> But I think the Freenode "hostile takeover" of 2021 dealt a heavy blow to the IRC community. Perhaps. It was a painful experience for many but I think what

> But I think the Freenode "hostile takeover" of 2021 dealt a heavy blow to the IRC community. Perhaps. It was a painful experience for many but I think what came from the ashes (libera.chat) is a yet better FOSS-centric IRC network and now it is on much more solid footing than what Lee burned to the ground. This resurgence was due to the hard work of very dedicated opers and the users all wanting to keep the good parts of freenode and fix the bad. I just checked netsplit.de and libera.chat has around 45k current users. Less than freenode showed before the coup but also I think clear that this number is less inflated by zombie bouncer connections than it naturally was for any long running network. Point being that all the "real" users moved and largely picked up where they left off. In any case, my feeling about the Gnome IRC vs matrix thing is that the game is not zero sum. From my single IRC client (weechat) I connect to multiple IRC networks and a few matrix channels. In some cases I'm in several channels of the same topic across these connections. And, that doesn't really degrade the experience. I don't use Gnome any more so have no skin in this particular game, but I think "officially" moving to matrix (specifically) would not be damaging to the community (the same is not true for the proprietary options). Any Gnome IRC channels continue (assuming Gnome doesn't get pushy on that front!) and Gnome matrix will become yet another way for people to connect. If you see me on IRC, say "hi".