So I wrote a commentary piece about Dawkins, and wrote up the interview with Ken Ham. They are now published and if are remotely interested you can see them at http://www.casualravings.com.

My commentary about Richard is open and free. The interview with Ken is not and is “locked” (well, actually, it sort of is, but you have to register. Twice).

Enjoy. And I shall be waiting to see if you all think they are fair or not.

With the sudden collapse of the Richard Dawkins Forum (the biggest forum of its kind on the internet), many members have banded together and started their own forum. We have all the old moderators from RDF and all of our old friends are back together;
http://www.rationalskepticism.org/index.php

We encourage all to join no matter what your beliefs or outlooks are. Diversity is paramount to stimulating discourse!

We are somewhat new and improved there. We are still committed to the guidelines allowing criticism of ideas but not attacks on the person. Now we have been able to rationalise the structure without the Richard Dawkins sales/fan aspect and with wider science range. On the old site there was General Science and then evolution and biology. The new site now includes Physics, Astronomy, Chemistry, Geology and more. The area on religion is more comprehensive and focussed as is the scope of topic areas for debunking creationism, pseudo science and other enemy of reason stuff.

Read the full story of the collapse of the old forum and controversy with Richard Dawkins here; http://www.rationalskepticism.org/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=454

Matt, regards what you said about RD, I actually think the biggest problem was not that he annoyed his most loyal supporters (he did). It was more his “damage control” after.

As many people have said the abuse he refers to actually happened AFTER he announced he was closing the site, and was not the cause of him closing the site. The Times got this wrong because they did not bother to read my original post (although I sent them the link). I suspect they just took his announcement, assumed a bit too much, and then away they went.

Originally when it was annnounced the site was going to change, something like 28 pages of criticism appeared in the forum. I believe this was not abusive but merely contradictatory thoughts. Then it was announced it would be closed because of this. Then the abuse started. Then RD responded. Then ….. etc.

IF RD had responded properly to the criticism of his loyal fans this would never have happened, I believe. I think this was more a failure of some proper “customer service”. An appearance in the forum of RD saying, “Gee, fellas, what’s the problem? How can we solve this?” and this would never have happened.

As it stands, from my reading of it, the forum is dead and is being ressurected at http://www.rationalskepticism.org/ by the many avid supporters of the forum. It was this core that made the forum live and now they are gone. So it is logical that the original will fail. Besides, it will not be a forum, any way. More a bunch of highly “monitored” articles.

There are some other aspects as to the motivation of why this happened, but at the moment I would be speculating and so cannot say.

Eilee, re. your picture, it’s just very dark and gloomy with a purple background. That’s why it looks creepy. Perhaps brighten it up and make it sharper contrast. Dunno. There it is.

Thanks everyone for the kind comments.

I think there’s a bit more to say about this, but this post has been strictly about the process, and I put it here because OJB is in Google News (my own site isn’t there yet – grrr), and it would therefore be found by the same people looking for coverage in the same list of articles.

Also, I thought that the media coverage needed some commentary, which is a continuing emphasis here at OJB.

If I have to guestimate (i.e., speculate “intelligently”) what the underlying cause is, I put it down to RD spreading himself too thinly to have time to devote to manage the diverse set of initiatives he has created, and that has perhaps not put in place an organisation/secretariat capable of doing that on his behalf. In short, I’d suggest he may need a Chief Operating Officer / Deputy Head / Senior Administrator type figure to run the organisational gubbins that it needs to make everything work and deliver his goals.

There may be some stuff in there about thinkers, authors and academics not usually being good managers.

Or it may have just simply all “just growed” beyond anyone’s wildest dreams.

I think that the “overstretch” theory is supported by the slightly hurried nature and lack of attention to certain details of the Non-Believers Giving Aid launch, where they didn’t have the UK tax setup properly supported until several days after they launched.

I’d also suggest that the same overstretch may have contributed to the not very careful way the forums have been closed down, even though the decision to do it may be part of an effort to prune the range of stuff going on so as to get things back under tight control.

I’d emphasise, though, that all this is just speculation.

I’m quite interested in what will happen now, and the outcome will depend heavily on how RD manages resolving the conflict.

I do have some things to say about RD and the forums (I’m critical of certain aspects of his approach, including what I see as the slightly too enthusiastic floccinaucinihilipilification * of opponents and their views) which are not about the process, so I’ll aim to say those over at my place over the next few days as they are off topic here. That is why I haven’t specifically responded to your questions, John.

Sorry – couldn’t resist putting it in. Disestablishmentarianism is so last year “Floccipaucinihilipilification” = act of estimating as worthless.