League of Reason turns two today!
In two short years I’ve seen so much original and unrestricted discussion here it’s hard to believe it was once just getting off the ground.
I just want to thank all our members, new and old, for making this community as open and awesome as it is.
Rock on!
AW out.
Do you celebrate anything at this time of year? How about just get together with friends and family?
Whatever you’re up to, I hope you have a good one and continue to stop by at League of Reason in 2011.
Clear skies!
P.S. Don’t forget to swing by The Official Xmas Thread!
Over the last few weeks there has been an ongoing discussion about the future of the League of Reason Show. Since its inception, the Show has been a popular project, but a growing number of problems both technical and communicational have lead to a radical restructuring of its format. What has up until the present time been known as the League of Reason Show may continue under a different name at the organisation of dprjones.
From the outset I had hoped to steer the Show in a ‘community input’ direction, specifically by taking panelists from the community itself. Due to the nature of the general topic (science/creationism) and the format (specific questions addressed by a panel of scientists) it became difficult make alterations without cutting out critical contributors to the effect of a static panel become more or less permanently established. Whilst the results were good, League of Reason is a community built and maintained by a large number of contributors, and the Show is intended to reflect that as a community project.
Starting Sunday 12th, the League of Reason Show will be moving to a fixed discussion format in which I will be hosting with a panel of three others. Every two weeks, the panel will be different, and the entire episode will be posted to YouTube with an iTunes enabled podcast to follow in the near future.
CosmicSpork has also put together a nice, light Show Site which can be accessed at any time by clicking the rather beautiful little countdown on the top-left corner of the blog and forums. This page contains information about the next broadcast and an embedded chat room specifically designated for discussing the Show. You can now watch and chat with the community without having to leave the site!
Tomorrow’s topic — Don’t be a Dick? — focusses on the suggestions made by Phil Plait at his TAM 8 address. The panel includes familiar LoR Bloggers, Th1sWasATriumph and RabbitPirate, as well as ZOMGitsCriss. We hope to see you there!
This poor old blog; it just hasn’t seen much action lately. I myself have several unfinished posts in the edit bin which need attention. Hopefully the problem will atrophy as the blogging team expands before the year is out.
In the mean time, I have been blessed with a topic that’s perfect for a blog post; too big for a rant on Facebook, and too opinionated and irrelevant for a YouTube video. That topic is of course Thunderf00t’s videos about Park51. I will also be focussing on my role as a subscriber and commenter, as I have apparently become central to a debate about miscommunication.
Before getting started, I should note that I see Park51 as a complete non-issue blown up out of all proportion for the sake of sensationalism. Many of my favourite commentators on religious and rights issues have left me disappointed with the use of “they have the right but…” arguments, where what follows the “but” has been universally superfluous or just plain incorrect. False attribution, red herrings and appeals to emotion are popping up all over the place and making a mockery of the actual debate.
But of course, we all think in chorus, this is the Internet!
Continue reading On Thunderf00t, Park51 and the elusive point
This Sunday 25th of July I will be hosting a special episode of the League of Reason Show on the subject of YouTube Atheismâ„¢.
Rather than invite questions from callers, this time we’re aiming to have a ’roundtable’ discussion, and rather than have to listen to boring old duffers like dprjones and AronRa, you’ll be able to hear a few of my favourite YouTube Atheists.
I’m looking forward to hearing their opinions on subjects I’ve never discussed with anyone before, but when sending out messages to the panel it got me thinking about how we choose our favourites. Who are your favourite atheists on YouTube, and why?
As usual, the show will be at 7pm GMT or THIS TIME! and we welcome you to listen in on BlogTV or THIS PLACE!
Hope to see you there!
YEAH!
Here are the details.
Sunday, 18th July, 7pm GMT/UTC. Click here to get the time where you are.
This week’s panel will consist of the “core” contributors; myself, AronRu, Whunderf00t, RonExodus2, and pprjones as moderator and call-monkey. As usual, highlights will appear on Youtube. I can also tell you that although the next Show is scheduled to be August 1st, next Sunday (July 25th) is also a date to put in your diary. Usual times will apply. You heard it here first!
Hope to see you all spamming the chatroom with thumbs down to pprjones!
VidCon 2010, a conference themed around the rising internet video media phenomenon, takes place this coming weekend. I know, it’s the World Cup Final and British Grand Prix, so you won’t be seeing much of me over those two days, but something that should be of interest to all Leaguers is that Communist-Nazi-Liberal-Nazi-Scumbag LiberalViewer will be attending as a panelist to discuss the state of Copyright, YouTube’s policies, and what “fair use” really means with YouTube’s own Head of Communications and Community Policy, Victoria Grand (as well as a former EMI representative Joe Felice).
This is a great opportunity for LV to bring forward questions on behalf of the community, and that’s exactly what he’s offering to do (what a scumbag!). Even if you don’t have any questions you would like to hear asked, please head over to the video embedded below and support it. It is my hope that popularising this discussion will increase the pressure on Google to address its policy surrounding anonymous abuse of the DMCA, flagging system and rating system.
If you can cast your memory right back to January of this year, you may remember that I posted two videos on the subject. The first received widespread attention thanks to Hemant Mehta (Friendly Atheist) and PZ Myers (Pharyngula) but despite us remaining the top “technical issue”, Google have stayed suspiciously quiet.
The second video was posted in response to Google’s own invitation for site suggestions. The free speech loving community once again dominated this forum, but Google’s canned response only indicated their serious lack of understanding of the issue (and perhaps ability to read?)
Content owners who file copyright infringement notifications under the DMCA do so under penalty of perjury. When we receive a DMCA notification, we remove the posted video, send email to your registered address, and provide notice in your account. Sometimes individuals abuse the process, or are simply mistaken, because determining copyright ownership can be tricky. If you believe your content was misidentified as infringing or is a fair use, you may file a DMCA counter-notification.
Wow. Don’t they understand the word “anonymous”? We know full well how the damned thing is supposed to work Google; we’re telling you that it is open to abuse when anyone can use an unverified identity to file the notice. You know if anonymity wasn’t an option when creating an account to file such a claim, the vast majority of censorship-inspired, false DMCAs wouldn’t be filed, right?
I will be contacting LV directly with this background, just to make sure he knows how YouTube has utterly failed to respond to this issue properly in the past.
Well, the chances are that if you’re a born and bred ‘Merican, you’re celebrating your independence from the fabulous First British Empire – who go on to have many sexy parties you’re not invited to by the way – but for the rest of you, no excuse!
League of Reason Show episode 3 is taking place with a substitute panelist by the name of ZOMGitsCriss (who is that anyway?) as DonExodus2 will be disgracing himself in public somewhere with the aid of alcohol.
I can’t promise our discussions will be any more sober, as this week’s topic (oh, that’s a new feature recommended by you!) is: Are there any good reasons to believe in a god?
There will be no Atheist Experience this week, so we may run over if people are still keen. Hopefully in a couple of weeks, we’ll be back to full capacity. To those who are able and willing to make it, we very much look forward to seeing you there!
This is the Internet.
“Woah! Slow the fork down! What does that mean?”
It means that when you try to get someone’s opinion removed, instead of constructing a mature response, said opinion will come back with force. There is no bullet to the head of popular internet content. It appears, it thrives, and if it suspiciously disappears, memefication occurs. Yes. Memefication.
If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Many moons ago, a YouTube user named DannyMendlow posted a comical advertisement parody entitled “Religion!”. You can tell where this is going, can’t you? The video became hugely popular, making Pharyngula and other blogs if I recall correctly. I can’t remember exactly how long ago it was originally posted, but I’m willing to wager that it was quite some time as I’ve seen this video all over the place.
I’m sure most of you are familiar with Digg. It’s a website designed to direct people to popular internet content. By Digging something, you increase its ranking on Digg, increasing the likelihood that it will be brought to the attention of the Digg massive.
DannyMendlow’s video was Dugg (Digged?) to the extent that it reached the front page. Let me make this abundantly clear: that means the video in question was well liked by a large number of people, who felt that others should see it. By some magic shortly after its arrival on the front of Digg, the video was pulled by YouTube as being ‘inappropriate’. Stupidity abounds at the YouTube HQ (which I have on good authority is manned by a crack team of ducks) because the only thing inappropriate about the video is that it’s so depressingly true. Yesterday, DannyMendlow reposted the video for the first time, and in my opinion it deserves support. I urge you to head over and favourite/rate/comment the original. Oh, and why not Digg it too? Enjoy…
Crikey! Has it already been two weeks? I guess it’s that time again… almost.
Since the first instalment of the League of Reason Show on the 6th, we’ve taken on board a lot of criticism and hope that everyone will agree that this week’s is an improvement.
Things are still progressing slowly as we aim to craft something everyone can enjoy without rushing it. With any luck, this time next year we’ll still be going and everything will be almost unrecognisably more awesome. For now though, you’ll have to share our frustration at trying to explain technology to dprjones (who asked him to be involved again?)
There are just a couple of things I’d like to point out, as I did in my video announcement. If you intend to be a guest on the show, please do not call us (we’ll call you), wear headphones throughout and mute your microphone when you aren’t speaking. These simple steps will help things run immeasurably more smoothly.
Today I’ve created a sub-forum for show discussion, as well as an FAQ thread which I hope will answer any current questions, and will be updated as needs be. Analysis, criticism and suggestions would be very welcome in this forum, and I will be checking it on a daily basis.
Here are the time-zone details for today’s show:
US: 3pm E, 2pm C, 1pm M, 12pm P
UK: 8pm BST
Europe: 9pm CEST, 10pm EEST
Australia: 4am West, 5:30am Central, 6am East
I very much hope to see you there, and before I forget, here’s a nice, clickable link!