Richard Dawkins unleashes tirade against fans

Richard Dawkins unleashes tirade against fans

timesonline.typepad.com

Richard Dawkins has something of a reputation for provoking the religious community, but it seems he may have underestimated the atheistic fervour of his own fanbase. Amidst a tsunami of vulgar and vitriolic comments, the 85,000-strong forum on his official website RichardDawkins.net had to be shut down this week.

The implosion appears to have been provoked by an announcement on the website that discussion threads and responses would in future be tightly moderated to help curb irrelevant discussions, frivolous gossip and abuse.

However, the announcement itself created such an explosion o

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Wow there is so much to this article re: freedom of speech on the net, cyberbullying, religious or atheist fervor (is it increasing for some reason?), but also interesting to ponder--have these former fans come to ATS? the last one was sort of a joke, sort of.

I was going to leave my comments at that, but have been prompted to write more of my comments--I will say that I personally like much of what Dawkins has to say in terms of science v religion, but the shutting down of his site makes me wonder about him...it seems like he is being hypocritical by saying very thought-provoking and controversial things himself, but on the other hand not being able to handle the effects of the controversy that he has made a name for himself with

timesonline.typepad.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Im not sure of the level of moderating done over at Dawkin's forum but given that there is relatively heavy moderating done here at ATS as opposed to many other forums and seeing all the frivolous and argumentative for the sake of argument crap that still manages to not just get posted but encourages threads with absolutely no value to go on for pages and pages I have no doubt Dawkin's forum without moderation was a cesspool of worthless back and forths. Probably rife with carbon copy threads of already pointless threads creating a spiral of ever degrading value.

You are so right. On the one hand this could be an ego thing....

Dawkins himself is less than sympathetic. In a personal message posted today entitled Outrage, he lets rip at the members of his website:

Imagine that you, as a greatly liked and respected person, found yourself overnight subjected to personal vilification on an unprecedented scale, from anonymous commenters on a website. Suppose [...] that somebody on website expressed a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down your throat. Also to “trip you up and kick you in the guts.” And imagine seeing your face described, again by an anonymous poster, as “a slack jawed turd in the mouth mug if ever I saw one.

(You will also have to imagine the uncensored version of this extract)

But the author of the article writes: "He goes on to ponder what could possible be wrong with people who "over-react so spectacularly to something so trivial" and concludes that "there is something rotten in internet culture" and that he is determined to purge his website of this vicious element.

I find this amusing... since it sounds creepily paranoid to assume the Internet as a whole contains some form of collective element which is against his beliefs.... oh the irony.

Still - I don't envy his celebrity circumstance that can't help but elicit adversarial confrontation since it based on cultural divides between those who chose faith over his brand of logic.

Anyway I thought I would point out - rather shamelessly - that had the organization been even half as attentive to it's moderation as we are, the controversy might have been at best avoided, and at worst mitigated into the expression of disagreement.

ATS should be the model... sure we can make mistakes, but our members keep us honest, and we Mods - who are also proud members - appreciate our comrades in ATS who keep the place free from this kind of tragic comedy.

[edit on 25-2-2010 by Maxmars]

Its his forum, he can moderate it in any way he sees fit. Freedom of speech has nothing to do with it. Start your own forum where people can say whatever they like if you feel there ain't enough free speech on the interwebz.

reply to post by fumanchu


I suppose what I meant to say about freedom of speech is that--where does speech cross over from debate to hate? I guess you could say it is alright to tell someone "what you have to say is nutty" but not okay to say "YOU yourself sir are nutty" and from the really horrible things that were said to him (wishing him harm WOW I have never seen that type of speech here--maybe it WAS here but quickly moderated and removed)?

I like what the mod had to say here, I do like ATS and the way it is run--also I do not like the generalization if "internet culture" as being "rotten" or whatever Dawkins said...but what people have said to him is disturbing...I guess it's the thing with this perceived anonmynity (sp?) on the web.....

Thats why im only a member of ATS, as a fan of Dawkins I have been on his forum, it's nothing like ATS. I think not allowing one liners definitely helps, as this can lead to to and fro petty squabbles. It also makes you think more about what you write. The moderation on ATS is pretty spot on and one liners are kept to a minimum, because sometimes one line is all you need.

Basically Dawkins is the figure head for Atheism and is therefor likely to attract enemies. I imagine having an open internet forum must be difficult.

I agree there is something rotten in internet culture, luckyily ATS does it's best to keep that rot at bay.

As far as "internet culture" being rotten I found this

"Calhoun (1991) presents a dystopia argument, asserting the impersonality of virtual networks. He argues that IT has a negative influence on offline interaction between individuals because virtual life takes over our lives. He believes that it also creates different personalities in people which can cause frictions in offline and online communities and groups and in personal contacts. However, more than a decade of research has not supported Calhoun's arguments. (Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002). Recently, Parsell (2008) has suggested that virtual communities, particularly those that leverage Web 2.0 resources, can be pernicious by, for example, leading to attitude polarization, increased prejudices and enabling sick individuals to deliberately indulging in their diseases"

---attitude polarization...and the problems that follow ARE interesting to note--is that what is meant by the "rottenness"? just curious
en.wikipedia.org...

I think there is something rotten about Internet culture too.

There is a mob mentality that that has grown over the years. Racial and religious hatred is openly spread by agenda driven people with a lot of time on their hands often overwhelming civil discussion.

An unfortunate reality is that rational people with reasonable positions are not strongly motivated to put forth their opinions. But the paranoid, the hostile, the schizophrenics, the hostile, fell compelled to spread their angry word.

I think everyone must see this by now. It happens on this forum every day with moderators fighting to keep it in check.

Originally posted by woodwardjnr
Thats why im only a member of ATS, as a fan of Dawkins I have been on his forum, it's nothing like ATS. I think not allowing one liners definitely helps, as this can lead to to and fro petty squabbles. It also makes you think more about what you write. The moderation on ATS is pretty spot on and one liners are kept to a minimum, because sometimes one line is all you need.

Basically Dawkins is the figure head for Atheism and is therefor likely to attract enemies. I imagine having an open internet forum must be difficult.

I agree there is something rotten in internet culture, luckyily ATS does it's best to keep that rot at bay.

It seems weird though. He always seemed like a pretty friendly guy when he did that family feud thing. He would always kiss the chicks even.

My guess is most people who are critical of Dawkins have never read him. Maybe the odd isolated quote use someone picked out for inflammatory purposes. He's generally pretty careful not to attack organized religions so much as the close-minded thinking that accompanies it.

Dawkins having an open internet forum is a beacon for religious fanatics to flock to it. I have not been on those forums, but I suspect it was full of arguing and bashing. Richard Dawkins is known for having civil debates, and it's not wrong of him to promote civil discussions on his own forums.