Has the person who came up with this idea ever met people? This kind of thing regularly blows up private platforms, on an open protocol like IRC this was guaranteed to trigger a swift mass migration.
Fast-forward today. All those channels are moving now, none left! Yesterday this could be considered a 55/45% split and had new FreeNode staff taken a win-trust-dont-rock-boat approach, I'm sure the network would've been fine.
Yesterday I was staying on FreeNode, because I don't really know the thinking behind all parties involved and could see the possible reasoning on both sides. Today I'm disconnected from FreeNode and on OFTC + Libera.
[0] https://www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/korean-prince-andrew-lee...
Which is kind of hilarious when you compare it to this spectacle :b
The Empire of Korea has be defunct for 110 years (which is, sure, over 60, but it is weird to describe it that way.)
> My understanding is at this point they're basically a fashion brand.
The Royal Family Association seems to be something somewhat more substantial than that (but not an actual monarchy, nor does it seek restoration), but its worth noting that the person who named Lee heir and crown prince is not the person recognized as the current head by that association, but a competing claimant, who is also a monarchist seeking restoration.
I figured it was extra defunct after Korea was liberated in 1945 and Korea's first president made sure the monarchy wasn't going to come back by seizing their assets. Before then I figure there was a vague possibility that things would bounce back in their direction, although I'm probably wrong about that since my knowledge comes mostly from interpretive signs and Wikipedia :)
No, he’s not. South Korea is a democratic republic, not a monarchy (not even a Constitutional one.)
Lee is the adopted “heir” to a fictional and aspirational crown invented by a Korean monarchist who claims it for himself and wants to Korea to be a monarchy based on his (disputed; he is not the person recognized in that role by the association that has been the main custodian of the ex-royal house; he was one of two alternate claimants at the time the former head of the house passed, the other of which has since died without, AFAIK, any successor making a claim to inherit from her) claim to be the legitimate heir to the last emporer deposed in 1910.
The Bourbon pretender is hilarious though, because he inherited his ancestor’s complete inability to read the room.
The designated heir to the pretender, etc. And not even the most accepted pretender among those who think the lineage of that throne means something, but he is the only one actively seeking restoration after 110 years of the throne being defunct.
My favorite tit-bit from 19th century French history is that the Count of Chambord had a legit shot at becoming Henry V of France but blew it because he insisted (among other things) that the white flag of Bourbon France replace the tricolor.
meanwhile the sycophants on his payroll are no doubt telling him he's doing a grand job
This could be a good starting point for further reading: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastMonth&page=0&prefix=tr...
He was also declared crown prince of Korea by a member of royalty (no, Korea doesn't have Emperors anymore, it's meaningless for practical purposes).
From "The Freenode Resignation FAQ" at https://gist.github.com/joepie91/df80d8d36cd9d1bde46ba018af4...
> [The new Freenode owner] Andrew was repeatedly asked in the "policy discussion channel" whether slurs, racism and transphobia are now permitted on Freenode. No answer has been forthcoming.
The new owner either will not answer, or will not take a side, in the Culture War. In response, a number of users have taken his non-answers as an answer, and are leaving.
This is about ownership and control. Andrew is trying to seize legal control over an organization run by volunteers. The volunteers (and everyone else) aren't happy with the way this was handled or the way Andrew is using his power to silence dissent.
For sure he has absolutely no idea about what people uses IRC regularly. I can picture him thinking about "users" in a general way, like "Facebook/Instagram/Whatsapp ad-clicking users", so he's now struggling to keep them tied to the platform at any cost. Well, no. Thanks to his ignorance that is second only to his greed he's now going to rapidly lose everything. I'd bet a pizza that he'll likely sell at a loss in less than one year.
If you run FreeNode into the ground and cause all the users to flee, there's nothing left, just a name with negative brand value (like Enron).
Seeing the situation from the outside, it's obvious that what they're doing is self-defeating, but I suppose that they saw that they were hemorrhaging channels and users and saw the writing on the wall and decided to enact desperate measures in order to save the network.
Given the health of IRC in general there's probably not enough room for both Freenode and Libera to strive. One of them was bound to become irrelevant, and the momentum favored Libra even before this desperate move.
I'm afraid that we're just witnessing the death throes of freenode.
I agree that one will end up on top, and also that Freenode will likely die completely - but even when it comes to large FOSS-related networks, there were two active ones before this: Freenode and OFTC.
1) kick all users out and destroy reputation
2) ???
3) profit!
then probably yes.