direct interaction with him, I guess you'd know about all of that mess first hand. It's amazing things got so crazy over there.

Looks like things are going to come back around to bite him now.

What goes around comes around.

I wonder if this will turn out to be one of those things where, years from now, people will be saying 'I was there'.

I was, incidentally. One of the members here, who I will not identify as I don't know who knows, was one of the posters who had more than 10,000 posts deleted.

Quote from: "McQ"Velma, thanks for the information. I spent about twenty minutes reading up on things, starting from the link you posted. I'm beginning to see why there is so much animosity toward Josh Timonen now! I really never heard of the guy. I can only go by what you and others have posted. Since you had direct interaction with him, I guess you'd know about all of that mess first hand. It's amazing things got so crazy over there.

Looks like things are going to come back around to bite him now.

Yep.  He had made up his mind that the forum was going to be shut down, but things would have been so much different if he had listened to a tenth of what the staff tried to tell him or had acted like a human being after the announcement.  People generally don't like change, but they will usually adjust if you give them time to do so and allow for a bit of complaining and armchair-quarterbacking along the way.  This was a textbook case of how not to handle such a situation.

Quote from: "hackenslash"I wonder if this will turn out to be one of those things where, years from now, people will be saying 'I was there'.

I was, incidentally. One of the members here, who I will not identify as I don't know who knows, was one of the posters who had more than 10,000 posts deleted.

My goodness, that must have been soul-crushing.

Quote from: "karadan"

Quote from: "hackenslash"I wonder if this will turn out to be one of those things where, years from now, people will be saying 'I was there'.

I was, incidentally. One of the members here, who I will not identify as I don't know who knows, was one of the posters who had more than 10,000 posts deleted.

My goodness, that must have been soul-crushing.

It was 13,600 posts. I was pretty much astonished at the time that Josh Timonen and Andrew Chalkley could be so wantonly destructive. There were 5 or 6 members who had there accounts deleted with just over 40,000 posts in total. I had a high post count because I was a relativity early member and I made it a point to greet all the people who posted in the welcome forum. When I last checked that constituted 4.5k of my posts there.

The account that had the greatest value was that of Mazilla who organised the science writing competition. The topic threads related to that now are just shreds of their former selves.

At one point Dawkins was going to delete the forum from the site. I sent personal emails to him pointing out what an act of criminal intellectual vandalism that would be and although he never replied to those emails the forum (still missing the deleted accounts) has been retained on the site.

Quote from: "Tank"I sent personal emails to him pointing out what an act of criminal intellectual vandalism that would be and although he never replied to those emails the forum (still missing the deleted accounts) has been retained on the site.

I sent him several e-mails as well. I was more placatory in tone, suggesting that even if the forum were to close, there was no reason we couldn't at least retain some measure of working together.

I also posted about the destruction of the forum and the aftermath thereof on my blog:

http://reciprocity-hackenslash.blogspot.com/ (http://reciprocity-hackenslash.blogspot.com/)
http://hackenslash-reciprocitypartdeux.blogspot.com/ (http://hackenslash-reciprocitypartdeux.blogspot.com/)

The other account that constituted a fair bit of really excellent content was that of DarwinsBulldog who, among other things, posted a lot of articles on breaking science, as well as a good deal of anti-creationist material.

Quote from: "hackenslash"

Quote from: "Tank"I sent personal emails to him pointing out what an act of criminal intellectual vandalism that would be and although he never replied to those emails the forum (still missing the deleted accounts) has been retained on the site.

I sent him several e-mails as well. I was more placatory in tone, suggesting that even if the forum were to close, there was no reason we couldn't at least retain some measure of working together.

I also posted about the destruction of the forum and the aftermath thereof on my blog:

http://reciprocity-hackenslash.blogspot.com/ (http://reciprocity-hackenslash.blogspot.com/)
http://hackenslash-reciprocitypartdeux.blogspot.com/ (http://hackenslash-reciprocitypartdeux.blogspot.com/)

The other account that constituted a fair bit of really excellent content was that of DarwinsBulldog who, among other things, posted a lot of articles on breaking science, as well as a good deal of anti-creationist material.

That was a great blog post, Hack. I'd not seen that letter from dawkins before - the one about the suppurating rats rectum. Well, if anything, it confirmed to me the guy is out of touch with the internet and doesn't fully understand its true function. He'd obviously made the decision to change the format because he'd seen the usual troll rubbish all forums get but was unable to see the benefit of the tens of thousands of posts from the legitimate proponents of reason.

It's a real shame such a resource has gone but was it really worth presiding under the banner of dawkins in the end? I must admit, my view of the guy has plummeted in recent years. He seems to have become a self important dinosaur.

Quote from: "hackenslash"The other account that constituted a fair bit of really excellent content was that of DarwinsBulldog who, among other things, posted a lot of articles on breaking science, as well as a good deal of anti-creationist material.

I didn't know his account had gone. Tragic as he was a theist when he joined an one thread was his detailed journey out from under the comfort blanket of institutionalised superstition.

Let me be the very first to throw a curveball (http://dawkinssuestimonen.com/) your way.

QuoteThe judge states that Dawkins' and RDFRS' "complaint is very poorly pled and confusing" and that "the pleading is poorly pled and confusing".

Thata's not going to spin well for a man of logic

As if I needed another reason to like Dawkins.

Quote from: "Sophus"Let me be the very first to throw a curveball (http://dawkinssuestimonen.com/) your way.

QuoteThe judge states that Dawkins' and RDFRS' "complaint is very poorly pled and confusing" and that "the pleading is poorly pled and confusing".

I read through the demurrer ruling and had previously read the filing made by RDF.  I agree that the there are parts that require clarification and assumed supporting documentation (like evidence of the agreements) would be presented in court.  However, while I can understand court documents well enough to follow them I'm not that familiar with procedure...I'm wondering if RDF needs to get better lawyers who can produce documents correctly the first time (perhaps the original plea was written by Dawkins and is confusing because he is not familiar with court procedures?...I didn't catch if he had lawyers involved or not but had assumed he did).  The ruling on the demurrer seems to be saying that the judge thinks RD and RDF could have a case but that they need to make their evidence clear to the court, and has provided RDF an option to ammend the plea in order to provide clarifications.

Even if it is poorly written, he surely does have a case, doesn't he?

Quote from: "karadan"Even if it is poorly written, he surely does have a case, doesn't he?

I don't see what Dawkins or RDF would have to gain from making any of this up.  However, just because their claims are mostly likely true (though there does seem to be some potential for speculation in regard to Timonen's family's involvement) doesn't mean they'll necessarily have a case if they didn't sign any contracts with Timonen; hand shake agreements put you in a he said she said situation and those aren't very good for making a case in court.