7 ms·

I hope there's a good postmortem on this in 5-10 years that explains what on earth all this nonsense is about, because it makes literally no sense. Buy an IRC

by Syonyk 5y ago

I hope there's a good postmortem on this in 5-10 years that explains what on earth all this nonsense is about, because it makes literally no sense. Buy an IRC network, fine. If you want to use the domain for something else, just turn off the servers and do it. There's no need for this absurdly complex, Rube Goldberg-esque process of pissing everyone off, then impersonating services, then dropping the services database entirely, then partitioning the network and joining people to a new network, and pissing more people off, and passive aggressive global messages, and... I cannot wrap my head around what they're even trying to do at this point. I've been on IRC in some form another for the majority of my adult life (including running my own IRC network for many years, starting out with some SE/30s), I'm quite tolerant of random stuff going on, but I literally cannot find any sense at all in what the new owners are trying to do. It's like they had a great party going at their house, a few people started leaving, and then they started waving around a gallon of gas and a lighter, threatening to burn the house down if anyone else left. And people, reasonably enough, continued to leave. So, i guess this stage is the "And they lit the house on fire, but moved all their friends to the shed and pretended it was still the house" part of the analogy...

mulmen 5y ago
I'd watch that documentary. Preferably on whatever open content platform replaces Netflix. Surely Freenode's downfall was Kafkaesque? Your analogy sounds right but I'd like to add the shed is full of oil soaked rags. And the host is still holding that lighter.
- J-Kuhn 5y ago
  Kafkaesque? Yes. https://christine.website/blog/final-chapter-2021-05-20 https://christine.website/blog/final-chapter-2021-05-20 https://christine.website/blog/epilogue-2021-05-26 https://christine.website/blog/epilogue-2021-05-26
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
iratewizard 5y ago
Yeah. At this point you could create your own WebRTC with less headache from scratch and avoid the entire dumpster fire.
blibble 5y ago
I suspect this last action (setting up the new freenode) was done deliberately before he lost to libera (only hours away) this allows him to blame the "botched" migration for the resultant failure and loss of users/channels/projects, instead of people wanting nothing to do with him (or the dregs of IRC that form his new staff)
- marcan_42 5y ago
  Libera was going to overtake Freenode at the end of the month; he still had some time. But yes, it's likely he did this so that he can turn a race to the bottom into something that looks vaguely positive, if you're naive.
- mulmen 5y ago
  I think it was something like: 1) Libera is catching Freenode. 2) Freenode has x users/y servers 3) If Freenode adds n servers it will gain n*x users.
shp0ngle 5y ago
Yeah. I don't get why all this nonsense... over IRC network? IRC is mostly dead. It's not like there is huge marketing opportunity or any way to monetize this. We are not in the 90s/early 2000s with random mIRC people joining... There is no "vendor lock in", and the only "vendor lock in" - the user and channels - were now effectively deleted. So... at this point, they just purchased the name? Congrats I guess?
- silly-silly 5y ago
  IRC might be 'mostly' dead to you if that's your definition, but it is not 'remotely' dead to me and many others around the world. I use it every day, and I use it for work, admittedly its not freenode but an internal server. I find IRC great for not having the focus of the general masses because of how disappointing the general masses really are.
  - op00to 5y ago
    I’ve been disappointed by IRC over and over. Too many racists. Like every damn channel.
  - mekster 5y ago
    What is the reason to pick IRC? It's technically far inferior to anything including the ones you can self host. I don't understand why people don't migrate even if it means they don't like commercial alternatives like Discord.
    - ValentinPearce 5y ago
      A lot of IRC networks didn't require registration. That was the use case chosen for Elite Dangerous' Fuel Rats [1] The ability to just drop in, ask a few questions and log out is great. If I join a even a medium sized Discord server, I suddenly get tons of notifications unless I manually change the settings for the server (God knows why discord hasn't set up a user side default setting for that) Also, a lot of communities grew in and around IRC chats, which means a lot of people with the habit. With the usual Relevant XKCD [2] [1] https://fuelrats.com/ https://fuelrats.com/ [2] https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/
jcranmer 5y ago
After staring at the global message for entirely too long, I have a theory as to what rasengan is trying to achieve. It's an attempt to purge freenode of the remnants of libera (i.e., haters, at least so far as he believes). Killing off the old service list is a feature, not a bug, since there's no more hidden hate messages from libera or the like to discover. And surely the true believers won't mind the little bit of pain that is starting from scratch? This requires assuming that rasengan suffers from a victimization complex, which is somewhat bolstered by other comments out of band.
- junon 5y ago
  This part of the global message kind of paints a specific picture for me > It's a new genesis for a new era. Thank you for using freenode, and Hello World, from the future. freenode is IRC. freenode is FOSS. freenode is freedom. Here's my theory. Dude's got some sort of "spectacle complex". You know that feeling when you leave a movie theatre after watching something like "I, Robot" and you have that kind of inspired feeling that you need to revolutionize the world through robots or whatever? In a normal person it lasts about as long as it takes to walk out of the movie theatre, then you're reminded you're back in real life. It's kind of like this vision of creating something great, a new hope, futurism fetish sort of thing. It's the kind of "visionaries" that always talk about how they're going to revolutionize something without having any clear steps for how to get there or even a clear idea of what the "problem" is. It's meant purely as sensationalism, and as an appeal to some weird emotion that I still don't really have words for. Anyway he wants to be the leader in this grandiose movement to... something, I don't even think he knows what. Almost as though he's doing people a favor by doing this. Completely misguided, and I doubt he'll learn anything from it. Clearly he lives in his own world in his head.
  - Seb-C 5y ago
    I basically agree with this. But to me it feels more like "I'm using those fancy words I don't care about because I think that's what you want and how I can lure you". It is totally disrespectful to the intelligence of it's users.
drivingmenuts 5y ago
Will anyone even care in 5-10 years? Like the Disney song says: Let It Go.
vr46 5y ago
So glad you said this because the last month feels like a continual stream of ‘WTF is going on’ for me as every day brings a new event of chaos and disorder.
joepie91_ 5y ago
> I hope there's a good postmortem on this in 5-10 years that explains what on earth all this nonsense is about, because it makes literally no sense. I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. Even for those of us who are directly involved in it, it doesn't make much sense at all. By this point, the remaining explanation is "Andrew went completely unhinged after his attempt to fulfill his childhood dream of owning Freenode went to hell".
1337shadow 5y ago
On one hand, the maintainers of the IRC server code freenode used stated that they would ban any of Lee's "lackies" if they ask for support, on the other hand, some trolls published on hn that they were expecting a reply from their RGPD request, I suppose they got a lot of these nonsensical requests. Considering these matters, it seems starting fresh was the only sane solution.

by Syonyk 5y ago

mulmen 5y ago

I'd watch that documentary. Preferably on whatever open content platform replaces Netflix. Surely Freenode's downfall was Kafkaesque? Your analogy sounds right but I'd like to add the shed is full of oil soaked rags. And the host is still holding that lighter.

J-Kuhn 5y ago
Kafkaesque? Yes. https://christine.website/blog/final-chapter-2021-05-20 https://christine.website/blog/final-chapter-2021-05-20 https://christine.website/blog/epilogue-2021-05-26 https://christine.website/blog/epilogue-2021-05-26
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

iratewizard 5y ago

Yeah. At this point you could create your own WebRTC with less headache from scratch and avoid the entire dumpster fire.

blibble 5y ago

I suspect this last action (setting up the new freenode) was done deliberately before he lost to libera (only hours away) this allows him to blame the "botched" migration for the resultant failure and loss of users/channels/projects, instead of people wanting nothing to do with him (or the dregs of IRC that form his new staff)

marcan_42 5y ago
Libera was going to overtake Freenode at the end of the month; he still had some time. But yes, it's likely he did this so that he can turn a race to the bottom into something that looks vaguely positive, if you're naive.
mulmen 5y ago
I think it was something like: 1) Libera is catching Freenode. 2) Freenode has x users/y servers 3) If Freenode adds n servers it will gain n*x users.

shp0ngle 5y ago

Yeah. I don't get why all this nonsense... over IRC network? IRC is mostly dead. It's not like there is huge marketing opportunity or any way to monetize this. We are not in the 90s/early 2000s with random mIRC people joining... There is no "vendor lock in", and the only "vendor lock in" - the user and channels - were now effectively deleted. So... at this point, they just purchased the name? Congrats I guess?

silly-silly 5y ago
IRC might be 'mostly' dead to you if that's your definition, but it is not 'remotely' dead to me and many others around the world. I use it every day, and I use it for work, admittedly its not freenode but an internal server. I find IRC great for not having the focus of the general masses because of how disappointing the general masses really are.
- op00to 5y ago
  I’ve been disappointed by IRC over and over. Too many racists. Like every damn channel.
- mekster 5y ago
  What is the reason to pick IRC? It's technically far inferior to anything including the ones you can self host. I don't understand why people don't migrate even if it means they don't like commercial alternatives like Discord.
  - ValentinPearce 5y ago
    A lot of IRC networks didn't require registration. That was the use case chosen for Elite Dangerous' Fuel Rats [1] The ability to just drop in, ask a few questions and log out is great. If I join a even a medium sized Discord server, I suddenly get tons of notifications unless I manually change the settings for the server (God knows why discord hasn't set up a user side default setting for that) Also, a lot of communities grew in and around IRC chats, which means a lot of people with the habit. With the usual Relevant XKCD [2] [1] https://fuelrats.com/ https://fuelrats.com/ [2] https://xkcd.com/1782/ https://xkcd.com/1782/

jcranmer 5y ago

After staring at the global message for entirely too long, I have a theory as to what rasengan is trying to achieve. It's an attempt to purge freenode of the remnants of libera (i.e., haters, at least so far as he believes). Killing off the old service list is a feature, not a bug, since there's no more hidden hate messages from libera or the like to discover. And surely the true believers won't mind the little bit of pain that is starting from scratch? This requires assuming that rasengan suffers from a victimization complex, which is somewhat bolstered by other comments out of band.

junon 5y ago
This part of the global message kind of paints a specific picture for me > It's a new genesis for a new era. Thank you for using freenode, and Hello World, from the future. freenode is IRC. freenode is FOSS. freenode is freedom. Here's my theory. Dude's got some sort of "spectacle complex". You know that feeling when you leave a movie theatre after watching something like "I, Robot" and you have that kind of inspired feeling that you need to revolutionize the world through robots or whatever? In a normal person it lasts about as long as it takes to walk out of the movie theatre, then you're reminded you're back in real life. It's kind of like this vision of creating something great, a new hope, futurism fetish sort of thing. It's the kind of "visionaries" that always talk about how they're going to revolutionize something without having any clear steps for how to get there or even a clear idea of what the "problem" is. It's meant purely as sensationalism, and as an appeal to some weird emotion that I still don't really have words for. Anyway he wants to be the leader in this grandiose movement to... something, I don't even think he knows what. Almost as though he's doing people a favor by doing this. Completely misguided, and I doubt he'll learn anything from it. Clearly he lives in his own world in his head.
- Seb-C 5y ago
  I basically agree with this. But to me it feels more like "I'm using those fancy words I don't care about because I think that's what you want and how I can lure you". It is totally disrespectful to the intelligence of it's users.

drivingmenuts 5y ago

Will anyone even care in 5-10 years? Like the Disney song says: Let It Go.

vr46 5y ago

So glad you said this because the last month feels like a continual stream of ‘WTF is going on’ for me as every day brings a new event of chaos and disorder.

joepie91_ 5y ago

> I hope there's a good postmortem on this in 5-10 years that explains what on earth all this nonsense is about, because it makes literally no sense. I wouldn't hold out much hope for that. Even for those of us who are directly involved in it, it doesn't make much sense at all. By this point, the remaining explanation is "Andrew went completely unhinged after his attempt to fulfill his childhood dream of owning Freenode went to hell".

1337shadow 5y ago

On one hand, the maintainers of the IRC server code freenode used stated that they would ban any of Lee's "lackies" if they ask for support, on the other hand, some trolls published on hn that they were expecting a reply from their RGPD request, I suppose they got a lot of these nonsensical requests. Considering these matters, it seems starting fresh was the only sane solution.