Turner Tunes

As all the bunnies know, Leakegate has now spawned Amy BishopTurner Tunes. Amy leads off by talking about Richard Dawkins closing the forum on his web site. Amy wrote:

Richard Dawkins isn’t a man used to having his face likened to a “slack-jawed, turd-in-the-mouth mug”. Nor to being compared to “a suppurating rat’s rectum”. You can see why he might take offence.

Last week the celebrated evolutionary biologist abruptly closed the discussion forum on his website after somebody posted about a “sudden urge to ram a fistful of nails” down his throat. Another wanted to “trip [him] up and kick [him] in the guts”.

Dawkins blogged: “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.” He went on to describe his disbelief at the blogosphere’s vitriol and tendency to overreact to trivia and concluded that “there is something rotten in the internet culture”.

Bitching, infighting and back-biting have always been part of academia, much as they are a given in politics or the school playground. But now it is no longer confined to the footnotes of journals or senior common rooms. It is open, nasty and, as Dawkins can testify, getting nastier by the day.

So, let's take the poll

Why did the Richard Dawkins Foundation close its forum
	To reopen in a new format in thirty days
	Because people wrote nasty things about the new format
	Because people wrote nasty things about atheism
	Because people wrote nasty things about Richard Dawkins pushing atheism
	To give Amy Turner something to whine about
pollcode.com free polls

and look at what happened

Believe it or not, it all started with a decision by the Richard Dawkins Foundation to change the nature of the forum

Which brought in some interesting (cover the bunnies' ears)

A Message from Richard Dawkins about the website updates

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 you found yourself described as an “utter twat” a “suppurating rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum. A suppurating rat’s rectum inside a dead skunk that’s been shoved up a week-old dead rhino’s twat.” Or suppose that somebody on the same 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.”

What do you have to do to earn vitriol like that? Eat a baby? Gas a trainload of harmless and defenceless people? Rape an altar boy? Tip an old lady out of her wheel chair and kick her in the teeth before running off with her handbag?

None of the above. What you have to do is write a letter like this:
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Dear forum members,

We wanted you all to know at the earliest opportunity about our new website currently in development. RichardDawkins.net will have a new look and feel, improved security, and much more. Visits to the site have really grown over the past 3 1/2 years, and this update gives us an opportunity to address several issues. Over the years we've become one of the world's leading resources for breaking rational and scientific news and original content. We are focusing on quality content distribution, and will be bringing more original articles, video and other content as we grow.

continuing

You will notice that the forum has in fact been closed to comments (not taken down) sooner than the 30 days alluded to in the letter. This is purely and simply because of the over-the-top hostility of the comments that were immediately sent in. Note that there is no suggestion of abolishing the principle of a forum in which commenters can start their own threads.

Even when they actually have a point the Turners and Leakes cannot resist twisting and misleading. It must be genetic, but the question is, has the Murdoch press perfected a test to spot these folk.

UPDATE: Well folks, it gets even weirder, according to a letter posted at the Times

David Edwards wrote:

Oh dear, not this AGAIN ...

First of all, the insults were NOT directed at Dawkins himself, they were directed at his web designer, Josh Timonen, and were directed at this individual AFTER ne engaged in manifest acts of duplicity and malfeasance.

Second, the insults were NOT posted on Dawkins' own forum, but on a DIFFERENT forum, AFTER Timonen had pulled the plug on the Richard Dawkins Forums, and engaged in rampant vandalism of the data contained therein, an offence that in many companies would lead to the perpetrator being sacked, and possibly subject to criminal prosecution.

Third, the thread in which much more reasoned criticism of Timonen's actions was posted on Dawkins' own forum was summarily deleted, and critics of his heavy-handed incompetence were subject to having their entire user histories expunged. Unfortunately for Timonen, the relevant thread has been preserved, and provides evidence that he lied to his boss, by presenting quote mines from another forum as if they constituted the views of the entire membership, when these were nothing more than the venting of steam at Timonen's mendacity.

Furthermore, given that much of the material that was destroyed during Timonen's "Year Zero" operation on the forums, included the very expositions of valid science, and critique of the professiional liars for doctrine operating within corporate creationism, that Dawkins himself has repeatedly stated he wishes to see more of on his website, Timonen was acting in direct violation of his boss's publicly stated policy by destroying that material.

Now, is it too much to ask, given that anyone who wishes to can find the EVIDENCE supporting the above charges courtesy of two or three mouse clicks, that paid, professional journalists report the FACTS, instead of disseminating manifest misinformation?

Eli will let Boris have the last word

Ha-- Leake sent a girl to fight his fights. Well, a girl and, whatever Pielke Jr. is.