Subject: Re: Should we do something with #git-devel on Freenode?

From: Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 27 May 2021 23:54:32 +0200

On Thu, May 27 2021, Jan Krüger wrote:

> Here's a bit of an update on the situation.
>
> freenode has, indeed, scorched the earth by destroying more than 700
> channels, simply for mentioning Libera in the topic (before they even
> added a rule that forbids this). I was willing to wait and see how the
> "new" freenode was going to pan out, but with stuff like this happening
> I don't see that as an option anymore. Basically I expect freenode to
> keep destroying community with no prior notice whenever they feel like
> it, and who wants to stay in a place like that?

How have the channels been destroyed?

I'm still joined on freenode and #git has ~700ish users and the
liberachat one has ~300ish as I write this.

I see there was a mass action to revert topics that stated that channels
had moved, but e.g. #git@freenode still has active discussion about git,
among other things.

> On 26.05.2021 22:01, Kevin Daudt wrote:
>
>> In the mean time, the ircops on libera helped us to register #git there
>> pending the official namespace registration from Junio (they have a
>> backlog, so they are working through that).
>
> #git on Libera is already picking up steam, though the numbers aren't
> quite on the same level yet. However, an arbitrary quorum of regulars
> has
> decided that it's time to throw the switch.
>
> * We've moved the gitinfo bot to Libera (which required a fair bit of
>   code rewriting to support the differences between their respective
>   ircds);
> * The IRC logger has moved;
> * The old channel's topic has a link to https://gitirc.eu/fnmove.html
>   which explains the situation.
>
> I expect that if anyone from freenode staff notices this, the channel
> on freenode will get destroyed soon after...

I agree that ~300/~700 is quite the arbitrary quorum :)

I'm not going to weigh in on whatever pissing contest is going on over
at Freenode and related networks other than to say that it seems to me
that the goal(s) of the new owner/team or whatever is to try to prevent
some mass adversiting of the nature of "this network is
deprecated". "Destroying" prominent channels seems to be
conterproductive to that goal.

In any case, I agree with Jeff King's earlier comments that our primary
goal here should not be to pick sides, but to direct our users to useful
venues where they can get help, discuss git etc.

I don't see why we'd advertise #git@liberachat and not #git@freenode in
order to achieve that goal, the latter doesn't seem to be a graveyard
and is probably still more active. I don't see why we'd need to pick
between the two, any more than we'd pick between advertising
#git@liberachat and the git-users mailing list. Both currently seem like
useful venues for git users to go to get help.