- social
- technical
---
-
As of today, Open Projects Net has changed its name. We are now freenode!
+
This does not represent a change in philosophy or direction for the network. It will, however, provide us a short, memorable name which will help keep us in people's minds as we continue to grow. It should be a very positive change.
+
For more information on the change, please take a quick look at the [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#namechange). Welcome to freenode!
slug: welcome-fsf-and-gnu
title: Welcome FSF and GNU!
---
-
Today freenode welcomes the Free Software Foundation's [GNU Project](http://www.gnu.org/), which [announced today](http://www.fsf.org/press/2002-08-26-freenode.html) that it has made us its official IRC network. From the press release:
+
_ Bradley M. Kuhn, executive director of the Free Software Foundation, pointed out: "The GNU Project has long sought an IRC network aligned with our strong stand for the principles of software freedom. We believe that Freenode, with its commitment to providing a innovative venue for Free Software developers and like-minded individuals to cooperate, fits the bill."
+
Robert Levin, president of Peer-Directed Projects Center, added: "We welcome the opportunity to work more closely with the Free Software Foundation. Licensing that preserves freedom is essential to the health and success of peer-directed projects. The Free Software Foundation's pivotal role in advocating software freedom makes it a valued contributor to the community." _
+
To all of the members of the GNU project who've spent so much time with us so far: thank you for your support, and welcome officially to **freenode**!
slug: updates-to-policy-document
title: Updates to Policy Document
---
-
Changes have been made to the site to reflect [new content](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#output) on the [policy page](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml). This does not represent a change in network philosophy; we're just starting to formalize our policies so that we can keep our focus on free software, open source and other sorts of peer-directed projects as the network grows.
slug: server-issues
title: Server Issues
---
-
Good day to all. Many of you will have noticed that freenode has been experiencing server problems over the last few days. Problems are likely to continue. The network needs new main rotation hub and leaf servers. If you think you might be interested in hosting a server, please take a look at our [server hosting](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml) page and email to: staff at freenode dot net.
+
This is also an important time to mention that, while we are not in a formal fundraising drive, the nonprofit [PDPC, the not-for-profit entity which runs the network --Ed.] needs funds to continue to maintain and develop the services we provide and those we intend to provide. We have servers and bandwidth and can get more. We have volunteers to work on the network. Our biggest problem is not having consistent time to spend coordinating support, server and routing improvements.
+
Over 8,000 users utilize the network on a daily basis. When we're not asking for help in a direct way, it's easy to forget that we're here, keeping the service running as best we can. If you're one of our users, please let us know that you find the network helpful. Express your support in a way that makes a difference by [making a donation](http://freenode.net/contributions.shtml) to help keep us running.
+
Thank you for using freenode, and have a great day!
slug: hubbing-issues
title: Hubbing Issues
---
-
We had another interesting hubbing evening. Apparently someone tore up not one, but two fibers, leading to our primary European hub. We simultaneously had some problems with our US hubbing. Things are settling back to normal in our temporary hubbing configuration, and we expect to have to rehub sometime within the next 24 hours to bring things back to a more permanent state. Again, if you think you might be interested in hosting a server, this would be a good time to look at the [server hosting](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml) page. Email to: staff at freenode dot net. Obligatory comment about our needing better coordination, which takes consistent time availability. If you'd like to help resolve that problem, please consider a [donation](http://freenode.net/contributions.shtml).
+
One of our main rotation hub servers that dropped off the map will be returning at a new colocation facility. The hosting technical staff has found (and hopefully corrected) a motherboard-related reliability issue. Again, we'll monitor the stability of the server over the course of several days and see how it shapes up.
+
Thank you for using freenode!
slug: happy-new-year-2003
title: Happy New Year 2003!
---
-
Happy New Year to everyone. We appreciate your being with us for another year, and hope that 2003 will be a very productive year for all of the projects which live on freenode. If you'd like to kick off the New Year on a helpful note, please consider [hosting a server](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml) or [making a donation](http://freenode.net/contributions.shtml) to our parent organization.
+
It's been about four and a half months since our name change, so we're doing some cleanup for the new year. The **openprojects.net** hostnames have been obsolete for several months and we have removed most of them today. If you're using one, please change it from **"openprojects"** to **"freenode"**.
+
Have an excellent year!
+
If your client points to **"irc.openprojects.net"**, you'll be getting notices on an ongoing basis. Be sure to reconfigure your client to point to **"irc.freenode.net"** and then reconnect to get back to the main rotation; then you'll no longer get notices on the subject. If you were pointed to irc.openprojects.net by a project web page, irc hostname or irc client default, please let the project owners know to change that pointer. Thanks!
slug: expired-nickschannels-purge
title: Expired Nicks/Channels Purge
---
-
Good evening to all. In a few minutes, staff will be purging the services databases of expired nicknames and channels. We do this from time to time, to keep the databases free of clutter from unused nicks and channels. Nicknames are considered to be expired when they have been unused for 60 days. Channels are considered to be expired after 120 days. But we will only be expiring nicks and channels which have been unused for at least 120 days in this manual run. When a channel founder's nick is dropped, the channel is also dropped.
+
Please note that we can only tell that you've used your nick if you've identified yourself to NickServ (/msg nickserv help identify). And we can only tell that your channel is in use if some user in your access list, identified to NickServ, periodically joins the channel. Please don't forget to IDENTIFY!
+
If your channel is dropped even though it is in use, we'll be happy to help you resolve the problem. Stop by #freenode or email us (staff at freenode dot net). For more information on services expiration issues, please take a look at our [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#expirations).
+
Have a great week!
slug: server-hosting
title: Server Hosting
---
-
Good morning to everyone. Once again, we need to talk to you very seriously about the issue of server hosting. The network ran very well yesterday, and it's been running pretty well so far today. But we have a problem.
+
freenode has grown over time, and we continue to offer an effective and useful interactive service. The linchpin of our service is the main rotation; servers on it can predictably handle relatively heavy load from all over the world. But we can no longer support the network on the number of main rotation servers we have. Matters are coming to a head. Earlier one of our main rotation servers split and rejoined the network, dropping a number of users. That server is back, and we hope it will continue to be reliable, but we have no way to predict its behavior. As a result of that split, another host's server picked up quite a few users, and he has just asked us to temporarily remove his server from the main rotation due to the volume of traffic.
+
This leaves us with three main rotation servers.
+
Another host has notified us that his provider will be doing router work this weekend, which will occasion downtime. In order to prepare for that downtime, we'll need to remove his server from the main rotation. **That will leave us with two main rotation servers.** At peak load, those two servers will have to handle 5,000 users each. We simply do not have any servers which can handle 5,000 users for any length of time.
+
PDPC wants to continue to offer freenode. But we need your help.
+
If there's any chance at all you can host a server, please look at our [server hosting page](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml). We can't keep going from crisis to crisis. We can't predict whether a given server will work well in the main rotation. But unless we try a fairly large number of new servers, beginning immediately, we are simply going to have to discontinue the service. The more main rotation servers we have, the smaller the load on each server. So, if you think you can help, please take a look at the [web page](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml) email us as quickly as possible, at this email address: staff at freenode dot net.
+
We can't do this without you.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-rehubbing
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Rehubbing'
---
-
Over the course of the next few days, we'll be rehubbing most of the network, in an effort to improve reliability and possibly save some bandwidth costs. We're not sure how quickly we'll go through the network; if you'd like to keep track of the proceedings, you may want to turn on WALLOPS ("/mode yournick +w" or "/umode +w" on most clients). We'll try to mention it occasionally on global notice, since most users will be affected by the main rotation part of the rehubbing. Apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks for your patience.
+
A big welcome and a sigh of relief go out to our new main rotation server hosts. Thanks to [Oregon State University](http://www.oregonstate.edu/) and to Patrick Scheeler and Glenn Shannon at the San Diego Supercomputing Center for helping us in our current crunch. Also, welcome to [BS2 Internet](http://www.bs2.com.br/)'s new server in Curitiba, Paraná, Brasil!
slug: announcement-additional-faq-items
title: '[Announcement] Additional FAQ items'
---
-
We've added [two](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#drones) [FAQs](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#practicaljoke) about [automated network bans](http://freenode.net/drones.shtml) which you should probably read at your first opportunity. Thanks!
slug: pre-release-dancer-ircd-1032
title: Pre-release -- dancer-ircd 1.0.32
---
-
We're currently prereleases of dancer-ircd 1.0.32, the newest version of our production server code. Please come to the testnet on [irc.freenode.net, port 9001](irc://irc.freenode.net:9001/) and help us find bugs! Services has not yet been modified to take into account the new features, but we'll do it as we go. Help us out by thrashing the code a bit, and send your bug reports to **bugs at freenode dot net**!
+
Numerous small bugs have been fixed, and the following lists some of the changes:
* **Identified user highlighting.** The CAPAB command has been added to allow client software to register special capabilities. The first such capability is IDENTIFY-MSG; with it turned on, the text of messages and notices is prefaced with '-' when they come from an unidentified user, and '+' when the user is identified to services. The purpose of this feature is to make it difficult to spoof someone's identity.
+
Note: You can test the feature on most clients via **/quote capab identify-msg**. Client software can use this information to highlight messages coming from non-identified users. This should normally be done by patching the client code or adding scripting or filtering, since the raw output of IDENTIFY-MSG is readable, but a bit messy.
+
We recommend that you add an asterisk before the nick, and optionally either highlight or colourize the line in some appropriate fashion, if the user is not identified. Examples follow:
+
<fred> I'm an identified user
<*fred> I'm not an identified user
+
<fred> I'm an identified user
** <*fred> I'm not an identified user**
slug: new-irc-server-code-approaches-release
title: New IRC Server Code Approaches Release
---
-
Hi all. As you probably know, we're in the process of testing release candidates for dancer-ircd 1.0.32, the next production IRC server code for freenode. Since the last news item, we've continued to test and debug, and we've made some progress. [The change list is here](http://freenode.net/news-2003-05-28.shtml#changes).
+
In addition to some bug-squashing, we've now modified services to allow us to mlock +Jrz and -Jrz, as well as +PF and -PF with the help of network staff. Ben Reser has kindly produced a [script](http://ben.reser.org/irssi/format_identify.pl) for [irssi](http://www.irssi.org/) which takes advantage of the new CAPAB IDENTIFY-MSG support to display an unambiguous indication in each line whether the person speaking (or doing an ACTION) is identified to services. **This should make it quite a bit harder to spoof nicknames.** To use the script in irssi, simply follow the instructions in the comments section.
+
**We could use your help** in creating similar scripts for **xchat** and the other **free software** IRC clients, and even for **mIRC**, to help those who are stuck using Microsoft products to connect to the network.
+
We're approaching release and, again, **we need your help.** **Please come to the testnet** on [irc.freenode.net, port 9001](irc://irc.freenode.net:9001/) and help us find bugs! Stop by #kline-me if you'd like to help us thrash the bugs out of our KLINE/UNKLINE/REHASH changes. Or just take a look at the following (slightly updated) change list, and at our older [reference manual](http://source.freenode.net/%7Easuffield/dancer/dancer-oper-guide/dancer-oper-guide/), not yet updated, to look for features to test.
+
**Thanks in advance for any help you can provide!**
Changes in Dancer IRCD 1.0.32Numerous small bugs have been fixed, and the following lists some of the changes:
* **Identified user highlighting.** The CAPAB command has been added to allow client software to register special capabilities. The first such capability is IDENTIFY-MSG; with it turned on, the text of messages, notices and CTCP ACTIONs will be prefaced with '-' when they come from an unidentified user, and '+' when the user is identified to services. The purpose of this feature is to make it difficult to spoof someone's identity. If you're running [irssi](http://www.irssi.org/), there's already a [script](http://ben.reser.org/irssi/format_identify.pl) available to format the output of this feature for your convenience.
+
In addition, we've provided another capability, IDENTIFY-CTCP, which similarly formats the output of CTCPs other than ACTION.
slug: announcement-polling-for-statistics
title: '[Announcement] Polling for statistics'
---
-
At about 20:15 UTC, we'll be running a network-wide CTCP VERSION from a staff nick, **client_poll**. You should feel free to change your VERSION string if you want to, but the information helps staff get some idea of channel demographics. Thanks!
slug: dropping-unused-and-expired-nick-and-channel-registrations
title: Dropping unused and expired nick and channel registrations.
---
-
Hi, all. In about a day, we'll be dropping expired nicks and channels, registered with NickServ and ChanServ, which have been unused for at least 120 days. This is a semi-automated process; we do it every so often to clear out the deadwood in the services databases. If you don't regularly IDENTIFY to NickServ, please start as soon as you can. Remember that this is the only way we can determine that your IRC nicknames and channels are used.
+
In other news, the testnet is now running a new release, dancer-ircd-1.0.31+pre19. This means we're getting closer to 1.0.32, but we need your help to test it all out. Please take a look at the [original news article](http://freenode.net/news-2003-05-28.shtml) and come help us test!
+
Finally, we asked the editors of [Computerworld](http://www.computerworld.com/) to provide an [RSS feed](http://www.computerworld.com/news/xml/coverage/0,5451,2046,00.xml) for their [SCO coverage page](http://www.computerworld.com/news/special/pages/0,10911,2046,00.html), and they were kind enough to set it up and write us back in about an hour. You may want to add this to your newsbot or add it to knewsticker or your Evolution summary page, to help keep up with the news.
+
Have a great evening!
slug: hubbing-problems
title: Hubbing Problems
---
-
It's been an interesting week or so. We've lost our best hubbing in EU; the facilities host ran out of money to pay bandwidth and had to dump his free software projects. We've attempted to fall back to new and old hubs in the US but stability has been unpromising. We suspect that the recently announced [Cisco problem](http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/707/cisco-sa-20030717-blocked.shtml) may be affecting us as well, though we can't be sure to what extent, other [oopsie removed --Ed.] than some known Cisco router reboots. But we are having hubbing problems. Your editor is writing this in somewhat sleep-deprived mode, having spent a fair amount of time rehubbing earlier in the day. Expect more rehubbing today, as we do our best to work with what resources we have available. If you're thinking about hosting a freenode hub or main rotation server, [now is definitely the time](http://freenode.net/hosting_servers.shtml) to help us out. Thanks!
+
In other interesting and more positive news, freenode has the unusual opportunity to welcome a group which has already been on the network for some time. Our **#redhat** channel has been registered for over five years, and has been a venue for some excellent unofficial support from such Red Hat employees as **spot** and **mharris**. The latest news is that [Red Hat Linux](http://www.redhat.com/) has become.... [Red Hat Linux](http://rhl.redhat.com/). More properly, the underlying Red Hat Linux free software project has been reconstituted and is now maintained as a discrete project. RHL has officially moved to freenode as a development project. We welcome one of our newest, and one of our oldest, participating GNU/Linux distributions! :)
+
Finally, we continue to work on testing [dancer-ircd 1.0.32](http://freenode.net/news-2003-05-28.shtml). We're currently at 1.0.31+pre22. There will be at least one more pre-release for feature cleanup, but what we have running on the [testnet](irc://irc.freenode.net:9001) (irc.freenode.net, port 9001) is as solid as we can make it at test loads. Please help us test by opening up a client or two or a hundred. We really need your help. We'll be going back in to clean up the hubbing this afternoon or evening, in line with whatever changes we make to the production environment. Stop in first chance you get.
+
Have a great day!
Edit:
+
As an added "nudge", it's contest time. Be the first to find any new reproducible bug on the test net (irc.freenode.net, port 9001) and win a **yournick.bugcatcher.freenode** spoof for a month on the production network. :) We'll make it **yournick.bugslammer.freenode** for a reproducible segfault. [Submit to bugs at freenode dot net --Ed.] Extra points for providing a patch. Limit one person per bug. :)
slug: scheduled-maintenance-ircd-upgrade-3
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] IRCD Upgrade'
---
-
Hi, all. Yesterday at about 10pm UTC we posted a global notice to let people know that we were considering an upgrade this weekend to pre-1.0.32 dancer-ircd. We continue to experience clonebot attacks, and the additional features in the new release will be helpful. We directed people to channel **#upgrade** and asked for questions and feedback. After answering questions and taking comments for about an hour, it seemed that the response to the idea of trying the upgrade was pretty favorable.
+
The release candidate code can be found [here](http://source.freenode.net/%7Easuffield/dancer/dancer-ircd/1.0/pre/dancer-ircd-1.0.31+pre23.tar.gz), and we provided information on new server features in a [previous news item](http://freenode.net/news-2003-05-28.shtml). It seems from our experience in this and other development cycles that the only real way to get production-load testing in dancer-ircd 1.0 is to go ahead and try the conversion, once we're pretty certain we have reliable code. The code looks fine in the test environment, and delaying will not help us with kiddie attacks.
+
The plan is to try today (Sunday in most venues), converting the small European servers and Australia and a couple of small servers in the US, and then the larger servers in the main rotation. The old protocol is not fully-compatible with the new protocol, so servers which have been converted will be connected to other converted servers, but we'll have two networks until the conversion is complete. It could take a couple of hours if all goes well.
+
Obviously, there is no guarantee we'll be successful. If need be, we'll back up to the 1.0 environment, which should take about a half hour. If we're able to stay up using pre-1.0.32, we'll just do a bit of cleanup next weekend, which may involve restarting the servers one at a time, but should not require a partition of the network.
+
It's suggested that you not change nickname and channel configuration in NickServ and ChanServ while the conversion is going on. Please stay tuned for global and server notices, and we'll probably provide more detail still on wallops (**/mode yournick +w**). Thanks, and thank you for using freenode!
+
Edit:
+
Hi all. Update was successful. One known bug; +q quietly supersedes +b. We'll get a fix out for that as soon as possible, please bear with us. Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding.
+
With the usual abominable timing exhibited by the real world, one of our US hubs will need to reboot this morning to patch a security hole. We believe this will occur at about 07:00 UTC this morning. Apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you again for your patience.
slug: network-status-update
title: Network Status Update
---
-
Good afternoon to all. The network is currently experiencing extreme stability problems. Our lead coder is currently looking over core files is gdb and working on resolving the issue. However, expect the network to be extremely volatile until he has a fix in hand. Apologies for this inconvenience. A week after the upgrade, while we've collected a number of noncritical bugs, today's critical problem is our first of the new release. We'll get the problem resolved as quickly as possible.
+
Thank you again for your patience, and thank you for using freenode!
+
**Edit:**
+
NETWORK STATUS UPDATELatest news: We've got a working upgrade for the server code, [dancer-ircd 1.0.31+pre24](http://source.freenode.net/%7Easuffield/dancer/dancer-ircd/1.0/pre/dancer-ircd-1.0.31+pre24.tar.gz) and we're preparing to upgrade. We've installed the new code on the primary hubs to filter out problem state as it travels the network. The next step will be a global restart of the main rotation servers. We'll follow that with the smaller regional servers and the IPv6 servers. Please bear with us as we restore the network to more reliable operation.
+
** Edit:**
+
NETWORK STATUS UPDATE
+
With what we hope will be the final status update of the evening, the network appears restored and is functioning nominally. In our haste to bring out the new code, we believe that some of our small regional servers may have inadvertently been compiled with unnecessarily small user limits; but this should not affect the majority of users and we'll handle any problems on a case-by-case basis.
+
We anticipate at least one more upgrade, scheduled with as much advanced notice as possible. We'll keep you posted.
+
Thanks again for your understanding and patience and, as always, we appreciate your using the network.
slug: release-dancer-ircd-1032
title: '[Release] dancer-ircd 1.0.32'
---
-
We're pleased to announce that dancer-ircd [1.0.32](http://source.freenode.net/%7Easuffield/dancer/dancer-ircd/1.0/releases/dancer-ircd-1.0.32.tar.gz) has been released. It's up on the testnet and we'll probably be doing limited production testing at some point during the week. We believe that the cmode +J, +b/+q and +e issues and the services shutdown hub crash issue are resolved by this release.
+
In other news, we're sorry to report that the Freenode Radio project is being put on hold for the time being. We hope to reinstate FNR in the near future, at least on a pilot project basis. We understand that **MysticOne** and other participants are moving on to other streaming radio projects, and we wish them well.
slug: happy-birthday-freenode
title: Happy Birthday freenode!
---
-
It's **freenode**'s birthday party. Please come celebrate with us.
+
In early August, 1994, a small IRC support channel called #linuxneo, on the EFNet IRC network, began to see activity. The channel grew, and in a few days its name was changed to #linpeople. The channel eventually moved to Undernet, then DALnet, and in late 1995 it became its own IRC network, irc.linpeople.org. By early 1998, its focus began to broaden, from GNU/Linux to free software in general, and it became irc.openprojects.net. In August, 2002, the network changed its name to irc.freenode.net as it became the first project of a new nonprofit [(not-for-profit) --Ed.] entity, [Peer-Directed Projects Center](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml).
+
Today, **freenode** peaks at over 15,000 users, and we're home to coordination channels for such projects as Debian GNU/Linux, fedora, Gentoo, KDE and subversion. We're the official IRC network of the Free Software Foundation's GNU project; we provide support channels for FreeBSD, GNU/Linux and a variety of free software applications. But the real conceptual moment when the network was born was early in 1994, on 29 January at 01:49 UTC, when I first joined the channel #linuxneo.
+
So, happy birthday to us! Ten years later to the minute, on 29 January 2004 at 01:49 UTC, the birthday party will begin in channel **#linuxneo** on **irc.freenode.net.** It'll last all day. Grab an IRC client, get a little [help](http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/ircprimer.html) setting it up, and come join us on freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-ircd-upgrades
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] IRCD Upgrades'
---
-
Hi all. It's time again for an upgrade. In about 7 hours, at 05:00 UTC, we'll be upgrading the servers to [dancer-ircd v1.0.34](http://source.freenode.net/%7Easuffield/dancer/dancer-ircd/1.0/releases/dancer-ircd-1.0.34.tar.gz). The upgrade process is likely to be fairly disruptive, as we are doing to be doing our best to get it done as quickly as possible. This time, we're hoping to get the IPv6 servers upgraded at the same time, rather than holding that upgrade till later.
+
Your editor notes that this is a maintenance release, so in theory it should consist entirely of minor changes and bugfixes; but until dancer 1.1 (with its automated testing framework) is in place, upgrades are always going to be a bit nervous-making. Whenever we upgrade the network, there's a possibility that new problems will be uncovered, requiring further upgrades. Bear with us, and help us if you can by staying with the network during the process and giving the new code a good thumping to make sure it's okay. :)
+
Excerpts from the NEWS file follow:
>
> Various bug fixes. Highlights include:
+>
> Bans of the form *!*@!* are now corrected properly, rather
> than placing a confusing ban on remote servers.
+>
> Kill reasons work again
+>
> Bans are no longer broadcast to channel members while being
> synchronised on burst. This could potentially hide an
> unexpected ban, but the amount of data makes the broadcast
> largely useless anyway.
+>
> Remove cmode +F. Forwarding finally appears safe for general
> use.
>
slug: scheduled-maintenance-bug-fixes-expected-network-disturbances
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Bug fixes, expected network disturbances'
---
-
Good afternoon to all. We'll be upgrading the servers again tomorrow morning at 05:00. We'll have more details closer to upgrade time; but the upgrade should resolve the "anonymous topic" problem as well as several other bugs. In addition, we'll be introducing a new channel mode, **+R, moderate unknown users.** The effect of this mode is that users without mode **e** turned on (identified to NickServ) will be moderated and will not automatically have a voice in the channel. Users moderated by +R will receive a message pointing them to NickServ when they attempt to type on channel.
+
The upgrade should go very quickly unless some unforeseen problem occurs. Thank you for using freenode!
slug: announcement-feature-addition-freenode-info
title: '[Announcement] Feature Addition, freenode-info.'
---
-
As you may have noticed, as of this morning we have added a new feature to freenode, called [freenode-info]. For more information, please check this [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#freenode-info). Thanks!
slug: a-big-thank-you-to-digium
title: A big thank you to Digium.
---
-
On behalf of Peer-Directed Projects Center, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank our new corporate sponsor, [Digium](http://www.digium.com/), for their support for PDPC and freenode. Digium, the primary sponsors of [Asterisk The Open Source PBX](http://www.asterisk.org/), have been on the network for about two and a half years, and they've chosen to express their appreciation for our work by establishing a donor relationship with PDPC.
+
Thanks again to **Digium** and **Asterisk** for making their home on freenode!
slug: customised-project-cloaks
title: Customised Project Cloaks
---
-
As of this morning, we've begun providing FOSS projects on freenode with customized cloaks, linking their participants publicly with the projects into which they've put so much time and effort. We think it's the ultimate community fashion statement. **:)**
+
If you'd like to wear a cloak and you think you might be eligible, check with your project lead to set it up. If you're a project lead and you'd like to set up cloaking, the [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#projectcloak) should tell you everything you need to know. If you have any questions, just email **staff at freenode dot net**.
+
Thank you for using freenode!
+
**ADDENDUM:** Thursday 25 March 2004 at 07:20We'll be making one more change to cloaking near the end of the week. At midnight UTC on Saturday morning (Friday evening in much of the US), we'll be simplifying the **foo.registered.freenode** cloaks. From that point on, they will be simply: **foo.registered**. Thanks!
+
**ANOTHER ADDENDUM** Friday 26 March 2004 at 04:57We're going to go ahead and make the **foo.registered** change in a couple of minutes, but we'll change it in the services database, and not on any live nicks until sometime after midnight UTC. Some people will get the new cloaks, but it'll be a mixed bag. Services will be down for a bit. Thanks!
slug: announcement-policy-changes
title: '[Announcement] Policy Changes'
---
-
Hi all. We've made two changes recently of which you should be aware.
slug: group-contacts
title: Group Contacts
---
-
As you may be aware, we're in the process of adding a new administrative feature to the network, the **group contact**. Group contacts allow projects and groups to maintain an unambigous "real world" contact list for communication with freenode network staff and allow them to take advantage of such features as [project cloaks](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#projectcloak) for their participants. We've added a [description](http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml) of the group contact role and made changes to the notes on the right-hand side of the group contact form, to clarify our newly-codified commitment in the area of [channel ownership](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelownership). Just click on [Group Registration](http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml) on the nav bar to the left, to find out more about how they work, and to access the form. Please let us know if you have any questions, and thank you for using the network!
slug: gcf-delays
title: GCF Delays
---
-
Hi all, To those of you who've submitted [group contact](http://freenode.net/news-2004-05-17.shtml) forms and have not yet received replies, please be patient. With the volume of replies, we've had to work on finishing the database schemas for Registry just to have some way to keep up with them. So we're backed up, but we'll catch up as soon as we can.
+
In the meantime, the freenode fundraiser is moving along fairly slowly at this point. If you've been thinking about [donating](http://freenode.net/news-2004-05-17.shtml#donate), now would be a very good time. If you've used the network and found it helpful, please think about making a donation so that we can grow the network and the [nonprofit](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml) [PDPC, the not-for-profit entity which runs the network --Ed.] successfully.
+
If you're a corporate user of freenode, we can use your help. A one-time donation to [Peer-Directed Projects Center](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml), an IRS 501(c)3 (non-profit, tax-exempt) corporation, would help the network and allow you to support the community in a very visible way. [Contact us](mailto:staff@peerprojects.org) for more information.
+
Your participation is essential to growing the network and the nonprofit. Please help us.
slug: pdpc-fundraiser-event
title: PDPC Fundraiser Event
---
-
Well, the fundraiser is almost done. We're $1,000.00 US away from our goal of $18,000. (Actually, $988.56---thanks, **Luigi30!** :) We're almost there, and it seems to be a good time to go that extra mile to finish up. So, lock up your pets and small children, turn off your WALLOPS, today is **Silly Cloaks Day** on freenode. 8)
+
Today's contributors will get to wear **the silly cloak of their choice for 24 hours.** Just [donate](http://freenode.net/news-2004-07-05.shtml#donate) and message a staffer on **#fundraiser** with the details. You get up to 52 characters of the text of your choice, and the cloaks will end in **.fundraiser.pdpc**. You'll get to wear your cloak for 24 hours!
+
And for those of you who would like to help us move things along even further, it's....
+
+
Embarrass Your Friend DayThis is where you get to wear an embarrassing cloak for 24 hours, to help us finish up the fundraiser with a "bang." Scary, huh? :) Here's how it works.
+
**Victims (erm, participants :) should:**
slug: fundraising-event
title: Fundraising Event
---
-
Yesterday's fundraising event went well. Things started out a bit slowly, so much so that your editor ended up sending some global notices---apologies to those of our users who find such messages noisy. But at the end of the day, we raised a total of $355.54, which means we are now $633.02 away from our fundraising goal of $18,000.
+
**Many thanks to everyone who participated in fundraising yesterday, including:**
+
aaearon, ac1d, alexissoft, amrit, andrewy, Anvil, BettyBoop, bhearsum, bkw_, c0ldbyte, ciaranm, Cody, cnb, ctd, Daeken, Damian_Des, dan2, decode, [Dev]_, Didjoburo, DP, eaglex, file, floppydisk, flosch, Georgia, gerrynjr, guru3, harryv, Hyp3rion, jaqque, jcristau, ksandre, Luigi30, mrsnazz, mtp, NeoThermic, nichlas, Nikaji, plasmaroo, poptix, PuppiesOnAcid, pwaring, Ramsey, Rawplayer, reuben, RichardP, Richih, ruskie, rxKaffee, setient, smimou, swegener, The_Tick, TheSandyman, theWW1FlyingAce, tigloo, tite, TmBerg, twisted, unleashed2k, W8TVI, wwalker, Xial, xiO_ and the staff of freenode.
+
Apologies if we missed you---there were a lot of people in **#fundraiser** and things were very hectic. We appreciate your support, whether we managed to list you or not. And our thanks to everyone who has donated and to everyone who uses and contributes to the network. We couldn't do it without you.
+
**The fundraiser is almost done. Please [help us finish up](http://freenode.net/news-2004-07-06.shtml#donate)!**
slug: announcement-fundraising-update-scheduled-maintenance
title: '[Announcement] Fundraising Update & Scheduled Maintenance'
---
-
As you're probably aware, the March-July 2004 fundraiser for [Peer-Directed Projects Center](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml) is officially at a close. We've met our fundraising goal, with donations totaling $18,119.42. Thanks to our corporate sponsor [Digium](http://www.digium.com/) and to all of the users of freenode. We appreciate your help!
+
**OPERATIONAL NOTE:** We're in the process of moving one of our hub nodes to its permanent fiber. We'll be rehubbing in about a half hour, sometime around 05:00 UTC, and again in another 8 hours, at 13:00 UTC (midnight and 08:00 US/Central time). We apologize in advance for the disruption. Thanks for your understanding.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-maintenance-and-re-routing
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Maintenance and Re-routing'
---
-
Hi, all. Main rotation servers will be coming down for maintenance and rerouting on two occasions this month:
+
1. ** 13 August 2004 at 6am UTC (10 hours from now). ** Priority maintenance on a single main-rotation server. The server will be shut down and users will be shunted to other servers.
+
**Affected users: about 2,500. Duration: momentary.**
2. ** 23 August 2004 at 11am UTC. ** Network maintenance on three main-rotation servers and hubbing. The servers will be shut down at the beginning of the maintenance window and users will be shunted to other servers. User nick and channel services will be down for about one hour; proxyscanning and staff tools will remain up.
+
**Affected users: all. Duration: about one hour.**
slug: scheduled-maintenance-services-downtime
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Services Downtime'
---
-
Hi all. We're making a minor change in cloaking this morning; we're changing the generic user cloaks (the '.registered' and most of the '.cloaked' cloaks) to '.user'. The requirements for these cloaks will stay the same; we're just simplifying the hostnames a bit.
+
IRC services (NickServ and ChanServ) will be down for several minutes while part of the change is completed.
+
Thanks for your patience, and as usual, thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-services-database-clear-out
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Services database clear-out.'
---
-
This is just to let you know that we will soon be performing a fairly massive cleanup of the NickServ database, and through it the ChanServ database. We're hoping to clear out a lot of the dead nicks and channels in order to make our next services upgrade a simpler process.
+
We'll be dropping all expired nicknames. As [explained](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#expirations) in the [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml), IRC nicknames on freenode expire after 60 days. Nicks that are at least two weeks old and that were last used less than two hours after their creation are also considered to be expired.
+
There are several things you should know about this cleanup process:
slug: scheduled-maintenance-upgrading-rotation-servers
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Upgrading Rotation Servers'
---
-
About 11 hours from now, at 06:00 (1am in Chicago, 8am in Paris, 3pm _[whoops, 3:30pm --ed]_ in Adelaide), we'll be rebooting several main rotation servers to perform upgrades. Much of the network will be affected, but if all goes well, we should be finished within a half hour. We apologize for the inconvenience. Thanks for your understanding, and thank you for using freenode!
slug: a-couple-of-items-of-possible-interest
title: 'A couple of items of possible interest. '
---
-
**First,** if you're involved with bookkeeping or accounting for a small not-for-profit entity, particularly in the FOSS community, please consider maintaining a presence on the new **#accounting** channel on **freenode**. This channel was set up to provide mutual support for small not-for-profit entities in the area of bookkeeping and accounting. Examples: use of UCoA for general ledger and reporting, accrual-based accounting techniques, basic bookkeeping. Please [stop by the **freenode** IRC network](http://freenode.net/using_the_network.shtml), channel **#accounting**.
+
**Second,** if you're thinking of using PayPal to donate to our parent not-for-profit entity, [Peer-Directed Projects Center](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml), today would be a good day to do so. PayPal has announced a free day due to its recent problems. It will be refunding fees on all transactions, until 11:59pm US/Pacific (6:59am 29 October 2004 UTC). So, you have about ten hours to make that donation with no fees charged to PDPC. Please take the opportunity to make your donation go a bit farther!
+
Thank you for your support to date, and thank you for using **freenode**.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-emergency-reboot
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Emergency reboot'
---
-
Good morning to you all. The **freenode** network will experience extensive outages between 12 and 12:30pm today (about 7-7.5 hours from now). One of our sponsors needs to reboot a dying core router on an emergency basis, and it's expected to affect service network-wide. The outages should last about five minutes. Staff may need to do routing cleanup mid-afternoon, as well.
+
We apologize for this unavoidable service interruption. Please accept our apologies, and thank you for using freenode
slug: scheduled-maintenance-re-hubbing
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Re-hubbing'
---
-
Good morning, all. We'll be doing substantial rehubbing on freenode at 7am, in just under two hours. The work will disrupt network use but should be finished in less than a half hour. We'll also be doing fairly major rehubbing and reboots on main rotation servers around 5am either Sunday or Monday morning. We'll keep you posted.
+
We apologize for these unavoidable outages, and as always, thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-switch-maintenance
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Switch Maintenance'
---
-
Good morning and best wishes during the holiday season. One of our sponsors has scheduled switch maintenance for New Years' Eve morning, 31 December 2004 at 1am UTC. This maintenance could take as little as two minutes or as much as forty-five. There is the possibility of substantial network impact.
+
Thanks in advance for your patience, and have an excellent New Year. Thank you for using freenode!
slug: announcement-pdpc-fundraiser
title: '[Announcement] PDPC Fundraiser'
---
-
Good evening to everyone. Here's hoping you're having an excellent new year. In the next day or so, [Peer-Directed Projects Center](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml), the IRS 501(c)(03) parent organization of **freenode**, will begin its fundraising campaign for the fiscal year ending 30 June 2006. We're still working on budget estimates for FYE 2006, and we begin the campaign with about $2,440 in donations over and above those required for the current year.
+
The board of directors of PDPC passed the following resolution today, pertaining to fundraising:
<blockquote> _ Whereas Peer-Directed Projects Center is an IRS 501(c)(03) organization, with a responsibility to contribute to the public welfare, and whereas donors to PDPC represent a broad range of community participants, and whereas the recent tsunami has demonstrated a genuine need for public support for international relief and welfare organizations, and
+
Whereas the welfare of children, nationally and internationally, is of significant importance to the future of Free and Open Source Software and Peer-Directed Projects, be it
+
Resolved, that during the Fiscal Year ending June 30, 2005, one quarter of each donation to PDPC beginning in the near future will be forwarded to UNICEF, initially targetted toward tsunami relief efforts, provided that donors who so choose may opt out of this program and designate their donations specifically and solely for PDPC's own use, and
+
Resolved, that the Executive Director is instructed to begin this program as soon as is feasible from a technical, financial and public relations standpoint. _</blockquote>
slug: announcement-late-notice-of-outages
title: '[Announcement] Late notice of outages'
---
-
Good morning, all. We've received last minute news that several of our main hub and leaf nodes may experience outages beginning about five hours from now, from noon until 2pm UTC. Service is being interrupted to perform urgent upgrades to infrastructure equipment. We're not certain whether the outages will occur once or twice or be intermittent throughout that period.
+
Apologies for this unfortunate service interruption. We appreciate your patience and understanding, and thank you for using freenode.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-network-outages
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Network Outages'
---
-
Significant network outages are scheduled for just over 17 hours from now, to update server code. These updates affect main rotation servers and hubs and will significantly affect all users on the network. The outages are scheduled for 7am UTC tomorrow. We'll make them as brief as we can manage.
+
Apologies for the inconvenience. As always, we appreciate your patience and understanding, and we thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-expected-downtime-due-to-software-upgrade
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Expected downtime due to software upgrade'
---
-
Due to an unexpected combination of events, freenode will be scheduling major server maintenance for 7am UTC Sunday 22 May 2005 (that's midnight in Los Angeles, 3am in New York City, 9am in Brussels and 5pm in Sydney). Six major servers will be restarted and the entire network will be affected. If all goes well, everything should be over in just about 15 minutes. Thanks for your support and understanding as we continue to upgrade the network.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-major-server-maintenance
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Major Server Maintenance'
---
-
To update status, we're still scheduling major server maintenance at 7am UTC Sunday 22 May 2005 (that's midnight in Los Angeles, 3am in New York City, 9am in Brussels and 5pm in Sydney). Seven, not six, major servers will be restarted, and the entire network will be affected. We anticipate that this process may take up to an hour, rather than the 15 minutes previously reported. Thanks again for your support and understanding.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-server-upgrades
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Server Upgrades'
---
-
freenode has tentatively scheduled server upgrades for 6am UTC on Saturday 2 July 2005 (2am in New York City, 8am in Brussels, 4pm in Sydney and 11pm Friday in Los Angeles). At least three major servers will be restarted, and the entire network will be affected. This process may take up to an hour. As always, thank you for your support and understanding.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-rescheduling-planned-outages
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Rescheduling planned outages'
---
-
The upgrades for freenode on Saturday 2 July 2005 at 6am UTC have been rescheduled. One of our sponsors has schedule a couple of major power outages, and the effect on us will be pretty major, so we'll do the work at that time. So, the new schedule has major outages planned which are likely to affect our service for one hour each at 9am UTC (2am Los Angeles, 11am Brussels and 6pm Sydney) on: Wednesday, 29 June 2005
Sunday, 3 July 2005
+
Thank you for your support and understanding.
slug: scheduled-maintenance-changes-to-the-scheduled-downtime
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Changes to the scheduled downtime'
---
-
There's a slight change in the outage schedule. The outages are now planned to last up to an hour and a half, beginning at 8:30am UTC (1:30am Los Angeles, 10:30am Brussels and 5:30pm Sydney) on: Wednesday, 29 June 2005
Sunday, 3 July 2005
+
We'll try to keep things running as well as possible during the outage periods, but there will be disruption--we appreciate your understanding and patience.
slug: announcement-introducing-stats-p
title: '[Announcement] Introducing /stats p'
---
-
Late-scheduled sponsor power outages between 9am and 10am UTC on Monday, 8 August 2005 (a bit over a day from now) will impact network use for most of our users. We'll take the opportunity at that time to do software updates on several of our servers, and we'll also schedule a test upgrade to Hyperion 1.0. Hyperion is a fork of our current dancer-ircd 1.0 ircd server software.
+
Hyperion represents the return to active maintenance of our source tree, and provides [a number of bug fixes and operational enhancements.](http://svn.freenode.net/hyperion/trunk/NEWS) There will be a few visible enhancements, such as the use of the
command, which will allow the user to get a list of freenode staffers who have marked themselves as "available to handle problems" with a new user mode, +T. We'll make another new umode, +u, available to group members to allow them to bypass channel join limits. And one more major new feature, NOIDPREFIX support, may affect registered nickname formats. Nothing will be implemented for at least two months, but you're urged to read the [draft policy](http://freenode.net/policy_draft_1123442180.shtml#usernames) and comment to email address **policy at freenode dot net**.
+
As a convenience to our users, you can now identify to NickServ as you connect to the network. Just connect with your registered nickname and specify your NickServ password as a server password. We hope this will make identifying to NickServ easier.
+
Channel staffers will notice that usernames appear in WHOIS as "I=foo" or "N=foo" to indicate whether identd was successful or not. Channel forwarding has been cleaned up and should work properly with most clients. Channel forwarding bans now show the target channel. Various commands no longer break idle time. Channel quiet mask requests (+q) are now always reflected as '+b %foo' mode changes to help keep clients synchronized. Hostname cloaks have been changed; where they previously appeared as right-major hierarchical names using '.' to separate tokens, they will now be left-major, using '/' as token separator. They'll be extremely easy to distinguish from actual DNS hostnames and to ban or exempt as required. And a variety of operational and protocol changes under the covers should help the network to function more smoothly.
+
The most significant change to our code base, however, is just that we've reactivated the coding project and our development is now done from an [SVN repository](http://svn.freenode.net/hyperion/trunk/). Thanks to **jilles**, **GXTi** and the others on **#hyperion** for their excellent work in putting together the release. If you have any problems on Monday, please stop by the channel or email **bugs at freenode dot net**.
+
Thank you for your patience during the upgrades, and thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-ircd-upgrade-2
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] IRCD upgrade.'
---
-
By now you've noticed that the **freenode** network was upgraded late this morning to hyperion-ircd release 1.0.1. Due to overwhelming problems with floodbots during the last few days, we've added an experimental feature to hyperion ircd and we'll be implementing it this afternoon.
+
In a few minutes, we'll be reconfiguring the network to prevent unregistered users from sending private messages. This is an experimental feature which can be turned on and off at will. In the short term, it should prevent private message flooding from spambots; in the long term, combined with changes to authentication, it could make such flooding very rare. Please email us at **_policy at freenode dot net_** and let us know what you think of the feature. You'll also be able to use
to locate a staffer if you wish to comment, and staffers will be able to see your comments, whether or not you are registered and identified. Please take the opportunity to register your IRC nickname if you need the ability to send private messages. If you've already registered your nickname and have not set auto-identification on, please configure your client accordingly. Remember that the easiest way to auto-identify is to connect with your registered nick and specify your nickserv password as your server password.
+
Finally, we know this is a fairly major change to the operation of the **freenode** network. We're taking this step due to the unprecedented volume of spam in the last few days. We hope you'll take the time to email us at **_policy at freenode dot net_** to let us know how the change affects the usability of the network.
+
Thank you in advance for your help and your patience, and thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-services-upgrade
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Services Upgrade'
---
-
Yesterday around noon, we ran into such serious problems with hyperion-ircd 1.0.1 that it became necessary to back out the NOIDPRIVMSG feature, which blocks unregistered users from sending private messages. But users responding to requests for feedback on the feature, via global notice and news item, commented very positively, with about 60% favoring the permanent adoption of the feature, and 83% favoring its use in some temporary or permanent form.
+
We've resolved the problems with the 1.0.1 code release and will be phasing the patched code in over the next 8 or 9 hours, with our main rotation servers restarted between 4am and 5am UTC. We'll be working on providing a non-default NickServ setting for registered users, allowing them to receive messages from unregistered users. This feature should be available very soon. We'll continue to test for the next few days, and you can help by telling us what you think of the feature; just email your comments to **_policy at freenode dot net_**. And registered or unregistered users can message an active staffer for help; just use
to get the list.
+
We appreciate your patience and your support for the network. Thank you for using freenode!
slug: scheduled-maintenance-memory-upgrade
title: '[Scheduled Maintenance] Memory Upgrade'
---
-
We'll be restarting a main rotation server on either Monday or Tuesday at 5:00am, in order to perform a memory upgrade. The server has been removed from rotation and, so far, no more than about 2,000 users should be affected. Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.
slug: afternoon-all
title: '[Announcement] DNS change'
---
-
freenode is currently experiencing a large-scale nuisancebot infestation. We've temporarily removed the **irc.freenode.net** rotation, but you can find us on [chat.freenode.net](irc://chat.freenode.net/). If you're a client developer or you run an IRC network list site, please do not list this new hostname without first emailing **staff at freenode dot net** to make sure it's okay to do so. Apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for using the network!
slug: good-afternoon-everyone
title: '[Announcement] Temporary DNS Change'
---
-
For the last 18 hours, freenode experienced a large-scale nuisancebot infestation. We temporarily removed the [irc.freenode.net](irc://irc.freenode.net) rotation and replaced it with [chat.freenode.net](irc://chat.freenode.net/), in order to try to stem the tide of spambots hitting the network. In the process of doing so, we discovered a new methodology for analyzing the spambot net and produced a patched server version to mitigate the effects of the infestation. As of a few minutes ago, all freenode servers have been upgraded to this new code.
+
We're not certain how long the patch will work. Botnets are modified over time by their creators and this one will likely be no exception. We hope we can utilize the new methodology to handle subsequent generations of botnets, but there's no guarantee our efforts will be successful. We believe that it will be helpful to make a gradual, permanent cutover of the main rotation hostname from _irc.*_ to _chat.*_ to make it somewhat less likely we'll experience future problems.
+
If you're a client developer or you run an IRC network list site, please do not list [chat.freenode.net](irc://chat.freenode.net/), in your client or site without first emailing **staff at freenode dot net** to make sure it's okay to do so.
+
Finally, we want to thank you all for your patience and understanding. You've helped us stay on track and resolve the current difficulties, and we appreciate it. Apologies for the inconvenience, and thank you for using freenode!
slug: good-morning-all-2
title: '[Announcement] Network problems'
---
-
Yesterday evening, freenode had network problems related to the recent spambot infestation. Despite the recent server patch, the underlying infestation continues and has created some temporary resource issues. Several servers restarts ensued and network staff rearranged the main server rotation to compensate for the problem.
+
The network is once again running smoothly. However, in order to resolve remaining resource issues, staff has scheduled server restarts at 6am UTC (10pm in San Francisco, 7am in Stockholm, 5pm in Sydney). The restarts will affect most of the network but should be very brief.
+
Other than the problems yesterday evening, the network has been running well, and staff considers the upgrade to be a qualified success. We'll keep you posted in case of additional problems. Thanks much for your patience!
slug: '98'
title: Happy New Year!
---
-
- pdpc
- social
---
-
A quick note on a few current topics. First, new manual group registrations have been, if anything, slower than before. We apologize for this; we're working on ramping up the freenode-registry project and concentrating on coding for the moment. The code is in the early prototyping stage and is going fairly slowly, though it's beginning to pick up speed. However, the current manual group registration process is suffering while we work on the code which will eventually automate our processes. We'll try to pick off some of the more active projects in the group registration queue and get them moving again. Thanks in advance for your patience.
+
A new social channel, [#freenode-groups](irc://chat.freenode.net/#freenode-groups), has been set up for current holders of [primary channel](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#primarychannels) group cloaks. If you're not in that category, the channel will forward you to [#freenode](irc://chat.freenode.net/#freenode), the old network staff social channel, which is actually currently forwarded, in turn, to [##bookmark](irc://chat.freenode.net/##bookmark) (on a temporary basis) while we sort out which channels the network project is going to use.
+
Also, you may have noticed that the 2006-2007 [PDPC](http://freenode.net/pdpc.shtml) fundraiser has not yet begun. Preliminary budgeting suggests that we're very much on track for 2006-2007. We'll likely have one or two small fundraisers during this fiscal year rather than a single large one. We'll keep you posted, and you can help us stay on track by [making a donation](http://freenode.net/pdpc_donations.shtml) now instead of later.
+
Finally, the staff of freenode and PDPC want to thank you for using the network. We're grateful that you continue to use the network in record numbers, and we'll keep doing our best to help things run smoothly. Have an excellent week!
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
We'll be rehubbing our European servers at about 6am UTC tomorrow, in about 9 hours (11pm US/Pacific, 8am Europe/Paris, 4pm Australia/Sydney). We're returning our normal hubbing, which was modified several days ago due to backbone connectivity problems between our US and Europe hubs. This correction should reduce transatlantic latencies.
+
Thanks to everyone for your patience and understanding, and thank you for using freenode. Have a great night!
- freenode
- social
---
-
On the 12th September Rob Levin, known to many as freenode's lilo, was hit by a car while riding his bike. He suffered head injuries and was in a coma. Rob was being treated at the Neuro Trauma Intensive Care Unit at a local hospital in Houston, Texas where he passed away on Sept 16th.
+
Our thoughts are with Rob and his family, and we ask that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.
+
Condolences can be sent to condolences@freenode.net
- private
- social
---
-
As previously announced last week, Rob Levin aka lilo, the father of freenode, passed away on the 16th of September. He had been in a coma after being hit by a car while riding his bicycle.
+
Many of our users and sponsors have asked how they can help Debbie and Benjamin, Rob's wife and son, during this difficult time. We can now inform you that financial aid may be sent to his family using their personal paypal account, status@spinhome.org.
+
Condolences can still be sent to condolences@freenode.net and will appear both online in our book of memories as well as being professionally bound and passed on to Rob's family.
+
Although for many people Rob personified freenode, we would like to assure you all that the network will continue to run. Over the years lilo built up a large body of staff members, including a wide variety of people from all backgrounds, countries and ages. We have ex-NASA employees, psychology students, ham radio enthusiasts and Debian, Gentoo and Ubuntu developers to name but some, all with their own unique qualities and skills. Combined with a passion for the FOSS community, this made them Rob's number one choice to run the network with him, and we believe that they are also the people he would want to continue to run the network in his absence. Together we will ensure that freenode keeps running, and in a way which would ultimately have made Rob proud. We are currently working closely with the PDPC board and Rob's family to make sure that all loose ends are tied up and that the great service you have come to know and expect will continue as normal.
+
Questions can as always be directed to staff@freenode.net, or feel free to /msg christel or LoRez on IRC.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
We would like to apologise to those of our users affected by the network downtime earlier tooday, November 2nd 2006. The network went down unexpectedly after one of our staffers accidentally found a bug in the IRCD code.
I'd also like to take this opportunity to suggest that you keep your eyes on this webpage as we will shortly be announcing some exciting changes and bringing you some great news!
Thank you for using freenode and have a great day.
+
Questions can as always be directed to staff@freenode.net, or feel free to /msg christel or LoRez on IRC.
categories:
- pdpc
---
-
It is with great pleasure that I can finally introduce the new board of directors for PDPC, the not-for-profit entity that runs freenode.
+
Following Rob "lilo" Levin's death earlier this year, the PDPC board has voted in new board members and are about to embark upon some exciting new tasks. The new board is as follows:
With this new board come the new corporate officers for the PDPC: David Levin as President, Chris Mills as Treasurer, and Christel Dahlskjaer as Secretary.
+
Chris and Phil are both resuming their positions from the original board, with the newcomers being David, Rob's younger brother, and Christel.
+
The board also saw the resignation of Seth Schoen. We would like to thank Seth for the time he has invested in PDPC, and wish him luck in his future endeavours. We trust that we will be working closely with Seth in the future, although he no longer holds a position on the board.
+
With a new board in place we are moving forward again, both from a freenode perspective and with other PDPC projects. For those of you who have been awaiting your PDPC sponsor cloaks, I'd like to apologise for the delay and reassure you that we will start processing the backlog over the next few days.
+
I would also like to extend thanks to the excellent volunteers who staff the freenode network, for their support, energy and enthusiasm over the past few months, our amazing and generous sponsors and last but not least, the diverse and vibrant userbase that make freenode what it is. Thank you for using freenode and have a great day!
+
Questions can as always be directed to staff@freenode.net, or feel free to /msg christel or LoRez on IRC.
+
Christel Dahlskjaer
Head of Staff, freenode
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
In order to upgrade our ircd code to fix various bugs and security issues, it has become necessary to restart a large portion of freenode network.
+
This morning, between 6:00 and 7:00AM UTC, we will be restarting numerous servers, including our network hubs. Approximately 35% of the network will be disconnected and the rest will notice significant fragmentation. We have planned the upgrades well in advance and with hope, the affected servers will only be down for a few minutes, at which point the network will return to normal operation.
+
We have already sent notices to users on the affected servers (i.e., those that will shunt clients). A list is also below. You may find which server you're on by a **WHOIS** command on yourself (i.e., **/whois nick**)
Additionally, servers used for tor connections will shunt users.
+
We apologize for the inconvenience, and thank you for using freenode. Further questions can be directed to staff@freenode.net.
- fosscon
- freenode
---
-
When I first came on board as [freenode](http://www.freenode.net) staff I had no idea what a incredible experience I was in for.
+
Over the past few years I've gotten to know some amazing people, both online and in person, become involved with some exciting projects, learned a lot about cool new stuff.. and it's all thanks to the community surrounding the network.
+
Here I am now, starting to find my confidence and getting comfortable in my role as Head of Staff for [freenode](http://www.freenode.net), and as a director for the PDPC.
+
I am psyched about the fact that the network continues to grow, we've just hit 36,000 users a few weeks back. I'm excited and geared about new projects we're taking on like [FOSSCON](http://www.fosscon.org), the Free and Open Source Software Conference we are arranging in San Diego later this year.
+
I am proud to be working with such an amazing team of volunteers, the entire [freenode](http://www.freenode.net) staff is made up from people who share a drive and passion.
+
"If freenode didn't exist, someone would have to invent it. That's how you know that it's not only an essential idea, but something you can't imagine not being there." Those were the words used by a gentleman I met this weekend at [Southern California Linux Expo](http://www.socallinuxexpo.com), and it filled me with this feeling of warmth.
+
We matter, we matter to the projects that use us. Alex Ionescu of [ReactOS](http://www.reactos.org) went as far as to thank freenode for playing such a large part in the success of the ReactOS project, stating that without freenode the project wouldn't exist now.
+
That feels nice, having people come up and say "We appreciate what you do," people thanking us for the time we put down working on this. And more so, it encourages us to continue working on making improvements and offering a even better service.
freenode may not have the ambition to be "the best network IN the world". But we do strive to become "the best network FOR the community."
+
freenode is a value-based network, driven by a curiosity to find and develop new strategies for communicating, learning and collaborating.
+
We realize that the times we live in demand creative and innovative thinkers and actors with insight, courage and determination. And I believe that these are exactly the sort of people we have on freenode, both my staff and many of the people involved in the wider community.
We aim to provide other projects with a safe space for creative thinking and discussion, a communication platform where you can collaborate and turn small ideas into big explosions.
+
We are about _bringing people together!_
+
I am going to blog soon about some of the changes that are happening with the network and how we communicate with and look for feedback from our users. I am going to let myself bare a bit and tell you how the last few months, following Rob "lilo" Levin's death has affected us, and how it has changed us.
+
But for now I am going to simply thank you for using freenode, for helping us make this into what it is, wish you a happy Valentines Day and leave you with a few wise words by my friend Albert.
+
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us "universe",
a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our
thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest.
A kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a
kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and
to affection for a few persons nearest to us.
+
Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by
widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living
creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty... We shall
categories:
- freenode
---
-
If you are reading [christel's blog](http://blog.simplychristel.net/), you will know that we have been mulling over creating a staffblog. It is not meant as an official newsfeed like freenode news, it is our semi-official way to talk about what happens behind the scenes, what makes us happy and what we think needs changing. We really do hope to get this thing flying and are aiming for at least one entry per week. Let us see how good we do once novelty wears off..
+
We will start our regular blogging with a message from christel, our head of staff. Most of you will probably have heard of her, anyway. For those who did not, she is a twenty-something nurse trying to live in the UK. She fails horribly at this and is cursed with lots of traveling around the world. Apart from Free Software and open communities, her interests include pink.
+
Expect to see her first post soonish. :)
- infrastructure
- projects
---
-
Hi all. I'd like to talk about a unique feature that freenode has that many are not aware of for my first post to this blog. Sitting quietly in a small corner of our website, the concept of group registration is one of the things that makes freenode unique amongst IRC networks and it is something that I think highlights our commitment to open projects. The process is simple: after submitting a group contact form, a representative of freenode will contact you, usually by telephone, to verify your identity and to help get things set up.
+
The concept of registering your project and the availability of this service has been around for some time. Rob Levin, the late founder of PDPC and freenode, placed particularly emphasis on the importance of real world-backed relationships between projects and the network, and there are many benefits to the projects for going through the process: they have rights over the channels they register, and to this end can request transfer of ownership of any channels that they lay claim to as part of their group - assuming, of course, they are able to prove that they are involved in the group to a sufficient level of authority to authorise this. Additionally, project cloaks can be requested. These replace the default unaffiliated cloaks given out; for example, I wear a Wikimedia cloak to show my involvement. Group registration is also possible for about, reference or topical groups, such as those found at ##cooking, ##philosophy and ##security on freenode, to name but a few. They too can request cloaks and gain an official relationship with the network and its staff.
+
Now, for a bit of honesty: we're rather backlogged in processing requests for group registration. This is no secret; those of you who have already submitted forms will have probably noticed that you have not been contacted. Recently however, several staff have got involved in the verification process and we are starting to process forms more quickly. We operate on a squeaky wheel system: poke a staff member listed on /stats p to process your form if you have not heard back from us after a week or so, and they will try and find someone. We're also making improvements to the systems and infrastructure we're using to record the forms and verifications to make things smoother for everyone.
+
So, if you like freenode and are using it for your open project, why not register your group today?
- freenode
- philosophy
---
-
As the staff has so recently begun this blog, I've been carefully thinking about freenode and what make it different from so many other networks. Ask 10 people and you might get 10 different answers, but I have my own theory, which I thought I'd share with you here. The difference is, quite simply, the people that populate the network - and their heart and drive to make it something better. For a long time, though I was operating a channel of my own, I never realized that freenode officially encouraged the sort of behavior that I often employ - self-mediation, moderation, arbitration, catalysing, or whatever you want to call it. But indeed, freenode has an entire section on its website about the importance (and role) of a Catalyst!
+
What is a catalyst, you might ask? "Catalysts try to resolve problems, not through the use of authority and special privilege, but by fostering consensus, gently nudging participants in the direction of more appropriate behavior and by generally reducing the level of confrontation rather than confronting users with problems...[while] Channel and network administrators may be catalysts...[a]n important characteristic of successful catalysts is the infrequency with which they wear authority or invoke special privilege."
+
The freenode section even goes so far as to provide some key functions/skills of a catalyst: to remain relaxed, open-minded, responsible, unobtrusive, realistic, careful, attentive, minimalistic, courteous, cooperative, in a problem-solving mode, and humble. Reading through that list and digesting what is described/suggested can be intimidating, but in fact, it makes a lot of sense. For example, how could I possibly, as a catalyst, help to calm a situation down if I am not relaxed myself? Nor could I ever hope to help resolve a disagreement or situation if I have pre-conceived ideas of what is happening and what the resolution should be (as opposed to having an open mind and hearing out the parties involved).
+
As I mulled over the role of the catalyst and considered its application not just to freenode, but to daily life, I realized that even if someone were not "naturally" endowed with the demeanor of a catalyst, the skills can be learned. Becoming a catalyst is a choice - one must demonstrate a willingness to put aside things like pride, indignation, blame, annoyance, frustration. Instead, focus on identifying the issue and helping to resolve it. I have found in many situations that diffusing a situation is most effective when done in /query. When you have an opportunity to discuss something in /query, you can avoid embarrassing the person you're speaking with. Also, frankly, showing that you care enough to find out what's going on and how you can help is often a large part of the process.
+
Be aware of cultural and language differences. Not only may there be differences between disputing parties, but there may very well be differences between you and the person you are speaking with. It is extremely easy, particularly in the flat, toneless text of irc, to misinterpret someone's intentions or even the actual words they use. Don't be afraid to write in complete sentences. Determine whether you and the person you are speaking with share the same native language. (That is not to say that if you don't, you should avoid catalysing - but merely that you should be aware of how easily you will (mis)understand one another). Age differences, perspectives, it will all have an effect on your ability to communicate clearly with the person you are talking with.
+
Each opportunity to catalyse will be drastically different from every other. I encourage you to learn from your mistakes (we ALL make mistakes - whether large or small). Don't hesitate to go back over a conversation after the fact and look for areas in which you can improve your skills. Read the Catalyst section of the freenode site periodically - use it as a "refresher". Be **self**-critical but not critical of others. Realize that you won't be successful catalysing every situation and don't be discouraged from trying.
+
In short, become the person you would want to have available to help resolve a dispute that **you** might have - impartial, attentive, open-minded, courteous, and humble. Catalysing is a thankless job in some respects - you often won't have a lot of people saying 'gee, thanks for taking care of that'. On the other hand, your channels will be much more effective and enjoyable places to spend your time. Help keep freenode the wonderful place that you, the user, have already made it! Become a catalyst today!
- freenode
- private
---
-
I was at [FOSDEM](http://fosdem.org/) last weekend and I liked it. There were loads of interesting talks in over a dozen tracks. Dev rooms, hacker's corner, booths with funny gadgets and interesting software, you name it :). A huge thank you to all the people that made this happen!
+
In hindsight, we should probably have announced some sort of informal freenode meeting so people would have been aware that some of us went there. It is a pity that we did not think of that beforehand, but I will try to make sure we let people know well in advance next time!
+
Still, a few of us staffers got together and did something unusual: Talk with our mouths, not with our hands. It was pretty neat to sit in front of people and talk to them :).
+
I met quite a few people which I have known for years but never seen before. By chance, I even slept in the same room as one of them. One thing I did was to more or less systematically was to ask people about their opinion of freenode. I have gotten lots of feedback, some good, some great, some bad, some worse. While it is always nice to hear that we are doing good and helping people do what they like to do, I have to admit that I was mainly interested in the negative things people had to say. I spent quite a bit of time clearing up a few misunderstandings and minor issues, which was a really good experience for everyone involved.
+
One thing which stood out a little bit, and which also is sadly true for this blog, is that, sometimes, people will complain, but not to us. **Unless you talk to us, we can not help you fix your problems!** So please, do use any means of communication you want and **tell** us what ails you.
+
I will write a tiny blog post right after this one, feel free to use it to get back to us :).
- freenode
- philosophy
---
-
We are still experimenting with this blog and we would really like to get some input on what interests you guys and gals. So please take five minutes, sit down and write a comment to this blog post. Tell us what you feel, what you think, what you love, what you hate, what you always wanted to know about us and anything else you can come up with. Talk to us. I promise we will answer.
categories:
- freenode
---
-
**UPDATE: This is outdated. See [here](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup) for up-to-date instructions. Note that some commands in this entry have been renamed or have different syntax. If you need help with your NickServ account and can't find information on our website, please ask in #freenode.**
+
Nickserv, unbeknownst to many, has many useful features. In addition to handling nick registration, it allows you to change your password, hide certain information about your nick and online status, recover your nick from another user who is using it (or a dead computer connection), turn on/off the ability to receive and be notified of new memos. Here are some of the major features of nickserv. Don't be afraid to poke around with /msg nickserv help.
+
**Nick Setup**
+
Many people on freenode have spent the time to register their nicknames. If you are planning on spending much time at all on freenode, it makes sense. However, it appears that many stop short of the [optimal configuration](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup). It's a little more time-consuming, but not much. It's rather simple and perhaps if we were to explain why we suggest a particular configuration, more people would complete the entire process.
+
The most obvious bit, of course, is to register your nick, which is done simply with /msg nickserv register $password (from the nick you want to register, of course). Next, /nick $altnick to another nickname and register this nick as well, again with /msg nickserv register $password. Then, link the two names by doing /msg nickserv link $originalnick $originalnickpassword from the secondary nick. This will document that both nicks are owned by the same person, and will allow services to leave you identified if you switch from your primary nick to your alternate and vice-versa. We encourage you to set your nick up in this fashion because, if configured correctly, it allows you to connect from your secondary nick in the event that you try to connect to freenode when your primary nick is in use. If you generally auto-identify, you will still be able to identify, receive your cloak and other relevant settings. Traditionally, the secondary nick is master_ (note the trailing underscore), but feel free to use whatever you like.
+
Next, freenode recommends setting an email address. First of all, why... No, we are not planning to send you spam or sign you up for spam lists. The email address protects you in the event you lose your password. If you **do not** set an email address and you lose your password, then you'll be unable to retrieve your nick - instead will have to wait until the nickname is [droppable](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#userexpirations). If you want to to set your email address but not not want it visible to others, then use the /msg nickserv set hidemail on feature.
+
The final step in freenode's recommended setup is to set your client to auto-identify to nickserv when you join freenode. The easiest approach is to specify your nickserv password as a server password. It's less likely that you'll connect to the network without being identified to nickserv this way. Additionally, it reduces the chance that you might accidentally type your password where others might see it.
+
In the event you want to change the nick you are using as your master nick, rather than changing each link individually, just /nick $desiredmasternick and type /msg nickserv set master $nick $password. This command will automatically set that as the new master for your entire chain of linked nicks.
+
**Regaining Control of a Nick**
+
There are three commands that allow you to regain control of a nick, for whatever reason - ghost, recover and release. The first, and most commonly used is "ghost". From time to time, you'll lose your connection to the net and/or freenode, but your nick will remain online as far as the network can tell. In this case, a ghost command is effective: /msg nickserv ghost $nick $password. This command will "kill" your nick, allowing you to change to that nick (/nick $nick) and identify to nickserv (/msg nickserv identify $password).
+
In the event your nick is being used by another person or from a machine that autoconnects when disconnected, you may need to use the recover command (/msg nickserv recover $nick $password). Recover performs a nick collide on your nick. Once this command is employed, the nick will be held until you use the 'release' command or until the release times out. If you are identified to a linked nickname, you do not need to supply a password. Otherwise, you have to supply the correct password.
+
The release command simply allows you to regain control of your nick after performing a recover command. To release the nick, type /msg nickserv release $nick $password.
+
**Privacy & Security**
+
Turning on the "secure" feature (/msg nickserv set secure on) requires anyone using your nick to identify before being able to recover/release your nick, among other things.
+
If you have set your nick to "private" (/msg nickserv set private on), then if anyone performs a "list" command, your nick will not be listed.
+
There are a number of things you can "hide" relating to your nick and online information. When you use "hide", others will not be able to see certain information when they do an "info" on your nick. Hide email was covered earlier. In addition, you can hide your URL, your last seen address and your last seen quit message. Alternatively, you can hide everything. To hide your information, simply type /msg nickserv set hide all|email|url|addr|quit on|off.
+
**Miscellaneous**
+
Nickserv will help you find nicks that utilize a certain string. For example, if you wanted a list of any nicks on freenode that contain "chick", you could type /msg nickserv list *chick*. Nickserv would then return a list of all non-private nicks that contain the string "chick".
+
You can obtain basic information about a nickname if the owner of the nick has not set the nick to privacy. By using /msg nickserv info $nick, you can see when a user registered, when he/she last identified to nickserv, what address/hostmask the user last connected from, the user's last quit message and what nickname options the user has set. If you run the command on your own nick, you'll also see what cloak you have set (if any), any linked nicks you have, a listing of any channels you've registered, and a listing of any channels on which you are on the access list (and your access level for the channel).
+
You can reset your password. However, you must first identify to nickserv using the existing password. Once you have identified, simply type /msg nickserv set password $newpass.
+
Finally, freenode has a memo service (through memoserv). You can set certain things relating to memos through nickserv. The default settings for each of these options is "on", so unless you wish to turn something off, you need do nothing. To allow yourself to receive (or not receive) memos on a particular nick (or their linked nicks), simply type /msg nickserv set memos on|off. If someone does send you a memo and you have memos off, they will receive a notification that you are not accepting memos. If you have memos set to "on", then you must decide whether you want to receive notification that you've received a new memo. To receive notification when the memo is sent, /msg nickserv set notify on. You will also receive notification about new memos whenever you identify to nickserv.
categories:
- pdpc
---
-
A while back we announced on the freenode news page that we are running a design competition for logo + website design for the PDPC (Peer-Directed Projects Center); the not-for-profit organization that owns and operates freenode.
+
This is a quick reminder about the contest still being on, and anyone interested are encouraged to get in touch with us by e-mailing design@freenode.net
+
As the PDPC grows and expands it has become clear that we would benefit greatly from a better web presence, and we would like to invite you to participate in our web design and logo contests.
+
We are announcing a public contest to design http://pdpc.us. The contest is open to all interested individuals, companies and organizations. To enter, please submit one or two PNG or SVG images that show the front page as well as a sub-page should the design differ on the two. At this stage we want only a design mockup; a fully-functional website is not required. Entries for the logo design should contain a PNG or SVG image of your design. The deadline for submissions for both contests is 20:00UTC on April 14th, 2007.
+
The PDPC board along with freenode staff will select the top 5 candidates for each contest, which will then be posted publically for everyone to review. We will then put the finalists through a community voting process.
+
Since the PDPC as an organisation believes strongly in open development and free information, we naturally have a strong preference for designs that rely only upon open standards; designs that rely upon flash animation or other proprietary formats are discouraged. The ideal design would be easily navigable and pleasant on the eye, and should be flexible enough that it can be used on other affiliated sites. The possibility for discreet advertising space is also desired. For practical and legal reasons, we will need to retain copyright on the winning design, so please do not submit entries for which this is problematic.
+
Psst. There is a prize!
- community
- freenode
---
-
For the last few months, some of freenode's staff have been doing overtime as 'observers' on another IRC network for FOSS developers; hanging out in their staff channels, watching how they do things. At the same time, some of their staff have been watching how we work. It's been interesting.
+
It should come as no great surprise to most people to learn that the two groups are remarkably similar. We have the same goals, the same mindset, and common roots. We're moving in the same direction, of course we're taking similar paths! But it's nice to know that, to have it confirmed by months of observation and conversation, by sharing common problems (and common jokes).
+
Today we've moved on to phase 2 of this bridge-building exercise. Some of freenode's staff now have IRCop privileges on the other network, and some of their staff have IRCop privileges on freenode. We'll be trying to help each other's users just the same way that we'd help our own (a few procedural differences aside). I'm guessing it's going to be a challenge making sure we do things properly for each other, but there's no better way I can think of to move forward from here; to try to get us all onto not just similar paths, but the same path.
+
So, I'd like to welcome (and I'd like you to welcome) several new members of staff to freenode; cdlu, cryogen, Ganneff, hajvan, sarnold, scott, tjfontaine, and weasel, from [OFTC](http://oftc.net). Be gentle with them :)
- community
- freenode
---
-
We would like to feature a few stories of how open source in general and freenode in specific influenced you and your life. Anyone who is interested in getting their story published should write email to blog*freenode.net. Depending on feedback, this might even evolve into a weekly feature (or not ;) ). So, happy submitting!
- community
- freenode
---
-
If you've been on the network for a little while you'll probably have noticed that #freenode presently forwards you to #freenode-social, a moderated channel. This is officially our "staff social channel", but it oftens confuses people how it can seem to take a long time to get a voice, when most of the channel are happily chattering away. I thought I'd have a go at clearing up this mysterious situation a little, in the hope that the channel will cause less angst in the future. At the moment, we get a lot of requests for voice, and I hope that by explaining the situation here it will be easier for people to understand what policies we are implementing.
+
The channel has been moderated for a long time, and this is because of the many problems with spambots that the network had been experiencing all that time ago. Unfortunately, we are the target of many an attack and moderation stops this - when a staffer comes and gives out voices, they are able to keep an eye on people trying to spoil the fun of others. Although you may notice that some users have auto-voice by ChanServ, a run of voices is usually given out every few hours or so, when a staffer notices that the channel has a lot of unvoiced people. This system isn't the most efficient, but it allows us to keep a close eye on what is going on to keep things stable. Generally speaking, voice is not given on request because we feel that we would find ourselves very quickly inundated with requests, but we try and voice regularly none the less.
+
I hope that this explanation clears up some concerns surrounding the channel. In addition to all this, we're currently looking for ways to clarify the purpose of the channel, so stay tuned for more.
- freenode
- infrastructure
---
-
We're working on rolling out some new changes to hyperion, our ircd software. If everything goes well, we should be running with these changes in a few weeks. However, you should note that we're releasing these changes as **hyperion 1.0.3**, and we don't particularly encourage any other networks to try to run this code (there are better, more modern ircd software out there). In addition, hyperion 1.0.3 will probably be the last release we make of hyperion. (We are collaborating with Stuart Walsh and TJ Fontaine, the authors of oftc-hybrid which have some great ideas for a next generation ircd tree for freenode!)
+
This update will add some fairly modern features to the ircd's I/O engine to allow it to operate more efficiently and fix a few internal bugs that have been noticed during the run of hyperion 1.0.2b. These changes will be going live on a testnet in the next few days most likely, at which point I will write another post with information on how to play around on the freenode testnet with the updated ircd code.
+
We have also added support for a commonly requested feature, CALLERID (umode +g, server side ignore) in this update, and we have added support for the NETWORK property in our 005 numeric (IRC client authors will probably be thrilled). We have also implemented support for the Linux epoll mechanism, which may provide a marginal performance boost on some of our client servers.
+
If anyone else has any suggestions or bugs, please note them as comments to this story or come discuss it in #hyperion. We would love to hear your feedback. The more technically inclined can download the in-progress 1.0.3 working tree from our subversion repository at http://svn.freenode.net/hyperion/trunk.
- social
- technical
---
-
**The Issue **
+
Over the last few months, it's occurred to me that many people aren't quite sure how to react when a spammer or troll joins their channel. There is always a tendency to react, to do whatever is necessary to get someone's attention to kick the spammer or troll. As a channel op, many of us face challenges in that even if we know how best to react, our peers on the channel tend to get riled up anyway. The result? The troll or spammer has done significant damage to the channel - disrupting "business" or conversations, changing the focus of discussions, etc.
+
First it's important to understand what motivates most trolls/spammers. Simple: attention. They want your attention - whether it's "good" or "bad" attention is unimportant. They simply want to change your focus from your customary topics to one thing: the spammer/troll. Consequently, reactions to trolls and spammers (other than a simple kick/ban, as may be necessary) tend to do one thing - encourage the troll/spammer to continue his/her behavior.
+
So what is to be done? There are really two groups of people to address at this point - channel operators (people who have the ability to kick/ban someone from the channel) and channel users. Since users vastly outnumber operators, I'll address them first.
+
** Channel Users**
+
As a user of freenode, let me first say thanks! freenode is unique because of its users! We appreciate all of you and rarely get a chance to say so. So how can you help freenode and your favorite channels deal with the issue of spammers and trolls? The key is your reaction (or better, lack of a reaction). Since trolls and spammers are seeking to disrupt business and get your focus on them, the best thing you can do is NOT respond to them. Do not respond to their spam. Simple? It seems to be so - and in theory it is. In practice, it can be a bit harder - especially when a spamming or trolling attack is going on. Think "[Catalyst](http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml)".
+
Here are a few ideas of how you might be able to express your frustration or communicate necessary information without encouraging the trolling or spamming behavior:
**Channel Operators **
+
As a channel operator, you have a tougher job when your channel is attacked by trolls or spammers. You have a responsibility to the channel to block/stop/end the attack, as well as keeping everyone else calm! Remember to [catalyse](http://blog.freenode.net/?p=21#comments) throughout the process. Take heart - a little forward thinking will help a lot!
+
_Dealing with the Troll or Spammer _
+
There are a number of ways to deal with trolls and spammers. Of course, you have kick, ban and remove available to you. But you also have the ability to set some channel modes:
_Dealing with the Channel's Reactions_
+
First, remain calm. You set the tone for your users. If you get upset or excited, they will too. Secondly, you can help a lot by educating your users before any attacks occur. Let them know how trolls/spammers work and what they are seeking. Provide them with a clear understanding of what they should do and who they should contact in the event of an attack. Inevitably, people will react to some degree. Use the attack as an opportunity to educate - but do it in private; you want to keep reactions off channel and you also are more likely to be successful, avoiding embarassment by discussing the issue privately.
- infrastructure
- social
---
-
freenode is pleased to announce a few changes effective May 12, 2007 at 12:55 UTC:
- philosophy
- social
---
-
Some time ago I used to work as a special projects mentor for a large international company, one of the things I were to try purvey to the people I trained was 'Change is good, change is great'. It took a long time for me to change my internal thought process and face my own fears of giving up security of what's familiar, and as such it took a long time for me to be able to stand there in a room full of people and utter those words while actually believing in and meaning what I said.
+
This past week the phrase has played on my mind a lot, in regards to our changes to the official freenode help and social channels.
+
We are certainly hoping that this change will turn out to be good -- and feedback so far has been primarily positive, though, that is not to say there hasn't been those unhappy with the change.
+
I will try and speak of some of the reasoning behind closing down #freenode-social, and replacing it with respectively #freenode for help and #defocus for social chatter. The below quotations may help you understand some of the reasoning behind changing the way we operate our social channel, these are just some and not all of the observations made.
<blockquote>Over the last little while it has become apparent that running #freenode-social the way we currently do is not working for staff or users, and as such is not working for the network, the community or the visions and goals we possess.
+
We (freenode staff) propose to close down #freenode-social and replace it with #freenode (focused on user/network support ala #tapthru) and #freenode-offtopic (for general natter), in this regard we would like to extend an invitation to the tapthru staff to come on board and co-manage #freenode with us.
+
The list of items below should be considered a starting point for conversation rather than any definitive pronouncement of how the world should wag. It's not complete (no such list can ever be) but tries to hit most of the major issues we'll face as we embark on this project. Be blunt about your likes/dislikes of the various suggestions and about suggesting changes/additions/removals! Please note that there is no significance to the ordering of the items in the list below; that's just how they came out. They have numbers only to speed the referencing of them during discussion.
+
1. What is wrong with #freenode-social? (This isn't the finger of blame! Just a way to get a handle on what we are trying to fix.)
1. No defined topic (so no way to say: "that's offtopic")
2. No defined rules
Having spent some time discussing the situation and mulled over the above channel thoughts it was decided to move forward and start working out some clearer guidelines for the new channels. The name #freenode-offtopic was also replaced by #defocus, we considered keeping the #freenode-social name but decided that it was better to start afresh and sculpt something from the ground up and so we decided to re-name.
+
The guidelines for the two new channels are far from set in stone, and we will continuously evaluate them and we ask for your help in ensuring that we choose a set of rules which are of the most benefit to the community at large. In this regard I highly encourage you to e-mail staff at freenode dot net with any concerns, comments, questions or ideas you have. We love hearing from you and your feedback is crucial to making freenode what it is.
+
Like Rome, #defocus won't be built in a day and we expect some fumbling while we try work out which way suits our community best. We're trying something new and we are all learning on our feet.
+
I hope the above helped clarify some of the motivation behind #defocus and I hope that you will come join us in the channel.
categories:
- pdpc
---
-
As of the board meeting on May 22nd 2007 a few changes have been made with immediate effect. David Levin has stepped down from his position as President. Christel Dahlskjaer (freenode Head of Staff) replaces him as President by unanimous vote, while David retains a position on the PDPC board.
+
Phil Stracchino follows in Christel's footsteps, assuming her previous position as secretary pro tem.
+
Joining the board we have Richard (RichiH) Hartmann in the position as treasurer pro tem, representing freenode staff, and David (cdlu) Graham as a community board member.
+
All members of the board are excited to be working together to provide even better services to the communities we serve and look forward to a interesting future for PDPC and its sub projects.
+
We would like to thank all the freenode staff volunteers, server sponsors and users who have helped build up the organization and the projects as they are today. We could not have done it without you and appreciate your continued support and enthusiasm in helping us in our efforts to lay the structures for building vibrant peer directed communities.
+
Congratulations to the additional board members of the PDPC, both of whom were voted in unanimously.
+
The corporate officers of the PDPC are as follows:
In unrelated news, it has come to the attention of freenode and the PDPC Board that certain users of the freenode network have been propagating unfounded rumors concerning the status of PDPC board members and freenode staff, claiming to represent or acting on behalf of the President of the PDPC Board. The Board wishes it to be clearly understood that these users do not speak for or represent either freenode or the Peer Directed projects Center in any capacity, official or otherwise. We politely request that you disregard any rumors about Freenode or PDPC obtained from sources other than official Freenode/PDPC communication channels.
+
We thank you for your attention, and assure you that PDPC will continue to operate freenode to the best of its ability in the best interests of the network and the F/OSS community.
+
On behalf of the PDPC board,
+
**Christel Dahlskjaer** - President, Head of Staff - freenode
**Phil Stracchino** - Secretary
**David Graham** - Community Board Member
- pdpc
- social
---
-
Today has been an interesting day in 'freenodia', a day of reflection, and a day where both myself and my incredible staff got a feel of what it means to be surrounded and embraced by so many large and vibrant communities as those who choose to use the freenode network. We are proud and happy to host the projects we host, and we are tremendously grateful that by using freenode you allow us to get a peek behind the curtains on how your project operates, which is always refreshing.
+
We also appeared in the news today, when [NewsForge](http://newsforge.org) and [linux.com](http://linux.com) broke the [news](http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/05/16/2037231) (though, old news to our blog readers!) of [freenode](http://freenode.net) and [OFTC](http://oftc.net) exploring further collaboration.
+
And we saw some changes to the structure of the PDPC board.
<blockquote>As of the board meeting on May 22nd 2007 a few changes have been made with immediate effect. David Levin has stepped down from his position as President. Christel Dahlskjaer (freenode Head of Staff) replaces him as President by unanimous vote, while David retains a position on the PDPC board.
+
Phil Stracchino follows in Christel's footsteps, assuming her previous position as secretary pro tem.
+
Joining the board we have Richard (RichiH) Hartmann in the position as treasurer pro tem, representing freenode staff, and David (cdlu) Graham as a community board member.
+
All members of the board are excited to be working together to provide even better services to the communities we serve and look forward to a interesting future for PDPC and its sub projects.
+
We would like to thank all the freenode staff volunteers, server sponsors and users who have helped build up the organization and the projects as they are today. We could not have done it without you and appreciate your continued support and enthusiasm in helping us in our efforts to lay the structures for building vibrant peer directed communities.
+
Congratulations to the additional board members of the PDPC, both of whom were voted in unanimously.
+
The corporate officers of the PDPC are as follows:
+
* Christel Dahlskjaer - President
* Phil Stracchino - Secretary
* Richard Hartmann - Treasurer
+
The PDPC board of directors:
+
* Christel Dahlskjaer - Member (Head of Staff, freenode)
* Phil Stracchino - Member
* David Levin - Member
* Richard Hartmann - Member
* David Graham - Community Board Member
+
In unrelated news, it has come to the attention of freenode and the PDPC Board that certain users of the freenode network have been propagating unfounded rumors concerning the status of PDPC board members and freenode staff, claiming to represent or acting on behalf of the President of the PDPC Board. The Board wishes it to be clearly understood that these users do not speak for or represent either freenode or the Peer Directed projects Center in any capacity, official or otherwise. We politely request that you disregard any rumors about Freenode or PDPC obtained from sources other than official Freenode/PDPC communication channels.
+
We thank you for your attention, and assure you that PDPC will continue to operate freenode to the best of its ability in the best interests of the network and the F/OSS community.
+
On behalf of the PDPC board,
+
Christel Dahlskjaer - President, Head of Staff - freenode
Phil Stracchino - Secretary
David Graham - Community Board Member</blockquote>
The above is copied from the news announcement made [here](http://freenode.net/news-2007-05-22.shtml).
+
I hope you are all having a wonderful day.
- social
- technical
---
-
For most of my professional career, I worked in the international arena. I'm not sure why I have always enjoyed that so much - perhaps as a result of having lived overseas for a portion of my life. There are, as a result, a lot of things that I take for granted in dealing with others, and I've recently become more aware that others often don't think or don't realize there is a bit of an art to dealing with folks from other cultures, countries, backgrounds and who speak other languages. On irc, there are **so** many different people, languages, cultures, it's important to realize the need to do things a bit differently than we normally would, even though many of the traditional issues that arise when you're face-to-face don't exist.
+
The most obvious example is, even though the vast majority of us communicate on irc in English, a good number speak a different native language. This can cause all sorts of interesting (and sometimes humorous) miscommunications. Regardless of your native language, below is listed a few things that might help you to communicate more clearly with others.
+
To avoid **causing** miscommunication:
Finally, there are a lot of resources on freenode - many people are more than willing to translate when necessary. Ask what language the person speaks, and then try to find another who speaks the language. If all else fails, come to #freenode and ask for help or message a staffer ("/stats p" lists all staffers on duty).
+
The fact is, irc is a fantastic way to get to know other people and to learn more about other cultures - and at a great price! I challenge and encourage each of you to up your level of communication.
- freenode
- social
---
-
Donna [recently posted](http://blog.freenode.net/?p=41) on the move that changed #freenode-social and #tapthru to #defocus and #freenode respectively. This has involved getting the former #tapthru staff on board as our new freenode helpers, and as staff we have found them a great bunch of people to work with - thank you to you all. Yesterday we held an evaluation meeting about how the last two months had gone, with the ups and downs, and to try and set plans for the future. It was a constructive event; what follows us a brief summary of the meeting.<!-- more -->
+
There are mixed feelings across the network on how the two channels have gone, but we all agreed that #freenode has been doing very well. It is a productive help channel, and has been a good way of contacting staff when methods such as /stats p are blocked by clients, or users are new to the world of IRC. It makes a lot of sense to type /join #networkname when you're in trouble. However, there have been a few concerns raised about #defocus and so we spent a good part of the meeting trying to work these out. A major one was that staff and helpers are not actually using the channel for socialising and thus only appear to police it. We all agreed that this makes a lot of sense, but also that we are stuck in old habits - the staff channel sees a lot of social chatter going on, and it was pointed out that we are often more comfortable in rooms where we know everyone. However, we did all agree to try and make the effort to move conversations, and indeed simply saying "let's take this to #defocus" every so often seems to be working.
+
Another issue is the way in which language is dealt with in the channel. It was agreed that the policy against it is sensible, but recognised that it has caused clashes in the past. Hopefully an equilibrium has been reached. It was also noted that there are a few things in the guidelines we have realised are not worded very well or perhaps need dropping as the channel has developed. These will be addressed soon.
+
We have always invited user feedback from our users to <staff@freenode.net> and this remains open for your thoughts which are very welcome. It was noted at the meeting that freenode has grown by 10 000 users since October, so someone must be doing something right!
- freenode
- pdpc
---
-
It's been quiet on the blog front lately, we're mid holiday season so find ourselves somewhat lacking in active staff and this has kept most of those who are around tremendously busy. Both on freenode and with working on new stuff!
+
RichiH and I just got back from Houston, TX a couple of weeks back. We flew over to deal with some PDPC business, visited the grave of Rob (lilo) and had the pleasure of meeting his wife and son. Prior to that we attended GUADEC where we got to meet a fair few users who gave us some valuable input and ideas for the network and where to go next! Thanks guys.
+
I was doing my early morning coffee + newspapers followed by blogs session while trying to wake up this morning and came across a couple of blog entries written by a user, they amused me, while also being somewhat accurate.. so I figured I would share. [A list of annoying IRC personalities](http://dammitcoetzee.blogspot.com/2007/08/list-of-some-of-most-annoying-irc.html) and also [part 2.](http://dammitcoetzee.blogspot.com/2007/08/most-annoying-irc-personalities-2.html)
- freenode
- projects
---
-
While most FOSS contributors will be familiar with [CIA](http://cia.vc) and likely to utilize it for tracking commits for their project(s) and contributors, we occasionally have concerns raised from projects who find that CIA-* joined their channel unexpectedly and not on their request, this may be because someone typoed a channel name when setting things up over at the CIA page, or because someone decided to be helpful and share the joys of CIA with a new project/channel but forgot to ask the project admins/channel owners whether this would be a-ok.. and occasionally we find ourselves getting a bunch of notices alerting us to a CIA-* bot as a potential spambot as it tries rejoin a channel from which it has been banned, or when its been misconfigured and cycle a channel which has a forward set (this tends to confuse most bots!).
+
While freenode encourage and welcome the use of CIA-* bots on our servers, finding it to be a great tool for the wider FOSS communities, tracking thousands of concurrent projects and contributors at any given time we also acknowledge that it may be annoying to have a uninvited CIA-* bot join your channel.
+
We would like to ask that those of you who find yourself having a surprise CIA-* bot visiting your channel alert a staffer to the annoyance rather than ban it from your channel as this causes the bot to repeatedly attempt to rejoin, not only causing spambot alerts for staff but also lag to the bot which again affects other projects who rely on that particular bot for alerts. If the CIA-* bot is being too loud for your liking, consider muting it (/mode #yourchan +q nick) and alerting a staffer who will ensure that the bot is parted from the channel without anymore disruption to either side.
+
Thank you for your co-operation on this matter and thank you for using freenode!
- social
- user count
---
-
Today at around 18:45 UTC freenode hit a total number of connections of fourty thousand, which is a new network record. Over the past few months our usercount has been steadily growing and we are really pleased that more people are finding freenode a useful resource. If you want to see how many users are connected at any one time, type the IRC command /lusers
+
[18:45:52] [freenode] -!- WALLOP Md: FYI, freenode has just broken the record of 40000 connected users. let's join the party in #defocus
- pdpc
- social
---
-
Today saw the (hopefully temporary) resignation of one of our senior staffers; Andy Lindeman (alindeman). Andy has been an important part of freenode staff, both as an excellent part of the strong group of user facing staff and as a part of our infrastructure team. It's sad to see him go, and we hope that he will find the time to rejoin our ranks at some point in the future, but as most of us can relate, being a college student you often find yourself with new and other priorities, be it studies or the social aspects of spending a few years away studying.
+
On behalf of freenode staff and the PDPC board I would like to thank Andy for the time and effort he has put in volunteering for us over the years and wish him all the best for the future. And when you finish your degree, do come back! :)
- freenode
- infrastructure
---
-
As you are probably aware we are in the process of rehauling the IRCd and Services software running on freenode. While hyperion and theia have served us well for a significant amount of time they are also starting to struggle under the weight of our rapid growth (we recently hit 43,000 users, which is a number we hadn't anticipated -- that's 15,000 more users than we had a year ago).
+
We are of course pleased that our numbers are growing and that more and more people and projects are finding a use for freenode; it's a fantastic feeling to be able to give something back to the wider FOSS community.
+
Services wise, we're currently testing new services on testnet and are close to letting you all loose over there for wider testing before we introduce the new services to the production network. Now, there will be a few changes, and while most of them won't be noticeable, I felt it was a good idea to remind you of a couple of things.
If as many people as possible can follow the above advice I'd be grateful -- it would make the migration a lot easier for us, as well as for our users.
+
Expirations and e-mails aside, we've had a lot of feedback from projects and users who would like to see some changes to the services package -- among other things a web-based frontend to services has been mentioned over and over again, particulary for project management. Group contacts would like a way to manage their project namespace, set project related cloaks, and the like. We are looking into OpenID and how to help users and projects which want to more easily integrate, for example, bugzilla and similar with their IRC infrastructure. We're also trialling a new procedure for verifying group contact forms that may help to reduce the backlog somewhat; over the next few weeks we'll be trying it out with a portion of the current queue.
+
In addition to everything I've mentioned, we've heard some really great ideas and suggestions for further improvement originating from our users, so I thought I'd ask you all what you would put on your wishlist. What can freenode do to better serve the communities? How can we improve irc as a communication and development tool for your project? For your users? I'd love to hear any ideas you may have and would love it if you dropped me a line to ideasATfreenodeDOTnet
+
Before I wrap up, I'd like to apologise for the instability of the network over the past few days. We have been under a pretty heavy DDoS attack, though hopefully it has all settled down by now. I'd like to thank our fantastic sponsors for the swift manner in which they dealt with things their end, for their continued support and for pulling together to ensure that we have the data required to pass on to the relevant authorities.
+
It's pretty rare for us to be on the recieving end of an attack like that, and I sincerely hope it will turn out to be an isolated incident.
- philosophy
- social
---
-
The channel ban, initiated with a mode change of +b, is perhaps one of the most recognised and well known features of IRC, dating back to the origins of the protocol. freenode has implemented a number of features that extend the basic nick!user@host mask format because we believe that the 'kickban' is outdated and there are better ways of dealing with disruptions to channel activity. On freenode you will find the quiet, where by replacing +b with +q you can stop a user from speaking in a channel but they can still read the contents of it. It has been found that this creates a more positive atmosphere in the channel that means better discussion can take place. There is also the realname ban, used via +d.
+
There is however a downside to the ease of banning users on freenode from channels and that is that it is easy to lose track of bans set in large channels. There is no feature to auto-expire bans in IRC and in a busy channel it doesn't take long for a large list to build up. With multiple operators in a channel things can very quickly become confused and no-one seems to know why ban x was set and whether or not the user should now be unbanned. This leads to unhappy users and a channel that misses out on potential positive discussion. In addition, channels have a limit of fifty bans set at any one time and bans end up being shed arbitarily in order to set a new set for a new threat. This can lead to obvious problems.
+
This issue is made worse by the fact that +e, +I and +d lists also share the fifty slot limit. This means that if a channel has a large list of ban exceptions or invite exceptions, the number of bans that can be set in a channel is severely limited. In order to avoid having these problems in your channel, we encourage you to take care that bans are being set only when necessary (as bans are generally a Bad Thing) and also to take responsibility for your bans. By this I mean that when a ban no longer makes sense it should be removed.
+
It is recognised that in some channels these limits may be problematic regardless of how tidy the channel is kept and our server does have the ability to increase the limit. This can be granted by freenode staff but is done so on a case by case basis, and not frequently -- doing so indiscriminately would not only encourage channel operators to overfill their banlists, but could eventually cause resource and performance issues on the servers -- freenode currently has around 16000 channels active, so increasing the memory consumed by each banlist would have a dramatic effect. Channels that have a lot of stale bans are unlikely to be granted this flag. Keep tabs on your bans for a happier channel with happier users, and clear out your channel lists to speed things up for everyone!
+
* * *
I would also like to take this opportunity to mention that if you are organising a conference or other event that will have many users connected to freenode at once or if you are a company or other establishment with many freenode users you can now request a larger connection limit by e-mailing your request, details and reasoning to ilines AT // NOSPAM \\ freenode DOT net. Conferences and large networks of users provide a substantial part of freenode's active community and we always seek to accomodate those who are involved in this.
- freenode
- social
---
-
After [this](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/30/will-irseek-have-a-chilling-effect-on-irc-chat/) recent article on [techcrunch.com](http://www.techcrunch.com) many of our users have contacted freenode staff to express their concern, shock, surprise and unease that IRseeK have for some time now been operating covert clients in various channels on freenode (and other IRC Networks) logging all communication and publishing it on their website.
+
We, freenode staff, are also surprised, not to mention rather upset, that this company has chosen to completely ignore our policies and perform actions which our users see as an invasion of their privacy. While we have contacted B & C Advanced Solutions, the company behind IRseeK, to request that they discontinue unauthorized logging on freenode and also that they remove any published logs, we have unfortunately had to take the additional step of blocking new tor connections while we pursue the matter further. The logging bots primarily connect through tor, seem to have no distinguishing characteristics that we can identify, and so far the company has not been willing to remove them voluntarily. We are currently removing the bots as we see them, and if you do spot a client you believe may be a IRseeK logging bot, please do let staff know and they will look into whether the client needs to be removed from the network. To all legitimate tor users out there, I apologise for the inconvenience caused and hope to have normal service restored as soon as possible.
+
Our website clearly states our policies on this topic, which have been published for several years. For those who haven't read them recently, I quote one of the relevant sections:
+
_**"If you're considering publishing channel logs, think it through. ** The freenode network is an interactive environment. Even on public channels, most users don't weigh their comments with the idea that they'll be enshrined in perpetuity. For that reason, few participants publish logs._
+
_If you're publishing logs on an ongoing basis, your channel topic should reflect that fact. Be sure to provide a way for users to make comments without logging, and get permission from the channel owners before you start. If you're thinking of "anonymizing" your logs (removing information that identifies the specific users), be aware that it's difficult to do it well—replies and general context often provide identifying information which is hard to filter._
+
_If you just want to publish a single conversation, be careful to get permission from each participant. Provide as much context as you can. Avoid the temptation to publish or distribute logs without permission in order to portray someone in a bad light. The reputation you save will most likely be your own. "_
+
And this perhaps, is where I feel that IRseeK has gone horribly wrong. I believe that this could have become a popular service had it been done in a way which promotes choice -- operating on an opt-in basis could very well have meant that a lot of channel owners would have chosen to request an IRseeK logging bot in their channel so that logs could be referenced and looked at later.
+
However, currently there is no way to opt-in, or even to opt out. The bots aren't easily identifiable and you're not aware that they are present in your channel. Ideally, I would have liked to see:
Perhaps, in this regard, they could have taken a leaf out of [CIA's](http://www.cia.vc) book and become a lot more popular in the process.
+
To me, the biggest surprise is that the people behind IRseeK defend their actions and believe that they are entirely within their rights to do what they do in the manner that they do it. Leaving our guidelines aside for a moment, what irks me is this: freenode caters primarily to people from the FOSS communities, people to whom choice and freedom are important. For us, providing a service such as freenode to our community is important; our users give a lot, we share code, knowledge, hints, frustrations, laughter.. and we like to give back in the little way we can. It then does not feel comfortable or at all right to have someone intrude upon our privacy, sneaking into the circle and observing with the singular aim of publicising our conversations entirely without our knowledge or consent. By taking the route that they did, IRseeK has taken away our freedom and our choice. They have forced something down on us and in the process soured and poisoned a community which thrives on trust and collaboration. It has created a bad atmosphere and made a lot of people uncomfortable.
+
I am really sorry that this problem has reached our network, and I am really sorry for the way it has affected our community. I am also sorry for the way in which IRseeK choose to perform their actions, and sorrier still that we did not catch it sooner.
+
I sincerely hope that IRseeK will honour our request to stop attempting to log channels on freenode without the channel owner's explicit permission, and I also hope that they will honour our request to remove logs already in their system.
+
Lastly, I would like to wish IRseeK well, and I hope that you re-consider your approach. I believe that if done properly, what you have could be turned into a respectable service which would be used by and appreciated by a lot of people.
+
As I said, we have gotten in touch with the people behind IRseeK and they have asked to have until this sunday (tomorrow) to respond. I will give you an update when we hear back from them and know which way the tide is turning.
+
For now, thank you for using freenode and have a great day!
- different
- freenode
---
-
We are currently looking to expand the freenode volunteer staff team – seeking people from across the target communities we serve.
+
Previous irc experience is a bonus, but not a requirement.
+
We ask that you familiarise yourself with the guidelines, policies, procedures and philosophies as per our website: [http://freenode.net](http://freenode.net) and assess whether you feel you agree with what we are all about. We are looking for someone who is able to work as part of a team but also happy to take initiative.
+
The current volunteer team is a diverse group of people – of all ages and backgrounds. We share a common passion and interest in Free and Open Source Software as well as Free Culture. We are looking for people who would compliment the current set-up and be a refreshing addition to the team – we love suggestions and ideas and appreciate it if you aren't too shy to speak your mind!
+
The freenode network is run by a great team of volunteers, it's day to day operations are overseen by the Steering Committee under the oversight of Head of Staff. While each freenode staffer has a individual role within the project; utilizing their strengths, experiences and interests the most important role on the network is that of the levelone support volunteer. We encourage all staff, regardless of seniority to spend as much time as possible on levelone duties.
+
We are currently looking for more staff to join us in order to better serve the groups and projects which use our services, if you should be interested please drop us a few lines to volunteering AT freenode.net letting us know a little bit about yourself, what projects you are currently involved with, why you would be interested in helping out with freenode and why you would be the right person for us to take onboard!
+
In addition to looking for volunteer staff we are also looking for developers – we are looking for people familiar with Ruby on Rails to work on our Group Management System (GMS) which is a web based dashboard to services, allowing group contacts of projects to better manage their namespace, cloaks etc.
+
We are also looking for people who could be interested in coming on board to work on 7 (Seven), which is the Charybdis based IRCD which freenode will be moving to. In addition to these, there are also other development opportunities available – and we would love to hear it if you have suggestions for something new/different too! If you are interested in helping out on the coding side, get in touch with us via code AT freenode.net and we'll take it from there!
+
We hope to hear from you soon – while we will endeavour to get back to all interested parties, please keep in mind that we may not reply to your e-mail before we have reviewed a fair chunk of them. We are putting up a preliminary cut-off date of **January 1st 2008**, and all curious users should receive an indication of interest from us by **January 15th 2008.**
+
For now, happy hacking and er, happy holidays!
- projects
- social
---
-
It's been just over a year since freenode saw it's biggest shake-up yet, the passing of founder Rob 'lilo' Levin. It has been a challenging and interesting year both for freenode and Peer-Directed Projects Center, the not-for-profit organisation which owns and operates the network. There have been changes within the staff, there have been technical changes and soon we will see the change-over of both our Services package and our IRC daemon.
+
freenode is doing well -- we've more sponsors than ever, and we've gained around 18,000 users. We've had interesting projects choose to use our services and we've had a lot of input from users on what changes they would like to see. This past year has truly shown freenode for what it is -- a service provided by the community for the community. We've been joined by new staff, all of whom we're pleased to have onboard. We're making progress on the development side, both internally and externally.
+
PDPC has been more of a challenge. The NFP was fairly inactive previously and the change to having a active board who share a passion for the community we serve has been great, but it has also meant that we've had a lot to tidy up. While we are finally seeing light at the end of the tunnel, we haven't quite gotten to where we want to be yet. However, I am confident that all the hard work put in by the board members, project specific volunteers and of course, our lawyers, CPA and accountant (without whom we'd be hairless by now), we will be able to do some truly spectacular things for the community in the coming years.
+
It has been a interesting and exciting year -- I am proud and happy to have had the chance to work with such an amazing group of people: freenode staff, the PDPC board, past and present code contributors, projects using our services and of course the diverse and incredible user group freenode has.
+
I'd like to thank the PDPC board for sticking in there and for having the energy and drive to push on with what at times looked bleak and depressing, each and every one of the freenode staff members for the time and effort they have put in to keep the network running, our developers and code contributors for new services and IRCd (and of course, to the original Atheme and Charybdis developers for allowing us to continue work on already amazing services in order to make it fit our needs!), every project which uses our facilities, every single PDPC donor for helping us help the community, and of course our sponsors, without whom none of this would be possible.
+
I'd also like to thank the OFTC staffers for this year's collaboration. It has been an interesting journey and one which I hope we will continue together.
+
And finally, I'd like to wish everyone happy holidays and a great new year!
- projects
- social
---
-
I promised you all that I would write an update when we'd had a chance to review things and speak with the IRseeK people. After a bit of discussion, both amongst freenode staff and with the management of the company which provides the IRseeK service, we are happy to announce that there will be a few changes.
It is our belief that IRseeK and similar services can provide a useful service not only to the IRC community but to other interested users as well, and we (freenode staff) are very happy to see that IRseeK are happy to change their approach to one which is clear and concise rather than covert. I hope that the service can be of benefit to the projects which use freenode, and should you have any queries -- or if you'd like to get in touch with the IRseeK people -- don't hesitate to talk to us and we'll do our best to put channel owners in touch with the IRseeK project.
+
Again, we encourage projects which do publicly log their channels to make this clear to all users of the channel, by placing a note in the topic or with an on-join message.
+
I hope this solution is one which our users find satisfactory.
- different
- freenode
---
-
Thank you to all those who have responded to our [recent call for volunteers](http://blog.freenode.net/?p=65). We have been somewhat overwhelmed with the amount of applicants and are pleased to see so many interested in help keep freenode running. Due to the Head of Staff going on holiday, and due to the amount of e-mails received, we are running a little behind on replying to each and every applicant. Hopefully, everyone should have a response by the end of the weekend.
+
Thank you for your patience and we hope you will keep enriching freenode.
categories:
- philosophy
---
-
From _[The Pragmatic Programmer](http://www.amazon.com/Pragmatic-Programmer-Journeyman-Master/dp/020161622X)_:
- freenode
- projects
---
-
One of the questions we get asked a lot in #freenode is "What's the command to register my channel?"This being the freenode staff blog, I'd like to answer that question the long way around ;)
+
**Step 1** - make sure you're in the right place
+
The freenode IRC network has some very specific goals and objectives, and it's intended primarily for developers of free and open source software. Please read these pages and make sure we're the appropriate network for your channel and its users:
+
[http://freenode.net/philosophy.shtml](http://freenode.net/philosophy.shtml)
+
[http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#ontopic](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#ontopic)
+
[http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#offtopic](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#offtopic)
+
**Step 2** - register your nick
+
If you're not identified to NickServ as a registered nick, then you can't register a channel. Instructions for registering a nick can be found here:
+
[http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup)
+
**Step 3** - pick a channel name
+
Before you choose the name for your channel, you should be aware that freenode uses an unusual naming convention to indicate the difference between official (primary) and unofficial (about or topical) IRC channels. A primary channel is considered appropriate for a channel operated by a project (The Ubuntu project operates #ubuntu) or a group (The philadelphia linux users group operates #plug). In these examples, these groups have a valid claim to the channel name. An about channel or topical channel is a channel for a specific subject or topic, but operated by someone without a claim to the channel name. Please read our channel naming guidelines for more details:
+
[http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelnaming](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelnaming)
+
The short version is that official channels (also known as primary channels) are named starting with one #, unofficial (topical or about channels) start with ##. If your channel is not an official one, please use ## at the start of the channel name, or you may be asked to move. Getting it right at the beginning is a lot easier, for you and for us. There is more information on this policy [here](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelnaming).
+
**Step 4** - check your channel is available to register
+
To check whether a channel has already been registered, use the command:
+
/msg ChanServ info ##channelname
+
If the channel is already registered, that will give you some info about it. If it's not, you'll get a message like this:
+
-ChanServ- The channel [##channelname] is not registered
+
**Step 5** - create your channel
+
To create a channel on IRC, you just join it. If you're the first person to join that channel then you create it (if you're not then you'll join the other people in there, and you won't be able to register it unless someone gives you op status).
+
/join ##channelname
+
**Step 6** - register your channel
+
The command to register your channel (once you've joined it and you have op status) is as follows:
+
/msg ChanServ register ##channelname
+
That's all you need. The channel will be linked to your nick, and whenever you're identified to your nick, you have full top-level access to your channel's settings.
+
Okay, so you've registered a channel now. That's not the end of this post... there are a LOT of other things you should do as soon as you've got your channel registered.
+
**Step 7** - read some useful webpages
+
[http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml](http://freenode.net/channel_guidelines.shtml) - our Channel Guidelines - useful info on how to run a good channel on freenode.
+
[http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml](http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml) - about Catalysts - an incredibly important concept that makes freenode the great network that it is. Please try to be a catalyst whenever you're on the network, but most importantly when you're running your own channel.
+
**Step 8** - read the ChanServ help pages
+
The ChanServ help pages really are actually helpful. If you're running your own channel, you probably should have read everything in them - it won't take long, a few hours at most, and then you'll know all the cool things you can do with your channel.
+
/msg ChanServ help
+
**Step 9** - consider registering your group with freenode
+
As well as registering your channel with ChanServ, it's possible to gain a more official relationship with freenode, where we have an established contact person that we know is allowed to represent your project to us. You can read about Group Registration here:
+
[http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml](http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml)
+
**Step 10** - if in doubt, ask!
+
Finally, if you need help with anything to do with registering or running your channel, remember that the network staff on freenode are friendly and really do want to help you! You're welcome to /msg us at any time to ask for help. Even better, come and ask your question in #freenode , where both staff and volunteer helpers hang out being helpful :)
+
[http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#helpfromstaff](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#helpfromstaff)
- projects
- technical
---
-
The time has come for freenode to migrate from our old, legacy services package to a much newer, actively maintained package known as [Atheme](http://www.atheme.net/), developed by the [Atheme Project](http://www.atheme.org/). Although we, with the help of the Atheme developers, have tried to make the migration process as painless as possible, there are still a few interface differences that you will need to be aware of. This guide, prepared by tomaw, will attempt to walk you through the main changes, grouped by service.
- freenode
- technical
---
-
We've noticed a lot of people who are confused (and rightly so!) about the new nickname system - particularly the way that nickname grouping has changed. Hopefully this blog post will clear some of it up.
+
**Nicknames and Accounts**
+
freenode now uses a system of ownership that is different to the old nicknames system. Now, when you register a _nickname_ for the first time, that _nickname_ becomes the primary _nickname_ on your _account_ (which has the same name). An example:
So, _nicknames_ are now assigned to your _account_. But what does this actually mean, practically?
+
**Identification**
+
When you identify:
However, this isn't ideal, as she is now logged in, but is using an unregistered _nickname_. She may want to consider GROUPing the _nickname_.
+
**Grouping**
+
With the new system, GROUP basically means to add another _nickname_ to your _account_. **User1** is fed up of being connected as **User12** and using an unregistered _nickname_, so she has decided to GROUP the _nickname_ to her existing _account_.
+
There are two ways to go about this:
**Conclusion**
+
So, to wrap up, freenode now allows you to register an account, to which you add nicknames as explained above. That's not an easy concept to grasp if you are used to the old system, and if you have any questions, feel free to drop into #freenode and ask away!
- infrastructure
- social
---
-
As you have undoubtedly noticed by now, freenode recently changed services. Along with this new look, we thought it would be a good time to formally (and perhaps not-so-formally) announce the addition of new staff. You’ll find below a list of all our current staff, and in this post and some that follow, we’ll give you a tiny snapshot of the new (and some of the old) members of our circus^Wteam.
+
Current freenode staff:
+
** AndrewB
chb
christel
werdan7
wimt
Yaakov**
+
And now, for a little insight on a couple of individuals:_
_
- projects
- social
---
-
I, for one, was saddened to hear that my favourite FOSS podcast; Lugradio is coming to an end. If you are in the UK, heck, if you're anywhere and don't mind traveling a bit you may want to catch the grand finale at this years Lugradio Live.
+
LugRadio Live UK 2008
The Lighthouse Media Center, Fryer St., Wolverhampton, WV1 1HT
+
LugRadio Live UK 2008, the most popular community Open Source event in the UK takes place in Wolverhampton on the 19th and 20th and features three stages full of 25+ speakers including Chris DiBona (Google), Max Spevack (Red Hat), Steve Lamb (Microsoft), Robert Collins (Canonical),
Benjamin Otte (GNOME), Rob McQueen (Collabora), Edward Hervey (Collabora Multimedia), James Hooker, Kevin Sandom, Barbie (MessageLabs), Daniel James, Emma Jane Hogbin, Bruno Bord, Ben Thorp, Rufus Pollock (FFFI) Sam Birchall, John Carr, William J Giddings and many more...
+
In addition to this the show will feature over 20 exhibitors, special debate sessions, the legendary Gong-a-thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza (read: a series of small talk chaired by a man in a very small pair of pants and a very large gong - not to be missed!), parties on the Friday and Saturday evenings and much, much more.
+
All of this is just £5, and there are even a raft of hotel deals
available to make your trip simple and cost effective. Head over to [www.lugradio.org/live](http://www.lugradio.org/live) to find out more.
+
I hope to see you there!
- community
- freenode
---
-
It's been a while since we touched the layout of #freenode - we are generally quite pleased with how things run in there! However, we believe that it needs to be easier for a user to identify a member of staff when they join the channel - our current system of using a mixture of
is both confusing and cumbersome for users who may be unfamiliar with how IRC works. So, as of today, we are implementing a trial change to #freenode, whereby all online staff (not just those who are flagged on /stats p) will be autovoiced (+v) on #freenode.
+
/stats p will still give a list of on call staffers, so don't worry about that. The change is intended to help users, new and old alike, to recognise staff and find support when they need it. To many users, especially those not familar with the freenode ethos, it is strange coming into a help channel and finding no operators.
+
It is important to note that those users who provide help in #freenode are more than welcome to continue doing so - we appreciate the assistance you provide us to those repetitive questions! freenode will only be able to offer support through staffers, however, and these will always be voiced (+v) in #freenode.
- free software
- projects
---
-
To mark the 25th "birthday" of the [GNU](http://gnu.org) project the [FSF](http://www.fsf.org) have teamed up with a very special man; [Stephen Fry](http://www.stephenfry.com).
+
I personally am a great fan of Mr. Fry -- he's an accomplished actor, terrific writer and a good documentary maker. I enjoy his books, I will happily set aside entire weekends for my fry-a-thons in which I am glued to the TV re-watching the entire set of "A bit of Fry & Laurie", "Jeeves & Wooster" or many of the other fantastic things he's done for British TV. And I make sure to never miss an episode of QI -- again, I probably re-watch all of them. I follow his blog, I listen to his podgram.. I have a lot of respect and admiration for this man, for his insight, his honesty, his no-nonsense approach, his incredible way with words and his hysterically funny ways.
+
So who better to mark the anniversary of a project for which I also have a great deal of respect -- a project which values, visions and goals are shared by the majority of our users. A project often found at the core of so many of the projects who choose to use freenode.
+
So without further ado -- Happy Birthday [GNU](http://www.gnu.org)!
+
[](http://www.gnu.org/fry/happy-birthday-to-gnu.html)
- philosophy
- social
---
-
Since rearchitecting freenode's network help and social channels, we've been considering various ways to improve them for our network users, and recently freenode's steering committee has investigated and considered these issues.
+
Whilst many of you have indicated to us that you feel longer or more aggressive bans are required to prevent disruption, the steering committee feels that an alternative strategy is most appropriate for freenode, as harsher punishments go against what freenode stands for.
+
Therefore, as of September 15th #defocus will be a moderated channel. This means that in order to speak, users will need to be voiced in the channel. Most of the time staff will be around to voice users in the channel, and if they are not, then users will need to wait in order to be voiced.
+
Whilst we appreciate that this will inconvenience some of our users, we regret that the difficulty of managing the channel makes a change in policy of some sort a necessity. We request that users not ask for voice, either directly via staffers or in #freenode, as this will not result in being voiced sooner. Please wait patiently, and you will be voiced eventually.
+
As part of the change in policy, we'd like to solicit comments from you, the users. How do you feel about the way freenode uses its help and social channels? What improvements would you implement, and how would you plan and discuss them? We'd like to foster greater community feedback, and if you've got any general comments about any of these issues we'd love to hear them! Please let canvas@freenode.net know what you think!
- technical
- user count
---
-
Howdy, folks! At 19:40 UTC+1 today, freenode reached 50,000 active users online, which is a record for us!
- freenode
- pdpc
---
-
As you may be vaguely aware, we have been working on some structural changes to the operations of the parent organisation behind freenode. And I am happy to announce that Peer-Directed Projects Center Ltd is now incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales.
+
This makes the administrative and organisational side of things a lot easier and manageable for us and will not in any way disturb the services we provide to our users currently.
+
However, we wish to register as a charity with the Charity Commission, but in order to do this we will need some help! We need to be able to meet a minimum support threshold of £5,000.00 per annum in order to be eligible for charity status.
+
While we historically raised a fair amount of money through various online fund raisers, we have not actively solicited for donations in the last two years, causing a massive drop in donation levels leaving us well below the threshold.
+
Now, there are several reasons for us not actively soliciting, for one our outgoings have over the past two years been a lot lower than previously as we no longer have any paid staff -- all members of freenode and the PDPC are involved on a volunteer basis.
+
If you are considering donating, you will no doubt have some questions, some of which we will try to answer here:
You can make your donation [here.](http://freenode.net/pdpc_donations.shtml)
+
While we only mention "freenode live" as a future program above, we do have other irons in the fire and if you're curious about them, or have a suggestion for how we can better help our communities, why not come have a chat with us either over in #defocus or drop us an e-mail to ideas at freenode net
+
Any help, however big or small will be gratefully received! Thank you for considering donating, and to those of you who have supported us in the past and those continuing to support us a massive thanks for helping us help the community! If you have any questions, or want to discuss other levels of donating or other ways of helping out freenode and the PDPC -- or getting involved with future programs, why don't you drop me a message on IRC? You can find me online as christel.
- freenode
- technical
---
-
As many of you will have noticed, our current IRC server software, [hyperion](http://freenode.net/hyperion.shtml), has been showing its age for some time now. Expectations for its eventual replacement are nothing if not high -- hyperion contains a great many features not found elsewhere, most of which are fairly unique to the way in which freenode operates, so anything that wants to take over from it must provide all of these, in a more robust, maintainable and future-proof package.
+
[Charybdis](http://hg.atheme.org/charybdis) looks like a good start -- it's a modern, modular IRC daemon supporting many of hyperion's strange features, and built on top of [ircd-ratbox](http://ircd-ratbox.org/), which gives it a good heritage of stability and scalability. ircd-ratbox is perhaps best known for powering the majority of EFNet, which seems to make it an excellent base on which to build.
+
However, neither ratbox nor Charybdis implements freenode's more unique features, such as ban-forwarding or hidden IRC operators. So, some work is needed.
+
Enter [ircd-seven](http://freenode.net/seven.shtml). Seven is based on Charybdis, with the features freenode needs added in. Channel operators and network operators alike should recognise most of the useful, and heretofore unique, features of hyperion, without many of the bugs and oddities that have become an unfortunate fact of life.
+
Development and internal testing of seven has been ongoing for some time, and we're now ready to open up testing to a wider audience. The test network is currently running on _testnet.freenode.net_, port 9002 for normal connections or 9003 for SSL connections. This is a new server, sharing no code with the current software, so all aspects of it need thorough testing, both that it works, and behaves in a way consistent with how most people want to use it -- this last aspect is particularly difficult to do in small-scale private testing.
+
ircd-seven is designed to be capable of everything hyperion is, but not necessarily as a drop-in replacement. Some functionality is still available in a different form, or with a different interface. The most notable differences for users are summarised below:
+
**SSL support**
seven supports SSL, for client and server connections. Users connecting via SSL will get user mode +Z to denote this.
+
** Channel bans and quiets**
Channel mode +q (quiet) is now sent as a separate mode -- hyperion's translation of +q foo to +b %foo is gone. Extended ban types are supported for all ban-like modes (+bqeI). These extended masks begin with $, followed by an optional ~, to negate the match, and a single letter denoting the type of match to do. For example:
Forward channels for bans are now delimited with $ instead of hyperion's !, and can be used with extended ban masks as well. Setting and unsetting of bans via the hyperion syntax (nick!user@host!#channel) is supported -- it will be translated to nick!user@host$#channel.
+
** Identified status**
There is no user mode +e. The IRCd keeps track of the account name of every user who is identified to services, and uses this to determine whether a user is identified or not. The 'is identified to services' line in WHOIS output is no longer present; there is, however, a line containing the account name if the user is logged in.
+
** Identifying on connect**
Using a NickServ password as a server password still works as it does in hyperion. However, there are two new mechanisms:
**Username prefixes**
The n= and i= prefixes are not used; instead ~ is prefixed to a non-identd username, as in most other daemons.
+
**IDENTIFY-MSG**
The identify-msg capability is still present, but the way to enable it has changed -- it is now part of the same CAP mechanism that is used to control SASL and multi-prefix capabilities. A script for irssi that understands both hyperion's and seven's identify-msg capability is available [here](http://adipose.attenuate.org/~stephen/ircd-seven/format_identify.pl). Conspire will also support this natively once w00t remembers to apply the patch.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
Hi all,
+
Tomorrow evening, November 3rd 2008, at 22:00GMT we will be undertaking some routine maintenance on two of our client servers, lem and orwell, both servers have already been taken out of rotation. The downtime window is set to one (1) hour, but we anticipate that the upgrades will take less time. At time of posting we have approximately 2,000 users across the two servers, and while we will urge users to connect to a different server prior to the upgrades we realise that not everyone will be able to act on the notice in time and as such we expect to see some disturbances on the network at the time of the upgrade.
+
Thank you for using freenode!
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
Hi all,
+
Over the past couple of months we've been fortunate enough to be able to add a couple of new servers to freenode's rotation. Namely, lindbohm (IPv6: denis) and hubbard, sponsored by [Stockholm University](http://www.su.se/) and [Carnegie Mellon University Computer Club](http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/), respectively. Thanks to all of our sponsors for keeping the network online.
+
If you're interested in sponsoring a server for freenode, take please take a look at [our website](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml) to see what the process entails and don't hesitate to ask me (Martinp23) or christel for any further information at all.
+
Thanks for using freenode! :)
- pdpc
- social
---
-
Another year is coming to an end, for freenode and the PDPC it has been a year of change. We've made a lot of progress on development, the NFP is branching out and starting to slowly move towards providing more services to the FOSS communities and we've grown in size and now peak at a whooping 51,000 users! It feels amazing to see so many FOSS enthusiasts together in one place.
+
I hope that you all have a fantastic holiday season and that the new year brings you all you wish for! And a massive thanks to each and every user for making it worth our time to provide this service! And of course, thanks also go to all our fantastic volunteers, past and present for the time and effort they put in day after day for free. I look forward to another year with you, and another year working to bring FOSS developers and users together.
- freenode
- pdpc
---
-
+
We're slowly climbing towards our target of £5,000.00 in donations by March 2009. However, as the pie-chart shows we're still quite a way off. If you appreciate what we do and want to see the PDPC provide further services to the communities, why not head over to http://freenode.net/pdpc_donations.shtml and see if you are able to help us reach the target! Any donation, small or large is gratefully received and a massive thanks goes to those who have already dug deep and helped us climb up the ladder in this instance!
- freenode
- technical
---
-
We recently added support for NickServ's ACCESS command to freenode's services. This allows you to define a list of hostmasks from which nickserv will recognise you before you have identified. Logging in as normal is still required, but matching an entry on this list will prevent NickServ from changing your nick if ENFORCE is enabled.
+
For more detailed information, see NickServ's help topic:
+
/msg NickServ HELP ACCESS
+
There is one caveat to this feature: if you match an entry on your nickname's access list, you will not receive notices from NickServ asking you to identify. This, combined with nickname access lists that were migrated from our old theia database and have lain dormant since, may cause some auto-identify scripts to stop functioning.
+
If you find that this is the case, the simplest workaround is just to remove all entries from your nickname's access list. Use
+
/msg NickServ ACCESS LIST
+
to see all entries, and
+
/msg NickServ ACCESS DEL <hostmask>
+
to remove them.
slug: canonical-pledges-matching-funds
title: Canonical Pledges Matching Funds
---
-
Thanks to all of you for the donations you have contributed so far towards our fundraising drive. freenode has a few interesting fundraising events and ideas up its sleeves, so hopefully there will be a few more updates to the blog with more details in weeks to come! Today, freenode and the PDPC announces one of a number of exciting updates to the fundraising process:
- pdpc
- social
---
-
15 years ago, on January 29th 1994 Rob (lilo) Levin first joined the channel #linuxneo on the EFNet IRC network. This date has since been referred to as the conceptual moment, the foundation, the cornerstone which later led to the network you now know as freenode.
+
Since that January evening in 1994 -- the original channel made some network moves before it became it's own network; irc.linpeople.org in 1995 -- a few name-changes later and we're freenode. Peaking at just over 52,000 daily users, spread across FOSS and other peer-directed communities.
+
We (freenode staff volunteers) have the pleasure of working with exciting projects ranging from the Wikimedia Foundation to various Linux distributions (Fedora, Gentoo, Redhat, Suse to name but a few) to the Free Software Foundation to .. the list goes on and on and on.. It's fantastic to see so many people sharing our passion, all in one place -- yet scattered across the globe.
+
So, to each and every one of you, to each and every project on the network, to Free and Open Source Software, to the exchange of ideas and information, to the memory of lilo -- A very happy 15th birthday to freenode!
+
And to each and every user and to all the volunteers, past and present -- thank you for making this possible!
slug: the-beauty-of-freenode
title: 'The Beauty of #freenode'
---
-
#freenode channel, as it currently exists, is a veritable work of art - people who come to the channel are nearly always provided help or referred somewhere for the answer. The really beautiful thing about #freenode, though, is that at least 50% of the help provided comes from network users (rather than freenode staff).
+
Almost two years ago, the channel #freenode was recreated with new guidelines and philosophy consistent with freenode's. The ideas weren't that new - they had already been (somewhat) in use in the old #tapthru channel. The activity in #freenode is generally within the channel guidelines, which may be found at http://freenode.net/poundfreenode.shtml and is highly recommended for anyone planning to participate in the channel.
+
Whilst many help channels utilize specialized staff to answer questions, one of the most refreshing things about #freenode is that anyone who knows the answer to a question can, and often does, provide the answer or help to the user in need - regardless of status or staff-ness. Numerous users lurk in the channel, either to learn from others' questions, help other users through their queries or generally just to take up space :)
+
Some of the more common questions can be, and are, answered by a multitude of people. Keep in mind that being on staff is not a prerequisite to having the correct answer to your question! Here are some common questions:
- freenode
- social
---
-
It's been a while since we posted Part 1 of our series on "Who Are freenode Staff?" - which makes it about time to post a bit more.
+
_**Gary** - Since today is Gary's birthday, it's only fitting to discuss his deep-seated desire to be helpful to others!__ Although he has been on numerous irc networks since he first discovered irc in the late 90s, he found himself on freenode and wrangled into doing what he does (and loves) best - helping others. Luckily, freenode staff had no need to brainwash Gary when he joined up - he was already completely sold on the network and its philosophy. Gary was, however, christel's biggest proponent in painting the network pink! If he had his choice, Gary would paint all the network trolls pink and then put them on display for others to laugh at them, rather than allowing them to bog things down._
+
_**LoRez** - LoRez has been on staff nearly as long as Santa Claus has been making rounds. Although he was formerly considered immortal and omnipotent, he had to come to terms with having had "normal" roots - he first came to freenode via openprojects. He's never lost his edge though; he once wrote perl code and had hippie hair, now he'd rather quit his job and sell gas to everyone for $1!_
+
_**wimt** - Though some may think of wimt as being somewhat pathological, don't hold it against him - it's his degree that causes him to be that way. Though he seems to consider himself somewhat uncreative, he considered throwing the contents of his desk across the room when he left his last position. wimt first came to freenode via wikipedia and has stuck around due to the friendliness of people on the network. _
- freenode
- pdpc
---
-
As you are probably aware, the PDPC re-incorporated in the UK and to that end we are trying to meet the threshold for being registered as a charity through the charity commission -- a status which would allow us to continue offering tax relief to hardware and bandwith sponsors, in addition to cutting our costs. To this end, we are in the process of designing several cool t-shirts which will be available on the pdpc's website for purchase. The proceeds from these sales will help supplement donations which we already receive from some of our users.
+
Well, this is where you come in. We need help! Freenode is full of people with cool ideas, doing cool things, and we want to embody some of this on these t-shirts. As such, we are looking for some great designs we can take forward and use for these shirts. If you have an idea for a t-shirt design you would like to see us offer, send it on over to [canvas@freenode.net](mailto:canvas@freenode.net) for our review. As we proceed, further details (including a link to view and purchase shirts) will be made available via the blog.
+
Thanks to each and every one of you for your support, and as always thank you for using freenode!
- infrastructure
- pdpc
---
-
**[UPDATE]**
+
** **We are down to only £241.60 needed after matching! Thank you for your generosity!
+
**[END UPDATE] **
+
So close, yet so far away...
As you are probably aware, we are coming up on the end of our 2008/2009 fundraising campaign. First, let us thank all of you who have already donated. We appreciate every one of you! While we are very close to our goals, we just wanted to take a moment to update everyone on just how close, and what exactly it means.
+
While the goal of £5,000.00 seems rather arbitrary, the reality is quite different. Our current target will enable us to keep the charity status we've had in the past, which among other things enables our sponsers to realize certain tax benefits. This helps cover the costs they pay in providing us the servers which are of course vital to freenode. While the graph on the freenode.net homepage indicates that we have £2300 to go, this does not include the potential £1700 of matched donations from Canonical -- which means that the actual amount we need you to help us raise totals only £600! At present, we have just a few weeks left to raise this but we are so very close, so if you would like to be generous now is the time.
+
Now, while the number is imposed by the charity requirement, our needs are not. Quite a few users have made it known they would like to know more about what we will do with any funds not used directly for current pdpc costs. Among other things, we are looking at hosting live conference events in Europe and the US, as well as some efforts to extend the sort of services we offer to the projects currently using our facilities. In addition to this, we would like to look at ways of improving the reliability of the freenode network by hosting a few of our own hubs and backup services systems.
+
As a reminder, all donations received at this time (up to £1700) are being matched by Canonical, so every donation you send is doubled! We are hugely grateful for their help and generosity in our efforts, and would like to thank Mark and Canonical, and the entire Ubuntu community once again.
+
As always, thanks to each and every one of you for using freenode.
categories:
- community
---
-
We are proud to announce our very first episode of our very first season of free-as-in-node, the new freenode podcast. Now you can let IRC waste your life even when you can't be online! The purpose is simple: entertain, inform, and interact, just like IRC. Via the podcast we will be bringing you guests and information from all over the freenode community.
+
Visit [http://podcast.freenode.net/](http://podcast.freenode.net/) for more information.
categories:
- community
---
-
We are happy to announce that we have in fact reached our 2008/2009 fund raising goals, and as such are no longer in danger of losing charity status. At present, we have exceeded the required amount (£5,000) by at least £200 and we here are all very excited (and relieved) to have accomplished this with your help. We would like to offer our thanks to each and every one of you who helped out and contributed. This truly shows just the sort of thing the community is capable of. We'd also like to offer thanks Canonical in particular for their help in reaching our goal through their matching of £1,700 of donations by others.
+
We appreciate all of your help, and as always, thank you for using freenode.
slug: free-as-in-node-episode-2-release
title: 'free-as-in-node: Episode 2 release'
---
-
We're happy to announce we've just released our second episode of the new freenode podcast, free-as-in-node! In this episode, we talk about Gary's recent offenses, geeknics and k-lining park-goers. We also meet with Dave "Daviey" Walker from Ubuntu to discuss the Ubuntu COC and Ubuntu Locos during this episodes Pimp my project. We continue looking at the recent Microsoft and TomTom legal actions and share our views on them.
+
During the new freeform discussion segment of the show, we discuss facebook monitoring (and government monitoring in general) and more broadly all the counter terrorism actions being taken by government, including the bomb-resistant sandwich bag.
+
Head on over to http://podcast.freenode.net to listen in and to share your comments. See you there!
- different
- freenode
---
-
Piping hot and straight from the oven! The Irssi core development team has been hard at work, hunched over their computers for many moons, tapping away till their hearts content! Bruised and blistered, they've just set off to put their sore fingers around a few bottles of cold beer and have a well deserved rest! Thank you all and keep up the good work!
+
All this, to make _our_ IRC experience better! Everyone's favourite IRC client, Irssi, v 0.8.13 has just been released! Head over to [http://www.irssi.org](http://www.irssi.org) to get your copy now!
categories:
- different
---
-
It is with great fanfare that we announce the Yahoo acquisition of the PDPC, and by extension, freenode. After much deliberation, we have decided to accept Yahoo's offer to purchase the freenode irc network and associated resources for the amount of approximately £2,700,000.00 in yahoo shares. At present it is expected that all current network staff will remain in place while certain yahoo employees will be added to the mix.
+
Yahoo intends to leverage our large user base and experience with operating large networks to supplement their existing yahoo chat functionality, and eventually replace it with a hybrid ircd designed for the large numbers of users they have in mind. We are very excited at what this future may hold!
+
What this means for you, the users of freenode, is that you'll have access to great new search technology right from irc! With the introduction of yahoo search into our ircd, you'll be able to easily search the web from any channel on the network and display results right there, saving you and everyone else in the channel the time and trouble of browsing to yahoo, the worlds premier search engine, first.
+
Additionally, we'll soon be implementing live phone support with the help of Yahoo call center employees based out of India. We are very excited about this prospect and about improving response to our users through it! Once the call center technology is fully in place, the #freenode channel will be shut down and all support requests will be handled via email and phone support.
+
Stay tuned for more updates, and as always, thank you for using freenode!
- freenode
- pdpc
---
-
When most people think of geeks, they think of pasty white people who never leave their basement. Well, we are aiming to change that... by getting you outside and making you a little less pasty white.
+
To this end, we're going to be encouraging and promoting a number of "geeknics"all around the globe. What is a geeknic, you ask? Quite simply, it's a picnic for geeks! At the moment, there are two scheduled: One in Philadelphia PA, USA, on April 19th 2009, and one in Dublin Ireland, on May 9th 2009. At both events, there will be food, fun, and geeks!
+
We very much look forward to seeing you at either of these events, but if either of these places and times don't work for you we would be happy to help you set up your very own local geeknic, along with possibly getting a local freenode staffer to show up. More information can be found [here](http://geeknic.org). If you would like help in setting up your very own geeknic, email geeknic@geeknic.org.
slug: free-as-in-node-episode-3-released
title: Free-as-in-node episode 3 released!
---
-
The third installment of free-as-in-node has just been released! Head on over to [http://podcast.freenode.net](http://podcast.freenode.net) to listen or download.
+
In this episode, you'll hear all about freenodes april fools joke and our exploding growth (currently at around 57,000 online users). Also discussed is the php testfest with input from mgdm (Michael Maclean) in this weeks pimp my project, and then a bit of soapboxing and the announcement of the new "freenode party" in UK politics, so that we too can partake of free-as-in-shoes-your-taxpayers-bought-you. Make sure you sign our petition before Christel shuts down freenode!
+
In addition, we'll let you know whats going on in the world with our take on the talks between Sun and IBM, Debian eating FreeBSD, the new Gnome 3.0 roadmap, and news on TomTom's settlement with Microsoft. We'll also talk about Fedora11beta with updates on our experience on the next episode.
+
We also discuss the "geeknic" once again with the announcement of yet another geeknic, this one in the Philadelphia area in less than a week! If you can make it, bring us a canoe or kayak.
+
This week closes again with a wonderful morsel from Bryn_S. We'll see you in two weeks!
categories:
- community
---
-
[](http://www.communityleadershipsummit.com/)
+
[Jono Bacon](http://jonobacon.org), one of my friends and a FOSS contributor for which I have a lot of respect, known to many for his work as [Ubuntu](http://www.ubuntu.com)'s Community Manager is one of the people behind arranging the Community Leadership Summit -- a conference aimed at bringing people from various projects together to look at cross project collaboration and such things. The conference complements freenode and the PDPC's Group Advisory Board very well and I for one shall be attending.
<blockquote>The goal is simple: if those passionate about building great communities can get together to compare notes and discuss and debate these topics, we will all benefit from better communities.
+
The summit gathers together community managers, leaders and organizers as well as the projects, organizations, commercial vendors, ISVs and others who have an interest in building a strong and enabled community. The purpose of the event is to get everyone together to talk about the many nuances of building strong and effective community, such as governance, creating collaborative environments, conflict resolution, transparency, open infrastructure, social networking, commercial investment in community, engineering vs. marketing approaches to community leadership and more.</blockquote>
categories:
- community
---
-
Jonathan mentioned in his [blog post](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/04/free-as-in-node-episode-3-released/) about the free-as-in-node podcast yesterday that this weeks guest on "Pimp My Project" was there to talk about **PHP TestFest**.
title: 'Wikipedia licensing change? '
---
-
**Wikipedia to change license to Creative Commons BY-SA?** -- From [http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/13967](http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/13967)
<blockquote>A community vote is now underway, hopefully one of the final steps in the process the migration of Wikipedia (actually Wikipedias, as each language is its own site, and also other Wikimedia Foundation sites) to using [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) as its primary content license.
+
This migration would be a huge boost for the free culture movement, and for Wikipedia and Creative Commons — until the migration happens there is an unnecessary licensing barrier between the most important free culture project (Wikipedia of course, currently under the Free Documentation License, intended for software documentation) and most other free culture projects and individual creators, which use the aforementioned CC BY-SA license.
+
To [qualify](http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Licensing_update#Decision-making_process) to vote, one must have made 25 edits to a Wikimedia site prior to March 15. Make sure you’re logged in to the project on which you qualify, and you should see a site notice at the top of each page that looks like the image below (red outline added around notice).</blockquote>
categories:
- community
---
-
As we've mentioned in previous blog posts, pdpc, the parent organization that operates freenode, is very interested in offering more to the community. To this end we've begun a number of other projects such as the new free-as-in-node [podcast](http://podcast.freenode.net/)and "[geeknics](http://geeknic.org)", but this is just a small part of the level of involvement we aspire to. We want to do more for the projects and users that use freenode every day, and for the community they represent.
+
With this in mind, you will be seeing one aspect of this here on the blog, as we make an effort to highlight events, projects, and people in the open source community. You will see references to these here, much like the "pimp my project" section on our podcast, as we strive to bring attention to these well deserving events, projects, and people. We would, of course, love to hear from you about any of this, or anything you think deserves a mention, but meanwhile we will be seeking out those that we find interesting and mentioning them here.
+
Expect to see more in the near future promoting interesting and fun things, along with some more community focused projects from the pdpc and freenode. We want to offer you and everyone in the open source community even more. Stay tuned!
categories:
- community
---
-
After much worry about the weather (and possibly being thrown out of the park by park rangers), the Philadelphia Geeknic held yesterday, Sunday, April 19th, 2009, kicked off for a great day of fun in the (partial) sun, with food, fun, and geeks! With about thirty people in attendance and plenty of food to go around, there was much to do. Conversation centered around software, work, and harassing the "windows guy" while children played in the field. Eventually a handful of geeks wandered off for a game of Frisbee at which they for the most part failed miserably. Despite the slightly cloudy day, the weather stayed mostly warm and comfortable.
+
Through a grave error, the geeknic cake was misplaced, thus ensuring that the cake was, in fact, a lie. Fortunatly the selection of desserts did not suffer much from the missing cake, as there were plenty of treats to be found, including adorable ubuntu cupcakes.
+
All in all, everyone in attendance seemed to have a wonderful time, and we look ahead anxiously to the next [Geeknic](http://geeknic.org/?p=1), in Dublin Ireland next month, and many others to follow! We hope you can find your way to one or more of them.
+
If you would like to find out more, or see if there can be a Geeknic in your neck of the woods, send an email over to geeknic (at) geeknic (dot) org and the Geeknic team will see what they can do.
categories:
- community
---
-
The first annual SouthEast LinuxFest is coming up in just a few weeks, on June 13th. This event is for anyone who wants to learn more about free and open source software, and is a combination educational conference and social gathering, all in one. It looks to be a very exciting event. Freenode will have at least one representative at the event and we are already aware of quite a few freenode users who will be there.
+
The event website is [http://southeastlinuxfest.org](http://southeastlinuxfest.org), and you can also hop on irc.freenode.net and visit #southeastlinuxfest.
+
We really hope a few of you can make it in. It really looks like it's going to be a wonderful event. If you would like to join in, be sure to register on the site. Hope to see you there!
categories:
- community
---
-
Episode 5 of Free-as-in-Node is now available and ready to abduct even more of your time, now with even more ginger! Listen in for some details on Ubuntu-1 from Stuart “aquarius” Langridge in Pimp My Project. Ubuntu-1 sounds like an amazing new project. Stuart gives us a tip to take a look at Ubuntu-1 without the wait, and gives us a few details on what he is up to and whats going on at Canonical. He tells us about the[ ayatana mailing list](https://lists.launchpad.net/ayatana), where discussion takes place on the interface and looks of Ubuntu. We also find out about the new telepathic user interface Stuart is going to deliver to us... personally.
+
Christel tells us about the time travel fund, and the organization behind it. For only $10 YOU too can sign up to be whisked away into time. You'll get it back with interest when they come back to take you away. For $20 you can even go back to pick up your dead relatives. Christel unfortunately vanished moments after signing up.
+
In this weeks political rant we hear about expenses filed by members of parliament for all sorts of things, from replacing light bulbs to pipes under their personal tennis courts. It seems members of parliament are making use of this to furnish their homes, feed their families, and all sorts of other things. None of this is illegal, but is that because the people doing it are the ones making the laws? Going on we hear all about the political views around the table and Christel hugging the queen.
+
Further on, we listen to the crew chatting about the way the world has changed and whats different now from the era of our grandparents. No more leaving the door unlocked and coming home to tea. Is the world more evil today than it was?
+
All in all, a much deeper episode delving into all sorts of things, and very entertaining. Head on over to [http://podcast.freenode.net](http://podcast.freenode.net) to listen in!
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
This is just to let you know that we will soon be performing a fairly substantial cleanup of the NickServ and ChanServ databases.
+
We'll be dropping all expired nicknames. As [explained](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#expirations) in the [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml), nicknames on freenode expire after 60 days. Nicks that are at least two weeks old and that were last used less than two hours after their creation are also considered to be expired.
+
There are a few things you should know about this cleanup process:
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
As announced previously, we have recently (as of Thursday, June 10th) pruned our nickserv and chanserv databases. We also performed some additional updates and modifications. While the most obvious change of this will be that any nicks older than 60 days have been dropped, there have been some additional changes implemented as well. In addition, we have added a new webchat service for users who wish to irc from behind a firewall disallowing a more direct connection. You can try it out [here](http://webchat.freenode.net/)!
+
First, we have made a modification to make it easier to identify, as long as your client supports a server password. Previously, users were able to identify by using a registered nick and sending the password for that registered nick as their server password. You can also now identify on connect regardless of nick by providing both your account name and password, as follow: "_/connect irc.freenode.net 6667 :mquin uwhY8wgzWw22-zXs.M39p_." This will identify you upon connection.
+
As a result of this change, we have removed the requirement to group an alternate nick before requesting an unaffiliated cloak. The requirements for a cloak are outlined [here](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#nicksetup).
+
Group Contacts are welcome to check in with us within the next 4 weeks to resolve any issues that may have arisen as a result of the pruning. If you are a group contact, and have any issues as a result of this maintenance, feel free to drop in to #freenode and ask for assistance.
+
As always, thank you for using freenode, and have a great day!
- different
- freenode
---
-
We are currently looking to expand the freenode volunteer staff team, seeking people involved with the target communities we currently serve.
+
The freenode network has seen substantial growth in recent times and as such we are looking to add to our existing team of volunteers. freenode volunteers hail from a variety of backgrounds and come in all ages, it's a diverse group of people and we all share a passion for Free and Open Source Software, Free Culture and Peer-Directed Project Communities. We are looking for peoplewho would complement the current set-up and make a refreshing addition to the team.
+
Each freenode volunteer has a individual role within the project; utilizing their strengths, experience and interests. No minimum level of privileges are guaranteed. The corner-stones of network operation is that of the role of 'levelone support volunteers,' who build the foundation upon which the rest of the network is based. All volunteers, regardless of seniority are encouraged to spend as much time as possible on levelone duties.
+
We are currently looking for:
**Perl Developers** -- are wanted for work on freenodes' Group Management System (GMS), if you want further information or would like to see how you can help, please join us in [#freenode-gms](irc://irc.freenode.net/freenode-gms) or drop a line to **code AT freenode DOT net**.
+
**Support Volunteers** -- if you want further information prior to applying, please come speak with us in [#freenode](irc://irc.freenode.net/freenode), all current staff are voiced and we would all be happy to answer any questions you may have. Prior experience is not necessary, but familiarity could be a bonus. In particular we would love to hear from you if you are in a time-zone where we are currently short. This [link](http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?month=6&day=17&year=2009&hour=2&min=0&sec=0&p1=0) gives an indication of grey areas which need covering, 2AM UTC to 6/7AM UTC in particular.
+
**Community co-ordinators** -- if you want further information about this role, please get in touch with christel, JonathanD or Martinp23 in [#freenode](irc://irc.freenode.net/freenode) or private message.
- freenode
- technical
---
-
As of today we have disabled access to the freenode irc network via mibbit. While there are numerous reasons for this, it ultimately comes down to the ability to prevent abuse via this client. We allow connections from many types of web gateways, and such connections require a certain amount of trust and communication between the server operators and the gateway operators. While we have tried to maintain a good working relationship with anyone who wishes to provide access to freenode and are lucky that most of our users and projects are very friendly and communicative, we have found it difficult to maintain open communications with mibbit. This has resulted in a large amount of staff time being spent on managing abuse coming from mibbit, disrupting service for other mibbit users and reducing the quality of the network. Sadly, we feel that this is ultimately not beneficial to mibbit users or the network as a whole.
+
We apologize to those who used mibbit for the inconvenience this has caused, and for the need to find a new client or method to connect to freenode.
+
In response to this, we have implemented our own web gateway at [http://webchat.freenode.net](http://webchat.freenode.net). The webchat runs [qwebirc](http://qwebirc.org/) package which was developed for and extensively used by quakenet. We'd like to extend our thanks to Chris "slug" Porter and the rest of the team for making it available.
+
Some of the features of qwebirc can be found [here](http://qwebirc.org/features).
+
Our new webchat facility also makes it easy to add to your own site. To do this, just click on the menu icon on the top left corner where you will find an "add webchat to your site" option. You will be taken through an easy wizard to get this going and get the webchat on your very own site!
- open source
- technical
---
-
Short blog post this evening but an important one!
+
I suspect many of you rely on the SORBS DNS blacklists to help provide spamless emails. Sadly infrastructure support is being withdrawn by the current providers leaving a significant void to effective spam handling.
+
I encourage you to read over the articles on [http://www.au.sorbs.net/](http://www.au.sorbs.net/) and if at all possible offer assistance.
+
Thanks!
- community
- pdpc
---
-
[fossevents.org](http://fossevents.org) is an open source event aggregation site created by the Peer Directed Projects Center, the nonprofit organization the operates freenode. Our goal with this new site is to make it easy to find open source events near you, that interest you. Many of us have missed events that were right around the corner because we didn't know about them until it was way too late.
+
As we grow this site we'll be adding new and interesting ways to monitor open source events, so keep an eye on it.
- open source
- webchat
---
-
Over the last few weeks we have had quite a bit of feedback from our new web chat client. As a result of this we've been able to feed back requests to the qwebirc developers who have been able to add many requested features:
- philosophy
- social
---
-
Most of you are probably familiar with the various freedoms that are frequently stated, such as freedom of speech or expression. While freenode does exist to promote communication amongst free and open source projects, it is not an open forum for all to use in any way.
+
The purpose and goals of freenode are simple, but often misunderstood. Freenode is a privately operated special purpose irc network, aimed at improving communication between developers, and users, and others interested in free and open source software. These people and their ability to communicate efficiently are our primary concern and focus. The "free" in freenode in intended to indicate this goal, and our commitment to providing a collaboration platform for those with an interest in free and open source software, rather than "freedom of speech or expression".
+
As a private network, we do reserve the right to limit the sort of content allowed on freenode. Some of things considered on and offtopic are outlined [here](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#ontopic).
+
Hopefully this clears up a little about what the "free" in freenode actually stands for (and what we do, as well).
slug: when-bots-go-bad
title: When bots go bad..
---
-
First off, allow me to apologise to all users affected by the recent "client killing" rampage of our utility bot; Syn. She appears to have gotten into the Halloween spirit a bit too much!
+
You may have noticed a large number of people disconnecting from freenode with the reason 'Nick collision from syn.' We feel we should explain what happened.
+
For those of you not already familiar with her, syn is a utility bot that, amongst other duties, regulates gateway access to the network. This could be web gateways such as CGI:IRC or our own webchat, NAT gateways, or some conferences and shell services. One of the things that she does, for web gateways in particular, is to match the reported IP address (hex-encoded in the ident field) against network bans, and deny the connection if a match is found.
+
It was this particular part that had an unfortunate pair of bugs resulting in the incident you observed. Firstly, in using sscanf() to detect a hex-encoded IP address in the ident field, the validation was not quite strict enough -- any ident that *began* with a series of valid hexadecimal characters (the digits 0-9 and letters a-f) would result in a number being decoded. In normal circumstances, this would be relatively harmless as the resulting IP is clearly invalid -- in most cases, it would begin 0.0.0., and not match any network bans.
+
Unfortunately, there was a second bug introduced more recently as part of a performance fix. This meant that in certain cases, a K:line whose host part contained wildcards would incorrectly match against these invalid IP addresses.
+
Each of these, taken in isolation, would be relatively innocuous, and so they slipped under the radar and made it into production. The combination of the two, however, had rather disastrous results.
+
We apologise, and welcome you to castigate our developers and staff for our incompetence and for allowing these bugs to make it into production.
slug: testing-the-nets
title: Testing the nets
---
-
We're in the late stages of testing our new ircd,[ ircd-seven](http://freenode.net/seven.shtml), which is intended to replace our current hyperion ircd, and we need your help!
+
While we have been testing it regularly against some basic loads, nothing really replaces users, and we need as many as possible to connect, try it out, and report back with any issues. Please note that ircd-seven differs from our current software; hyperion -- and some bits of behaviour may differ, if your project/channels rely on the use of bots on the production network we encourage you to also test these on the testnet! We would really like to stress, there are some significant changes in the new ircd so please do test the full functionality of any bots you require at this time, as we'll be moving forward with this new ircd in the future.
+
To connet, use testnet.freenode.net for ipv4 or ipv6. Port 9002 listens for regular connections, while 9003 listens for SSL.
+
We want a lot of traffic, and while we don't normally encourage it -- you are welcome to bring bots and drones en-masse! So bring in the bots, simulate traffic, join your regular channels, talk or spout nonsense. You can find us all in #freenode when you've connected to the testnet.
+
To connect from irssi: "/connect -ssl testnet.freenode.net 9003" for ssl and "/connect testnet.freenode.net 9002" for non-ssl.
To connect from xchat, first **open a new tab**, then "/server -ssl testnet.freenode.net 9003" for ssl and "/server testnet.freenode.net 9002" for non-ssl.
+
Thank you for using freenode and for helping us out, and freel free to drop by #freenode on either network to report any issues you might have with the testnet.
+
--update--
+
Some of you are asking about user and channel modes, many of which will have changed. You can get a listing of the user and channel modes and what they mean with "help umode" and "help cmode" respectively. Some clients will allow this directly, using "/help umode" or "/help cmode" but in many you will need to instead use "/quote help umode" or "/quote help cmode" Some clients also use /raw in place of /quote.
slug: dcc-spam-and-how-to-handle-it
title: DCC spam, and how to handle it.
---
-
We are aware of the recent DCC spam attempts, and we are working on this issue. In the meantime, please do not paste the full DCC text you recieve in #freenode (or any other channel) as in many cases it can cause you to appear as a problem yourself.
+
Instead, feel free to report it by first verifying (using the /whois command) that the sender is still online, and then reporting the sender in #freenode. Please be aware that #freenode is a general help channel and we need to keep it clear of general chatter in order to support the many users of freenode. If you wish to discuss anything other than an immediate support request, please find a more appropriate channel for the topic.
+
On this topic, please be sure to only accept DCC requests from trusted users and to be cautious about them at all times. You may wish to consider filtering out the DCC requests using your clients ignore functions, or enabling umode +C to prevent CTCP messages from being received. If you would like help with these topics feel free to stop by #freenode or your clients support channel.
+
As always, thank you for using freenode.
slug: december-8-2009-connectivity-issues-and-netsplits
title: December 8 2009 Connectivity Issues and Netsplits
---
-
As you are probably aware, we've been facing some fairly major splits today as there have been issues between some of our major hubs. We've rerouted these and are working on tracing down the cause of any other splits. Please be aware, our staff are already hard at work on these issues and will resolve them as quickly as possible. Included here are 2 global notices about this matter.
-christel(i=christel@freenode/staff/exherbo.christel)-
[Global Notice] Hi all, we appear to be having some
your channel please contact staff in #freenode for
assistance. We're looking into the issues as we speak. Thank
you for your patience.
+
-christel(i=christel@freenode/staff/exherbo.christel)-
[Global Notice] Hi all, we're having some major issues with
connectivity at the DC hosting one of our hidden hubs, I'm
going to re-route around it, which will cause about twice
as much noise as the splits already made. Apologies for the
inconvenience.
+
These and other issues are a large part of the reason for the upcoming migration to ircd-seven, and we still need your help in that regard. We are still in need help testing the new ircd and working out the bugs. If you would like to help out, have a look at [this ](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/11/testing-the-nets/)posting for information on how you can test the new ircd.
+
Thank you for using freenode, and have a great day!
slug: december-15th-ddos
title: December 15th DDoS
---
-
We are currently experiencing heavy DDoS against several locations at which some of our servers are hosted. The attack is ongoing and cause a lot of disruption, both to users of the network and unfortunately to projects/companies/individuals whose infrastructure is hosted at the same locations as us. Our sponsors and our sponsors' upstreams are working hard to try curb the attacks as best they can.
+
We will try keep this page updated with any significant information as and when we receive it, however, users of the network will also be able to receive (infrequent) status updates via global notice and slightly more frequent updates via wallops for those who have chosen to go +w (**/umode +w** or **/mode yournick +w**) will enable wallops in your irc client should you wish to see these. Global notices do not work on a opt-in basis, and are restricted to information we deem important, however for those of you who have absolutely no interest in what's going on with the network you may **/ignore *!*@freenode/staff/* notices** in order to prevent global notices from displaying in your client.
+
We apologise for the inconvenience this no doubt causes for you and your project(s) and we would like to thank you all (in particular, our very generous and dedicated sponsors) for the patience and support while the issues are still ongoing.
- social
- user count
---
-
The New Year is arriving in various parts of the world, and we'd like to take this opportunity to thank the people who continue making freenode possible.
+
Our very dedicated and generous hardware and bandwidth sponsors, for whom the tail end of 2009 have been a particularly challenging time, we're very grateful for the extra manpower you've all put in to help with the recent DDoS attacks the network has been experiencing. While we've lost some sponsors due to the costs involved over the attacks, we'd like to thank those for the time they were able to continue supporting our services and express our complete understanding for the decisions they've had to make in choosing to discontinue the support. For those of our sponsors who have been able to continue providing hardware and bandwidth we'd like to thank you for your generousity and for the patience while the attacks have been ongoing.
+
We'd like to thank all the PDPC supporters for their donations, [Canonical Ltd](http://canonical.com) and the [Gallery project](http://gallery.menalto.com/) for their generous donations, as well as those donations from indiviual users which in 2009 enabled us to purchase some additional hardware and bandwidth and we hope that the support continues throughout 2010 and that we'll be able to start making some progress with the work on our upcoming freenode live conference. Your support is invaluable to us and we're grateful for the continued support. Should you wish to become a donor; you may make a donation [here](http://freenode.net/pdpc_donations.shtml).
+
We'd also like to thank the freenode staff volunteers, past and present, for administering the network and putting in a lot of time to help both projects and end users with their freenode experience.
+
And finally, we'd like to thank the most important people of all -- the many projects and users who make freenode what it is. 2009 saw us passing the 60,000 concurrent users mark and it's fantastic to see that so many people use and contribute to the various FOSS projects on the network. Thank you all for using freenode.
+
We'd like to wish you all 12 months of happiness, 52 weeks of fun, 365 days of success, 8760 hours of good health, 52600 minutes of good luck and 3153600 seconds of joy! Have a very happy New Year!
- development
- freenode
---
-
In the coming weeks, we will be migrating freenode to our new ircd, ircd-seven. Presently, freenode uses hyperion and efforts have been underway for some time move us off this platform for reasons of stability and functionality. We are now almost there.
+
As users please be aware that during the migration all clients will be temporarily disconnected and will need to reconnect in order to move over to the new servers. For most of you this will happen as the old servers are shut down.
+
**Please Note:** While we will copy over channel modes and topics for registered channels (there will be no changes to the services database, all nick and channel settings with services will stay the same) we are unable to do so for channels NOT registered with ChanServ. If your project utilises non-registered channels for whatever reason, please make note of the topics and modes so you can make a manual transfer of these yourselves. For more information on registering a channel, see this [post](../2008/04/registering-a-channel-on-freenode/).
+
If you operate a channel on freenode and have any concerns, feel free to stop by #freenode to discuss any issues you might have. If you run any channel utility bots, you may want to test them on the current testnet. More information can be found [here](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/11/testing-the-nets/).
+
**Important Changes**
+
There are several significant changes users should be aware of in ircd-seven:
+
Channel quiets are no longer a modified version of bans but are now on their own list, queried with "mode #channel q", and as such do not appear on the normal banlist.
+
After the migration, we will have ssl access available on the production network.
+
Identifying upon connection works as before but there are two new ways to do so: specifying username:password in the server password field will allow you to login to a specific account, and SASL authentication is also available. Using SASL varies by client and is not supported in all clients.
+
The CAP command:
+
A brief summary:
For those implementing support for it, a full specification is at [http://www.leeh.co.uk/draft-mitchell-irc-capabilities-02.html](http://www.leeh.co.uk/draft-mitchell-irc-capabilities-02.html).
+
The IDENTIFY-MSG capability still exists but there is a new way to activate it. It is now part of the CAP mechanism. A script for irssi that understands both hyperion's and seven's identify-msg capability is available at [http://adipose.attenuate.org/~stephen/ircd-seven/format_identify.pl](http://adipose.attenuate.org/~stephen/ircd-seven/format_identify.pl).
+
The n= and i= prefixes are not used, instead ~ is prefixed to a non-identd username as is common in most other ircds.
+
For further information on changes that might impact you please visit [http://freenode.net/seven-for-hyperion-users.html](http://freenode.net/seven-for-hyperion-users.html)
+
As always, thank you for using freenode, and see you on the other side!
- freenode
- technical
---
-
You may have noticed some unusual amounts of spam over the past few days, which has had an impact on a number of channels. This spam is the result of some malicious javascript being distributed on a number of webpages which causes visitors to these pages to make a connection to freenode and send spam. While we are doing what we can to mitigate the spam, we would ask that you take a careful look at any unusual sites or URLs you might visit in the near future to be sure you are not being tricked into visiting such a site.
+
**If you have been banned** from the network after clicking on one of these links, please email klines@freenode.net with your internet-routeable IP address. Visit [http://myip.dk/](http://myip.dk/) and include both the IP address and hostname provided on this site. It's also helpful if you let us know what nick you were using at the time. We will address these requests as quickly as possible, but please be patient.
+
It is of course never a good idea to visit a link that's not from a trusted source. If you must do so, look into using a browser with limited or no scripting support (wget from the command line is a great solution here on linux, as is links) or using something like no-script for firefox.
+
If you run a channel on freenode, you might want to consider setting +R to prevent unregistered users from sending to the channel as the spambots described here will not be registered. If you do so please consider being proactive about contacting unregistered users joining your channel to ensure they get the help they need, and feel free to send them to #freenode so network staff can help them register.
+
For users, now is an excellent time to register your nickname and setup your client to auto-identify. You can find information about registering [here](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#registering). Configuring your client to auto-identify varies depending on the client, but one easy way is setting up your client to send the nickserv password as your server password. Most clients have an option for this.
+
It is also worth noting we will be moving to a new ircd in just 13 more days, as described [here](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/ircd-migration-sat-jan-30th-2010/). This new ircd provides a number of exciting new capabilities including improved capability to deal with spam of all kinds, including this most recent type which is entirely mitigated by improvements in seven.
slug: migration-to-new-ircd
title: Migration to ircd-seven.
---
-
On the 30th of January, 2010 at around 7:30 UTC, we will be moving to the new ircd-seven. If you haven't done so already, now is a great time to look at how this may change things for you and what you may need to do as a result.
+
We covered a few of the changes in [this](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/ircd-migration-sat-jan-30th-2010/) article earlier, but this post adds a few things.
+
If you are a tor user, the way you connect will be slightly different. Connecting via tor will require you use "username:password" in your server password field instead of just "password" as is the case now.
+
If you currently have an arrangement with freenode to increase your connection count for a business, school, or other organization (also known as an iline), you may need to verify it is still in place after the migration. While we have moved the majority of these over to the new ircd, some older ilines where we do not have contact information may need to be updated. If you find yours is missing, join #freenode and look for any freenode staff to further assist you. All staff are voiced on #freenode.
+
If you are currently using dircbot, be aware that dircbot will be replaced along with the ircd as it has technical issues that make it unusable on the new ircd. Dircbots functionality will instead be included in the freenode utility bot "eir." Documentation for the replacement is available [here](http://freenode.net/eir.shtml).
+
To mention one last time a few things:
Finally, if you are interested in supporting the pdpc and freenode, have a look [here ](http://freenode.net/pdpc_seven.shtml)for a special fundraiser we're running along with the ircd-seven launch.
+
Thanks everyone, and we'll see you on the other side.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
With our change of ircd to the all new [ircd-seven](http://www.freenode.net/seven.shtml), we are trialling a new method of allowing users to connect to the network via Tor. This method brings a number of changes:
A mirc script is available, taken from a [forum post](http://forum.swiftirc.net/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=23101) by Kyle Travaglini. You can retrieve the source [here](http://freenode.net/sasl/sasl-mirc.cpp).
+
Instructions (adapted from that forum):
If you have any problems, either pop into #freenode from a non-torified connection or drop an email to support AT freenode.net.
+
This method of connecting to freenode using Tor supersedes all previous methods, including Tor-GPG. We hope that this method of connecting via Tor will help to make it somewhat more accessible to you!
- projects
- technical
---
-
After much time in development and testing, the move to ircd-seven is finally complete. The migration took place in the early hours of today, Saturday January 30th 2010.
+
I would like to express thanks to everyone who has helped us get here -- those staff and users who have helped find and squash bugs, those who have done extensive load testing and those who have helped finalising documentation in preparation for the migration earlier today.
+
In particular I would like to thank the Charybdis development team and the ratbox contributors whose work left us with a brilliant ircd platform to build upon to create the more freenode specific ircd-seven. In no particular order my thanks go to:
+
dwr, Valery Yatsko <dwr -at- shadowircd.net>
gxti, Michael Tharp <gxti -at- partiallystapled.com>
jilles, Jilles Tjoelker <jilles -at- stack.nl>
ThaPrince, Jon Christopherson <jon -at- vile.com>
twincest, River Tarnell <river -at- attenuate.org>
w00t, Robin Burchell <surreal.w00t -at- gmail.com>
+
And for leading the development efforts of ircd-seven, for putting up with my many quirky and often unreasonable requests:
spb, Stephen Bennett <stephen -at- freenode.net>
+
I'd also like to express my gratitude to the following freenode volunteers for the hard work they've put in to make the migration go as smoothly as possible. I've been amazed at the initiative and responsibility shown in this last phase. Your help has been invaluable and I feel privileged to work with you:
+
kloeri, Bryan Østergaard
Lorez, Mike Mattice
Martinp23, Martin Peeks
Md, Marco D'Itri
+
With the exception of port(s) 7000 and 7070 which are now being used for SSL, all other ports and DNS stay the same as it did prior to migration.
+
If you are a regular freenode user you will most likely be aware that there's some user facing changes with the move to ircd-seven (and likely to have been annoyed by my global notices on the subject), you may wish to familiarise yourself with the updated [FAQ](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml) and glance at some of these earlier ircd-seven related blog posts:
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/connecting-to-freenode-using-tor-sasl/](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/connecting-to-freenode-using-tor-sasl/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2008/11/help-us-test-ircd-seven/](http://blog.freenode.net/2008/11/help-us-test-ircd-seven/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/migration-to-new-ircd/](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/migration-to-new-ircd/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/ircd-migration…-jan-30th-2010/](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/01/ircd-migration-sat-jan-30th-2010/)
+
Again, thank you for helping out, however small or large your contribution may have been. We are celebrating the migration to ircd-seven with a special fundraiser "Give £7 for seven". This campaign will end on February 7th 2010, until such time you may read more and donate [here](http://freenode.net/pdpc_seven.shtml). Any donation of £21 or any multiple of £7 over £21 will receive a freenode t-shirt.
+
To all our users, thank you for using the network, and welcome to seven!
slug: yes-we-are-going-to-fosdem
title: Yes, we are going to FOSDEM
---
-
As every year, some of us will attend FOSDEM.
+
This year, you will be able to meat [czajkowski](http://identi.ca/czajkowski), kloeri, [RichiH](http://identi.ca/richih), SeJo and a FOSDEM-virgin: marienz (be gentle). If you have any praise, complaints, questions, spare beer or just want to connect a face to a name, you are more than welcome to poke us.
Hunt us down via IRC or the linked identi.ca pages and we will try to meet you.
+
[](http://www.fosdem.org)
slug: fosscon-2010-and-northeast-us-geeknic-camping-trip
title: fosscon 2010 and Northeast US geeknic++ camping trip
---
-
There are two pdpc-related events coming up in the Northeast US we'd like to make you aware of. The first is the second "geeknic++" camping trip, to be held May 21st-23rd in Worthington State Forest, NJ. Last year, there was much fun to be had as geeks (and their families) from all over the Northest gathered for 2 nights of camping in a New Jersey State forest. This year there is a new location, but more of the same fun. See [http://geeknic.org/?p=91](http://geeknic.org/?p=91) for details. The trip is only $20 for adults, and kids under 18 are free.
+
Second, is our very first fosscon, a free and open source conference organized by and for the foss community. This event will be held June 19th in Rochester NY. Lots of interesting speakers are lining up but there is still room for more if you have an interesting topic of your own, and sponsorship opportunities are still available. Visit[ http://fosscon.org](http://fosscon.org) for more details on this exciting event.
+
We hope to see you at one or both of these great events!
- pdpc
- projects
---
-
For many years now, freenode has offered projects and userbases on the network the option of registering themselves as "Groups". Each of these groups has one or more designated people as their "Group Contacts", who are the point of contact for freenode-staff<=>group liasion, and are thus able to contact staff to request that cloaks be set, or to request assistance in administering channels.
+
We now have several hundred registered groups on freenode, and many more groups for which registration requests have been submitted. There is a rather large backlog of these requests, but this will reduce dramatically once [GMS](http://freenode.net/gms.shtml) has been completed, tested, and deployed (on which note, if you think you can give some time to help code it, get in touch!). An aim of the groups policy is to foster good relationships between groups and staff.
+
This is where the Groups Advisory Board (**GAB**) comes in - immediately, for approved GCs! This is a way in which we would like to give groups a role in influencing the direction that freenode, and the PDPC, will follow in the future with regards to group and project related policy. The GAB is completely optional and brings with it no committment. It is open to all group contacts who would like to be members. The GAB is effectively a consultation forum where staff can get feedback from groups. As well as improptu discussions on IRC, discussions will take place on a mailing list and occasional, optional IRC meetings will be arranged. If you're interested in giving your group a greater voice in the management of freenode, speak to staff in #freenode, or drop an email to support NOSPAM at freenode.net, and we'll sign you up to the freenode-groups mailing list and invite you to #freenode-gab.
+
Thanks!
- technical
- webchat
---
-
Webchat has always presented an interesting problem, mostly for the staff of various channels as well as the network itself, but indirectly for all our users as well. All webchat connections come from the IP address of the webchat service. This results in them having to be handled a little bit differently from other connections.
- groups
- projects
---
-
For a long time, freenode has utilised a [Group Registration](http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml) system to give groups (such as companies and open source projects) the ability to manage channels in the [primary namespace](http://freenode.net/policy.shtml#channelnaming) (ie, channels beginning with a single "#") and to give contributors to their projects [cloaks](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#cloaks). Perhaps more importantly, the system allows groups to retain control of their identity on freenode. It is because of this aspect of Group Registration that filing a [Group Registration Form (GRF)](http://freenode.net/group_registration_form.php) has been necessary for projects to acquire primary channels which have been already registered. For the same reason, we ask those who register new primary channels to file a form.
+
A great number of fantastic projects use freenode. Only a small subset of staff are able to handle GRFs, and in combination with the large volume of forms filed we have developed a significant backlog. We realise that because of this backlog, certain groups are unable to claim channels on freenode which should rightfully be theirs. While we appreciate that many projects have been waiting months or years for a form to be processed, we must consider GRFs filed in order to obtain channel ownership for a legitimate project to be a priority - if you're in the former position and not the latter, I hope you can see why.
+
At this stage, we are hoping to move through these priority requests in the coming weeks (and, depending on volume, months), before moving on to other requests. **If you are a prospective group contact who has filed a GRF form before and you fall into the priority group (to be clear: you are in the priority group only if you need the GRF to be processed in order for you to gain access to the #group or #project channel on freenode), please email us at **_**grfprocess at freenode dot net**_**.** The email should contain your IRC nick and your group's name - no other personal information should be sent. We will soon be in touch regarding "next steps".
+
If you want to help us to provide a top class service to groups, please consider getting involved with development of our new [Group Management System (GMS)](http://freenode.net/gms.shtml).
+
Finally, a quick word of gratitude to those who have been waiting for GRFs to be filed for a long period of time. Thank you for your patience - we **will** move on to processing your requests as soon as we are able, and will let you know when via this blog and network wallops. Thanks for choosing freenode :)
- philosophy
- social
---
-
While talking online is great, meeting in person presents brand new opportunities... and we would like to meet you!
+
In 4 days (on June 19th, 2010), a number of us as well as members of the community in general will be meeting up for a conference in Rochester, NY, at Rochester Institute of Technology. We are greatly looking forward to this awesome new opportunity.
+
Fosscon features 14 talks and 4 workshops. Below are just a few examples.
+
Free and Open in Education; More than just Software - Charles Profitt
+
Making the Most of Communities - Bryan Ostergaard
+
OpenStreetMap - Richard Weait
+
Linux in Business - Karlie Robinson
+
Resume Building Workshop with RIT's Office of Co-Op and Placement
+
And many others, as well as Bird of a Feather sessions and an exhibition hall full of local users groups and interesting organizations.
+
We hope to see you there. Visit [http://fosscon.org/](http://fosscon.org) for more info or [http://fosscon.org/register](http://fosscon.org/register/) to sign up.
- projects
- webchat
---
-
Following our successful switch of cloaking on our web gateway ([http://webchat.freenode.net](http://webchat.freenode.net)) to show the full IP address of connecting users (see [this blog post](http://blog.freenode.net/2010/06/freenode-webchat-changes/)), we have decided to transition our old and relatively unused Java client ([pjIRC](http://www.pjirc.com/main.php)) to our webchat service. This will be done via a HTTP redirect.
+
Only around 30 users at a time can be found from the java client, hence as time goes on it makes less and less sense to continue to support this platform. We'll be decommissioning the Java client on Sun 8th August.
+
Other pjIRC instances which connect to freenode will be unaffected. We are simply removing our version of the program.
+
If you've any concerns, queries or comments we'd love to hear from you either in #freenode or via support at freenode.net.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
Hi everyone.
Currently the freenode webchat instance (webchat.freenode.net) is down. This is due to maintenance by the host of the box upon which the service sits, and looks set to continue for up to a further 6 hours.
This is maintenance that we, as staff, were not previously aware of.
We're very sorry for the inconvenience and are doing what we can to reduce it.
+
Update: resolved.
- technical
- webchat
---
-
Unfortunately, it seems the box our webchat is on has decided to fall out with the Internet again. We're working on setting up a reserve instance which shouldn't be affected by this sort of issue in the future. When we have more details, we'll update this post. We're really sorry for the inconvenience this causes, and guarantee it will be less in future.
+
Update: The host's issues appear to have been resolved. We now also have a backup instance running which can easily be switched to in the event of downtime in the future.
author: jayne
date: 2010-11-14 16:22:31+00:00
-excerpt: A word on network abuse and how to recognize and respond to it.
slug: be-safe-out-there
title: Be Safe Out There
categories:
- philosophy
- social
---
-
**freenode **is sometimes a target of spammers, bots, or attempts to trick users into taking action or giving up information they normally would not. One form of spam, popular recently, claims that freenode will require SASL to connect. Others attempt to lure users to a website that may generate revenue for the spammer, attempt to install malicious software, reveal information about the user (such as location, IP address, operating system, and so on), or lead to a shock site intended to offend or disgust. Other spam has no purpose except to cause disruption through channel noise, nick-highlights, and the ensuing complaints from those disrupted.
+
**Don't be a victim** of these mischievous ploys. Don't react when you see this sort of activity. Don't click on unsolicited links. Don't trust spam to be accurate or truthful. Instead, be a [catalyst](http://freenode.net/catalysts.shtml) or just ignore the unwanted behavior. Most IRC clients offer a way to filter out messages from a person or containing certain text by using a command called `/ignore`. Even if your client doesn't support /ignore, you can mentally ignore it just like you might ignore someone yelling on a street corner.
+
Bad behavior that is limited to one or two channels can be handled by the helpers and operators in the channel. If you feel compelled to report spam or abusive behavior, privately message one of the people on the channel's access list, which may be seen using `/msg chanserv access #channel list`. To check how recently a person was active, use `/whois nickname nickname`. (Yes, put the nick twice). This will show whether they are away, and how long they have been idle. Some projects use a -ops channel (e.g. #ubuntu-ops) to make it easier to contact an operator.
+
If bad behavior is widespread, network staff may intervene. As always, staffers can be reached in #freenode. When reporting an issue, please do not (re-)paste spam or highlight many nicks. This only adds to the disruption and makes the reporter look like the spammer. When a staffer responds, you can privately message the content of the spam, if it is important to addressing the problem.
+
And one final word about announcements: any major change to the network's operations (like, say, requiring SASL) would be announced properly through the website and/or blog. We might also announce it over IRC using a global notice or wallop. A wallop or global notice would come from a staffer -- someone with a freenode/staff cloak in whois -- and probably appear in your client's server or status window. Spammers may choose nicks that look similar to those of staffers, but staffers will have a freenode/staff cloak and we will not spam channels as a way of making announcements. A bit of skepticism before trusting something seen on the internet can help keep you safe, and the network running smoothly.
- freenode
- social
---
-
Just a quick note to wish each and every one of our users, sponsors, donors, volunteers and projects for making freenode great.
+
It's amazing being able to communicate and collaborate with such a variety of people and projects. **YOU** make the network what it is and help us provide a fantastic resource for FOSS communities.
+
I'd also like to say a special "Thank You" to Martin (Martinp23) Peeks and Richard (RichiH) Hartmann for squeezing into my size 7's and keeping a tight grip on the steering wheel ensuring that we don't weer off track and crash into too many icebergs during my leave from active freenode management duties. You're doing a tremendous job, and I'm thrilled to see that you've got the support from the fantastic volunteer base and our exceptional sponsors.
+
Have a happy Christmas (or whichever holiday you do or do not celebrate) and a fantastic New Year, I hope it brings you everything you wish for!
+
Oh. And don't forget, tis the season for [giving!](http://freenode.net/pdpc_yearly.shtml)
+
Cheers,
+
Christel x
- different
- open source
---
-
[](http://blog.freenode.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/going-to-fosdem-2011.png)
+
As every year, some of freenode staff will attend FOSDEM. If you have any concerns, praise, criticism or free beer you want to share with us, you are more than welcome to meat us. The best way to coordinate meatings is to simply join #freenode-fosdem and poke us.
+
As an aside, we are trying to get a general IRC meating going. It's geared towards staff/opers, developers, sponsors and anyone else who has to do with IRC behind the scenes. Tentative planning is for Saturday evening and at this time, we have people from irssi, IRCnet & freenode on board. There's no fixed agenda and everyone is invited to suggest topics of interest, preferably before the actual meating. We might even update this post with details if there are any :)
- freenode
- user count
---
-
With apologies to cringing table-top players, we are more than happy to announce that we passed the threshold of 70,000 active users a few minutes ago. Lingering at a maximum of 69,991 lately, we have been anticipating this day for some time, now. And it has come :)
+
We'd like to thank all of our users for using freenode. Without you we would, quite literally, not have made this milestone.
+
We would also like to take this opportunity to thank all our volunteers, whatever fields they have chosen to help out in.
+
At the moment, we're growing at 10,000 users per year and a bit:
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/)
+
We're looking forward to continuing this trend and reaching 80,000 sometime around March of 2012 :)
- freenode
- infrastructure
---
-
As you may know, the network operations of freenode are fully supported by donations - of hosting and other resources - from both companies and individuals. We acknowledge all sponsors on our [website](http://freenode.net/acknowledgements.shtml), but it is nice from time to time to provide a round-up of recent changes on the sponsorship scene!
+
If you're currently connected to freenode, you will be connected to a donated server - look at the "MOTD" (delivered to you on connection or by passing the command _/motd_) to see who has provided your particular server.
+
Our newest servers include roddenberry.freenode.net (Brisbane, Australia) and asimov.freenode.net (Dallas, Texas, USA), provided by [On Q Telecom](http://www.onqtel.com) and by [Rackspace](http://www.rackspace.com), respectively.
+
Worthy of mention indeed are those companies who support the network in ways other than providing servers. [Gandi](http://www.gandi.net) provides our SSL certificate and acts as our domain registrar, and [Simtec Electronics](http://www.simtec.co.uk) recently generously supported the network with a donation of [entropykeys](http://www.entropykey.co.uk). Look out for a later technical blog post as we roll these out!
+
While this post focuses on recent additions to the sponsorship team, it's important not to forget the ongoing contributions of all our sponsors - take another look at our [acknowledgements section](http://freenode.net/acknowledgements.shtml) and give these groups the kudos they deserve!
+
Cheers,
Martin
- free software
- pdpc
---
-
Hello everyone and Happy St Valentine's Day!
+
[](http://blog.freenode.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pdpc-heart.png)
+
We here at freenode and PDPC love Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and we know that at least 70,000 of you do too.
+
What better time than the middle of February to show your love and appreciation?
+
Peer-Directed Projects Center Ltd. (PDPC) exists to support all sorts of peer-directed projects, and our roots are firmly planted in the world of FOSS. Hundreds of projects, large and small, use our services, including:
The aim of this fundraiser is to generate £5000, which will help to cover general operating expenses and enable us to apply for recognition as a Charity. This will help us to show our appreciation to donors and sponsors (on freenode) who may be able to claim tax benefits from their governments as a result. It also means that we can ensure that more of future donations go towards PDPC's projects, and not to the taxman!
+
While the aim of the fundraiser is, of course, to generate income for PDPC, we want to give **you** the opportunity to express your appreciation for the projects and developers you love. For the next two weeks only, we are running the following offers:
Would you love to send your favourite developer a valentine? Donate £10 or more and we'll offer the target of your affections a "pdpc/valentine/message/account" cloak for the duration of the valentine period. The best bit? You get to choose "message"! Of course, you will still, subject to the same staff discretion as usual, be welcome to a PDPC supporter cloak for yourself. [Donate here](http://freenode.net/pdpc_valentine.shtml).
+
Please keep the message clean and pleasant, and be aware that we will not set cloaks that we deem to be offensive or that the recipient does not want. If you wish for us to tell the recipient that you bought their cloak, let us know. All of this, with your account name too, should be conveyed in the PayPal donation message. We will process outstanding requests at least daily, and these valentine cloaks will remain for 24 hours from when they were set.
As usual, when you donate to PDPC, we will give you the opportunity to link your donation to a channel - this might be a channel you frequent, or that for a project you love. For the next few weeks (and possibly beyond, but without the love theme!), we are going to use this data to compile a Love Cloud (yes, you guessed it - "Cloud Nine") where at a glance you will be able to see the relative contributions in each project's name. We are measuring donations in hugs: £5 = 1 hug (£10 = 2, £500 = 100), and the hearts will be scaled appropriately (if we have to break out some logarithmic scaling, we have success!). Cloud Nine will be sitting over the homepage of freenode.net.
+
We're all about sharing the love here at freenode, so if you are naming a channel with your donation we would love it if you would tell us why. What makes this project so great? Please try to keep kudos concise! We might wallop some of the best messages (so set yourself _/umode +w_ to see them, or _/umode -w_ to hide them), and we will blog the collected kudos at the end of the valentine period. If you do **not** want your account name to be attached to feedback that you send, please mention this to us. All of this should be placed into the PayPal donation comment. [Donate here](http://freenode.net/pdpc_valentine.shtml).
+
We have some more ideas for the fundraiser in the pipeline, so keep an eye on this blog for more details!
+
Finally, but by no means least, significant thanks are owed to JonathanD, mgdm and Scott Rigby of BaseKamp who have contributed much time and effort to forming this fundraiser launch at short notice. You're awesome.
+
So, everyone, I'd encourage you to put your hands in your pockets, send a small donation our way (£5 - the cost of a couple of pints of beer?) and, most importantly, get involved with our fundraising fun for 2011!
+
With love,
+
Martinp23, the Board and Staff.
+
Peer-Directed Projects Center Ltd. is a company limited by guarantee (no 06680918), 2nd Floor, 145-157 St John Street, London, EC1V 4PY, England
slug: port-6697-irc-via-tlsssl
title: 'Default port for IRC via TLS/SSL (hint: it''s 6697)'
---
-
As some of you might be aware, there has been a push to [standardize](http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-hartmann-default-port-for-irc-via-tls-ssl) on a common port for IRC via SSL/TLS. Same as you can reasonably expect any public ircd for plain text connections to listen on port 6667, you should be able to expect any public ircd for IRC via SSL/TLS to listen on port 6697.
+
All IRC networks, except one, in the global top twenty which offer IRC via SSL/TLS are listening on port 6697 and many smaller networks do, as well. Clients like irssi default to 6697 as do daemons like Charybdis and seven. Similar to how port 6667 is not the only for plain text, 6697 is not intended to be the only one for SSL/TLS, but it's still nice to have a common standard.
+
The Internet Draft linked above will not be made into a proper RFC quickly as these things tend to take a lot of time, but for all intents and purposes, 6697 is the canonical port for IRC via SSL/TLS, today.
+
**Update:** In case we didn't make it clear enough (apparently we didn't): You can still continue to use all other ports we have listened to in the past. But we will start recommending 6697 from now on.
+
**Update2:** Yes, we are listening on port 6697 on all our ircds, be they IPv4, IPv6, or .onion.
slug: change-in-nick-expiry-times
title: Change in nick expiry times
---
-
Up to now, the expiry time of nicks has been 60 days. As you know, Services compress timespans into years, weeks, and days. 60 days are 8 weeks and 4 days. Easy enough to convert, but still unnecessary. Also, a nick that has been registered for a long time should get a little bit more protection than a new one. In the past, we have sometimes asked users to wait a bit longer before requesting old nicks to be dropped. To make things easier and fairer, we have decided to change and simplify our official policy.
+
Starting on 2011-04-01, the expiry time will be 70 days, i.e. 10 weeks. For every full year of registration time, one week is added to the expiry time. Thus, a nick that's been registered for three and a half years needs to have been unused for 13 weeks before another user can request to have it dropped.
+
We are pre-announcing this change as it would be unfair towards users to change expiry times just before their 60 days of waiting are over. As usual, barring manual database cleanups every few years, we won't drop nicks or channels on our own, but only at a user's request.
slug: important-service-announcement-regarding-defocus
title: 'Important service announcement regarding #defocus'
---
-
As many of you are aware, [back in 2008](../2008/09/change-in-defocus-policy-and-what-do-you-think/) we changed our policy in #defocus and the method in which the channel works to require users have voice to speak. For the past few years we've been using a combination of manual action, scripts and bots to voice users as needed to control when and how and when they are voiced.
+
Starting today, we are changing the policy to one we believe is fairly balanced and which gives users much more control over gaining and keeping voice in the channel.
+
The new bot, known as brrflrqxt, will voice users as they send the command "!join" to #defocus and those who pass its tests will be allowed to keep their voice. The tests involve problem solving, proving that you are human, and therefore capable of lying, cheating, and backstabbing like any valuable member of #defocus; thus ensuring a safe and productive environment for all our users.
+
If you have any questions about this policy, feel free to ask any member of staff.
+
GURER VF N CEVMR. VG'F JBEGU VG. UVAG: ZBGQ.
+
[](http://blog.freenode.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/enigma-cat.jpg)
+
+
slug: april-1st-the-aftermatch
title: April 1st, the aftermatch
---
-
Some of you might have remembered the wolfgame bot in #defocus from 2008-04-01. Reception was even better this time and people really liked it. We might even make this a tradition. Feedback in comments, please.
+
To get your wolfgame fix during the rest of the year, join #wolfgame . We are waiting :)
+
We will publish the solutions to our riddles here, but we had to promise to not do so before Sunday so we won't. Watch this space if you are interested.
+
Also, remember [our new nick expiry times](http://blog.freenode.net/2011/03/change-in-nick-expiry-times/). This is now active policy.
slug: the-cat-enigma
title: The Cat Enigma!
---
-
Hello! Many of you have joined in with our April Fools' activities, including the two challenges injected into the April 1st blogpost. We had several successful winners of the first competition, and a smaller number of the second, but many determined competitors - thanks to everyone who invested so much time and energy into the challenges!
+
We'd now like to give you the answers! Hopefully you won't kick yourself too much if you competed but didn't get all the way to the end. :)
As this challenge had a larger ciphertext and was only lowercase, working out the translation table was relatively easy, and many of you seemed to manage to get it!
+
The first user to figure this out was **elly **- well done, you! The remaining users in the first ten to complete this challenge also won april-fools/ cloaks, and were the following:
+
**Jessicah, Snova, hjf2010, Treeki, ttuttle, tonsofpcs, mth, awilcox, gnarf
**
+
Well done too to everyone who e-mailed in but came after these guys!**
**
<span style="color: #3366ff">My lovely horse, running through the field
Where are you going, with your fetlocks blowing in the wind?
+
I want to shower you with sugar lumps, and ride you over fences
Polish your hooves every single day, and bring you to the horse dentist
+
My lovely horse, you're a pony no more
Running around with a man on your back, like a train in the night...
+
Can you solve the Cat Enigma?</span>
But you left the sequence of capital letters at the end unaltered! Whilst many of you guessed that 'Enigma' referred to the infamous German [electromechanical enciphering machine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine), without the '_WUWKM...'_ ciphertext translated, you had difficulty progressing further!
+
As this seemed to be where efforts paused, we gave you a little clue, courtesy of njan's enigmacat (whose name is actually _[cinak](http://jeremiad.org/cats.shtml), _but who is generally called Mittens), consisting of the first eight letters of the translation table - _'PQOWIELA_' - filling some of the blanks.
+
From there, some of you managed to take the next step - working out that the capital letters were entered according to a predictable pattern on a qwerty keyboard. Based on the 'O_I' sequence in the partially complete translation table above, we'd hoped that might not be such a big step, but perhaps it was! Tap the translation table out on a qwerty keyboard and see what we mean.
+
Still - with a little nudging, this was a step that some of you managed to take together (and many others guessed at or were very close to), and with the complete translation table:
Phew! All done! :) The first to complete the second part of the competition were **sbp **and **[bjoern]**. Other successful entrants were **kmdm**, **x0F, ****Tordek**, **Lopmon**, **Gryllida**, ****and **yano**.
+
Thanks to those of you who participated and we had fun talking to and interacting with - and we'll probably be doing something similar next year! :)
slug: this-is-a-public-service-announcement
title: This is a public service announcement...
---
-
As some of you might remember, freenode used to send wallops when FLOSS projects had major releases and for other news that are, hopefully, of general interest. After some internal deliberation, we decided to retry this experiment. Projects are invited to submit their wallops requests to us and we will try to accommodate everyone. Obviously, we will try to limit this to relevant news and while we are not sure about the exact modus operandi yet, we are confident that we will figure something out that works for everyone.
+
If you want to receive wallops, simply run
+
`/quote mode $yournick +w`
+
or
+
`/umode +w`
+
in your IRC client. Please note that you need to do this every time you connect so setting up an auto-command or similar makes sense. In case you want to stop receiving wallops without reconnecting to freenode, simply run
+
`/quote mode $yournick -w`
+
or
+
`/umode -w`
+
and you are all set. Hopefully, we will manage to come up with interesting news for you. Feedback on this in #freenode or via this post is appreciated.
slug: fosscon-2011-philadelphia-pennsylvania-23rd-july-2011
title: 'Fosscon 2011: Philadelphia Pennsylvania, 23rd July, 2011.'
---
-
July 23, 2011 - (All day)
+
Hi everyone,
Next Saturday Basekamp will be hosting FOSSCON (Free and Open Source Software Conference), focusing on the community that has grown around Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and in parallel to both the Free Culture and Open Source cultural movements.
This is a community-focused live event designed to build and strengthen relationships between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers and users. FOSSCON seeks to raise awareness of and promote FOSS alternatives to proprietary software. Facilitating face-to-face interaction, creative workshops, talks and think tanks, FOSSCON brings developers and users together in a nurturing and dynamic environment stimulating the free exchange of ideas and information while fostering cross-project collaboration and dialogue for innovation.
+
FOSSCON is organized by Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC) – the group responsible for projects like [Freenode](http://basekamp.com/about/events/freenode) and fossevents – FOSSCON (along with Geeknics) is part of PDPC’s desire to bring an already massive online community that has grown around free and open source ideas, out into the world, to meet, connect, support and challenge each other, imagine, plot and co-develop beautiful, possibly useful and unexpected things.
+
The people behind FOSSCON are free software enthusiasts, user group members, coders and users – just like you! Free software is all about community and this is a very grassroots event, organized by the community and for the community. Our common goal is to provide a space for us to all come together in the northeast. We hope you’ll join us as an attendee, a volunteer or an exhibitor.
FOSSCON will last all day. See the regularly updated schedule of presentations (and proposal guidelines) here: [http://fosscon.org/speakers](http://fosscon.org/speakers)
+
Anyone in the FOSS community with interesting and exciting topics are invited to submit a talk to speak at this event. As a general event built for the community at large, the range of acceptable topics is broad, however FOSSCON traditionally favors topics with an immediate real world use in home, work, or education environments and broadly categorizes talks under one of these headings.
+
The program committee invites proposals for paper presentations, demonstrations and poster contributions on any topic relevant to FOSS awareness, accessibility and application. We want to offer something for beginning, intermediate, and advanced learning levels with particular emphasis on the following topics:
You can join us on the IRC network “chat.freenode.net” and join the channel “#fosscon” to talk with the planning team and others interested in Fosscon, ask questions, or volunteer to help us out. You can easily join the channel using webchat by clicking here: [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon)
+
See you all then!
categories:
- freenode
---
-
Hi all.
+
It has come to our attention that [Mibbit](http://www.mibbit.com) have experienced a security issue impacting (or so it initially appears) their testing servers. This has resulted in a list of plain text NickServ passwords **from Mibbit's own NickServ (the one you use if you connect to irc.mibbit.com)** being made public, as well as a small section of private logs and some internal server details of the affected equipment. There's some more information [on their own blog](http://mibbitblog.blogspot.com/).
+
As I'm sure many of you have been aware, Mibbit hasn't been available for use with freenode for quite a while now so the issue will only indirectly impact freenode users when the password they use for their NickServ is the same as it is for elsewhere. Therefore freenode staff are recommending that anyone that has used Mibbit's own NickServ should ensure that their password is changed to keep your account secure.
+
Of course, it's always good practice to [change passwords](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#changepass) periodically so you may wish to take the opportunity to do so as a matter of course.
slug: fixing-defocus
title: 'Fixing #defocus'
---
-
We want #defocus, the network social channel, to be a welcoming place for relaxed, easy conversation. Of late, we're seeing that staff are acting in a policing role more than we are able to take an active part in the flow of the channel. This is something of a circle, as the more we are seen to be police, the harder it is for us to achieve what we want with the channel.
+
We've had some extensive discussions with #defocus regulars and ops on various channels around what we can do to improve the day-to-day atmosphere of the channel and bring it around to be what we want it to be, and one of the more immediate outcomes of these discussions was that we need to introduce more specific channel ops for #defocus, to work alongside staff in shaping the channel's future.
+
To that end, the following users are now channel ops in #defocus, and are ready and able to asist when moderation might be required. _msh, jbroome , rww , Ttech, bburhans, frantk, gry, Fuchs , TheEvilPhoenix, Zuu.
+
Please help us in welcoming them to the #defocus team.
slug: ircd-upgrades
title: IRCD Upgrades
---
-
Over the next weeks we will be upgrading our servers to the next version of ircd-seven. This means restarting all our servers. Downtime should be minimal, and as we will not upgrade all servers at the same time this should not be as noisy as the upgrade from hyperion to ircd-seven was. When the server you are on is upgraded you will be disconnected, but should be able to reconnect immediately (most clients will do this automatically).
+
The following user-visible changes have been made since the versions in production:
+
- The channel quiet list is now sent using the new numerics RPL_QUIETLIST(728) and RPL_QUIETLISTEND(729) instead of overloading the same numerics as for ban lists. You may find that clients have to be updated before they will display this in a user-friendly format.
- Users who cannot send to a channel are now prevented from changing its topic, even when mode +t is not set.
- Sending a private message to another user while user mode +g is active will now automatically add an accept-list entry so that they can reply.
- Account names are now displayed in WHOWAS entries.
- Two new client capabilities are available: ACCOUNT-NOTIFY and EXTENDED-JOIN. These two together with the existing extended WHO syntax allow clients to track account names of other users who share a channel.
- Client flood control settings have been made configurable; you may notice them being stricter than before.
+
Once all ircds have upgraded we also plan to re-enable the +S channel mode, which only allows users connected using SSL to join.
+
Some more features will become available once we upgrade services, which will happen at some point after we have upgraded all irc servers:
+
- It will be possible to identify to services using SSL client certificates.
- ChanServ mode locks will be (mostly) enforced by the server. Instead of setting a mode and having ChanServ revert it immediately, you will not be able to change a locked mode.
slug: wednesday-server-updates
title: Wednesday Server Updates
---
-
This Wednesday (September 14th, 2011) we will be continuing our server updates as mentioned [here](http://blog.freenode.net/2011/09/ircd-upgrades/).
+
The following servers will be affected: leguin, gibson, wolfe, hitchcock, and pratchett.
+
During the update process these servers will be restarted and anyone connected to them will need to reconnect. You may wish to connect to an alternate server if you are currently connected to one of these. You can check what server you are currently connected to using the command "/whois _nickname" _with your own nick as "nickname".
+
We apologize for any inconvenience as we continue to improve the technology behind freenode.
+
Update: This is now done.
- pdpc
- projects
---
-
As you might know, GRFs ([Group Registration](http://freenode.net/group_registration.shtml) Forms) exist to form a relationship between a project and the [PDPC (Peer Directed Projects Center)](http://pdpc.org.uk). This relationship is relatively formal - personal details (address/tel no./etc) need to be shared by the project. For this reason, a severe backlog of GRFs has built up, since only a few staff have access to them (to protect this personal data). PDPC is the UK-based not-for-profit company which runs freenode. For most groups in our request backlog, their reason for registering is not to work with PDPC, but to gain a channel or cloak namespace on freenode. We've decided that running a separate, freenode-centric groups request system may help to move the system along. By requesting fewer details, we can open up this system to more staff, and hopefully keep on top of the queue of requests.
+
**From now on, using a new, shorter form, projects can choose to file a GRF-f (for GRF-freenode) and submit a GRF for processing by freenode, rather than by PDPC. This sends details (no personal details, other than email address, will be required) to a system to which many more staff will have access. This new form will allow you to gain control of a channel and the right to issue cloaks much more quickly than previously, as we will double/treble the number of staff able to deal with requests.** For now, please only apply if you are a 'priority' group - ie, you do not own the main channel of your namespace.
+
If you already have a group registered and approved with an old-style GRF, you do not need to do anything. Your registration remains valid. If you need to make changes to the registration, please contact staff on freenode who will, if appropriate, direct you to use the old (GRF) system. The GRF-f system cannot be used to update groups which filed under the GRF system.
+
If you have a request pending in the old GRF queue, you are welcome to re-file under the GRF-f system. This is likely to mean that your request will be dealt with much more quickly than otherwise. This approach supersedes the grfprocess@ system introduced a while back - unfortunately, we just weren't able to keep up with requests to that address.
+
You might be wondering where all of this fits into the [GMS (Groups Management System)](http://freenode.net/gms.shtml) masterplan. When GMS is ready, we may need to ask all projects registered under the GRF-f system, and likely some projects which are already registered, to re-file. The GMS system will allow us to dispense with GRF-fs, and just build project<=>PDPC relationships, since forms will be able to be processed much more quickly. To be clear - it is quite possible that any registration made now may be revoked if a registration is not re-filed after GMS is released. If this does become reality, as much warning as possible will be given.
+
We hope that this will change will counter some of the ill-feeling around the GRFs system. In effect, the mentality is shifting from one of "GMS will clear the GRFs backlog" to "GMS will help us to serve groups better". We're no longer waiting for GMS to clear the queue. We're still looking for help with GMS: if you have Perl/Catalyst or web design experience and think you can help, join #freenode-gms.
+
Update 2012-06-09 - All group registration has been suspended whilst we evaluate the system and its implementation. A replacement should be available in due course, but for now it is not possible to register groups, and the link to the grf-f form has been removed.
- open source
- technical
---
-
We've got some ircd upgrades in the works!
+
You may remember several weeks ago that we upgraded our ircd on the production network. Since then, we've wanted to fine-tune some changes and make sure that the upgrade is more consistent with the old version.
+
Over the next few weeks, we'll be looking to perform upgrades on the production network again. This will mean every server will reboot. A programme for the upgrades can be found at the end of this post (updated 13th Nov 2011).
+
In the meantime, please continue to help us to test the ircd at testnet.freenode.net port 9002 or 9003 for SSL (if you don't get onto the first server that the DNS roundrobin gives you, keep trying!). Look for anything broken, inconsistent with previous versions (especially in terms of information release) or illogical. If serious issues are reported, we'll aim to fix before upgrading, rather than having a further later upgrade. Please report issues to #freenode-seven on the production network.
+
Thanks!
+
+
NB: this list does not include servers invisible to users (eg hubs).
Week 1: Sun 13th Nov
-!- kornbluth.freenode.net Frankfurt, Germany
-!- zelazny.freenode.net Corvallis, OR, USA
-!- stross.freenode.net Corvallis, OR, USA (webchat backup)
+
Week 2: Sun 20th Nov
-!- barjavel.freenode.net Paris, FR
-!- wolfe.freenode.net Manchester, England
-!- hubbard.freenode.net Pittsburgh, PA, US
+
Week 3: Sun 27th Nov
-!- adams.freenode.net Budapest, HU, EU
-!- holmes.freenode.net London, UK
-!- sendak.freenode.net Vilnius, Lithuania, EU
-!- rowling.freenode.net Corvallis, OR, USA (webchat)
+
Week 4: Sun 4th Dec
-!- pratchett.freenode.net Rennes, France
-!- calvino.freenode.net Milan, IT
-!- leguin.freenode.net Ume?, SE, EU
-!- niven.freenode.net Corvallis, OR, USA
+
Week 5: Sun 11th Dec
-!- hitchcock.freenode.net Sofia, BG, EU
-!- gibson.freenode.net Oslo, Norway
-!- card.freenode.net Washington, DC, USA
-!- asimov.freenode.net TX, USA
-!- verne.freenode.net Newark, NJ, US
+
Unscheduled.
-!- roddenberry.freenode.net
-!- bartol.freenode.net
-!- brown.freenode.net
-!- anthony.freenode.net
+
_
Update: all upgrades are now complete._
- pdpc
- social
---
-
It was the day before Christmas, when all across the network not a creature was stirring, not even a troll...
+
Another year is coming to a close, a year of FOSS, a year of collaboration, a year of getting to know exciting projects and contributors, a year plentiful in conferences and events. A year in which community was at the heart of everything freenode and the PDPC did.
+
I am sat here in a candle lit room that smells of Christmas spice whilst sipping eggnog and stealing a moment to myself to reflect... when I first started using freenode, the network had around 1200 users -- some years on we've passed 76,000. It is great to see so many projects make use of the service! The PDPC is doing some exciting stuff, FOSSCON was arranged for the second year running in 2011, FOSSEVENTS is still going strong and Geeknics are being held across the globe. Sometimes it is a bit daunting, everyone involved with freenode (and other PDPC projects) volunteer their time and skills to help the communities -- and whilst this is great, the volunteer roster isn't growing at a rate matching the increase in users. We will be doing another "Call for volunteers" in the New Year and we're looking to find some awesome people to add to the team.
+
On a more personal basis, I've had the pleasure of participating in some brilliant "real life" events this year - from the always brilliant [OGGCAMP](http://www.oggcamp.org), arranged by the amazing people behind the [Linux Outlaws](http://linuxoutlaws.org) and [Ubuntu UK podcasts](http://podcast.ubuntu-uk.org). OGGCAMP is the sort of event which attracts "my sort of geek" -- people with which I really enjoy spending time and socialising and I am already looking forward to next years! I've also enjoyed a number of Ubuntu-UK events, from the recent release party to smaller happy hours to the rather interesting Christmas meal at Dans Le Noir, where we ate a surprise menu (consisting of glow in the dark scallops, ostrich and blue shark to name some items!) in complete darkness before wandering off to enjoy a few pints of ale. Now, this is where freenode communities are great -- I am an avid fan of the Ubuntu project, however, I have never used the distribution (though as a Debian user I am sure I'd get on with it just fine.. right?) but through freenode I have, over the years, come to know a lot of Ubuntu contributors and users, and over time discovered that these are people I really enjoy spending my time and people I am proud to call my friends! And I love their social events, they are a lot of fun! So thank you for letting me be a part of your community despite not really being "one of you" ;)
+
On the subject of freenode, communities and Christmas parties -- as freenode volunteers are scattered across the globe, few of us meet on a regular basis but we tend to try make an effort to get together for dinner and drinks at events such as fosdem. This year, we decided to have a Christmas party, surprisingly we ended up with 21 people attending, most of which had never met each other in person before. Our volunteers flew over from America and Europe and we all had a smashing weekend filled with good food, nice drink and much laughter. Thank you all for coming!
+
In 2012 I look forward to learning about more projects, old and new. I look forward to attending yet more conferences and meeting more of you in person! I look forward to another year together with our volunteers and our sponsors, and of course our users.
+
On which note I shall wrap this entry up, thank you for using freenode and wish you all a Merry Christmas!
+
+
slug: focus-on-defocus
title: 'Focus on #defocus'
---
-
We've been working on improving the environment in #defocus for a while now. We think we're on the right track with opening up channel moderation to more than @freenode/staff/ but we need your help to get to where we want to be.
+
So this is a call out to those who think that they might be able to work with us to improve #defocus further. If you think you have what it takes to be a #defocus channel operator, or simply have some ideas that you want to share as to how the existing or new team can improve things, please /join #defocus-focus where you can state your desire to be considered for the team, or share your ideas, or both!
+
(Don't worry if you're the first one there, either, someone has to be!)
+
Hope to see you there.
+
mrmist.
slug: on-sopapipa
title: On SOPA/PIPA
---
-
Today, January 18th 2012, a number of websites, organisations and institutions along with countless individuals have chosen to take a stance to protest the proposed SOPA and PIPA legislations.
+
We believe that these acts could have a significant impact on the way in which we currently use the internet, and we strongly encourage and support raising awareness about the legislative proposals in order for people to make an informed decision about their stance on the issue.
+
Whilst we will not be partaking in any blackout to mark the occasion, we very much welcome frank and open discussion about SOPA/PIPA in ##sopa on the freenode network. The channel is not run by freenode staff, but was created by some people with a passion about the topics covered by the proposed legislations. If you feel passionate about SOPA/PIPA or you want to find out what all this is about, why not come along and join in the discussion?
+
As the USA is a power house in so far that they directly or indirectly control most of the internet's infrastructure, and the proposed legislation has been written in a manner in which they specifically take into account "foreign rogue sites", the legislation will, should it pass, have an impact upon the world as a whole.
+
For more information about SOPA/PIPA, please see:
+
* [Wikipedia's background information](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more)
slug: defocuss-visit-to-the-opticians-new-guidelines
title: 'Defocus''s visit to the opticians: new guidelines'
---
-
A couple of months ago, mrmist posted about the #defocus-focus channel, which was looking to improve the atmosphere in #defocus.
+
One of the areas that has been concentrated on is improving the ruleset for the channel. A number of people including Fuchs, dax, Ttech and others have involved in this improvement process.
+
As a result of the efforts of all the fantastic people involved in that channel, we now have a new set of guidelines for #defocus. You can read them on [our website](http://freenode.net/pounddefocus.shtml).
+
Hopefully these changes bring the guidelines up to date with the general expectations and aims of the channel. As always, comments are welcome!
+
Martinp23
slug: at-dawn-we-ride-for-fosdem-castle
title: At dawn, we ride for FOSDEM Castle
---
-
As usual, some of us will be around at FOSDEM.
+
A possibly incomplete list of us includes Fuchs*, kloeri, Md*, mquin, RichiH, and spaceinvader; asterisks indicating first timers. We may or may not update this list as attendance changes. As a first, we will have a somewhat stable base for people wanting to meat us. I (RichiH) will help man the beer token sale for the Beer Event this year, it's not unlikely that other staff will stick around as well. The first one to tell me where the quote is from (in person) will get a beer token.
+
Also, staff pets ahf and sejo will lurk the shadows of FOSDEM, ready to fulfill our every wish and dream. If you see them, toss them food.
- geeknic
- social
---
-
Today, we launched [planet.freenode.net](http://planet.freenode.net).
+
It aggregates this here staffblog, the Geeknic blog, and various personal blogs of the people behind and around freenode. Simply point your favourite RSS reader towards [this feed](http://planet.freenode.net/atom.xml) and you're good to go :)
slug: network-wide-policy-privacy-change
title: Network wide policy privacy change
---
-
[](http://blog.freenode.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/ITucplOwnTShozIfVT1cM2u0VTWyVPZwp3EupaD.jpg)
+
ITucplOwnTShozIfVT1cM2u0VTWyVPZwp3EupaD=
+
+
UPDATE : Yes, this was an April Fools Joke. Some of you fell for it, some didn't. There's still time to complete the quiz and get an April Fool cloak, if you can figure out where to go...
- freenode
- user count
---
-
As of today, freenode had 81443 concurrent connections. Last Friday, the count lingered around 79987, presumably to make things more interesting for those of us keeping close track.
+
We passed this milestone one working day later than I [predicted in January 2011](http://blog.freenode.net/2011/01/freenode-70k/ ), more than a year ago. Scary precision, I know. Extrapolation based on graphs and nothing else is a big no-no in the scientific circles, yet we really do grow at an exceptionally steady and predictable pace.
+
Still remembering the excitement when irc.openprojects.net surpassed 2,000 users, I have always had a knack for those numbers. Meaningless in and as of themselves, they do prove that we are able to provide a valuable service to our users and that more and more people apparently agree. freenode is not without growing pains, but I like to think that we are on a good path.
+
Once again, all of us would like to thank all our users and all our volunteers. It's a fun ride for us and, hopefully, for you, too!
+
To make tracking our old posts regarding this easier, here goes:
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/ )
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2011/01/freenode-70k/](http://blog.freenode.net/2011/01/freenode-70k/ )
+
+
See you around July 2013 when we expect to hit 90k.. :)
slug: april-fools-day
title: April Fool's Day!
---
-
Needless to say, our policy changes announced yesterday were in jest, and are not real ([unlike a similarly themed post on April Fool's Day from somewhere far more important!](http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-17576745)).
+
Expect a future blog post about what you could have seen, reading between the lines ;)
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
Every couple of years, freenode likes to get out the shears and prune the services database. Recently we broke the 80,000 usercount barrier, but the services stats are way ahead:
+
+
+
<blockquote>Sat 13:35:46 -OperServ(OperServ@services.)- Registered accounts: 446777
Sat 13:35:46 -OperServ(OperServ@services.)- Registered nicknames: 557497
Sat 13:35:47 -OperServ(OperServ@services.)- Registered channels: 141373</blockquote>
+
+
+
We've noticed that nearly half of the accounts shown there haven't been used in the past 6 months! More importantly, over the past few months many people have noticed significant waits when issuing certain services commands - and we'd like to fix that.
+
Hopefully, the [services upgrade](http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/help-us-test-our-services-upgrade/) should help with this, but we're going to coincide this with a database prune.
+
As of the services upgrade date, any nicks unused for > 150 days are at risk of being dropped. This includes grouped nicks. The easy way to avoid this happening is to use each of your grouped nicks (while identified to the appropriate account) within the next few weeks - and to drop those that you don't need anymore!
+
The testnet (testnet.freenode.net, port 9002. 9003 for SSL) is running a database snapshot from mid-March and will be periodically updated from the production network. This database instance is being regularly pruned - so check there to see how your account will be affected (use /msg nickserv info on both the production and test networks to see the differences).
+
Remember that testnet isn't running a real-time duplicate of the production network, so when you use nicks which would be expired on the production network, they will still appear expired on testnet until the next database snapshot is migrated. Don't worry though - the actual pruning will only occur on the current database at the time of upgrade.
+
On which note.. an upgrade date hasn't been formally fixed but we're aiming for mid-May.
+
Thanks, and don't forget to [test the testnet](http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/help-us-test-our-services-upgrade/)!
- projects
- technical
---
-
Very soon we will be upgrading your favourite network helpers... (no not erry…): NickServ, ChanServ, Alis etc. They’re currently connected to our testnet and we need your help with testing, looking for any issues which may affect the production network.
+
You can connect to our testnet at testnet.freenode.net port 9002 (or 9003 for SSL)
+
The full changelog is rather long and not all of the features offered by atheme are loaded on freenode. So to help you out, we’ve pulled out the highlights which we think deserve attention:
Please note that the services database on the testnet is probably more than a few days old. Don’t be surprised if recent changes you have made on the production network aren’t replicated there.
+
We’re all in in #freenode on the testnet so please come find us there if you have any questions or bugs.
+
Finally, look out for a followup blogpost (hopefully quite soon) with some important information on the upgrade itself and our planned database cleanup!
+
Thanks for using freenode!
+
P.s. a full list of changes from atheme ~5.1 to ~6 can be found [here](http://git.atheme.org/release/atheme-6.0/plain/NEWS?id=f834f9d42faba966424768434fcf58363535ce28)
slug: april-1st-the-aftermath
title: April 1st, the aftermath
---
-
It's been two weeks since our April Fools quiz; thanks to everybody who participated. Several people managed to complete the quiz; the first eight are:
+
1. dwfreed
8. [bjoern]
+
Here are the riddles and their solutions, in the original order:
+
+
Stage 1, the picture linked on the blog:
+
ITucplOwnTShozIfVT1cM2u0VTWyVPZwp3EupaD=
+
This was base64 + rot13 encryption,
##start
+
+
Stage 2, topic in ##start
###### MLG UZHGVI GSZM
+
Encryption A-Z Z-A,
"NOT FASTER THAN"
+
With a bit of thinking, this led the users to ######neutrinos
+
+
Stage 3, topic in ######neutrinos
+
#### C0LEMAK 43WRXC 34PTCXRW XSF34GDVC BHJ6 CTP4GHKNL7 87JHKMEN
+
Solvable with a picture of the [Colemak keyboard layout](http://colemak.com/wiki/images/8/80/Colemak_layout_2.png) and a bit of tracing with your fingers. Following the path between the keys on the keyboard gave you C, O, D, I, N, G.
+
+
Stage 4, topic in ####coding
+
3. #### Find a five-digit number in which the last number is the sum of the first, second, and third; the third is four less than the last; the fourth is two less than the last; and the first and fourth added are one less than the last. The last number is also three times the second.
+
Plain math, 13579
+
+
Stage 5, topic in ####13579
+
#### This "huge" work, written over twen ty years, contains ten books. What colour is it?
+
The Great Book of Amber
####amber
+
Last Stage, topic in ####amber
+
i yam what i yam but i yam ####
+
which lead to ####popeye, the final channel.
+
+
We hope you enjoyed our little quiz and had a great time.
- fosscon
- pdpc
---
-
August 11th, 2012 (All day)
+
Hi everyone,
In just a couple of months we will be hosting FOSSCON (Free and Open Source Software Conference), focusing on the community that has grown around Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), and in parallel to both the Free Culture and Open Source cultural movements.
This is a community-focused live event designed to build and strengthen relationships between Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) developers and users. FOSSCON seeks to raise awareness of and promote FOSS alternatives to proprietary software. Facilitating face-to-face interaction, creative workshops, talks and think tanks, FOSSCON brings developers and users together in a nurturing and dynamic environment stimulating the free exchange of ideas and information while fostering cross-project collaboration and dialogue for innovation.
FOSSCON is a Peer-Directed Projects Center (PDPC) project, organized by the foss community. FOSSCON (along with [Geeknics](http://geeknic.org)) is part of PDPC’s desire to bring an already massive online community, [freenode ](http://freenode.net)that has grown around free and open source ideas, out into the world, to meet, connect, support and challenge each other, imagine, plot and co-develop beautiful, possibly useful and unexpected things.
+
The people behind FOSSCON are free software enthusiasts, user group members, coders and users – just like you! Free software is all about community and this is a very grassroots event, organized by the community and for the community. Our common goal is to provide a space for us to all come together in the northeast. We hope you’ll join us as an attendee, a volunteer or an exhibitor.
FOSSCON will last all day. See the regularly updated schedule of presentations (and proposal guidelines) here: [http://fosscon.org/speakers](http://fosscon.org/speakers)
+
Anyone in the FOSS community with interesting and exciting topics is invited to submit a talk to speak at this event. As a general event built for the community at large, the range of acceptable topics is broad, however FOSSCON traditionally favors topics with an immediate real world use in home, work, or education environments and broadly categorizes talks under one of these headings.
+
The program committee invites proposals for paper presentations, demonstrations and poster contributions on any topic relevant to FOSS awareness, accessibility and application. We want to offer something for beginning, intermediate, and advanced learning levels with particular emphasis on the following topics:
You can join us on the IRC network “chat.freenode.net” and join the channel “#fosscon” to talk with the planning team and others interested in FOSSCON, ask questions, or volunteer to help us out. You can easily join the channel using webchat by clicking here: [http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon](http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=fosscon).
+
You can also check out our [facebook](https://www.facebook.com/FOSSCON) page, or our [twitter](https://twitter.com/#!/fossconne) feed.
+
See you all then!
+
slug: group-registration-closure
title: Group Registration Closure
---
-
Our group registration system has been around for some time, in various guises. Over that time, our small but dedicated team of staff has attempted to keep up with demand for groups. Unfortunately, in the early years of GRF, this generated a substantial backlog of processing, since the system was very manual, a lot of data was processed (restricting the staff who had access) and each group can take some time to properly investigate. To address this issue, we've tried a number of alternatives, such as priority group emails, and, lately, a streamlined group registration system known as "grf-f".
+
For various reasons, these replacements haven't worked quite how we'd want or need them to in order to achieve our objective of registering groups in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, development of GMS, our automated replacement GRF system, continues.
+
For these reasons, we have taken the decision to temporarily close the group registration system.
+
What this means is that -
Please bear with us whilst we work on where we want to go next with this system. Meanwhile, if there are channels currently owned by freenode-staff that your project could make use of, please contact a staffer to see if (provisional) op rights can be granted to your account. (These would likely be done on a somewhat temporary basis, until such time as registration re-opens.) Note also that this is *only* to gain ops on channels, *not* for obtaining group cloaks.
+
As always, thanks for flying freenode!
+
mrmist.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
Hi
The long-awaited upgrade of services which we [blogged about a while ago](http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/database-prune/) is now planned for this coming weekend, the 16th/17th June.
+
We anticipate up to an hour of services outage for this upgrade and prune to take place. We will notify the connected users closer to the time through the use of WALLOPS and/or globals, but please do plan ahead accordingly for a period of services unavailability.
+
We will be moving to Atheme 7, so, amongst other improvements, this will see the introduction of certificate-based authentication to services.
+
To use certificate based authentication, you would need firstly to generate a certificate, then add the certificate to your client, then tell nickserv about your certificate fingerprint. We'll explain more about this in a future blog entry or on the freenode website in the near future.
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
The planned services upgrade and database prune went ahead today as planned and has completed successfully. Approximately 300000 nicks were removed from the database, and we've moved to Atheme 7, so hopefully response times from services should be improved, with less of the lag that was sometimes noticeable before.
+
In addition, certificate based authentication is now available. We'll hopefully get the docs for this up online shortly.
+
slug: happy-2013-hope-you-had-a-good-2012
title: Happy 2013, hope you had a good 2012
---
-
We would all like to wish you a happy 2013!
+
May it be as good as, or even better than, 2012.
- infrastructure
- pdpc
---
-
Sadly, we were forced to dissolve PDPC, freenode's parent organisation.
+
When the organisation transferred across from the US to the UK we wanted to keep the organisational structure as close to what it had been before (change is scary, right?) -- however, we made the conscious decision to no longer have any paid employees after Rob Levin passed away. This meant that everyone involved with the organisation were volunteers and we no longer had anyone who could invest the time and effort required to do fundraising and similar tasks, meaning that the organisation was unable to sustain the levels of donations required to obtain and maintain charitable status in the UK.
+
Due to the massive reduction in financial support we found ourselves in a position where being an incorporated organisation cost more than what we were able to bring in in donations and after years of operating at a loss it was decided that we would apply for the dissolution of the corporation in order to drastically reduce costs. The application has been processed and the organisation has been dissolved; to further reduce costs we have also discontinued the majority of infrastructure services for which the organisation paid, together with the reduced administration and organisational fees this means that we are now in a position where our outgoings are restricted to domain renewals! We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the organisation in the past, users, organisations and staff in particular, who have always been (begrudgingly?) happy to contribute towards the difference in order to cover the deficit.
+
## What does this organisational change mean for freenode?
+
In practise it means very little, the PDPC has never been involved in the day to day operations of the network and there will be no changes to the way in which the network is run. freenode is staffed entirely by volunteers from all over the globe who contribute their time and expertise to keep the network up and running in between contributing to various other FOSS projects.
+
## What about other PDPC projects, such as fosscon, geeknic, and the fossevents site?
+
These projects will continue as they have before, and we invite you to attend [fosscon ](http://fosscon.org)for real world talks and collaboration, to join a geeknic picnic or plan your own at [http://geeknic.org](http://geeknic.org), and to check out [http://fossevents.org](http://fossevents.org) for events in your neighbourhood and around the world.
+
## I appreciate the work you do and I still want to contribute
+
The best way in which to help the network is to contribute time -- help out in #freenode or elsewhere on the network, assist users in finding answers to their questions and help us try keep the channel and network temperature at a nice, comfortable level which encourages collaboration!
If you are low on time but still want to help out you might be able to help us through your company or organisation by becoming a server sponsor (See "[Hosting a server](http://freenode.net/hosting_ircd.shtml)" for more information).
If you feel that one particular volunteer has helped you out and you want to say thank you -- ask them if they have a preferred charity to which you could make a small donation! With time we might update our website to provide links and information of such preferences.
+
## Existing PDPC donor cloaks
+
Existing PDPC donor cloaks will remain valid for a full year, after which they will be converted to unaffiliated cloaks. Ongoing donations will be cancelled by us. If you have previously donated to PDPC you'll still qualify for your donor cloak as normal. If you believe you're due a cloak and we haven't processed it yet please [contact us.](http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#contents-gettinghelp)
slug: insert-witty-title-here
title: Insert witty title here
---
-
Like every year, we would like to invite our users to take part in the April 1st quiz and have the chance to win an April Fools' cloak.
+
Good luck, lots of fun, and thanks for flying freenode trebutchet!
+
**What does Dorothy wish she was on the other side of?
###>++++++++++ [>++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>+++++++++++>++++++++++><<<<<<-] >+>++>++++>+>+++> <<<<<< >.>.>.>.>.
##bhggbyhapu**
categories:
- April 1st
---
-
It’s been a little more than a week since we started our April Fools quiz this year; thanks to everybody who participated.
+
The first ten people who completed all three tracks are, in descending order of aprilness:
+
Here are the riddles and their solutions, in the original order:
The topic in **##K&R** was: _Congratulations! You have completed freenode's crypto challenge! | Make sure to also play the other quizzes, and take this with you ###est | [http://git.io/TLfWTg](http://git.io/TLfWTg) _
+
With **###the** and **###best** and **###est** you are expected to put these pieces together to find **###thebestest**
+
Congratulations to those who have completed all the tracks and levels!
slug: the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly
title: The good, the bad, and the ugly...
---
-
Firstly, I would like to apologise for the interruptions the network has experienced in the last week (and continues to experience as we speak). I would also like to thank our incredible server sponsors for the time and dedication they have shown in helping us attempt to deal with the situation.
+
**Sponsors** -- sponsors are the lifeblood of the network; without sponsors there would be no freenode. Unfortunately, the recent attacks have been significant enough for some of our sponsors to pull the plug as they were unable to continue providing the same level of assistance to the network as they had in the past. These kind of attacks can be costly for our sponsors; the disruptions soon have a financial impact for sponsors and their paying clients when service is disrupted. They are also costly in time and resources spent trying to alleviate the issues caused within their networks. To those of our sponsors who have had to discontinue sponsorship, in part or in full, I would like to thank you for the years of support. Not just for freenode but for the Free and Open Source Software Communities and we can only apologise for the difficulties your organisations have experienced as a result of these recent attacks.
+
**Free and Open Source Software Communities** -- whilst sponsors may be the lifeblood of the network, the FOSS communities are our reason for being. Unfortunately they, along with our sponsors, are the ones suffering at the hands of the attacker(s) -- it is their projects that are disrupted and affected and we can only apologise for the instability and disruption experienced by projects on the network in this last week.
+
**freenode** -- ironically freenode is the puzzle piece that gets off lightly. We're just a bunch of people passionate about FOSS -- the network itself is devoid of feeling and whilst our volunteers do their best dealing with the aftermath of the attacks and try to keep the network up and running the reality is that in the grand scheme of things freenode is nothing. freenode is just a means to an end; the projects that have chosen to use freenode could easily go elsewhere, the volunteers who staff the network... well, they could easily go wherever their projects went -- we volunteer for freenode because we're passionate about FOSS, and the majority of us also contribute to one or several FOSS projects or have done in the past. For us it has never been about "freenode" -- it has been about FOSS; and the projects we, as individuals, care about. We are all freenode users first, and staffers second.
+
If there was no freenode, there would be other alternatives -- perhaps similar alternatives, perhaps very different alternatives. The FOSS communities are full of talented, passionate people and I have no doubt that we'd all find different ways to stay in touch and work on our projects even if there was no freenode.
+
That's not to say we're about to throw in the towel -- we've all invested a lot of time and effort in the network and I am sure we will continue to do so for as long as there are projects wanting to use it and sponsors willing to help us.
+
I wish I could provide you with detailed information about the attacks and the cause of them -- but these details are but a mystery to us and with nearly 90,000 users I'd be loathe to speculate as to who we might have annoyed... or how. For the time being, we intend to continue mitigating attacks where possible and continuing to endeavour to provide service as usual!
+
Once more, thank you for the support and the faith in the project -- and thank you for the patience whilst our infrastructure team desperately tries to juggle our infrastructure around to bring back as much of our normal services as is possible at this point in time.
- freenode
- user count
---
-
freenode has been growing slowly and steadily, breaking the next practically-useless-but-still-kinda-neat barrier of more than 90,000 concurrent connections at the same time. It's very nice, and humbling, to know that we are able to enable so many people to communicate with each other.
+
I shouldn't have added a month of leeway at the last second to my [last prediction](http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/80k/) so the scary scary 100,000 is officially targeted for May 2014. Yes, the pace at which freenode is growing seems to be increasing ever so slightly.
+
Historic posts for those of you keeping track:
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2007/08/freenode-has-reached-40-000-users/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/](http://blog.freenode.net/2008/09/50000-active-users/ )
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/](http://blog.freenode.net/2009/12/happy-new-year-2010/)
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2011/01/freenode-70k/](http://blog.freenode.net/2011/01/freenode-70k/ )
+
[http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/80k/](http://blog.freenode.net/2012/04/80k/)
- technical
- webchat
---
-
We've recently enabled some new functionality in our ircd to further help you manage your channels:
WEBIRC has been enabled so that behind their hostmask, users can now be considered to be connecting from their real address. This means that a single ban format can apply to both direct connections and webchat connections.
+
For example, a user connecting from 171.205.18.52 will still appear as 'nickname!abcd1234@gateway/web/freenode/ip.171.205.18.52' but ban masks of the form '*!*@171.205.18.52' will match! This is now the most effective method of matching users using webchat but the realname and hexip username are still available.
+
Although freenode's webchat is available over SSL, the webchat's localhost connection to the ircd is not SSL, so webchat users do not get user mode +Z. Webchat users will not be able to join a +S channel and will not match the $z extban, even if they are using webchat over SSL.
These channel modes can not guarantee secure communication in all cases; if you choose to rely on them, please understand what they can and can't do, and what other security considerations there are.
+
There are a variety of known security problems with SSL, and reasons why the +S mode may not guarantee transport security on freenode. Some of these are:
This is not an authoritative list, so before using +S as part of any channel which requires strong anonymity, please ensure you understand what it does and its drawbacks.
+
There are other security tools you may want to look at - you may want to consider using client plugins that provide additional encryption or route your connection through Tor. Tor also allows you to create spurious traffic to hide real traffic patterns. freenode provides its own hidden Tor node which means you can trust this connection as much as you trust freenode. Your IRC traffic with freenode via Tor is end-to-end encrypted from your Tor client to our Tor node. It does not pass through any third party nodes in unencrypted form.
+
Finally, unless you can trust everyone in a channel and are sure it is configured properly and you understand the other technical risks, do not rely on these channel modes exclusively. Security is generally layered; ensure you have good defense in depth and don't rely on individual controls which may be a single point of failure.
categories:
- fosscon
---
-
FOSSCON 2013 will be held on August 10th, 2013. Several of our very own staff here at freenode will be attending this year and we are really looking forward to it.
+
* Bhavani Shankar will be speaking on how to bring in new developers to open source projects.
- freenode
- infrastructure
---
-
For the purpose of disclosure we have had to make the difficult decision to discontinue a long-standing relationship with a server sponsor.
+
As a freenode user you may be aware that our set-up is somewhat untraditional and differs from that of many other IRC networks; servers are sponsored by various companies and educational institutions across the globe and all our infrastructure is centrally managed by the freenode infrastructure team. Generally speaking we do not provide o:lines or other privileges to server sponsors. Whilst it is possible for a sponsor contact to also volunteer as a staffer on the network such recruitment is independent of any server hosting.
+
Our staff are expected to work together closely and communication is key in any freenode relationship, be that with users, among staff or with sponsor contacts. It is important to us to be consistent in the way we provide support and apply policy and we expect all volunteers to be intimately familiar with our policies, procedures and philosophies -- which in turn means that senior staff invest a lot of time in ensuring that any new recruits are given adequate support when getting to know the ins and outs of the network and what being a freenode volunteer entails.
+
Unfortunately one of our server sponsors added an o:line for themselves on the server they sponsored and whilst we do not believe that this was done with any malicious intent, more through thoughtlessness/negligence and having forgotten the expectations set out on our "Hosting a Server" page we feel that we are unable to comfortably and confidently continue the relationship.
+
Our number one priority has to be our target communities, the Free and Open Source Software communities that have chosen to make use of freenode in their internet activities.
+
Whilst we do not believe and have no evidence to indicate that any user traffic or data has been compromised, we would of course encourage you to change your passwords if you feel that this would make you more comfortable in continuing to use our services.
+
We can only apologise for this happening and we'd like to assure you that trust is incredibly important to us and that we are incredibly embarassed that this situation arose in the first place.
+
As a result of this we have just replaced our SSL certificates, so if you notice that these have changed then this is the reason why.
+
We will of course take this opportunity to remind all our sponsors of our expectations when it comes to providing services to freenode and our target communities.
+
Again, we apologise for any inconvenience and we hope that any loss of trust in the network that may have resulted from this incidence can be restored and that your projects will continue to feel comfortable using the network in future.
+
+
slug: check-your-nickserv-email
title: 'Reminder: Keep your NickServ email up to date.'
---
-
If you've registered with NickServ within the last few years then you'll have used an email address and we'll have sent you a mail to verify it. That will probably be the last time you heard from us...
+
...until you forget your password and find yourself unable to identify to your account. When that happens we can send an email (only to that same address) to verify your identify and reset your password.
+
You aren't stuck with the email you originally used though! We'd very strongly recommend you take 5 minutes to double check the set email address is current, especially in light of recent [service](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/08/lavabit-email-shut-down-edward-snowden) [closures](http://silentcircle.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/to-our-customers/). You don't need access to your old inbox to change your registered email, just your NickServ password.
+
To view the current state of your account, while identified type:
... then check your email inbox. We'll have sent you another email with instructions to verify this new address.
+
Your email address is hidden from other users by default. You can ensure this by setting:
slug: turbulence
title: Turbulence
---
-
As many of you will be aware, freenode has been experiencing intermittent instability today, as the network has been under attack. Whilst we have network services back online, the network continues to be a little unreliable and users are continuing to report issues in connecting to the network.
+
We appreciate the patience of our many wonderful users whilst we continue to work to mitigate the effects this has on the network.
+
We also greatly appreciate our many sponsors who work with us to help minimise the impact and who are themselves affected by attacks against the network.
+
We've [posted on this subject before](http://blog.freenode.net/2013/05/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/), and what we said then remains as true as ever - and for those of you who didn't read the earlier blogpost first time round, it's definitely worth perusing it now if this subject interests or affects you.
+
Thank you all for your patience as we continue to work to restore normal service!
+
**[UPDATE 04/02/2014]**
+
_At the moment SASL authentication works only on PLAINTEXT, *not* BLOWFISH. We've checked and TOR should be working too. Sadly wolfe.freenode.net will be taken off the rotation, so those users who've connected specifically to it, please make sure that your client points to our recommended roundrobin of chat.freenode.net!_
categories:
- April 1st
---
-
UPDATE: This was of course an April Fool... you can "/msg nickserv set property GOOGLE+" to remove the property from your account. There might still be other secrets within the message though...
+
[](http://blog.freenode.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/freenode41.png)
+
Edit: Previous versions of the post contained an incorrect NickServ command. We have corrected this and apologise for the inconvenience.
- security
- technical
---
-
The recently exposed [heartbleed bug](http://heartbleed.com/) in the OpenSSL library has surprised everyone with a [catastrophic](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2014/04/heartbleed.html) vulnerability in many of the world's secure systems.
+
In common with many other SSL-exposed services, some freenode servers were running vulnerable versions of OpenSSL, exposing us to this exploit. Consequently, all of our affected services have been patched to mitigate the vulnerability, and we have also regenerated our private SSL keys and certificates.
+
In an unrelated event, due to service disruption & the misconfiguration of a single server on our network, an unauthorised user was allowed to use the 'NickServ' nickname for a short period Sunday morning. Unfortunately there is a possibility that your client sent data (including your freenode services password) to this unauthorised client. Identification via SASL, certfp or server password were not affected, but any password sent directly to the "NickServ" user might have been.
+
Because of these two recent issues, we would like to make the following recommendations to all of our users. It would also be good practice to follow them at regular intervals.
+
* In line with general best practice, we would always recommend using separate passwords on separate systems - if you shared your freenode services password with other systems, you should **change your password on all of these systems**; preferably into individual ones.
- April 1st
- freenode
---
-
It's been almost too long for this blog post to arrive here after the April Fools quiz this year. Thanks to everyone who participated!
+
1. 2014-04-02T18:25:17 booto
* jojoa1997
+
+
* Level 0
+
* Level 1
+
* Level 2
+
* Level 3
+
* Level 4
+
* Level 5
+
* Level 6
+
* Level 7
+
* Level 8
+
* Level 9
+
* Level 10
+
- infrastructure
- technical
---
-
We have loaded a new module on the network which provides the $j extban type:
...would ban users from #here that are banned (+b) in #timbuktu.
+
Please note that there are a couple of gotchas:
We imagine you'll have some more useful use cases than the above.
+
Thanks for flying freenode!
slug: server-issues-2
title: Server issues
---
-
Earlier today the freenode infra team noticed an anomaly on a single IRC server. We have since identified that this was indicative of the server being compromised by an unknown third party. We immediately started an investigation to map the extent of the problem and located similar issues with several other machines and have taken those offline. For now, since network traffic may have been sniffed, we recommend that everyone change their NickServ password as a precaution.
+
Before changing your password, please check your email address in /msg nickserv info and, if needed, update it - see /msg nickserv help set email (remember to check your new email for the verification key). This will ensure that we can send you a password reset email should, for whatever reason, your password change not work properly. If you have no email set on your account or an email set that you cannot access, we cannot send password resets to you, so do please keep this up-to-date.
+
To change your password use /msg nickserv set password newpasshere
+
+
+
Since traffic may have been sniffed, you may also wish to consider any channel keys or similar secret information exchanged over the network.
+
We'll issue more updates as WALLOPS and via social media!
slug: server-issues-update
title: 'Server Issues: Update'
---
-
Following up on our [previous blog post](http://blog.freenode.net/2014/09/server-issues-2/), we have continued to investigate the compromise of freenode infrastructure, aided by our sponsors in addition to experts in the field.
+
NCC Group's Cyber Defence Operations team kindly provided pro bono digital forensic and reverse engineering services to assist our infrastructure team and have recently published a report with some of their findings:
+
[https://www.nccgroup.com/en/blog/2014/10/analysis-of-the-linux-backdoor-used-in-freenode-irc-network-compromise/](https://www.nccgroup.com/en/blog/2014/10/analysis-of-the-linux-backdoor-used-in-freenode-irc-network-compromise/)
+
NCC's support has been invaluable in aiding us in further securing our infrastructure, and we have already made significant changes to ensure that it is more resilient against further attacks. Our investigation into the compromise is ongoing and we will provide further updates as appropriate.
+
In the mean time, if you haven't updated your password, we would advise you do so as some traffic may have been sniffed. Simply "/msg nickserv set password newpasshere" and don't forget to update your client's saved password.
+
Whilst we endeavour to provide a robust service, it is worth bearing in mind that no computer system is ever perfectly secure and many are inevitably breached. For this reason we do not suggest relying entirely on freenode (or any infrastructure) to protect sensitive data, and encourage our users to take further steps (e.g. unique passwords per service, encryption) as part of a defence in depth strategy to safeguard it.
+
We are extremely grateful to NCC in addition to our many other sponsors for their assistance and continued support. Without the ongoing support of our generous sponsors and wonderful infrastructure team, freenode would quite literally not have a network!
+
We will be continuing to work with our sponsors in addition to other relevant authorities regarding this breach and any further incidents.
- philosophy
- technical
---
-
As a network, we feel it is hugely important to maintain close relationships with our many communities and users. Our interactions with users in #freenode and elsewhere on the network, fielding support requests and assisting users, help build and maintain these relationships.
+
But we're constantly looking for things to change and make better, and one of the pieces of feedback we've had is that users would like a little automation - and the ability to be able to resolve some of their own support requests.
+
We recognise that allowing users to generate their own password reset e-mails brings us in line with other registration systems online and may provide a higher quality of service.
+
So for now, if you are having difficulties accessing your account, you can generate your own password reset e-mail using the following command:
This command will only work with an offline account (i.e. it won't work if a client is logged into your account via NickServ), and should obviously only be used on an account that you believe is yours.
+
We will be keeping an eye on how this feature is used, and may retain it permanently if it proves to be helpful and non-harmful!
slug: atheme-7-2-and-freenode
title: Atheme 7.2 and freenode
---
-
Hello!
+
We've begun some testing on Atheme's latest release, 7.2, and we'd like to invite interested users to help with that.
+
Not all changes the Atheme project has included in their new release will be included in our Atheme upgrade, so here's the bulk of the changes that will actually affect our network:
You should be able to connect to testnet at testnet.freenode.net Port 9002 for cleartext, and 9003 for SSL. Bear in mind, the database is a couple weeks old, so changes you've recently made on the production network may not be mirrored on the testnet network. Various amounts of staff should be idling in #freenode on testnet at all times, please feel free to poke us with any questions.
+
Thanks!
+
- projects
- social
---
-
The GNOME project will be familiar to the vast majority of our users, what you might not be aware of is that the project is currently facing an expensive trademark battle against Groupon with the latter having allegedly chosen to infringe upon GNOME's trademark by launching a product with the same name (a POS "operating system for merchants to run their entire operation").
+
I am not going to go into the details here, as they have been explained by the GNOME project over at [http://www.gnome.org/groupon/](http://www.gnome.org/groupon/) and the GNOME folk are in a much better position than me to provide more detailed information on the matter.
+
What I am going to do is appeal for your help. The GNOME project is looking to raise $80,000 to cover the legal costs involved in defending their trademark. At the time of writing this post the freenode network has 89,998 connected users. Users who are passionate about FOSS.
+
If each of us donated just ONE DOLLAR to the GNOME project they would cover the anticipated legal costs AND have some spare change leftover for a pint when the proceedings conclude.
+
Even if you do not use GNOME, please consider helping them out. This is bigger than just GNOME and I think would be fantastic if the FOSS communities could drum together to support our own.
+
If you head over to [http://www.gnome.org/groupon/](http://www.gnome.org/groupon/) you can make a donation directly via PayPal by clicking on the "Help us by donating today" button.
+
Update: Due to the controversial nature of PayPal, GNOME is now also offering [ other ways to donate ](https://www.gnome.org/friends/other-ways-to-donate).
+
Thank you!
+
Update #2: According to the Groupon blog and [this article over at Engadget ](http://www.engadget.com/2014/11/11/groupon-gnome-foundation-trademark-war/)Groupon has issued the following statement: "Groupon is a strong and consistent supporter of the open source community, and our developers are active contributors to a number of open source projects. We've been communicating with the Foundation for months to try to come to a mutually satisfactory resolution, including alternative branding options, and we're happy to continue those conversations. Our relationship with the open source community is more important to us than a product name. And if we can't come up with a mutually acceptable solution, we'll be glad to look for another name."
+
I am assuming that this means that the trademarks filed will be retracted and that the GNOME project can go about business as usual. I am certain they will be releasing a statement with further details before long.
- expiry
- nicks
---
-
On or around Friday, October 2nd, we shall be cleaning up the services database. This involves the bulk removal of expired nicks, channels and accounts.
+
Therefore, please remember to identify to services when you connect ( /msg nickserv help identify ) and to use your grouped nicks whilst identified - remember, they all expire separately.
+
Nicks that are past the expiry threshold of 120 days unidentified on October 2nd will be freed from the database and available for others to register.
+
If you have a nick grouped to your account that you'd prefer to use as your main nick, you can change your account name - see /msg nickserv help set accountname for information.
+
Remember you can use sendpass to recover lost passwords - see /msg nickserv help sendpass.
slug: recent-events-and-future-changes
title: Recent Events and Future Changes
---
-
Many of you have been asking questions about the recent rash of high-profile
staff resignations, and we feel we owe you all both an explanation and an
apology.
+
First, the explanation: in short, it's become clear over recent months that
freenode has lost its way somewhat, when compared to the ideals and goals that
we were created with. A growing sense of disillusionment amongst those of us who
Naturally, when some of these people decided they could no longer continue with
the way things had become, it was time for us to think long and hard about what
had gone wrong and what we should do about it.
+
And so, to the apology. We're uncomfortably aware that freenode was set up with
the strong idea that the projects and communities which use it should be the
first, and often the only, priority. We've lost sight of that, and we're sorry.
We'll be doing our best, from now on, to get back in touch with the ideals that
made freenode such a great place.
+
This won't be easy for us, as we've got years of bad habits to break, but
hopefully you should start seeing some improvements in the coming months. If you
see anything that we're not doing that would help your communities, please tell
us and we'll try our best to find a way to make it happen. You might see a bit
of chaos or inconsistency while we try to find our way around again, but please
try to bear with us and we hope you'll see things get better in time.
+
And finally, because we're conscious that a lack of clarity around our
leadership structure has not helped matters, we've decided to set out
unambiguously how the staff management structure will work from now on. Our
slug: the-new-policies
title: The New Policies
---
-
One of the several problems that's become obvious in recent times is that we have too many policies, they're often not consistent with each other, and we've spent too much time and effort wondering whether something, which is obviously the right thing to do, fits with our published policy. With that in mind, the following stripped-back set of policies will apply in future, with the intention that we can set out a simple set of baselines and apply common sense on top of them.
+
**Nickname ownership**
+
Nicknames are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis, to the first person
who registers the name with NickServ. However, we expect users to act in good
faith and reserve the right to remove a nickname registration where we believe
In some cases, such as for very old accounts, we may, at our discretion, extend
the expiry time of a nickname or account. We will not normally do this beyond 15
weeks past the last use.
+
Some nicknames and accounts, including but not limited to some of those owned by
current or former network staff, do not expire at all. These accounts can be
identified by the 'Hold' flag in their NickServ info output.
+
Nicknames and accounts which are expired will not automatically be dropped.
Please contact network staff if you would like to take over an expired nickname.
+
**Channel ownership**
+
Channels on freenode fall into one of two categories. Primary channels, which
begin with a single # character, are reserved for on-topic projects. If you'd
like to take over one of these channels, then you'll need to be associated in
the first person who registers it with ChanServ. As with nicknames, however, we
reserve the right to remove or alter registrations where we believe they have
not been made in good faith.
+
Primary channels do not expire with inactivity, though they can be claimed at
any time by a representative of an on-topic project with the appropriate name.
Topical channels expire after 60 days in which no user on the access list for
the channel has joined it.
+
**On-topic Use**
+
freenode's primary goal is to encourage and foster the development and use of
free and open source software projects and other peer-directed communities
producing broadly licensed creative output. Any project falling under this broad
description is likely to be considered on-topic for the purposes of primary
channel naming and other project services which we may provide, but individual
decisions may be made at the discretion of staff.
+
**Off-topic Use**
+
We expect all users of the network, whether affiliated with a project or not, to
act in good faith and in accordance with both their local laws and those
applicable where freenode operates. Use of freenode and its facilities is a
projects / irc / freenode / web-7.0.git / commitdiff
