TL;DR: * The #mediawiki IRC support channel is moving from Freenode to Libera.Chat. * Register an account on Libera.Chat and join us there!

There has been a lot of activity over the last 2-3 days related to staffing changes on the Freenode IRC network [0]. The Wikimedia IRC Group Contacts (GCs) [1] evaluated the situation and decided that moving the Wikimedia IRC channels from Freenode to the brand new Libera.Chat IRC network [2] would be the best course of action [3]. So, we are moving!

A new #mediawiki channel has been created on irc.libera.chat for handling MediaWiki support requests and general discussion. The old channel on Freenode still exists and will be maintained at least until we can get all the bots moved, our documentation updated on mediawiki.org, and we see more folks on the Libera channel than the Freenode one. We have a bot bridging both channels so messages to the channel in either IRC network will be seen on the other network.

There is a new subpage on Meta-Wiki [4] for information on how to create a new account for yourself on Libera.Chat and other related information.

There is also a tracking task [5] that you can look at to see various activities that the community hopes to take action on to complete the migration.

One last thing: The #wmhack Freenode channel is bridged to #wikimedia-hackathon on Libera.Chat. The new channel name will make it easier for the GCs to help manage spam and other issues that come up occasionally on IRC. Don't miss the fun of our 2021 virtual hackathon from Friday, May 21st to Sunday, May 23rd! [6]

[0]: https://www.kline.sh/ [1]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Group_Contacts [2]: https://libera.chat/ [3]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?diff=21476411 [4]: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC/Migrating_to_Libera_Chat [5]: https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T283247 [6]: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Hackathon_2021

-- Legoktm