Bye Bye to Dicky Dawkins Politics and Current Affairs Forum

The closure of the Politics and Current affairs forum on the Richard Dawkins Net is a bit of a sad occasion for me. It seems that in the run up to the upcoming revamp on every ones favourite God bashing site, the P&CA forum was for the chop (in its current form of course), with a 30 day deadline for posting the last comments that would ever grace that entertaining, often frustrating, profound and clever / silly forum. But it seems, that like every unexpected and unwelcome parting, there have been tantrums and fireworks. The 30 day deadline has had to be pulled, with an instant moratorium on any more comments. There have been some commentators who have taken to using this event to finally, really tell other commentators what they really thought about them and their postings. Some of the moderators, released of their burden have been delivering their big electric "fuck yous" to those they were charged to oversee. It all sounds like the plot of, an online version of a comedy film about a well established company staffed by eccentric old placemen, who released from the conventions of their positions, decide to let off all that bottled off steam in an oh so amusing manner, when they discover that their entire outfit is being shipped off to China this coming Friday.

There comes a time when these type of things have to revamp. The nets just one big work in progress anyway. But I will be sorry to see the end of the P&CA forum, even though at times it felt like some of it was being deliberately infiltrated by the religious community to create cipher posters who confirmed all the flaws they associated with the new atheist movement (Brights, are you kidding me!! What sort of names that?) Or that it often felt like some "Who's Who" for the terminally pretentious. Or that reading some of it made me feel that I had an IQ that was roughly in line with the contents of the vegetable isles in ASDA, in comparison to some of the posters. I even have fond memories of when it seemed to attract those barmy free market libertarians, those ones who made fricking Skeletor look like a kindly old granny who gives out buns to local children. But most of all I feel it is a tremendous shame that, when at its best; one of the most literate, interesting and sometimes downright profound forums out there has been forced to come to such a petty and undignified end. But there we are.