Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Goodbye Freenode

nedbatchelder.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 130 posts

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#31

Post by jeltz »

neilv wrote: post #23

Many IRC networks have had drama. But does anyone know the motivation for recent actions by Freenode? I'm discounting conspiracy theories (e.g., flipping, sabotage) because I think anyone acting strategically wrt IRC knows that forking an IRC network has been part of the standard toolkit for responding to "damage", since almost the start. I'm starting to lean towards a theory of there being no longer being a business…

My personal theory is that rasengan had a boyhood dream of running his own IRC network. A dream he tried to realize by buying Freenode. The actual purchase happened under very dubious circumstances which (plus some other disagreements in the Freenode team) led to the creation of Libera. This just rasengan lashing out when they broke his toy.

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#32

Post by [deleted] »

neilv wrote: post #23

Many IRC networks have had drama. But does anyone know the motivation for recent actions by Freenode? I'm discounting conspiracy theories (e.g., flipping, sabotage) because I think anyone acting strategically wrt IRC knows that forking an IRC network has been part of the standard toolkit for responding to "damage", since almost the start. I'm starting to lean towards a theory of there being no longer being a business…

[deleted]

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#33

Post by raverbashing »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #26
stavros wrote: post #25

I don't understand what the big deal with all this Freenode drama is. It just got renamed to Libera, update your host files and you're done.

The drama is that whenever someone attempts to tell people that on Freenode, their channels get taken over and/or they get banned.

At this point, if you haven't heard of it through other means then you're Out Of The Loop (yeah I suppose if you were on a coma for the past months and only read IRC and no discussions anywhere else...)

But I agree, it's a bit of needless drama, especially when continuing on Freenode has shown to be untenable.

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#34

Post by CyberShadow »

I happened to experience an interesting incident not long ago related to the subject.

After a week or two of uptime, I restarted my PC. As it happened, I reconnected while Freenode was in the middle of a spam wave. Something mistook my client for a spam bot and banned my IP.

Oh well, "and nothing of value was lost" I thought and deleted Freenode from my server list. But, later that day, I discovered that I could not connect to other IRC networks: the Freenode ban was propagated to DroneBL, and then picked up by other IRC networks. I was effectively blacklisted from all of IRC. This also affected some services I was providing to a few communities.

I did get the ban removed, but after this incident, I would not recommend anyone to connect to Freenode at all. The new administration doesn't seem to have sufficient experience to fill their present position suitably.

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#35

Post by spinax »

abstractbeliefs wrote: post #2

As well as purging #python and network banning some of the regulars there for pushing back, #fsf and #gnu were taken over this morning by the new freenode staff, despite a 2 week transition plan being published. https://status.fsf.org/notice/4214348

FSF/GNU transition post mentioned above: https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-gnu-move-official-irc-chann...

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#36

Post by iforgotpassword »

dTal wrote: post #15

While I agree that Libera is New Freenode and Old Freenode is rapidly dying a death, this whole episode has soured me mightily against Freenode as a whole. This should never have happened in the first place and the blame for it lies squarely at the OldFreenode/Libera admin's feet, not whichever outside actor took advantage of it. The admins are an "old boys network" - not chosen by the community, or elected, but simp…

Agree. It would have been great if the old staff and servers would have merged with OFTC, but it seems this wasn't even considered at any point. Nothing seems to have changed in that relation. But oh well, just another network to connect to until everything has maybe moved off freenode.

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#37

Post by CyberShadow »

stavros wrote: post #25

I don't understand what the big deal with all this Freenode drama is. It just got renamed to Libera, update your host files and you're done.

I do wonder why the Libera staff didn't kick off the network with a copy of the Freenode user/channel database. Perhaps the Freenode legal entity has a claim to it?

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#38

Post by StavrosK »

CyberShadow wrote: post #37
stavros wrote: post #25

I don't understand what the big deal with all this Freenode drama is. It just got renamed to Libera, update your host files and you're done.

I do wonder why the Libera staff didn't kick off the network with a copy of the Freenode user/channel database. Perhaps the Freenode legal entity has a claim to it?

What good would that do, if the users aren't connecting to the network?

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#39

Post by hluska »

marcan_42 wrote: post #21
raphlinus wrote: post #8

It is ironic, but not at all surprising to me, that "free speech" in the context of current Freenode means being not enforcing codes of conduct (so being transphobia-friendly among other things), but an iron moderation grip on any criticism of the network itself.

They're not just transphobia-friendly; one of their new ops got opped right after uttering a transphobic slur in a very transphobic sentence. Their own staff are openly transphobes.

If any trans people read this, I’m sorry some people are like that but I love the hell out of you.

Re: Goodbye Freenode

#40

Post by CyberShadow »

StavrosK wrote: post #38
CyberShadow wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do wonder why the Libera staff didn't kick off the network with a copy of the Freenode user/channel database. Perhaps the Freenode legal entity has a claim to it?

What good would that do, if the users aren't connecting to the network?

> What good would that do,

It would save both staff and users a lot of time from having to re-register accounts, channels, and projects/communities.

> if the users aren't connecting to the network?

I don't understand this part, sorry.

Post reply on HN