The "Atheists say the darnedest things" incident

From RationalWikiWiki

The Atheists say the darnedest things incident occurred in September 2010. It was the first time in a long time that anything really resembling HCM occurred, perhaps between five and four. But even then it was a pale imitation of the HCM of old.

On the other hand it did involve a handful of major personalities getting irritated with each other.

It started with the creation of a provocative article by Human (who else?) who seemed to have had no objective other than making a "better" article than the CP one. As an aside, this also harked back to the old days when RW saw itself as a competitor to CP.

The title of the article "Atheists say the darnedest things" could not have been better designed to create friction in the community and it was initially greeted with scepticism both in the bar and on the talk page.

Bob M took especial exception, pointing out that the quotes used had nothing to do with atheism. Armondikov accused him of letting his prejudices show and received short shrift from the usually calm Bob M.

Nx deleted the examples but they were re-instated along with the suggestion that Nx was some sort of atheist fundamentalist. He reverted this with the edit comment "fuck off".

Bob M continued to question the relevance of the dubious quotes and ZooGuard thought this questioning was worthy of mention in the article. Another revert followed. (ZooGuard later apologised on Bob M's talk page)

Nx decided to add something from an irrelevant nobody which was at least relevant to the article and again removed the irrelevant quotes. The situation might have ended there with an actual relevant quote and added verbage from Armondikov. But the disputed quotes were again re-inserted.

In yet another hark-back to the good old days little or no attempt was actually made to justify the inclusion of the disputed material. In the end those complaining seem to have walked away from the subject (causing Armondikov to describe them as "butthurt) so the article will likely stop developing now that nobody is arguing over it. Or aren't they? We will have to wait and see.

[edit] External links

The talkpage of the article in question