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

Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

blog.mibbit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 178 posts

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#121

Post by Zev »

axod wrote: post #91
froo wrote: post #20

I know the "official" reason, but I'm curious if there's any correlation between the blocking of mibbit and axod's post about how much revenue mibbit was making here ( http://axod.blogspot.com/2009/06/revenue-browser.html ) - the timing is awfully suspicious. I mean, a day after the post they "magically" have their own web client up that they would rather you use. I had a look at the qwebirc client they implemented,…

Another fun quote: jtrucks: because mibbit users are retards and they think mibbit is the only way

I've actually spoken to several users who found that to be true. Even if silly, from the point of view of someone who knows what IRC is. Which is far from everyone.

//edit: don't care much about karma, but I am curious as to how pointing out that not everyone knows what they're doing on IRC gets me downvoted.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#122

Post by abstractbill »

Zev wrote: post #119
axod wrote: post #62

This is a sad thing in terms of Freenode, and users trying to access it from Mibbit, but will not affect Mibbit as such. I remember using Freenode early on when I discovered open source. It was a fantastic vibrant place with hackers all over the place. openprojects, lilo, great... Unfortunately, maybe it's got too big. The atmosphere has changed for the worse IMHO. In my opinion, the staff no longer represent the com…

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you completely and stand beside Freenode's decision. As someone who is an ircop on another network with a few thousand users that also blocks Mibbit, abuse is not a red herring at all. The last time Mibbit was unbanned on the network, it was used repeatedly for users to evade channel bans and harass users. Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a v…

Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem.

WEBIRC is the standard solution to this, and it existed long before Mibbit did. It's also about as simple and obvious as a protocol could be: the web server simply forwards the user's IP address on to the ircd at the start of a session.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#123

Post by axod »

Zev wrote: post #119
axod wrote: post #62

This is a sad thing in terms of Freenode, and users trying to access it from Mibbit, but will not affect Mibbit as such. I remember using Freenode early on when I discovered open source. It was a fantastic vibrant place with hackers all over the place. openprojects, lilo, great... Unfortunately, maybe it's got too big. The atmosphere has changed for the worse IMHO. In my opinion, the staff no longer represent the com…

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you completely and stand beside Freenode's decision. As someone who is an ircop on another network with a few thousand users that also blocks Mibbit, abuse is not a red herring at all. The last time Mibbit was unbanned on the network, it was used repeatedly for users to evade channel bans and harass users. Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a v…

>> "Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem."

We currently have WEBIRC setup with 454 IRC networks, representing around 200k users. I hardly think that's a "non standard protocol that only mibbit seems to use" is it now. All modern IRC servers support it out of the box.

I don't think I indicated freenode was planning to make a profit out of their client, you'd have to ask them about that. I wish them all the luck.

This isn't about me, or money, etc. This is about them cutting off users, who used mibbit to connect to freenode. IMHO that's a bad decision, and not a nice open friendly thing to do.

It'd be like hackernews blocking opera users if some spam submissions were submitted by opera users.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#124

Post by MisterMerkin »

jjs wrote: post #6
sztanpet wrote: post #5

there is a webirc project in the works for freenode if i know correctly, its based on quakenets qwebirc (which is a lot nicer then mibbit, but of course YMMV)

The reason people are moving to the new #startups is not to use mibbit's client (I'm using Colloquy on the Mac), but rather to show solidarity for axod.

I'm sure they really care.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#125

Post by Zev »

axod wrote: post #123
Zev wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you completely and stand beside Freenode's decision. As someone who is an ircop on another network with a few thousand users that also blocks Mibbit, abuse is not a red herring at all. The last time Mibbit was unbanned on the network, it was used repeatedly for users to evade channel bans and harass users. Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a v…

>> "Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem." We currently have WEBIRC setup with 454 IRC networks, representing around 200k users. I hardly think that's a "non standard protocol that only mibbit seems to use" is it now. All modern IRC servers support it out of the box. I don't think I indicated freenode was planning to make a profit out of their client…

Given there are thousands of IRC networks around, I'm not claiming Freenode was standing to make a profit from this; you did: "* It makes money" — I also mentioned that you stand to lose money if a major network doesn't let users use your client. I'm not claiming this is your motive for wanting people to use Mibbit. I don't know what you think. Just that from an outside perspective, its a possible thought.

And I don't see the Opera comparison. Opera doesn't force users to proxy through their own servers. Its a completely transparent tool, right out of the box. Users have to actively set up a proxy for Opera to use it. With Mibbit? It uses the proxy by default, no way around it for the users.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#126

Post by [deleted] »

abstractbill wrote: post #122
Zev wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I have to disagree with you completely and stand beside Freenode's decision. As someone who is an ircop on another network with a few thousand users that also blocks Mibbit, abuse is not a red herring at all. The last time Mibbit was unbanned on the network, it was used repeatedly for users to evade channel bans and harass users. Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a v…

Implementing a non-standard protocol that only Mibbit seems to use is not a valid answer to this problem. WEBIRC is the standard solution to this, and it existed long before Mibbit did. It's also about as simple and obvious as a protocol could be: the web server simply forwards the user's IP address on to the ircd at the start of a session.

[deleted]

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#127

Post by ken »

froo wrote: post #100
ken wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the tool required to access a service is pretty darned important in determining your audience. Case 1: September 1993 (AOL on USENET). Case 2: Hacker News (intentionally plain design compared to, e.g., Reddit or Digg). Scenario #0: people will keep using mibbit, because it's convenient and what they used before, and harass IRC channels on other networks instead. (Sure enough, freenode's web client looks like…

Ok, so you're suggesting that there is a correlation between how attractive a user interface is and the number of users/trolls? Well then let's break it down to its most simplistic form, the Operating System, seeing as that affects every service. How do you account for Windows and OSX, seeing as most of your trolls would come from Windows based machines and yet most people would agree that OSX has the superior/most a…

I think you're over-generalizing. I'm only claiming that interface has a big effect on behavior you see in a particular place, not how the behavior got there. I certainly don't believe (and didn't mean to imply) that seeing an "attractive" interface causes a behavior change in an individual.

I also disagree that comparing operating systems is "simplistic". What operating system a person is using today is based on a huge number of factors, of which "attractive" is but one tiny piece -- a far more complex issue than what web chat you use.

What you're observing is what I'd call the same effect. People are lazy about sticking with an interface they know. AOL opening up USENET meant a bunch of jerks could screw things up, using the same interface they'd had. Digg/Reddit predate HN, and the jerks there aren't going to learn a new interface to be jerks to a smaller crowd here. Similarly, you're not going to change OS (and with it, interface) easily, so other effects dominate, and I'd expect most jerks, overall, to be using the most popular OS, overall. I don't know if that's true, but it fits my mental model.

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#128

Post by patcito »

ankhmoop wrote: post #113
abstractbill wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said you would pay attention if someone "with a genuine stake in the project community complained". And then someone did, and you brushed him off.

"Our channels" . As I've said before, we've been forced to regularly ban Mibbit on our channels (as in, software projects with which I am involved). I simply don't represent freenode, or django, or web developers in general. [edit] I see Mibbit fans are downvoting any negative comments en masse, not to mention the vitriolic dialog with freenode staffers on IRC. Yeesh.

Same here http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=665661

Re: Freenode has blocked the Mibbit client permanently.

#130

Post by jjs »

moe wrote: post #64
jjs wrote: post #2

The new #startups is on irc.mibbit.net

Actually #startups has not moved. It is still alive and kicking on freenode.

At the time I wrote that, #startups on freenode was muted, with the topic line (and frequent op posts) stating that mibbit was banned by freenode, and the new #startups is on irc.mibbit.com.

That may still happen, depending on whether freenode learns to actually trust a human being (see the rest of this thread), and on what axod and swombat decide.

Edit: And you can come to #startups on irc.mibbit.com already. :)

Post reply on HN