It's pretty strange to me that there are still channels hanging around instead of moving to libera.chat, but it is actualky probably good that they are kicking them out. Doing everyone a service, this way pretty soon no one will be able to be confused about which is the correct network.
Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
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Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#62My guess is that he really likes the name, feels it has brand recognition, and wants to pivot the domain to something else besides IRC.
That might explain why he's making all of these decisions to drive people away. Once the population gets low enough, then he can just pull the plug on the servers claiming that there aren't enough people online. No one will protest, and after 6 months the social network MyFreeNodeBook will launch.
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#63Can someone provide some background? What started this?
TLDR Bullet Point version.
* Founder lilo/Rob died.
* Christel became new head of staff.
* Christel "sold" Freenode to Andrew Lee (of which was not hers to sell) and never told the rest of Freenode staff the terms.
* Lee decided to assert himself by claiming he owned all of Freenode and that the staff had to hand over the keys to the kingdom to him.
* Staff resisted, Lee used threats. Staff decided it was better to move on.
* Libera.chat formed.
* Since the majority of Freenode was the relationship a lot of projects had with the now ex-Freenode staffers, most decided to go with the staff to Libera.
* Lee threw a fit and decided to use a bot to hijack 700+ channels that happened to mention "libera" in the topic, regardless if the channel actually intended to move over. This included channels owned by IBM, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Wikimedia, GCC, etc...
* Channel takeovers continued despite his apology when caught.
* Lee is certifiable. https://corrupt.tech/1708590130-ocr-compressed.pdf
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#64At this point I wonder, why not just pull the plug and restart the server/network?
I suppose you could suggest it would be off-putting to users, but the current method seems to have done the same.
Does anyone know what the endgame is for freenode? Is there one?
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
is it really any different than say.. Discord? or a subreddit? it always stuck me as amazing in how much autonomy IRC channels tend to have on various servers, especially as the internet has changed in the past 20 years. Between mobs wanting "accountability" for speech they don't like, the increases in liability, the MSM targeting any platform that has any free speech or autonomy to it (be it Substack, podcasts, E2EE…
the classic reddit debate, are Moderators Janitors or leaders... I have always said they should be viewed as content janitors but many many many (most) moderators disagree and take the limited power they have way to seriously
Which makes them that much more apoplectic when Reddit walks in and takes their communities/powers away with no recourse.
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#66Wow, they really think they own the communities just because people chose to use them for IRC? How fucking entitled and arrogant . I don't even use it, but death to Freenode. Obviously somebody thought they found a gold mine, but in their tunnel vision is so focused on "owning" something that they never owned, that they're willing to burn the whole place down to keep "owning" it.
is it really any different than say.. Discord? or a subreddit? it always stuck me as amazing in how much autonomy IRC channels tend to have on various servers, especially as the internet has changed in the past 20 years. Between mobs wanting "accountability" for speech they don't like, the increases in liability, the MSM targeting any platform that has any free speech or autonomy to it (be it Substack, podcasts, E2EE…
> Between mobs wanting "accountability" for speech they don't like
Seriously? Server and especially channel admins using their privileges to moderate the contents on their network is a decades old concept - with the debates on power abuse and the limits of "free speech" being as old.
If one thing, today's Twitter "mobs" are way more transparent than ye olde IRC fights, given that you'll have detailed explanations of the outrage under the respective hashtags.
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#67Freenode is kind of like that nightclub that stopped being cool, stopped having good music and began watering down the drinks. Everyone's gone to the new place. Basically the same crew running it.
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#68Can someone provide some background? What started this?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-bee... Abbreviated: A LLC has enough papers to prove that they own Freenode, and they have more money than the Freenode past volunteers to spend in court fighting over this. Hence the Freenode volunteers decided to abandon Freenode. Lesson: Even though you are a fully volunteer organization, always maintain an explicit paper trail that holds in court who owns a…
Interesting. So how much did Lee pay for Freenode? Did that all go to Christel Dahlskjaer?
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#69Seriously, what's the matter with this guy? I thought he was just really naive but I can't see an explanation for doing something like this that isn't malicious.
he spends his time drinking and doing drugs, indulging in prostitutes, and splashing money around
Re: Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode staff
#70It's almost like they thought irc was dying too slowly or something.
IRC isn't dying. Freenode is. And the communities are on libera.chat.
To be fair, IRC user counts have fallen 50% in 5 years.The biggest driver being the relative collapse of IRCNet and Quakenet from 50-60k users to 10-15k users, which is likely driven by the migration of the gamer and casual userbase to Discord. Freenode held on because techies were more suspicous of going to a closed platform, but even they're not going to split between Libera, OFTC, some not getting the message about Freenode, Discord and Matrix.