8 ms·

Speaking as an IRC lifer, every article I read about this fails to actually make any kind of cohesive point about what's going on and why it is bad. Explain lik

Speaking as an IRC lifer, every article I read about this fails to actually make any kind of cohesive point about what's going on and why it is bad. Explain like I'm 5 please? Who controlled nickserv/chanserv before this Andrew fellow? It seems there is some leap to "omfg he's taking control of services!" without mention of who is /losing/ control. It seems perhaps a large chunk of story is missing here. Meanwhile I'll probably continue using Freenode until it starts serving Viagra ads during connection or something similarly tangibly evil. Right now I just see a bunch of dumb IRC drama. It's a chat network, come on.

ok123456 5y ago
There is no real problem. The freenode "staffers" just don't like the fact that someone was able to win the irc game (i.e., gaining more power) without following their invented arbitrary bureaucracy and dedicating their life to idling in the right set of channels. This whole thing is really off topic and should be taken to ##wrongplanet .
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Every organization in which the people have real autonomy and power is literally an invented arbitrary bureaucracy. You just invented a really long way to describe civilization. People don't like it when money trumps all other factors in a concern that perceptively wasn't for sale and threats and dishonesty don't help either. It appears that nearly everyone involved believes there is a problem including Lee who now needs new paid staff to run what is likely a dwindling community. It sounds like you have an ax to grind personally.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    Nah. I've seen much larger IRC networks run with a fraction of the officiousness and ornery behavior from freenode "staffers". It's not a general problem with civilization needing "law and order" or whatever.
    - michaelmrose 5y ago
      Do you mean that you had an issue with freenode staff and now enjoy their discomfort.
      - ok123456 5y ago
        Personal attacks are off-topic on hackernews.
    - Macha 5y ago
      Isn't Freenode the largest IRC network by a significant margin? https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
      - pop11 5y ago
        Click 2005. Observe Y axis.
        Macha 5y ago
        I'm not sure early 00s IRC networks are a success story of light touch, politics free organisation.
        ok123456 5y ago
        Those same networks are still functioning with much less proportionate overhead. They're also much more technically competent. Look at how the different networks handled the cross-protocol exploit a few years back where a well crafted link could cause the browser to connect to irc and spam. Most other networks required a PING/PONG on connect so they weren't vulnerable. Of the networks that didn't, they were able to mitigate that within minutes to hours by either a simple configuration change or a firewall rule. Freenode was unable to do anything for months. Their solution was to rewrite their entire ircd and tell people not to complain about the spam.
- mjthompson 5y ago
  I know you'll get downvoted but the last line did make me laugh. Edit: delete some things I'm probably not qualified to comment on
  - q3k 5y ago
    > It does strike me as odd that people who run servers don't get o-lines, but a random group of people do? IIUC it's the staffers/opers that actually run the servers - monitor health, manage the OS, perform software updates, manage ircd, debug issues, cordon broken machines, etc. That's the bulk of the work in order to keep the things actually running. The alternative, providing a server in exchange for powers on the network would clearly be an exchange, not a donation. Plus, I'm pretty sure many machine donors don't want the extra work of maintaining the entire IRC/software stack, and are quite happy to exchange some spare organizational resources to a good cause. I know I would much rather donate spare rack capacity than to also spend hours maintaining yet another service.
    - mjthompson 5y ago
      I edited my comment after posting it to get rid of some of the commentary, since on reflection, I really don't know enough about them to offer an opinion. But thanks for clarifying that. Are these staffers appointed by the community or by other staffers? I would have expected it to be a democratic process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist vibe that ok alludes to.
      - q3k 5y ago
        > Are these staffers appointed by the community or by other staffers? I would have expected it to be a democratic process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist vibe that ok alludes to. I don't know, but I honestly don't care that much about it. My limited contact with staffers was excellent, they were helpful and never came off as arrogant (even when people did stupid shit), so effectively I couldn't care less about whether they were democratically elected or not.
pmlnr 5y ago
IRC == drama since the dawn of time.
- kazinator 5y ago
  I remember being kicked off #unix in Efnet sometime in 200x because I posted the controversial idea that work on IRC began in 1988 and I first compiled a client and got on in 1993.
  - CapriciousCptl 5y ago
    Isn't it crazy how you remember getting kicked/banned 20 years later? Around the same time (early 200x) I was temp-banned from #cpp or #c++ or whatever after being accused of asking a homework question. I had been active in the channel for awhile by then and simply didn't have homework because I was self-learning with everything I could find. It just stuck with me because I idolized the people in that room at the time.
    - kazinator 5y ago
      It's not crazy if it was for a totally laughable reason, like puffed up pricks in #unix with channel ops don't even know IRC history.
    - cout 5y ago
      Sounds like something we might have done in #c. Eventually I learned how to act like an adult, some time after I became one.
  - ok123456 5y ago
    /mode #unix +k NOHELP
- andrew_ 5y ago
  Who else recalls the self-flagellation that was required in order to get any kind of help in #cplusplus or #programming? Took a lot of humility and you had to eat a lot of crow back in those days. ah, seeking help on EFNet - the old rite of passage for young programmers.
kodah 5y ago
I think I might be able to do this. Prior to recent times there was a Freenode head of staff that was elected named Christel. Powers seem to have been delegated from her as she had control of the legal entity. In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms. Supposedly this was to launch a conference called Freenode Live (why Freenode wanted a conference is beyond me.) It was stipulated that Freenode staff would be able to maintain strategic control of the network. At some point Mr Lee of PIA requested that the domains be transferred back under his control and some ads for shells.com popped up on the Freenode website. Between there and now is a mystery. Freenode isn't really just FOSS, believe it or not. It's a lot of hobbyists, tinkerers, etc... The vast majority of users you meet on there aren't data scientists or software engineers. The culture is this very independent, almost Libertarian-esque ideals. My take is that Mr Lee came in and reminded them the buck stops with him and no longer honored Freenodes more democratic culture of voting. It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state because the original owner died and his brother tried to monetize the network. There's precedent in the idea that people (staff and users) do not want a for-profit network. It's viewed as a conflict of interest and a consolidation of power where power is "meant" to be distributed and already quite scarce. These users will often avoid Slack and object to open communities being run on proprietary for-profit platforms. The reason people don't get it, in my view, is a difference in cultural values that are fairly unique to certain areas of FOSS and Freenode, LiberaChat, and OFTC. Basically you had an official system of authority enforced by legal means and one implicit system of authority which users were familiar with that ran the day to day operations of the network. Those came to a head, and the network operators put the problem on the users because they didn't know how to deal with it.
- dpedu 5y ago
  > In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms. Sold by who? Christel alone? The brother-of-original-owner? What exactly was sold? The name? Server data?
  - kodah 5y ago
    I don't know the specifics, but from what I gathered it was the IP, trademarks, and infrastructure. Basically the whole thing.
grouphugs 5y ago
the server getting invaded by nazis that gaslight, stalk, harass, pull red herrings, all in campaigns of attrition, and behavior that freenode itself as an organization is upholding, is drama? that's very itneresting cookguyruffles, we will be keeping tabs on you
gwillen 5y ago
My sense has been that the things we need to know are mostly pretty clear. There are things we don't know, but it seems that Andrew Lee is the _reason_ (or a reason) that we don't know many of those things. - Who controlled nickserv/chanserv? I'm not sure, but my impression is that it was probably christel (who was head of Freenode staff) until she resigned, then tomaw (who became head of Freenode staff at that time), until he was served with threatening legal papers ordering him to deliver them to Andrew Lee.

ok123456 5y ago

There is no real problem. The freenode "staffers" just don't like the fact that someone was able to win the irc game (i.e., gaining more power) without following their invented arbitrary bureaucracy and dedicating their life to idling in the right set of channels. This whole thing is really off topic and should be taken to ##wrongplanet .

michaelmrose 5y ago
Every organization in which the people have real autonomy and power is literally an invented arbitrary bureaucracy. You just invented a really long way to describe civilization. People don't like it when money trumps all other factors in a concern that perceptively wasn't for sale and threats and dishonesty don't help either. It appears that nearly everyone involved believes there is a problem including Lee who now needs new paid staff to run what is likely a dwindling community. It sounds like you have an ax to grind personally.
- ok123456 5y ago
  Nah. I've seen much larger IRC networks run with a fraction of the officiousness and ornery behavior from freenode "staffers". It's not a general problem with civilization needing "law and order" or whatever.
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Do you mean that you had an issue with freenode staff and now enjoy their discomfort.
    - ok123456 5y ago
      Personal attacks are off-topic on hackernews.
  - Macha 5y ago
    Isn't Freenode the largest IRC network by a significant margin? https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php https://netsplit.de/networks/top10.php
    - pop11 5y ago
      Click 2005. Observe Y axis.
      - Macha 5y ago
        I'm not sure early 00s IRC networks are a success story of light touch, politics free organisation.
        ok123456 5y ago
        Those same networks are still functioning with much less proportionate overhead. They're also much more technically competent. Look at how the different networks handled the cross-protocol exploit a few years back where a well crafted link could cause the browser to connect to irc and spam. Most other networks required a PING/PONG on connect so they weren't vulnerable. Of the networks that didn't, they were able to mitigate that within minutes to hours by either a simple configuration change or a firewall rule. Freenode was unable to do anything for months. Their solution was to rewrite their entire ircd and tell people not to complain about the spam.
mjthompson 5y ago
I know you'll get downvoted but the last line did make me laugh. Edit: delete some things I'm probably not qualified to comment on
- q3k 5y ago
  > It does strike me as odd that people who run servers don't get o-lines, but a random group of people do? IIUC it's the staffers/opers that actually run the servers - monitor health, manage the OS, perform software updates, manage ircd, debug issues, cordon broken machines, etc. That's the bulk of the work in order to keep the things actually running. The alternative, providing a server in exchange for powers on the network would clearly be an exchange, not a donation. Plus, I'm pretty sure many machine donors don't want the extra work of maintaining the entire IRC/software stack, and are quite happy to exchange some spare organizational resources to a good cause. I know I would much rather donate spare rack capacity than to also spend hours maintaining yet another service.
  - mjthompson 5y ago
    I edited my comment after posting it to get rid of some of the commentary, since on reflection, I really don't know enough about them to offer an opinion. But thanks for clarifying that. Are these staffers appointed by the community or by other staffers? I would have expected it to be a democratic process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist vibe that ok alludes to.
    - q3k 5y ago
      > Are these staffers appointed by the community or by other staffers? I would have expected it to be a democratic process. Otherwise it does give off an elitist vibe that ok alludes to. I don't know, but I honestly don't care that much about it. My limited contact with staffers was excellent, they were helpful and never came off as arrogant (even when people did stupid shit), so effectively I couldn't care less about whether they were democratically elected or not.

pmlnr 5y ago

IRC == drama since the dawn of time.

kazinator 5y ago
I remember being kicked off #unix in Efnet sometime in 200x because I posted the controversial idea that work on IRC began in 1988 and I first compiled a client and got on in 1993.
- CapriciousCptl 5y ago
  Isn't it crazy how you remember getting kicked/banned 20 years later? Around the same time (early 200x) I was temp-banned from #cpp or #c++ or whatever after being accused of asking a homework question. I had been active in the channel for awhile by then and simply didn't have homework because I was self-learning with everything I could find. It just stuck with me because I idolized the people in that room at the time.
  - kazinator 5y ago
    It's not crazy if it was for a totally laughable reason, like puffed up pricks in #unix with channel ops don't even know IRC history.
  - cout 5y ago
    Sounds like something we might have done in #c. Eventually I learned how to act like an adult, some time after I became one.
- ok123456 5y ago
  /mode #unix +k NOHELP
andrew_ 5y ago
Who else recalls the self-flagellation that was required in order to get any kind of help in #cplusplus or #programming? Took a lot of humility and you had to eat a lot of crow back in those days. ah, seeking help on EFNet - the old rite of passage for young programmers.

kodah 5y ago

I think I might be able to do this. Prior to recent times there was a Freenode head of staff that was elected named Christel. Powers seem to have been delegated from her as she had control of the legal entity. In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms. Supposedly this was to launch a conference called Freenode Live (why Freenode wanted a conference is beyond me.) It was stipulated that Freenode staff would be able to maintain strategic control of the network. At some point Mr Lee of PIA requested that the domains be transferred back under his control and some ads for shells.com popped up on the Freenode website. Between there and now is a mystery. Freenode isn't really just FOSS, believe it or not. It's a lot of hobbyists, tinkerers, etc... The vast majority of users you meet on there aren't data scientists or software engineers. The culture is this very independent, almost Libertarian-esque ideals. My take is that Mr Lee came in and reminded them the buck stops with him and no longer honored Freenodes more democratic culture of voting. It's worth explaining that Freenode got in this state because the original owner died and his brother tried to monetize the network. There's precedent in the idea that people (staff and users) do not want a for-profit network. It's viewed as a conflict of interest and a consolidation of power where power is "meant" to be distributed and already quite scarce. These users will often avoid Slack and object to open communities being run on proprietary for-profit platforms. The reason people don't get it, in my view, is a difference in cultural values that are fairly unique to certain areas of FOSS and Freenode, LiberaChat, and OFTC. Basically you had an official system of authority enforced by legal means and one implicit system of authority which users were familiar with that ran the day to day operations of the network. Those came to a head, and the network operators put the problem on the users because they didn't know how to deal with it.

dpedu 5y ago
> In 2013 Freenode was sold to PIA for undisclosed sums and terms. Sold by who? Christel alone? The brother-of-original-owner? What exactly was sold? The name? Server data?
- kodah 5y ago
  I don't know the specifics, but from what I gathered it was the IP, trademarks, and infrastructure. Basically the whole thing.

grouphugs 5y ago

the server getting invaded by nazis that gaslight, stalk, harass, pull red herrings, all in campaigns of attrition, and behavior that freenode itself as an organization is upholding, is drama? that's very itneresting cookguyruffles, we will be keeping tabs on you

gwillen 5y ago

My sense has been that the things we need to know are mostly pretty clear. There are things we don't know, but it seems that Andrew Lee is the _reason_ (or a reason) that we don't know many of those things. - Who controlled nickserv/chanserv? I'm not sure, but my impression is that it was probably christel (who was head of Freenode staff) until she resigned, then tomaw (who became head of Freenode staff at that time), until he was served with threatening legal papers ordering him to deliver them to Andrew Lee.