We (as a channel) initially tried to avoid banning Mibbit wholesale, but that strategy failed. I imagine Freenode had similar issues at a larger scale. I can't say that any developers I associate with are unhappy that Mibbit was blocked.
Specifically, on a technical channel:
<me> Looks like Mibbit was blocked
<user1> so sick of mibbit luzers
<user2> nice!
<user3> mothafuckers who can't be bothered to
use an IRC client probably don't need to be on IRC
<user1> had some random moron join #scheme and then
start /msging me to ask where I was from
It's difficult to find places to engage in community discussions with other high-quality developers without eventually being inundated with low-quality participants. The quoted response may be overtly rude, but the fact is, Mibbit brought exactly the type of users that we're on IRC (and freenode, specifically) to avoid.
Why did it fail? You can just ban mibbit if you like on the channel :/
We didn't want to ban an entire service! Unfortunately, it wound up being the easiest way -- hence, our attempt to avoid doing so failed.
I've used Mibbit as my primary client for a year. I take offense at your blanket statements about the "type of users that use mibbit".
You are an outlier. The "type of users that use mibbit" were consistently abusive, difficult to deal with, and ultimately detrimental to our communities.
That was not my experience, but you and I probably have differing opinions of "detrimental", and I'm not sure how you would correlate abuse or "community detriment" with your data.
We tend to be patient with individuals (even semi-abusive ones) before resorting to crude methods such as banning.
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