Refugee thread!

[arewethereyet]

Thoreauvian, I saw that you PMed a brief discussion. Can you do the same for me? I'm curious as to what happened. I missed the last throes of drama over there. But it seems this place is good one to inhabit.

I'll just post this here instead of sending you a PM.

At the end of September, Seth decided to close the Thinking Atheist discussion forum.  He wanted to do it in just a couple days, but then relented and gave us a week.  He would not allow us to copy the forum to a new location and continue it as it was, so Mathilda took the initiative and created the Atheist Discussion forum. 

http://atheistdiscussion.org/forums/

Many of TTA's previous members immediately signed up for the new forum and we are now continuing our discussions pretty much as before.  Some came here instead, and some like me started posting regularly at both forums.  Unfortunately we lost a few members, like Jennybee and Momsurroundedbyboys for instance.

In most people's opinions, Seth never provided an adequate explanation for his decision, though we asked him to.

Why would you let someone take what was under your banner and make it into something else?  He still has a viable brand to protect and the forum was part of that.  From what I understand his new website, hosting, etc. is going quite well.  The forum no longer fit into his vision for the direction TTA needed to take.    

I really enjoyed a comment made here (on this forum) about it being bad form to bash another forum.  Reading this thread alone will show that many people didn't have an issue with doing exactly that.  Sour grapes and all.

[Alan V]

Why would you let someone take what was under your banner and make it into something else?  He still has a viable brand to protect and the forum was part of that.  From what I understand his new website, hosting, etc. is going quite well.  The forum no longer fit into his vision for the direction TTA needed to take.    

I really enjoyed a comment made here (on this forum) about it being bad form to bash another forum.  Reading this thread alone will show that many people didn't have an issue with doing exactly that.  Sour grapes and all.

Perhaps Seth had excellent reasons for closing the forum. I wish I knew what they were, and think he could have respected us enough to explain it all to us.

I don't believe this counts as bashing another forum. We loved TTA, which is why we recreated it as closely as possible at AD. We would have copied the content from TTA to AD if Seth had let us. Perhaps some people posting above bashed the forum, but most criticized Seth for the way he handled the forum's closing.

[arewethereyet]

Why would you let someone take what was under your banner and make it into something else?  He still has a viable brand to protect and the forum was part of that.  From what I understand his new website, hosting, etc. is going quite well.  The forum no longer fit into his vision for the direction TTA needed to take.    

I really enjoyed a comment made here (on this forum) about it being bad form to bash another forum.  Reading this thread alone will show that many people didn't have an issue with doing exactly that.  Sour grapes and all.

Perhaps Seth had excellent reasons for closing the forum.  I wish I knew what they were, and think he could have respected us enough to explain it all to us.

I don't believe this counts as bashing another forum.  We loved TTA, which is why we recreated it as closely as possible at AD.  We would have copied the content from TTA to AD if Seth had let us.  Perhaps some people posting above bashed the forum, but most criticized Seth for the way he handled the forum's closing.

Tomato, tomahto.

I was there six plus years and hated to see it go. I still miss it...a lot.

[Aliza]

In most people's opinions, Seth never provided an adequate explanation for his decision, though we asked him to.

That was the thing.  It was his forum and he had every right to shut it down but to do it so fast with no explanation was incredibly inconsiderate to the many members that were active there.  To do it second-hand without even bothering to post something himself was a cowardly slap in the face to everybody involved.  To do it so callously after his commenting more than once how important it was to develop community between atheists and to provide outlets for people trapped in religious surroundings was hypocritical.

Yes! This!

Not to mention that some people had given sizable donations to Seth (some of them right before the announcement) with the expectation that they were supporting their online community.

[Yonadav]

Seth probably closed the forum because many of you were an embarrassment to his brand. At Amazon, we were an embarrassment to Amazon. He didn't explain that to you because there was no polite way to say it.

[brewer]

[Alan V]

Seth probably closed the forum because many of you were an embarrassment to his brand. 

His brand of what?  

I thought he was promoting atheistic interests.

If we were embarrassing to him, why didn't he intervene long before or give us some feedback to that respect?

[Yonadav]

Seth probably closed the forum because many of you were an embarrassment to his brand. 

His brand of what?    

I thought he was promoting atheistic interests.

If we were embarrassing to him, why didn't he intervene long before or give us some feedback to that respect?

He owned the forum. It was his right to shut it down, and it was his right to manage it as he pleased. He didn't have to manage it in a style that you would have preferred.  I think that if he would have intervened, it just would have fueled animosity toward him. The people who embarrassed his brand the most were absolutely convinced that they looked fabulous on his brand.  The only way to control that is to shut it down.

[The Valkyrie]

His brand of what?    

I thought he was promoting atheistic interests.

If we were embarrassing to him, why didn't he intervene long before or give us some feedback to that respect?

He owned the forum. It was his right to shut it down, and it was his right to manage it as he pleased. He didn't have to manage it in a style that you would have preferred.  I think that if he would have intervened, it just would have fueled animosity toward him. The people who embarrassed his brand the most were absolutely convinced that they looked fabulous on his brand.  The only way to control that is to shut it down.

That's one interpretation.

[Yonadav]

He owned the forum. It was his right to shut it down, and it was his right to manage it as he pleased. He didn't have to manage it in a style that you would have preferred.  I think that if he would have intervened, it just would have fueled animosity toward him. The people who embarrassed his brand the most were absolutely convinced that they looked fabulous on his brand.  The only way to control that is to shut it down.

That's one interpretation.

Clearly.