Ah, figured it out: it's at the top-right on https://web.archive.org/web/20210228045521/https://freenode.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210228045521/https:/

Ah, figured it out: it's at the top-right on https://web.archive.org/web/20210228045521/https://freenode.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210228045521/https://freenode.... covered by the Wayback Machine's own toolbar. This is the same location and the same level of prominence as the logo for Private Internet Access, their previous sponsor also associated with Andrew Lee, was placed in for about half a decade between around April 2016: https://web.archive.org/web/20160413123025/https://freenode.net/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160413123025/https://freenode.... and January 2021. It certainly wasn't just limited to https://freenode.net/acknowledgements https://freenode.net/acknowledgements so the claim that this is some shocking, unprecedented new practice that justifies the entire admin team quitting and encouraging everyone else to leave and sponsors to do stuff like delete their mail server without warning seems completely unfounded in actual evidence. I guess everyone just decided to trust the Big Reputable Freenet Operators over that evil Andrew guy without bothering to check; though to be fair I only happened to notice because initially the other Private Internet Access link in the footer, which had no Shells equivalent, was the only one I could find and it turned out to go way back.