A tale of misadventure by Lamar
An explanation of the term, and a recounting its history, is coming soon. In the meantime, the original definition of the term, as concocted by Joe, is posted below.
We opened a forum at this domain in July 2009. At first it was privately used by the hosts of Chariots of Iron for episode planning and note sharing, but sometime during the following month we opened it to the public. It was not well received; the domain was too unwieldy and our lack of participation did little to encourage growth.
In spite of the forum's lack of popularity, it did manage to attract a small band of regulars who managed to make the place feel more alive than it actually was. It also attracted spam-bots—lots of them.
On June 26, 2010 we implemented a policy of moderating the first post of all new members. This worked for a while but it was tedious and became yet another obstacle to gaining new members. Then on March 13, 2011 I updated the forum software which resulted in a corrupted database. Spammers now had free reign on the board. The following day it was locked to all new posts.
After serious consideration, Eli and I decided to shut down the forum. For those few who posted regularly, we thank you. We enjoyed the banter you guys brought to the board, but shutting it down is for the best. To be perfectly honest, I could repair and restore the database, thus saving the site, but it just isn't worth keeping. There are so many other internet forums for atheists, skeptics and humanists that do a much better job of community building than Eli and I have.
So, as of March 17, 2011—coincidentally Saint Patrick's Day—the Atheiskeptihumanist Forums are officially, and permanently, closed.
I seriously doubt we'll do anything new with this domain, but I plan to maintain this page indefinitely. In the meantime, we hope you continue listening to Eli and myself at Chariots of Iron and Joe at Atheist News.