[HN Gopher] Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized b...
___________________________________________________________________
Last remaining 1000+ user community channel seized by Freenode
staff
Author : rascul
Score : 298 points
Date : 2021-06-14 11:54 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (linux.chat)
(TXT) w3m dump (linux.chat)
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Where did #infra-talk go to?
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| Anthing to do with this?
| https://www.vice.com/en/article/m7ev8y/freenode-open-source-...
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Yes it has everything to do with that.
| xpressvideoz wrote:
| Wow, I didn't know Lee was a "nominal" crown princee of South
| Korea. As a South Korean myself, I really hate the former royal
| family. It embarrasses me that their negative influence
| contributed to the collapse of not only their own country, but
| also Freenode.
| canjobear wrote:
| What I wonder is: What can we, as normal HN users, do to increase
| the entertainment value of this IRC drama?
| nailer wrote:
| All I remember about Freenode is those interrupting messages to
| donate to one of the admins circa 2002.
| ilaksh wrote:
| 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.
| politician wrote:
| My 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.
| Dracophoenix wrote:
| Reminds me of that South Park episode where Cartman buys an
| amusement park to play in all for himself, realizes he needs to
| pay staff, slowly begins to bring people into the amusement
| park in order to pay for upkeep, and is afterwards hailed as an
| economic genius as though all his actions were planned.
| stuaxo wrote:
| So once everything is taken over is the plan to make this into
| some alternative to parlar, but with all the chat rooms seeded
| with the history of the groups before the takeover ?
| fairity wrote:
| If you remove the editorialization of events, it seems like the
| primary motivation here is to merge the ##linux and #linux
| channels, which actually makes sense from a new user perspective.
| It was always odd to me that some channel names had a double
| hash, while others had a single hash (and the two can co-exist
| iirc).
| rkeene2 wrote:
| The double hash ones were meant to indicate that the channel
| wasn't "run" by anyone officially affiliated with the free
| software with that name. This isn't always consistent since
| there's no mechanism to determine who is officially affiliated
| with most free software. Additionally the status can change
| over time making some channels with double octothorpes official
| without renaming them.
| Libcat99 wrote:
| freenode is dead. Everything it stood for is dead.
|
| Staff tout free speech, but they apparently only mean troll
| speech since anyone speaking against them or announcing new homes
| is getting channels stolen and users banned. It's disgusting.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| What I don't understand is why they double down on this
| destructive behaviour. It's a really excellent way to piss off
| those that hadn't left yet (and as such must have been leaning
| towards their side!), nothing else.
|
| But really what they're doing is the opposite of responsible
| and fair management. I don't want a network to be run like
| this.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| I guess it goes with the personality type. They are right,
| irrelevant of the blatant facts fleeing out the door every
| day, and blog posts detailing their malcontent every week.
| Biganon wrote:
| Freenode is not dead, it has a new name. And everything it
| stood for is especially not dead.
| Libcat99 wrote:
| Sure, the communities have moved on. This is what Lee did not
| understand. freenode was never something he could own.
|
| freenode was communities of people. The servers were donated,
| provided by people in the communities who wanted a reliable
| network. The staff were members of those communities,
| developers for those projects, and all volunteers. The users
| never were freenode users, they were ubuntu, and debian, and
| ham radio, and gimp users.
|
| There was nothing to OWN.
|
| And now that someone who has no clue about any of this does,
| they leave in droves.
| proactivesvcs wrote:
| Prosecuting the largest gaslighting operation against open source
| that I can recall, against a group of people more likely to
| notice and react very badly.
|
| The beatings will continue until morale improves.
| aluminum96 wrote:
| Is there anywhere I can get a TLDR about the (apparently
| extensive) background here?
| LocalH wrote:
| Wow, 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.
| yzombinator wrote:
| Haha, HN doesn't even allow you to delete comments, man. They
| own your comments in perpetuity in the name of whatever. What's
| permanent about an IRC channel? Its name?
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| 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 messaging, etc.) or just blatant cash
| grabs by trying to control and bank off something fairly
| open... i thought IRC - in its near entirety - would have gone
| this direction a long time ago.
| corobo wrote:
| It probably would have had people continued using it in big
| numbers. It also helps that any major disagreement is
| resolved with "ok now there's 2 networks"
| rtkwe wrote:
| There's different expectations for IRC vs most other
| social/chat platforms because of the structure and history.
| IRC has traditionally been run as a non-commercial community
| project so admins and server ops haven't had the same
| incentives for commercial palatability and IRC being older
| and a bit more obtuse to get into meant it didn't get the
| same attention in the cases where it's users do get into
| trouble. On top of that given it's a protocol instead of a
| single company there's a bit of separation where each server
| doesn't put pressure on all the others.
| Aeolun wrote:
| It's different in that it's not what you are signing up for.
| syshum wrote:
| 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
| cowvin wrote:
| the term "moderator" clearly suggests that they are there
| to moderate the conversation. otherwise they would be
| called "leaders."
| VectorLock wrote:
| Which makes them that much more apoplectic when Reddit
| walks in and takes their communities/powers away with no
| recourse.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| I wonder how much annual salary they lost when Reddit
| takes their subreddit away.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > 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.
| SllX wrote:
| No, it's not different, but there is a difference in
| expectations.
|
| If anything, Discord and Reddit are the ones that have it
| backwards. Their servers are theirs, and their free speech
| interest are theirs, but while you can own the premises and
| prioritize your own interests on your premises, that doesn't
| grant you ownership over the communities you host.
|
| Communities are made up of people, so claiming to own a
| community isn't any different than claiming to own people.
| People can just pick up and move elsewhere, even if that
| means losing the benefits and privileges of the prior host.
| sixothree wrote:
| I was removed as the founding moderator of a subreddit. Fun
| times.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| Mind if I ask: was it for grammar, a label-hunting lynch
| mob, interpersonal politics, or not agreeing to immediately
| apologize for having "majority privileges?"
| mistrial9 wrote:
| capital requires owners - you might say .. the net uses
| resources constantly, while capital is overflowing.. so a
| "power" person follows the M$ft path and jumps in with both
| hands to assign ownership to anything and everything, locals be
| dammed.. seems almost predictable in a way
| tyingq wrote:
| Freenode: Current global users 49980
|
| Libera: Current global users 32769
|
| Freenode's decline in users over the past month:
| http://www.hinner.com/ircstat/Socip_F_2.gif
|
| Comparison showing Freenode decline and Libera rise:
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
|
| Probably won't be long before Freenode is effectively dead.
|
| Edit: Also see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27502059 for
| a projection and more stats.
| junon wrote:
| https://isfreenodedeadyet.com
| [deleted]
| azinman2 wrote:
| So what's odd to me is how high freenode's numbers still are.
| That's a lot of people. If all the major FOSS projects have
| moved on, and with all the bad press, how is it there are still
| so many people on it? What channels are they on?
|
| Is their death greatly exaggerated?
| ghoward wrote:
| If you look at the amount of actual chat, it's already far
| below Libera.
|
| What this means is that probably most of the users left are
| either bouncers or lurkers that just haven't disconnected
| yet. However, this is speculation on my part.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| It's probably this. I haven't completely migrated my
| bouncer, either.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Services like this have a very large network effect. As the
| informed users leave, the quality of discussion drops and the
| remainder of users end up leaving too.
| haunter wrote:
| That low? IRC is truly dead
|
| But then again everyone is on Discord now so no surprise
| Grimm1 wrote:
| Low probably means higher quality engagement to be honest.
| Not that I use it but the trend I see is smaller things like
| this have higher quality conversation and interaction with
| some direct access to people you wouldn't normally be able to
| talk to otherwise. Seems like a feature to me if you do it
| right and aren't chasing the VC fly wheel.
| Kiro wrote:
| IRC is not dead but I was also surprised by those numbers.
| Random Discord servers for niched things have more users than
| those combined and the big ones have hundreds of thousands
| (if not millions) of users.
| duskwuff wrote:
| OTOH: IRC only counts users who are currently online.
| Discord counts every user who has clicked an invite link
| and "joined" the server, regardless of whether they are
| active.
| Kiro wrote:
| You're right but it all depends on what number you choose
| to expose (the games I've played that show Discord member
| count in-game usually show online count). As an example
| of a niche server I just saw one that was only about
| trading stuff in Animal Crossing: New Horizons that had
| 100k online with 500k in total.
| jokoon wrote:
| You can't even bookmark or favorite channels on discord. On
| discord, instead of joining channels, you join server (which
| aren't really servers BTW) with all their sub-channels, it is
| utterly impractical to use.
| unixhero wrote:
| As a flourishing community of the interwebs maybe, just
| maybe.
|
| IRC as a tool is certainly not dead.
|
| Former IRCOP.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| How does IRC work on mobile these days?
|
| Last time I used IRC seriously, I had to get off the train
| because I was chatting more on mobile than not and the
| mobile clients were basically un-serviceable (IIRC,
| protocol is too chatty and stateful for reliable connection
| on a device continuously changing its physical network
| connection).
| na85 wrote:
| As it always was, the best way to use IRC is sadly to
| sign up for a third party shell account and run a bnc or
| an irssi+tmux session or similar.
|
| It's little wonder to me that IRC's lunch got eaten; the
| UX on mobile is just awful.
| birdman3131 wrote:
| I always used a client called quassel that had an always
| on server you hosted somewhere. Then you had mobile and
| desktop apps that you used to connect to it. Because the
| server portion was always connected you did not miss
| stuff even when your client was disconnected.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| irccloud is a third party thing that makes this as
| seamless as other persistent chats but its not free
| Filligree wrote:
| Ish. Their mobile experience is notably jankier than
| discord, but still best in class for IRC.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I run a web based bouncer on my cluster and VPN into its
| interface on mobile devices.
| jeltz wrote:
| No idea, but Libera's Matrix bridge seems to work really
| well.
| gsich wrote:
| Like in past days. If you have a working OS (ie not iOS)
| you can use it fine. Otherwise use Lounge or something
| similar.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I was using Android and the experience was not good.
| Disconnects every time I put my phone in my pocket.
| gsich wrote:
| You need to disable power savings.
| nikanj wrote:
| Mosh+screen+irssi is way more usable in terrible network
| conditions than any of the more contemporary options
| Filligree wrote:
| This has value. But I never go anywhere with terrible
| network conditions, so it has no value to me.
| bloggie wrote:
| Irccloud is a popular and easy to use client with a good
| mobile interface.
|
| I use weechat, with the glowing-bear frontend on both
| desktop and mobile.
|
| In both cases, the mobile interface is a frontend for
| something else instead of being an actual irc client.
| rascul wrote:
| I find The Lounge to be fine for me on desktop and
| mobile. Also you can leave it connected, potentially
| eliminating the need for a bouncer.
|
| https://thelounge.chat/
| Exuma wrote:
| Completely false.
|
| #postgresql IRC has by far the most insanely helpful and in
| depth discussions of even the most trickiest of issues.
| marcinzm wrote:
| So how long until Freenode starts faking user numbers to look
| better?
| [deleted]
| Foomf wrote:
| I don't disagree with your point or your numbers, but the first
| chart can be misleading because the y axis doesn't start at 0.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Meanwhile on the freenode.net front page:
|
| > The future for freenode and FOSS communications, indeed,
| looks bright and exciting. Stay tuned for many great things to
| come!
| [deleted]
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| Too stupid for a takeover attempt. Looks more like a successful
| destruction attempt.
| echoradio wrote:
| At 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?
| dangerface wrote:
| Nothing says stop using our irc networking like klining #linux
| blakesterz wrote:
| I've only been 1/2 following along with this, I'm not sure I get
| it now. Freenode staff now has total control over every single
| change on Freenode? Won't that drive everyone (literally
| everyone) away? What's the Freenode staff's goal here? I'm not a
| Freenode user and have no interest in this at all, just wondering
| as a somewhat interested outsider.
| _fat_santa wrote:
| I wonder the same as an outsider. If you drive away all your
| users what do you really have at the end? Maybe they thought
| they were a monopoly and could act with impunity, though that
| seems like a foolish assumption
| danaris wrote:
| It's clear from Lee's words and actions that that's exactly
| what he thought.
|
| That, combined with a fragile ego and controlling
| personality, led very predictably to him reacting to people
| starting to _talk_ about leaving by trying to tighten his
| grip on everything--and everything slipping through his
| fingers.
| techrat wrote:
| > That, combined with a fragile ego and controlling
| personality...
|
| Oh, people barely know the half of it... and for those
| wondering just how bad it can get, peruse one of the court
| cases currently against him personally.
|
| https://corrupt.tech/1708590130-ocr-compressed.pdf
| dylan604 wrote:
| This reads like a day time soap, but it also sounds like
| many other stories. The fact that they referenced Uber's
| start up culture made me laugh.
| hu3 wrote:
| > Plaintiffs noticed that Lee was a habitual user of
| marijuana and cocaine, and would frequently abuse drugs
| in the office in front of his employees.
|
| WTF
| junon wrote:
| Holy shit. This is crazy if it's true.
|
| > For example, he told-LTM employees that he wanted to
| hire a female candidate simply because he wanted to have
| sex with her. Similarly, Lee expressed his desire to set
| up a "modeling agency" in the Hollywood Hills that would
| actually be a front for illegal prostitution (i.e., the
| "models" would be paid escorts). To that end, Lee
| circulated a memo to male LTM executives advising them to
| make sure and wear condoms when having sex with the
| "models."
|
| I really hope they have a copy of that memo. That alone
| would be damning.
| techrat wrote:
| It gets so much trashier shortly after that segment.
|
| > Making matters worse, Lee also had an ongoing
| relationship with a mistress that he brought to company
| functions and the LTM offices, despite people knowing
| that he was married. Lee met his mistress through a
| company offering female companionship for money. Lee
| abandoned his wife and newborn child to spend time with
| this woman, and their relationship was toxic. His
| mistress was physically and verbally abusive towards Lee,
| erratic and unpredictable, and caused Lee to act over-
| emotionally.
|
| > The two fought on a daily basis. And this happened in
| front of LTM employees, including Plaintiffs. For
| example, a few days after the February 2015 Meeting, Lee
| and his mistress had a violent altercation at a club in
| front of Park, Ken, James, and other LTM personnel. His
| mistress became infuriated and violent when Lee did not
| pay attention to her to attend to a conference call
| concerning LTM business. She punched Lee in the face,
| causing Lee to lose a tooth.
|
| All that MtGOX money couldn't buy class.
| ipaddr wrote:
| This is more entertaining than anything hollywood has put
| out in awhilw.
| danaris wrote:
| Hah, I've been trying to be fairly circumspect in my
| descriptions throughout this, as all I knew about Lee was
| what I'd seen in the stories about Freenode--but yikes,
| that's pretty crazy. Makes what he's been doing here make
| perfect sense, though.
| syshum wrote:
| That is the beauty of Open Protocols it is easy to switch to
| a new service provider and why Companies like Google removed
| all Open protocols from their services once they had a large
| market share
| zatertip wrote:
| You are correct. This will drive everyone away. Which is why we
| have graphs like this:
|
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
|
| Freenode is dying and the staff are actively killing it.
| 300bps wrote:
| That's an amazing drop in users!
|
| Thanks for that link - I was on Undernet starting in 1995 and
| even though the charts only went back to 1998 it was
| interesting to see the popularity of different IRC networks
| wax and wane over the years.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| More stats: https://isfreenodedeadyet.com
| Aeolun wrote:
| I miss a big button saying 'NO, freenode is not dead yet'
| on that website :/
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| At what threshold would you change it? A thousand users?
| Three users?
| tutfbhuf wrote:
| The reasoning is quite simple: Lee wants to force everybody away
| from Freenode to Libera so that he has full control and power
| over an empty Freenode network.
| PhasmaFelis wrote:
| _Why,_ though? How does that benefit him in any way?
| floatingatoll wrote:
| The most likely theory I've seen so far is that he wants to
| make it Free in the Parler/4chan sense, using the positive
| karma balance behind the word Freenode to legitimize it.
| This, like all other theories, is not supported by strong
| enough evidence that it can be declared certain.
| craftinator wrote:
| Dictators gonna dictate.
| foobarbaz33 wrote:
| Do you even underpants gnomes bro?
| makomk wrote:
| I think the answer is that it doesn't, and what he actually
| wanted was the minor prestige of (sort of) owning and funding
| (part of) Freenode and having his company's logo in the
| corner of the site whilst leaving the actual operations to
| the existing staff. That is to say, basically the same status
| quo as the last few years.
|
| From what I can tell, somewhere along the line some of the
| staff decided that wasn't OK and kicked out the person who'd
| actually been in charge of the network since the founder
| died, his newly-appointed replacement demanded that the
| Freenode domain be transferred to him personally and rejected
| Lee and others' suggestion of giving control of it to the
| community instead, and things went downhill from there with
| attempts to lock Lee and people seen as affiliated with him
| out of the network, threats of mass resignations and bogus
| claims of unprecedented advertising intrusion on the Freenode
| site, selling people's personal info, etc...
| buserror wrote:
| Why I don't understand is, why is nobody talking about Crystel?
| She _sold something she didn 't own_ betraying the trust of
| everyone, and yet, nobody mentions her. She went to hols and xmas
| parties, she was "elected" by peers and then she picked the worst
| person even and SOLD HIM SOMETHING SHE DIDN'T OWN.
| markus_zhang wrote:
| Just curious, tried LibraIRC but I didn't see any programming
| channel. Did I enter the wrong server? On Freenode I can see e.g.
| #c or #c++ which are channels with large amount of users.
| glguy wrote:
| LibraIRC is something else. You want libera.chat
| [deleted]
| fullstop wrote:
| Both of those are on Libera, with ~500 users in C and ~300 in
| C++.
| batch12 wrote:
| What's everyone's favorite linux-based client nowadays? I've been
| out of it a long time, but recent events have got me interested
| in seeing what's happening at libre chat.
| phoe-krk wrote:
| irssi in a tmux session on a shell account somewhere online.
| Also works as a bouncer and log collector.
| coldpie wrote:
| If you haven't, consider trying Weechat. I was a long-time
| irssi user, finally tried out Weechat, and I find it to be a
| much more usable client.
| scrps wrote:
| Weechat, takes a bit to set it up properly but it is extremely
| flexible. It can also act as a relay for another weechat client
| or weechat-remote.
| rascul wrote:
| I use The Lounge.
|
| https://thelounge.chat/
| coldpie wrote:
| Weechat.
|
| I'm looking forward to the weechat-matrix-rs project becoming
| usable, so I can also use it as a Matrix client.
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| konversation is pretty nice on kde.
| sleepydog wrote:
| I use ZNC to connect to irc and switch between a couple
| clients, but mainly I use irssi. I keep ZNC always running so I
| can still see what was said while I was away.
| rodiger wrote:
| Can someone provide some background? What started this?
| fsloth wrote:
| 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 and what, or someone will at some point simply come up
| with some documentation to their advantage and claim what
| you've built as their own.
| joepie91_ wrote:
| > A LLC has enough papers to prove that they own Freenode
|
| Actually they almost certainly don't. But they don't _need_
| to, either; they can just suppress the staff through legal
| threats, because lawsuits are expensive. Whether they are in
| the right is immaterial.
| myfavoritedog wrote:
| Interesting. So how much did Lee pay for Freenode? Did that
| all go to Christel Dahlskjaer?
| klyrs wrote:
| As I understand it, Lee paid for the domain name and
| generously donated hosting -- and had done for years. Thus,
| he had keys to the house, and when he decided that he owned
| it, nobody could stop him short of a court injunction. But
| apparently there was no clear legal agreement, so nothing
| can be done.
| myfavoritedog wrote:
| From the Arstechnica article:
|
| _In 2017, Christel Dahlskjaer--who was, at the time,
| head of Freenode staff--created a corporation, Freenode
| Ltd., which she immediately sold to Lee._
|
| Sounds like some money exchanged hands.
| matwood wrote:
| The bigger lesson is anytime there is something of value with
| more than a single person involved, all assumptions need to
| be written down and codified. I'll add that if friends are
| involved, even more so.
| techrat wrote:
| 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
| Jaygles wrote:
| > Christel "sold" Freenode to Andrew Lee (of which was not
| hers to sell) and never told the rest of Freenode staff the
| terms.
|
| If this is the case, is anyone pursuing a way to invalidate
| the sale?
| LegitShady wrote:
| Because likely nobody who can afford to has any standing.
| jeltz wrote:
| Is it known how much money Christel got?
| gvb wrote:
| Freenode IRC staff resign en masse after takeover by Korea's
| "crown prince"
| https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/05/freenode-irc-has-bee...
|
| Lots of HN discussion:
| https://www.google.com/search?q=freenode+site%3Anews.ycombin...
| zatertip wrote:
| Events up until May 24th:
|
| https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af4...
|
| After that, at every turn when Andrew Lee has been given the
| choice between doing the right thing and acting like a comic
| book villain, he has chosen the latter.
|
| Removed any restraint on staff, tried to bribe FOSSHOST to be
| the face of his operations, hired known trolls and right-wing
| extremists as staff.
|
| More materially, he has killed or driven away ##linux, #fsf,
| #gnu, #archlinux, #gentoo, #fedora, #ubuntu, #wikipedia and
| OVER 700 MORE PROJECTS:
|
| https://github.com/siraben/freenode-exodus
|
| And he is not done yet. He has announced that soon he will
| switch the whole network over to a new irc daemon, which he
| will fail at because he doesn't know how and the people who do
| won't touch him with a 7-foot pole:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/irc/comments/nyp855/new_freenode_ma...
| craftinator wrote:
| All of this really puts Lee's evangelizing of Private
| Internet Access into a new light, doesn't it?
| ConcernedCoder wrote:
| Lee ... founded popular VPN company Private Internet
| Access, LTMI, which last year sold to an Israeli
| cybersecurity firm for $95.5 million.
|
| IMHO, at this point you need to seriously consider the
| possibility that everything he's touched, including
| Freenode, could be compromised in some way, if not already
| a literal "honeypot"...
|
| Off-topic: I love his new house:
| https://www.insider.com/south-korean-royals-california-
| mansi...
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| There have been many stories on HN, but as far as I know the
| basic story is like this.
|
| Someone bought the freenode domain name
|
| The group of people that ran freenode get in an argument with
| that person
|
| All of the previous administrators leave to start libera
|
| the new owner of freenode installs his own administrators.
|
| Channels start switching to libera
|
| freenode bans any one discussing libera
|
| freenode seizes channels that are in the process of migrating,
| because they consider libera competition.
| skrause wrote:
| Why doesn't the new Freenode staff just shut down the IRC
| servers? That would be a lot less work than killing off each
| channel individually.
| darklion wrote:
| That's sort of my question. What's the end goal for Freenode?
| They're burning the network to the ground. Is there some
| positive outcome for them here that I'm missing?
| dole wrote:
| My money's on ridiculous crypto exit scam
| jeltz wrote:
| Either that or rasengan is setting everything on fire
| because he is a sore loser.
| failwhaleshark wrote:
| It seems like Schadenfreude or sour grapes.
|
| Chat is a slightly more dynamic market than email for user
| acquisition, but it's still damn hard to get new users. Who
| but a bunch of rubes would use a previously nonprofit service
| that was publicly obliterated?
|
| Or is the end goal a new, commercial brand strategy? No one
| in tech with any sense will use them.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Once they've burnt it to the ground, they'll have a blank
| slate. It looks like they're trying to make a job board for
| channers...? It might work; I'm confused enough to think I'm
| missing something. If others feel that same confusion, Lee's
| Freenode might be able to get some venture capital.
| yoz-y wrote:
| IRC is not exactly booming. Those who have fled during this
| exodus will probably not return. And trying to get people
| who don't already use IRC on board will be even more
| difficult.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| They probably _won 't_ return. They're certainly not
| going to return to Freenode, though.
|
| IRC doesn't need to boom. The communities matter; IRC is
| just a protocol.
| behringer wrote:
| lee's a regular user here on HN, so anything he sees here
| that he thinks is "simple" enough to be copied to freenode,
| he does without much thought.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > job board for channers
|
| I'd have thought real names and chan culture's extreme
| NSFWness would get on incredibly badly.
| BeFlatXIII wrote:
| Channers and leaving NEETdom the normal way? Yes.
| Channers hiring other channers? That's called company
| culture. The customers in the latter scenario are either
| also channers who appreciate the toxicity or the company
| makes the software equivalent of ball bearings and does
| not have enough public presence for consumer boycotts to
| have any effect.
| inshadows wrote:
| The thing is, most people will just stay, and the freak behind
| Freenode will have numbers to back up his claims, that his
| "community" is strong. Who knows how many of those users just
| keep running irssi in screen or have it configured on bouncer,
| checking it once a year when they need to ask question. Maybe
| over long time, the numbers will shift. But most people just
| don't care about the platform they chat through.
| pvtmert wrote:
| Channel takeovers were mostly done by re-creating channels,
| which causes everyone to be kicked from a channel.
|
| Also, yes there are lots of idle people but at the same time
| when nobody responds to them with ~50ppl to the room, they will
| eventually wonder why.
|
| Plus channels having no op (Just chanserv), maybe freenode
| staff. Which will look even weirder than usual.
| SaberUK wrote:
| The evidence suggests that is not the case. Freenode has
| already lost almost half of its users in the last month and the
| projections suggest that Libera Chat will overtake freenode in
| user count in just over a week and that freenode will drop to
| the third largest network by user count in about a month. These
| projections have been pretty optimistic for freenode over the
| last few weeks too, the reality of the situation has shown
| freenode lose users faster than the projections forecast.
|
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
|
| https://isfreenodedeadyet.com/
| junon wrote:
| > The thing is, most people will just stay
|
| In this case, no.
| SamWhited wrote:
| I agree with the sentiment, but I don't know about "most
| users". The numbers are already getting pretty close to half of
| what they were before, so even if they're still big the graph
| seems to counter any claims they might make about a strong
| community: https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I'm glad someone else in the comments posted this link:
| https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php which clearly indicates
| freenode is tanking and libera is matching it but upwards. In a
| month it'll be overtaken; I think there may be a lot of inertia
| from people who have a load of irc channels open but don't
| actively interact with it, as well as old webpages pointing to
| the freenode servers. But it's a matter of time, nobody will
| promote freenode anymore, all IRC communities will or have
| migrated, etc.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| The years around 2000 were wild, then everything calmed down
| year after year
| coldpie wrote:
| Yeah. I had one or two channels that took some time moving,
| but this morning my last one moved, so I've finally logged
| off Freenode for the first time in about 15 years. In a few
| more weeks/months, pretty much the only "users" left will be
| IRC proxies that someone forgot about.
| rtpg wrote:
| People will stay? None of the places I was in on IRC have
| stayed.
|
| Some other thread is saying that 40% of the userbase had
| hemoraged already
| joepie91_ wrote:
| > But most people just don't care about the platform they chat
| through.
|
| People love to throw this sentiment around literally every time
| any kind of platform does something shitty, and it's certainly
| very effective at demotivating people from even _trying_ to do
| anything about it. It would be great if people stopped claiming
| this, because it 's really not helping anybody and makes the
| job of resolving governance issues so much harder.
|
| This specific case is actually a good example of how the
| sentiment is completely wrong, too; with the right strategy
| (which was what happened here) it's clearly possible to get
| people to move en masse. As evidenced by Freenode bleeding
| users to Libera at breakneck pace, and effectively all projects
| having moved over.
|
| Bottom line: _you_ might not want to put in the effort to solve
| governance issues like this, and that 's fine. But please stop
| actively telling other people that they won't succeed.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I think there's a spectrum of caring. Facebook users barely
| comprehend what their platform is doing to them, IRC users
| would get ham radio callsigns if they needed to.
| rambojazz wrote:
| What's the reason for all of this?
| zamalek wrote:
| > this channel is in violation of Freenode policy
|
| Any word on the alleged policy violation? Or has Lee just
| starting nuking communities at this point?
| white-flame wrote:
| The policy basically changes on a daily basis, depending on
| which action he needs to quickly justify.
|
| Generally speaking, mentioning anything about libera.chat in
| the topic is counted as "spam" or "advertising" or whatever,
| even if you were keeping a presence on both networks, or only
| considering the possibility of a move.
| kwdc wrote:
| Freenode 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.
| cosmojg wrote:
| https://libera.chat for those who haven't been following.
| towb wrote:
| "Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! Mine! ..." - seagulls from
| Finding Nemo
|
| The only explanation of what's going on that I can think of.
| andai wrote:
| Seriously, 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.
| metalliqaz wrote:
| he spends his time drinking and doing drugs, indulging in
| prostitutes, and splashing money around
| junon wrote:
| For those downvoting, this is accurate according to his
| current lawsuit(s) against him. Certainly not exaggerated.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > For those downvoting, this is accurate according to his
| current lawsuit(s) against him
|
| While the claims in the lawsuit may eventually be proven,
| the fact that something has been alleged in a lawsuit is
| not even remotely similar to substantive evidence that it
| is true.
| junon wrote:
| hence why I said "according to the current lawsuit(s)
| against him"...
| floatingatoll wrote:
| That doesn't excuse the poor phrasing, even if it
| corrects for it.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| Even if you include malicious explanations, I still struggle to
| see this leading to something that will benefit him.
| nenaan wrote:
| He has a kink for public himulation.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| ...and stupid. Or, we should consider the very real
| possibility, mentally unwell.
| tauntz wrote:
| _> Seriously, what 's the matter with this guy?_
|
| According to https://corrupt.tech/1708590130-ocr-
| compressed.pdf:
|
| _> During this time, however, Plaintiffs became concerned with
| Lee 's mental wellbeing and his ability to lead LTM and PIA.
| Plaintiffs noticed that Lee was a habitual user of marijuana
| and cocaine, and would frequently abuse drugs in the office _in
| front of his employees. Lee often combined his drug use with
| alcohol and would act erratically._
|
| _> For example, he told-LTM employees that he wanted to hire a
| female candidate simply because he wanted to have sex with her.
| Similarly, Lee expressed his desire to set up a "modeling
| agency" in the Hollywood Hills that would actually be a front
| for illegal prostitution (i.e., the "models" would be paid
| escorts). To that end, Lee circulated a memo to male LTM
| executives advising them to make sure and wear condoms when
| having sex with the "models." Lee went so far as to state that
| he planned to move LTM's offices to the Hollywood Hills mansion
| once the "modeling agency" was set up_
| Exuma wrote:
| Cringe level 9000. What an idiot
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The only thing I can think of is that freenode and libera are
| in it together, and they're creating drama to make people talk
| about IRC again. I joked on another thread that he is just
| being a wrestling heel at this point. It's either that or it's
| a purely emotional response with no rational plan.
|
| Edit: if it is all a bit of performative art, then it's
| brilliant. I have logged into public IRC maybe 10 times in the
| last 15 years, and now I'm seriously considering going back.
| corobo wrote:
| That'd be a hell of a plot haha. Honestly I think this is
| closer to being the last big IRC drama
| techrat wrote:
| It's not. Lee really is this self destructive and crazy.
| system16 wrote:
| > There was no warning, no consultation and the only shred of
| reasoning that could be found was in the canned message stating
| "this channel is in violation of Freenode policy"
|
| Sounds straight out of an authoritarian regime's playbook.
| refracture wrote:
| It's almost like they thought irc was dying too slowly or
| something.
| ilaksh wrote:
| IRC isn't dying. Freenode is. And the communities are on
| libera.chat.
| Macha wrote:
| 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.
| duskwuff wrote:
| It's been going on for a lot longer than 5 years. Most of
| the legacy IRC networks (IRCnet, DALnet, EFnet, QuakeNet,
| Undernet, Rizon) peaked around 2005 and have been shrinking
| steadily ever since.
| gre wrote:
| I didn't know anything about this guy but now I'm not a fan. I
| quit freenode and I cancelled my Private Internet Access
| subscription too. Neat.
| Havoc wrote:
| Reminds me of GoT
|
| "He would see this country burn if he could be King of the
| ashes." - Varys
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