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.
Notice that in some cases, channels were banned for merely advertising that they also run a channel on libera.chat. Not that they are moving to libera.chat, that they ALSO run a channel there. It's a very basic attempt at suppressing people wanting to leave and trying to convince others.
And you're correct, there is no point to freenode existing.
Freenode could have reached out to channel founders and asked us to leave the channels open, and allowed us to indicate that they are now unofficial channels. Instead they just revoked our access to them and overwrote the channel topics.
Beyond that, yes, they are supposed to let projects decide where they want to be.
There’s a number of larger channels which have banned Matrix users, and various smaller channels I’m in have been considering banning them due to the privacy concerns of Matrix.org (based in the U.K., iirc, and potentially subject to an easy court order requiring them to release their data) keeping a full, eternal log of all communications in any irc channel where a Matrix user has joined.
The official go channel (#go-nuts) on freenode had in the topic "we're also on libera.chat, if freenode dies" (or something very close to that, quoting from memory, I don't log IRC) and yet it was shut down due to "policy violation", forwarded to ## namespace and the topic removed.
I for one just wanted things to be quiet. I understand it's frustrating to have channels pointing to a different network and users on your network trying to get people to leave. Even assuming, for the sake of argument, your intentions are good, how on earth was that just now considered a good move? Any basis for arguing you're acting in good faith you've pretty much destroyed at this point.
Your attempts to give this a positive spin on freenode.net[1] aren't very convincing either.
Not a fan of old Freenode staff. But the best alternatives definitely seem to be libera.chat and oftc!
I was willing to idle on freenode to help any users who came into our channel looking for help. But freenode has forcibly set the channel to secret, invite only, and moderated.
If they want people to use their network, they're not acting like it.
Actually, it's somewhat worse than the headline mentions. It seems that the script targets channels that merely mention Libera in the topic. The topic of an affected channel I was in said: "See also #foo on irc.libera.chat" (as we hadn't decided whether or not to move). And everyone in the channel was banned from both the #foo and the ##foo channels on Freenode.
Needless to say, Freenode kindly decided for us whether or not we should move to Libera for good.
If the official channel is moving, prohibiting that channel from telling thier users where the new official channel will be is incredibly user hostile.
I can't believe any project would ever want to stay on Freenode after behavior like this.
All my chat networks I care about have migrated to Libera or Matrix. And I agree freenode is circling the drain.
I was also banned and Klined, but I am not sure this was a free node action...
I was immediately able to reconnect to a different freenode server. And have not been bothered since. It definitely feels like a rouge operator just banned everyone on their node.
However despite this happening several days ago, there is no statement from freenode, so IDK.
freenode has now started taking over and removing access, bans, and forwarding users from official on topics channels (such as #wikipedia, #znc etc) and forwarding them to ##offtopic channels saying they are in violation of apparent new policy. no explanation and lots of users losing access to official groups.
I think it is especially ironic that this happens to freenode because of how strict it has been about enforcing "official" channels and ## for non-official ones.
Most of freenode is this way. You'll notice that freenode admins/ops will ban for any off-topic discussion and most chans are deafeningly silent because of this. It's a terrible environment for natural discussions.
> If a channel is actively posting to migrate to another network, that isn’t appropriate. It’s like all facebook groups posting “Hey lets move to twitter now”.
Which, in the spirit of FOSS, should be ok. Going to https://freenode.net/ right now shows the tagline "freenode exists for FOSS" but limiting people from changing IRC server by blocking messages or changing topics feels very much against the spirit of FOSS.
> I see so many negative posts on this thread against Andrew & Freenode, I can understand if they are upset and react in the way they have re banning such libera.chat messages.
I think this is why many are moving away from Freenode as well. You don't want a supposedly impartial network to start banning users and channels left and right because they get upset. You want to have a stable network for your projects channel, and right now it seems Libera is a much better place for just that.
Some channels I was in on Freenode were hesitant to move, but they were then taken over by Freenode staff in the wave of channel hijackings (for example, because they had topics like "We're discussing whether to move to Libera, please <bla>") which expedited the move for all of them.
I won’t speak for the spambots (which are dubious to be honest), or the banning/kicking which, while I know it happened in some places, was not really widespread.
Most communities I’m in were in a "wait and see" position, heck, one even only had something along the lines "We’re undecided over what to do, but you should register your nick at libera in any case". Guess what they decided to do after the channel got taken away…
> There is no lock-in. They're actually closing down channels that don't want to use their service. Think about it. These channels don't want to use freenode. Freenode closes them and everyone cries.
Because what a decent service provider does is provide a sunsetting period, in which most of the banned channels were already. Immediate termination because you decide to change your service provider and want to not fragment your community is not what a responsible provider does.
> Let's be serious that's because that was a single project and not a mass targeting of the freenode user base
FOSS projects owners are not "targeting the freenode user base", they are choosing another venue for discussion. You can think there is a secret cabal out to get Andrew Lee, but that’s really people considering their options, and getting proven right.
The new "Freenode" has little to no credibility and that post comes off as pure propaganda. Look at how the new "Freenode" has behaved and it is very clear...
Official project channels should be able to ban users and move elsewhere. Freenode is welcome make new community channels on those topics. Trying to prevent or hinder official channels from moving is absolutely not acceptable behavior.
Eh I feel as though you relinquished the channel the second you essentially shut it down. Why would freenode or any IRC server want to just keep a channel that is unused except to advertise a different server? I would understand more if it was some sort of specific channel that the name was clearly exclusively yours but its rather generic and a bot that many people here could also maintain.
This Twitter drama is strikingly similar to Freenode. A rich guy bought it, people started moving to Libera.chat in small numbers and advertising their new channel on Freenode in the topic. There wasn't a huge exodus, though.
Then this new owner started taking over channels and kicking everyone out that had mention of a Libera.chat channel in its topic, forcing everyone to move all at once.
I haven't heard of anyone still on Freenode since then.
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