| On 19 May 2021, freenode was taken over by an abusive troll named | |
| Andrew Lee (rasengan)... As a result references to freenode below | |
| refer to freenode as it existed before 19 May 2021. (or its | |
| successor libera.chat from that day onward). | |
| Links to the freenode website have been replaced with the | |
| archive.org snapshot from September 2020. | |
| ---------------------------------------- | |
| IRC (except freenode) is dying from incompetent channel operators | |
| September 12th, 2020 | |
| ---------------------------------------- | |
| According to Pingdom, Internet Relay Chat has lost around 60% of its | |
| users (and a similar percentage of channels since 2003... | |
| I am of the opinion that on at least one of the traditional big-four | |
| networks, UnderNet, it's mostly because of incompetence on the part of | |
| channel owners. On UnderNet, channel operators often leave their | |
| channels on moderated mode +m for years on end and do not voice new | |
| users to their channel in a timely manner, the X user level 25 of | |
| "trusted channel regular" is basically never used either... | |
| Additionally many channels on UnderNet that would otherwise be good are | |
| allowing well-known trolls to have free reign of the channel, which is a | |
| great way to ensure new users bail quickly. | |
| Meanwhile while UnderNet declines, freenode grows leaps and bounds, the | |
| biggest difference I see between the two networks is that freenode | |
| actually encourages communications and discourages trolls; typically | |
| without doing silly stuff such as leaving channels on moderation for | |
| years on end. | |
| UnderNet channels could really do a few things to help themselves out: | |
| 1. Read freenode's channel guidelines and modify them to their channel's | |
| specific needs, and actually follow them. | |
| 2. Read freenode's catalyst guidelines and modify them to their | |
| channel's specific needs, and actually follow them. | |
| 3. Take your fucking channel off of +m mode when there isn't active | |
| trolling or botspam occurring; consider using +r instead. | |
| 4. If you find yourself using +m mode more than a few hours a day, you | |
| need level 25s in your channel to voice people, your stupid bots and | |
| UnderNet's services (X) are not reliable enough to do it on their | |
| own. | |
| 5. Ditch the trolls. Seriously, if Rocz, Gamertony, OldOneEye, or any | |
| other troll that nearly everyone on the network knows from a decade | |
| back is an active member of your channel, then you are probably not | |
| a good operator. | |
| 6. Consider if you channel actually has anything to do with its primary | |
| topic... For example, if your channel is about a well known | |
| /political/ science fiction series, but you ban all conversations of | |
| politics, you're the epitome of an incompetent channel operator. | |
| ---------------------------------------- | |
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| This phlog entry has been read 4035 times. | |
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| Comments have been left on this post: | |
| amen. a troll took over efnet #Amiga a few years ago and kicked all the | |
| mods. he was a seriously satanic pommy too, pmming you and trying to | |
| enlist you. the mods were simply lax.They had it coming. | |
| Posted Sun Sep 20 02:15:06 UTC 2020 by 89.45.90.46 | |
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