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Letter to freenode
Posted on Freenode Limited on the morning of May 12, 2021 US PST:
Approximate timeline:
1. Shells sponsors freenode providing 3k/mo.
2. Freenode lists the shells logo.
3. Tomaw's team attacks christel, who had run Freenode since early
2000, and she resigns, unable to deal with the persistent harassment.
4. Rather than allow for a usual grace period after resignation
(e.g. as we speak, several resigned former-staffers are still OPd
in here), or allow for a reasonable transition from one head of
Freenode staff to the next (something reasonable and responsible
to do to ensure proper continuity of operations), Tomaw's crew
abruptly cuts christel's access while she is asleep that night.
5. Tomaw turns around and asks me a bunch of questions if I'm going
to challenge his control. He also says he understands I am the
owner. I suggest that freenode needs decentralization and good
governance, to prevent the kinds of hasty destabilizing things that
have transpired.
6. I hear whispers that Tomaw is up to something and reach out to
prawnsalad (kiwiirc) who has nothing but good to say about Tomaw.
He schedules a meeting with tomaw and me to mediate.
7. In the meeting Tomaw and I disagree entirely about freenode
domain ownership (which we've since come to an agreement on), but
we both clearly agree in writing not to make any changes to ownership,
governance, or project trajectory until we speak again. I created
a document detailing the discussion on April 8 and general plan on
Google Docs (dated).
8. Rather than wait until we speak again, Tomaw turns around and
changes up the staff and website.
9. Upset that tomaw has renegged on his commitments and acted rashly,
prawnsalad says he's not going to deal with tomaw and discussion
ends; the mediator drops out.
10. I ask tomaw wtf and he brushes me off.
11. I get a lawyer and tomaw says he understands and is sorry etc
and sends me a letter.
12. Meanwhile some other story is being told to the staff that
doesn't match the truths listed here.
Given the millions I have injected into freenode thus far, the fact
I own it and the fact that I protected the freenode staff with
professional legal work and funding when they needed help and they
could still lie and slander like this... says a lot about who they
are. It saddens me that christel was forced out, and I wish she'd
feel safe returning. I'm frustrated that tomaw's hostile takeover
seems likely to succeed, in spite of all. I simply want freenode
to keep on being a great IRC network, and to support it financially
and legally as I have for a long time now.
So this is where we are. I passionately want freenode to survive.
I have serious concerns about the stability of the project with
tomaw here, given his duplicitious and rash actions. But I also
have faith and trust in the freenode staff as a general body. So
it's my hope we can resolve this leadership issue. I proposed a
way to decentralize freenode in the past and would love to embark
on that journey still. Perhaps if tomaw could be forthright with
everyone about what's happened, the staff could decide for themselves,
but I fear he has been far less than forthright. I do not want to
interfere, but I also want to protect freenode from what appears
to be a pretty hostile set of moves that I believe threaten the
network. This concern might point to larger issues we'll need to
address about governance in general, and I'm open to having those
discussions and formalizing fair and reasonable processes. But for
now in the short term, I would really like to work together to find
a resolution to this. Freenode must survive in tact, not torn to
pieces.
@a-raccoon
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Freedom of speech is not without freedom from consequence. If you tell everyone to move to a different network, and spam a freenode channel with propaganda, then it only makes sense to punish those spammers. Thems the consequences.

@a-raccoon
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a-raccoon commented May 29, 2021

Bottom line, it isn't spam if it's being posted by the project itself for the express purpose of migration.

A project is a collection of dozens or hundreds of individuals. Freenode Staff are squelching the 1 or 2 Social Justice Warriors trying to "start a movement" by spamming everyone to switch networks or else face the consequences of SJW scorn and cancellation. If a project truly wants to move from one IRC network to another, they will edit their project README or WIKI or WEBSITE. They're not going to send out guerrilla forces to harass everyone into being shepherded. The people being harassed have complained and asked for it to stop, and the Freenode Staff have done this.

This isn't abut projects or autonomy, it's about far-left social justice warrior types grasping for control through bullying, shaming and struggle sessions. The New Staff have put an end to this off-topic bullshit, and I commemorate them for it. 80 thousand other network users agree.

It is now off-topic to bully and harass projects to sign post-meritocracy and code of conflict ally petitions and other such nonsense. Let's just focus on writing good code and leave the social issues at home or with your therapist. Freenode is a Socialist Free Zone.

If any user or channel operator tells users to switch networks, they will be banned from the network and the channel will be given to someone else who wants to use it. Those are the rules.

@a-raccoon
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a-raccoon commented May 29, 2021

Your blatantly unprofessional tone in defense of them is completely unwelcome here.

YOU nor your ilk get to decide what is welcome here, any more. You've been kicked out. So long, farewell.

Freenode is free again.

@a-raccoon
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a-raccoon commented May 29, 2021

Projects are not People. If certain code fork owners want to support users on a different platform, they will update their fork's README to reflect the correct information. What they will not do is log onto Freenode and harass and harangue everyone to use their preferred fork's preferred communication channels.

Every project has 100 forks. Every project channel has 100 project leaders. All those project leaders collaborate on Freenode, if they want to, and don't need outside people telling them not to.

You are struggling for power, not collaboration. Stop it. Get some help.

You are stuck on this idea that the person who initiated a project gets to decide where people talk about it, even though they released their precious baby under GPL license for all to become their own project leader. Every project has 100 autonomous project leaders.

@a-raccoon
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Weird statement to make in light of project leaders who previously were collaborating on freenode and other networks being told by freenode that they can either collaborate on freenode or nowhere else.

It's not a weird statement, you're just intentionally viewing the situation out of its context. It's one thing for project leaders to promote multiple avenues of collaboration and support, and it's quite another for some few project leaders to screech and howl that they will no longer use Freenode. I will use bullet points to illustrate why these are different.

  • One introduces the inclusion of multiple platforms, the other demands the exclusion of the freenode.
  • Telling people to stop using freenode is an aggressive act of bullying and harassment intended to intimidate and "othering" people who do not comply. "You're either with us or against us."
  • The signal to noise ratio is too high. People promoting multiple avenues of support don't repeat themselves more than once every 12 months, instead of screeching about leaving freenode once every 12 minutes.
  • The overt mission is an attempt to try to get everyone to leave freenode so that it collapses, and for Liberia to succeed instead, as if nothing ever happened. A very different mission from simply supporting multiple platforms.

Do these things still sound the same to you?

@a-raccoon
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a-raccoon commented May 30, 2021

At any rate, the projects voted with their feet and I trust them to decide for themselves which of you or your competitors best suits them as a host, and right now it seems you have lost that battle, and I think you deserve to lose it because you betrayed the trust of your clients.

You are mistaken. It was tomaw, the Old Guard, who changed all the WHOIS records and seized control of freenode in a hostile takeover attempt. He has been working at this for years in league with his avant-garde fifth-column of social justice warriors. Carefully selecting and grooming new staff who believes in his unacceptably far-left socialist ideas, and forced-retiring staff who do not view the world in the same way. This takeover attempt was supposed to solidify freenode as Yet-Another-Silicon-Valley-Censored-Platform to the chagrin of everyone else around the world who does not accept and refuses to adopt these philosophies.

Andrew is a based Korean who wants no part of far-left western politics and extremism, and has done well to root out the infestation, inviting back exiled staff and banned projects, and making freenode free again without all the crap.

@tsar-b0mba
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tsar-b0mba commented May 30, 2021 via email

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ghost commented May 30, 2021 via email

@unsurethinker
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I collected all the links about the Frenode-Libera.chat split from both sides here:

https://gist.github.com/unsurethinker/f3fb589e6c6fa26095fac56171acdb66

The text below the "Summary" section is my personal understanding. It's probably biased. Please remain sceptical when reading it.

PS: According to those links Andrew started to take over AFTER the Freenode Staff decided to leave. If you have ANY links saying that Andrew was taking over Freenode before April 23 (when libera.chat was registered) please post them in the comments, I'll add them to the list.

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ghost commented May 31, 2021 via email

@tsar-b0mba
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tsar-b0mba commented May 31, 2021 via email

@waltercool
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waltercool commented May 31, 2021

What a shame reading the comments here. SJW can go and be happy chatting in safe spaces of L&bera if they want.

Most people just want to code and help others with their OpenSource software.

If you guys want to keep becoming every single topic as political and controversial, please just go to Twitter instead. Hateful, cancel culture and cheap defamation are everyday cake there.

@shentino
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Freenode's actions may well be within their own purview, but they are a betrayal of the principles it's now ex clients depend on.

@a-raccoon
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a-raccoon commented May 31, 2021

Freenode's actions may well be within their own purview, but they are a betrayal of the principles it's now ex clients depend on.

The "principles" you speak of are the very "principles" that freenode is very very glad to be rid of. aka, SJW rabid bullsht.

Normal software developers don't need your "principles" to do good work. Your "principles" are toxic and divisive. If said ex-clients depends on said "principles" then they need to stop it, get some help. Your "principles" are invalid and unwelcome.

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ghost commented Jun 1, 2021 via email

@tobixen
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tobixen commented Jun 1, 2021

The text below the "Summary" section is my personal understanding. It's probably biased. Please remain sceptical when reading it.

It seems quite biased to me, but still ... particularly the link from prawnsalad was a good read, he appears to be a neutral part in all this. Clearly there is wrongdoings at both sides. Most of the communities I participated in has moved to OFTC, so I've decided to take my channels there as well, that seems to be the best way to flag neutrality in this conflict.

@unsurethinker
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It seems quite biased to me,

Sure, I'm a human, I may be wrong. 🙂

but still ... particularly the link from prawnsalad was a good read, he appears to be a neutral part in all this.

Yeah I also trust prawnsalad that both sides did it wrong. I'm just missing the details.

Libera.chat people mostly mentioned incidents that happened in May. But it definitely started before that, either in April, or maybe even in March, when Christel resigned.

It's just I don't have links describing what happened back then.

But if you know any details, please, share!

@unsurethinker
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@unsurethinker joining 8 days ago...nothing fishy here.

It obviously is. 🙂 That's why anonymity on the internet is important - it makes people equal. If you know who the author is, you have a sort of "startup bias" towards his posts. You can only be unbiased if you don't know who you're talking to.

I don't want you to trust me. Actually, I hope, you will not trust me. This way there's a higher chance you'll find a mistake in my post.

If you notice that I'm wrong, that I'm missing something, some important link, please post it! I'll change my mind and fix the text. That's exactly what I'm looking for.

I just want to discuss facts. It doesn't matter who says them.

@Nakilon
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Nakilon commented Jun 26, 2021

Hackers have nothing to do with it. The whole problem is harassment, lies and refusal to act according to agreement on the part of the "head of the hackers" as represented by Tomaw. This is the way spoiled kids act, not hackers.

Indeed it was funny to see how people spontaneously started spamming channels with advertising some network no one needed. And on my questions "what happened?", "what happened?" they couldn't answer anything else than "new owner is Korean, I hate it". Kids were flaming and shitting everywhere, telling lies, imaginary stories or "hostile takeover" being unable to answer what does it even mean. On the answer "what is a takeover? what has he done?" they only said "he's Korean". For weeks they could not provide not even a single piece of evidence that there is something wrong with is going on with Freenode. Instead in fact they were the wrong. Kids were shitting everywhere and blaming rasengan in that shit. Lol. It's already more than a month have passed and they still can't provide any evidence that there was anything wrong with Freenode. The only bad thing that happened to Freenode is in fact these all these kids, staff members and channel ops who were purposefully harassing rasengan, spreading rumours with no evidence and hiding things they wanted people to not know, such as "omg, we took over our gentoo channel!" and not quoting the following message that it was a script mistake, etc. Infantile kids who shitted own home. Ruined Freenode with no other reason than hate towards Korea.

@Nakilon
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Nakilon commented Jun 26, 2021

And it's funny how all these diarrhea kids were repeating in every channel "hostile takeover! hostile takeover!" using bots and even registered usernames that they use solely for flame and insults but none of them bothered linking this "realrasengan/freenode.txt" post. They didn't want people to know the truth, they didn't want people to know about harassements and resignations, about the chronology and how that other admin T...something has fucked things up, did something to DNS and in fact he and his followers are the real "hostile takeovers" who have ruined the Freenode but all this hate and shit.

This letter contains some tough news. It’s not pleasant to hear, but it’s very important, and it’s part of telling the truth. Before I get to the main points of this letter, let me issue a couple of disclaimers. First, I sincerely dislike Mr. Andrew Lee. Andrew is an intellectually challenged .....

Yeah, here is exactly all they could say, just tons of insults and nothing relevant, only expressing their personal hate and that thousands of network users have to read this shit and support them in hate that is based on nothing else that dude is Korean, since they didn't provide any another reason to say that it's something wrong with keeping being on Freenode and do you daily routines here like we always were. Kids just had fun in such way, by creating drama and writing tons of insults, spreading hate.

Freedom of speech is not without freedom from consequence. If you tell everyone to move to a different network, and spam a freenode channel with propaganda, then it only makes sense to punish those spammers. Thems the consequences.

Exactly.

shentino is just a shill. Should get a life. Or life refuses to deal with him? It's not a reason to shit the internet in revenge to the nature.

PS: According to those links Andrew started to take over AFTER the Freenode Staff decided to leave. If you have ANY links saying that Andrew was taking over Freenode before April 23 (when libera.chat was registered) please post them in the comments, I'll add them to the list.

Exactly-2. But to be able to realise who is the real aggressor and ruiner it takes to have at least 80 IQ or so but most of commenters here seem to not have such amount. Instead they believe that coming here to just throw insults is called a "discussing".

@jobbautista9
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Talking all this trash about how people hate him for being Korean and you couldn't be further from the truth.

Indeed. This is what happens when people like @Nakilon focus on the race card instead of the actions. Stupid idpol. Funny how he complains about "SJWs" using the race card when he himself does that. What a hypocrite.

@Nakilon
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Nakilon commented Jun 26, 2021

@Technetium1 are you really this much delusional or just pretending? Access lists were not cleared -- all channels were dropped, no wonder, since your lovely ex staff abandoned the network. Author of that text purposefully misinterpreted what happened similar to how gentoo ops did. Your ops who joined the harassment and spamming, and the staff that have abandoned you and your channels and ran away from the ship that they then purposefully sunk -- they are in fact who did a hostile action and ruined the network by these actions. Those who reached age of 6 and were taught to read are able to read this gist and see how selfish and infantile it was what ex staff did, and how stupid ops of those popular channel should be to join the train of this insanity.

@Nakilon
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Nakilon commented Jun 26, 2021

when people like @Nakilon focus on the race card instead of the actions.

I focus on reality. The reality is that nothing happened when rasengan was writing to community that he's being harassed. But such as @obbautista9 don't want to know it and/or let others to know it so they'll just bullshit everywhere to flood the webpages to make it harder to see who really ruined the Freenode. I repeat for those who can't read, comprehend and/or pretend to: rasengan did nothing to Freenode when you were harassing him and spambotting the network for weeks already. Then when he finally started fighting the spam you started saying that it was what you said he did weeks before. Like a fucking time travel. To push such nonsense either you have to be mental or you purposefully target the most stupid audience.

@robbyoconnor
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Seems as if his highness has thin skin. He's been deleting comments.

@shentino
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Now all of China knows you're here

@robbyoconnor
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@shentino don't care.

@shentino
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It was a Mulan reference :)

@shentino
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@tazer4
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tazer4 commented Feb 9, 2023

TaZeR was here. Long live the freenode.

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