I'm confused.. can someone give me a summary of what happened?
RD.net is not run directly by RD himself, he does have the final word in everything but he left it to be run pretty much by a guy named Josh Timonen. However Josh is not directly involved in the forums, but the forums are being run by admins/mods who do not get paid for it (much like any forum really). Now that that has been established here it goes:
1. The forum was starting to have technical problems.
2. The admins/mods emailed Josh that there are problems.
3. He did not really bother and just payed lip service.
4. They still emailed him.
5. He responded that there will be a change in the forum software and will allow admins/mods to participate and finalise this decision.
6. He kept silent about it and ended up writing an announcement in the staff that he did everything himself and the forum is not going to be a "real" forum, but some sort of thing like comments system but in a kinda advanced way. Also that the admins/mods are no longer needed. And finally asked them to not make a fuss about it or challenge his decision or try and do anything funny. He said he will leave the forums open for a further 30 days for anybody to backup their posts or stuff like that.
7. The people there got really pissed and started posting about how they are against the new change.
8. Josh got pissed, and deleted all the posts that criticised his decision and closed the forum before the 30-day wait. In addition he deleted some members' profiles including mods and admins, which means ALL their posts are gone.
9. The forum died.
10. Members/admins/mods are bitching about it in their blogs.
11. Dawkins wrote on the website that he is in favor of the new change, and basically to shut up.
12. The End.
Wouldn't happen here - this forum is not controlled by anyone apart from the admin/mods.
I know. I was just speculating.