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> I decided to move my channel, ##hntop, to Liberachat. > This channel has moved to Liberachat, effective immediately To be fair, this is a very gray area and

> I decided to move my channel, ##hntop, to Liberachat. > This channel has moved to Liberachat, effective immediately To be fair, this is a very gray area and is not a cut-and-dry example of abuse of power. The op did express that they were moving on to Libera. Is the expectation that someone could squat (as per the new channel description) a channel for all perpetuity, even if they no longer participate on the platform? Conversely, rasengan really should have first had a conversation with the op, and did pull the trigger on this suspiciously quickly.

na85 5y ago
>Is the expectation that someone could squat (as per the new channel description) a channel for all perpetuity, even if they no longer participate on the platform? It's like that on some of the less-modern networks like EFnet. For a long time there were no services to automatically grant channel operator status and so folks would either amass a network of trusted humans large enough to pass the +o flag between each other as timezones awoke and went about their days, and/or they would herd large flocks of bots to perform the same.
- nickthegreek 5y ago
  Efnet and it’s non registered chaos is what drew me into computers and made me write my first lines of code. I really felt like a part of community having to hold channels. I learned so much about the underlying network protocols that made the internet work and went on to go to a vocation high school for networking. This story was actually confusing to me at first because I never really joined IRC servers that allowed the registrations of usernames let alone channels.
wowaname 5y ago
The policies on freenode are very clear about ##-namespace channels expiring after several weeks of being unused, or after the founder drops their account. The user hl still has his eight-year-old account, is still logged in, and barely a week has gone by before the channel was taken over. freenode has always allowed communities to direct their channels to other platforms.
- zamalek 5y ago
  That makes sense, thanks for the explanation of the expected process.
- riking 5y ago
  The pre-takeover policies, clearly.
  - wowaname 5y ago
    They remain unchanged for now (as I write this post): >Topical channels [ones that begin with ##] are given out on a first-come, first-served basis. They will expire if unused for a long time, see our policies for details regarding when this occurs. You can contact us on IRC with a request to take over an expired topical channel. —from https://freenode.net/kb/answer/namespaces https://freenode.net/kb/answer/namespaces >Topical channels expire after 60 days in which no user on the access list for the channel has joined it. —from https://freenode.net/policies https://freenode.net/policies Historical precedent shows that channels (both primary ones in the # namespace, and topical ones) are closed when they conflict with policies and there is no way to resolve the conflict, and closures are enforced by services, which restrict access to such channels for any users trying to join. I've both been in channels closed by staff, as well as had one of my channels closed due to such policy conflicts. My channel has since been reopened, once I showed legitimate interest to staff in complying with network policy.
    - sfhsfhrhrehrhrh 5y ago
      It doesn't matter what the written rules say if the group with administrative access just ignores them when convenient. The rules as used in practice seem to have changed according to the original blog post.
      - wowaname 5y ago
        Please keep track of the thread. Parent post made a claim that this was not an "abuse of power" and I was clarifying how it was indeed an abuse of power. Apparently the policies are in the process of being redrafted in response to this, so in the future, what Lee did with ##hntop may very well reflect the actual policies of the network.
ben0x539 5y ago
> Is the expectation that someone could squat (as per the new channel description) a channel for all perpetuity, even if they no longer participate on the platform? I really think that is the expectation. I can see reasonable exceptions for specific important channels, where someone abandons an active channel that is a valuable community resource and it is transferred to another caretaker who has some sort of mandate from the community. Even that could be seen as a bit sketchy, imo, and there is precedent for just choosing another channel name rather than going against community norms. In this case, I think it's hard to argue that the channel just had to continue to function and so protocol had to be breached. The raised eyebrows this is getting are justified, imo.

na85 5y ago

>Is the expectation that someone could squat (as per the new channel description) a channel for all perpetuity, even if they no longer participate on the platform? It's like that on some of the less-modern networks like EFnet. For a long time there were no services to automatically grant channel operator status and so folks would either amass a network of trusted humans large enough to pass the +o flag between each other as timezones awoke and went about their days, and/or they would herd large flocks of bots to perform the same.

nickthegreek 5y ago
Efnet and it’s non registered chaos is what drew me into computers and made me write my first lines of code. I really felt like a part of community having to hold channels. I learned so much about the underlying network protocols that made the internet work and went on to go to a vocation high school for networking. This story was actually confusing to me at first because I never really joined IRC servers that allowed the registrations of usernames let alone channels.

wowaname 5y ago

The policies on freenode are very clear about ##-namespace channels expiring after several weeks of being unused, or after the founder drops their account. The user hl still has his eight-year-old account, is still logged in, and barely a week has gone by before the channel was taken over. freenode has always allowed communities to direct their channels to other platforms.

zamalek 5y ago
That makes sense, thanks for the explanation of the expected process.
riking 5y ago
The pre-takeover policies, clearly.
- wowaname 5y ago
  They remain unchanged for now (as I write this post): >Topical channels [ones that begin with ##] are given out on a first-come, first-served basis. They will expire if unused for a long time, see our policies for details regarding when this occurs. You can contact us on IRC with a request to take over an expired topical channel. —from https://freenode.net/kb/answer/namespaces https://freenode.net/kb/answer/namespaces >Topical channels expire after 60 days in which no user on the access list for the channel has joined it. —from https://freenode.net/policies https://freenode.net/policies Historical precedent shows that channels (both primary ones in the # namespace, and topical ones) are closed when they conflict with policies and there is no way to resolve the conflict, and closures are enforced by services, which restrict access to such channels for any users trying to join. I've both been in channels closed by staff, as well as had one of my channels closed due to such policy conflicts. My channel has since been reopened, once I showed legitimate interest to staff in complying with network policy.
  - sfhsfhrhrehrhrh 5y ago
    It doesn't matter what the written rules say if the group with administrative access just ignores them when convenient. The rules as used in practice seem to have changed according to the original blog post.
    - wowaname 5y ago
      Please keep track of the thread. Parent post made a claim that this was not an "abuse of power" and I was clarifying how it was indeed an abuse of power. Apparently the policies are in the process of being redrafted in response to this, so in the future, what Lee did with ##hntop may very well reflect the actual policies of the network.

ben0x539 5y ago

> Is the expectation that someone could squat (as per the new channel description) a channel for all perpetuity, even if they no longer participate on the platform? I really think that is the expectation. I can see reasonable exceptions for specific important channels, where someone abandons an active channel that is a valuable community resource and it is transferred to another caretaker who has some sort of mandate from the community. Even that could be seen as a bit sketchy, imo, and there is precedent for just choosing another channel name rather than going against community norms. In this case, I think it's hard to argue that the channel just had to continue to function and so protocol had to be breached. The raised eyebrows this is getting are justified, imo.