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On some Freenode channels I've seen the channel owners effectively ban/block all conversations before leaving. This would mean that even if people chose to stay

by izacus 5y ago

On some Freenode channels I've seen the channel owners effectively ban/block all conversations before leaving. This would mean that even if people chose to stay on Freenode, they wouldn't be able to talk on channels dedicated to some projects at all. A lot of those channels got taken over and bans removed.

p_l 5y ago
On most of those channels, the previous state was that it is an official, supported channel of a given organization (especially if it's a non-grandfathered single-# channel). The mass bans and such are the only way to mass-notify in reliable way that an official channel moved elsewhere. In all cases I've seen so far, the channel hijacked by new ircops was not a random community channel, and in fact freenode had policy even before that about prioritizing official org ownership.
- izacus 5y ago
  I find this explanation a bit dishonest - mass ban of people talking about topic to push them to another server is not "the most reliable way" of communicating anything. The whole point of IRC is that people can create channels and talk about things without those channels being owned by someone. If team members want to go somewhere else that's completely fine - but preventing people from staying and talking about a project goes against core of IRC and IMO Freenode ircops are well within rights to prevent channel squatting and forceful bans.
  - kemayo 5y ago
    Sure, but Freenode has a "namespace" system. A channel with a single # is supposed to signify that it's officially affiliated with whatever project it's about, while a channel with a double ## is something community-driven. It's thus perfectly reasonable to me that, if the project decides to move networks and stop using the official channel, it should shut it down and redirect it. (If for no other reason than because the project won't be moderating that channel any more, and it reflects poorly on the project if something that's flagged as being "official" turns into a cesspool.) It's not stopping people from creating a ## community channel on the old network to keep talking. That's irrelevant, of course, because Freenode hijacked a lot of channels that weren't doing the full shutdown, and just had a soft "we're moving to X soon" topic set, thus punishing the gentler communications you'd prefer.

by izacus 5y ago

p_l 5y ago

On most of those channels, the previous state was that it is an official, supported channel of a given organization (especially if it's a non-grandfathered single-# channel). The mass bans and such are the only way to mass-notify in reliable way that an official channel moved elsewhere. In all cases I've seen so far, the channel hijacked by new ircops was not a random community channel, and in fact freenode had policy even before that about prioritizing official org ownership.

izacus 5y ago
I find this explanation a bit dishonest - mass ban of people talking about topic to push them to another server is not "the most reliable way" of communicating anything. The whole point of IRC is that people can create channels and talk about things without those channels being owned by someone. If team members want to go somewhere else that's completely fine - but preventing people from staying and talking about a project goes against core of IRC and IMO Freenode ircops are well within rights to prevent channel squatting and forceful bans.
- kemayo 5y ago
  Sure, but Freenode has a "namespace" system. A channel with a single # is supposed to signify that it's officially affiliated with whatever project it's about, while a channel with a double ## is something community-driven. It's thus perfectly reasonable to me that, if the project decides to move networks and stop using the official channel, it should shut it down and redirect it. (If for no other reason than because the project won't be moderating that channel any more, and it reflects poorly on the project if something that's flagged as being "official" turns into a cesspool.) It's not stopping people from creating a ## community channel on the old network to keep talking. That's irrelevant, of course, because Freenode hijacked a lot of channels that weren't doing the full shutdown, and just had a soft "we're moving to X soon" topic set, thus punishing the gentler communications you'd prefer.