This came in today on Twitter (although strangely, it’s now disappeared from the RDF Twitter feed).
It seems the Richard Dawkins Foundation have decided – wisely, in my view – to revise the mechanics and governance of their discussion forums. This has displeased some people, to the extent that they’ve posted messages villifying RD and the team in the nastiest, most vitriolic, and just plain ignorant ways possible – thus, of course, ironically justifying the decision.
No doubt RD, Josh and the gang will have been deluged by messages of support from the more rational of their contributors – myself included – but there’s one part of their intentions that I would politely take issue with: unless I’ve read their letter wrongly, it seems they’re intending to delete the existing forums and all their content.
Personally, I feel that it would be better simply to lock the forums and keep them up as an archive – both as a research and reference source, and to remind people of the relative character and educational level of those on either side of the debate. Sadly, the vitriolic posts RD refers to have apparently been deleted already; such messages, I feel, should be left up both to convict the perpertators out of their own mouths and to remind them at a later stage, should they ever repent of their views, of how extreme their views formerly were.
But that’s just me.
