Author Topic: Outraged atheists lose faith in Dawkins as he censors website  (Read 1929 times)

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Outraged atheists lose faith in Dawkins as he censors website
« on: February 27, 2010, 02:36:55 AM »
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Richard Dawkins is accustomed to provoking the wrath of religious communities, but now a schism seems to have opened up within the atheist community who make up his fan-base.

The split occurred after he announced that a discussion section on his website, considered one of the busiest online atheist forums, would in future be tightly moderated and “irrelevant postings and frivolous gossip” would no longer be allowed.  ... “Even some of those with more temperate language are responding to the proposed changes in a way that is little short of hysterical.”

The cloak of anonymity under which many people contributed to discussions had led to a culture of extreme language that would not be possible if people wrote under their name.

Unwilling to be silenced, however, the members of the website and the 15 moderators, some of whom worked unpaid, vented their own outrage elsewhere.  ...Another former fan said: “It may sound ridiculous to those not involved with online communities, but I feel hurt and displaced. It was like coming home to find the locks have been changed. My respect for Richard’s work is still intact but my respect for him as a person is in tatters.”  ...
turmoil