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Comment by julienpalard | Hacker News Reader

<@kline> whats best is for everyone just to sit tight and wait for it to pan out, freenode isnt going to implode overnight no matter what random pastebins say

<@Fuchs> as it is clearly stated in my letter, this was a draft that was not supposed to be published, but a draft from a colleague that linked to mine got indexed by a search engine and found

<@Fuchs> as of right now, none of us resigned, freenode is still ran by the same volunteers that ran it for the past 2 decades, and the rest is rumours and hearsay, we'll gladly officially communicate when we can, until then I'd suggest taking any rants, pastebins, articles and the likes with a grain of salt

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Uh, WEIRD.

Why would someone who wrote that email draft now say his own email was "rumours and hearsay"?

That just makes the whole thing sound even sketchier.

Also, geez, how can anyone who's an IT professional in 2021 think they can put something on the public internet without auth and keep it private? Really?

Possibly threatened with legal action?

The think this seems likely. Threatened, or realized some immediate issue naming their replacement already.

It seems like someone only jumped the gun on this information getting out, not that it wouldn’t come to be.

It is trivial to impersonate someone over IRC, if you control the infrastructure.

Not saying it is so, but...

Well, all the links at the bottom of the letter seem to 404, so it seems like they didn't mean to publish this yet.

The link was circulating in IRC. It was pasted to a channel I'm following with a comment "changes in Freenode". Looked interesting enough to be a HN submission. I've no knowledge how freenode is actually managed. Apologies if it wasn't meant to go out. Seems that I don't have an option to delete it.

It's possible when writing this the author was not in possession of the full facts, and misunderstood the situation.

Also at the time of writing it wasn't intended to be kept private, it's explicitly a message intended to be published at some point. It just never was and the situation changed, it's just an oversight.

1. That's what a draft is: A non-final document, which may never be used. Drafting a resignation and then not using it isn't unusual.

2. The internet is much bigger than you think. The document is probably more likely to be found and publicized from your drawer at home than being found on a random server on the internet. People fight for visibility for a reason.

Only when several documents link to each other, the risk of being found goes up...

Not too many engines indexing my drawer at home.

One link to your document will still get it indexed or no links but using chrome.

Not too many engines indexing the web as a whole either.

One person hearing about your document or finding it themselves is all it takes in the real world as well.

But to retrieve the document you would have to go in my drawer?

Not the same at all.

Maybe if the draw was outside and there was a camera showing inside of the draw and if anyone could travel at the speed of light. Still not the same at all.

It is the same. If I'd like to share a draft letter with someone over IRC's DM or some internal IRC channel, I'd upload it to my HTTP server's "stuff" folder with file listing disabled and paste the link.

If you dare open that in your chrome browser your extensions, your seo toolbar and google will know and come and index those files for you.

To get access to a random's person house let alone drawer would be impossible and extremely costly and risky in most scenerios.

Why would I use a browser that sends what I browse to some third parties and index those things in the first place?

I mean, I know that this is a common thing these days, but it didn't use to be for a very long time. And it's still not what happens on my PC or phone.

The odds of me finding an unlinked file on a random server is lower than me ending up physically being there to open your drawer.

But even then, the information leaks without the document itself. "I heard he is going to resign" is all it takes.

You are leaking more information online than you realize. If your contact viewed that in chrome, google may have already visited the unlinked document.

Google is really interested in indexing anything it doesn't know.

You are leaking much more information IRL than you realize.

It is very true. I probably still have a resignation letter at a company I ended working for 12 more months. Nobody knows about it (except the NSA)

That said, it did mean a lot about my intent and feeling at the time.

Hi, NSA rep here: All of us were disappointed you stayed in that job after writing that. You really could have done better.

And a few other things:

1) The front left tire on your car is about 6 psi too low

2) Not to worry you but we really think you should get your heart looked at: our listening devices heard something a bit irregular

3) the math homework you lost that time in 3rd grade was actually stolen by the kid sitting next to you who turned it in as his own. He got a gold star on it. But he's also now a janitor, so karma came through on that (usually it doesn't: the wicked go unpunished, speaking from our own experience on that)

Oh, and as a one-time freebie, next time you lose your keys just pickup any phone or speak into any smart home device, say your SS# and "keys please" and we'll let you know where they are.

Point 1 is actually true

You’re not sure about your heart and you totally can’t remember about that math homework?

I just didnt want to confirm nor deny any further info

It may never be used, but it's not rumors and hearsay if it comes from the actual person. This isn't outside people speculating, this is proof that at least some internal people are considering resignation.

"They resigned" is rumors and hearsay if the truth is "They are considering resigning".

They resigned is incorrect. Hearsay is when one person is reporting what another person has said, which isn't the case here: it's coming from the source. Rumor also does not seem a good word to fit this situation when it's coming from the source.

Having a resignation letter ready to go is understandable.

10 volunteers all having their resignation letters pre-written and ready to go is a bit weirder and points to some real problems at the organization.

You don’t form a quitting pact to leave your home of 20 years at the same time with 10 coworkers and start a rival service unless you’re REALLY committed.

But to then walk it all back as rumours and hearsay after this much premeditation and thought was put into it? Nuh uh! There is some kind of coercion here in my opinion.

It's still not true unless they decide to move forward. Clearly bad things are going down, but they have not resigned until they decide to resign.

And while they clearly seem ready to do so, this does not mean it will happen. The problem could end up corrected, especially seeing what is on the line.

None of you resigned, but all of you had a letter ready to go. On your personal domain.

Don’t tell me nothing is going on and everything is alright.

Seriously, wtf?

Maybe something was going to change, they threatened to resign and they reverted the change. Wait and see.

same volunteers

Here is their 2017 blog about resignations:

https://freenode.net/news/recent-events-and-future-changes

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