Hey all,
I keep seeing lines in my away log complaining about me being lazy and not setting IRC cloaks, and about people offering their assistance (in response to kinder notes of me just being busy). I thought I would clear the situation up. I am on wikibreak at present for most of my roles but I am still completely dedicated to being our most active IRC Group Contact (James is also active, but less so) and so this is not the issue. The reason why no cloaks are being set at present is different.
Essentially, James and I are trying to redo our paperwork with freenode to make sure that we are allowed to set the cloaks we do and also to add new namespaces by popular request, such as wikiversity/ cloaks. The freenode head of staff is the person responsible for sorting this paperwork with us and unfortunately she has been indisposed due to injury for some weeks now. This means that we have been unable to do what we need to do and as a result cloaks are just sitting in the request system. However, as soon as things are sorted out *I will set every cloak (assuming it meets the requirements) in the system in one fell swoop!*
Please be patient and considerate while these problems are sorted out. Rest assured there is no laziness involved!
Thanks,
[[m:User:Sean Whitton]] [[m:IRC Group Contacts|Wikimedia IRC Group Contact]]
On 25/02/2008, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Hey all,
I keep seeing lines in my away log complaining about me being lazy and not setting IRC cloaks, and about people offering their assistance (in response to kinder notes of me just being busy). I thought I would clear the situation up. I am on wikibreak at present for most of my roles but I am still completely dedicated to being our most active IRC Group Contact (James is also active, but less so) and so this is not the issue. The reason why no cloaks are being set at present is different.
Essentially, James and I are trying to redo our paperwork with freenode to make sure that we are allowed to set the cloaks we do and also to add new namespaces by popular request, such as wikiversity/ cloaks. The freenode head of staff is the person responsible for sorting this paperwork with us and unfortunately she has been indisposed due to injury for some weeks now. This means that we have been unable to do what we need to do and as a result cloaks are just sitting in the request system. However, as soon as things are sorted out *I will set every cloak (assuming it meets the requirements) in the system in one fell swoop!*
Please be patient and considerate while these problems are sorted out. Rest assured there is no laziness involved!
Thanks,
[[m:User:Sean Whitton]] [[m:IRC Group Contacts|Wikimedia IRC Group Contact]]
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Sean, it isn't that you are lazy - far from it. It's the fact you and James are probably two of the least active people on IRC/Wikipedia. James has been absent for nearly a month now, your status is nearly always set to away (as is his), and while we appreciate you are busy in real life, this is stuff that needs doing. There are plenty of people trustworthy enough for this role. In the past, we've had more than two contacts (Essjay, Fennec, Angela, da_didi were all at the same time if I recall). What's the problem with adding an additional person (or more), who will actually get the work done well and without big delays?
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Sean, it isn't that you are lazy - far from it. It's the fact you and James are probably two of the least active people on IRC/Wikipedia. James has been absent for nearly a month now, your status is nearly always set to away (as is his), and while we appreciate you are busy in real life, this is stuff that needs doing. There are plenty of people trustworthy enough for this role. In the past, we've had more than two contacts (Essjay, Fennec, Angela, da_didi were all at the same time if I recall). What's the problem with adding an additional person (or more), who will actually get the work done well and without big delays?
If the problem lies with the people at freenode, then it doesnt matter how active either of these two people are. For what it's worth, when I asked for my cloak a little while back, it was handled in a very timely fashion. That says to me that these two volunteers are actually very speedy, when there are no impediments.
I would be interested in volunteering to be a group contact as well, if more were needed.
--Andrew Whitworth
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 5:23 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Sean, it isn't that you are lazy - far from it. It's the fact you and
James
are probably two of the least active people on IRC/Wikipedia. James has
been
absent for nearly a month now, your status is nearly always set to away
(as
is his), and while we appreciate you are busy in real life, this is
stuff
that needs doing. There are plenty of people trustworthy enough for
this
role. In the past, we've had more than two contacts (Essjay, Fennec,
Angela,
da_didi were all at the same time if I recall). What's the problem with adding an additional person (or more), who will actually get the work
done
well and without big delays?
If the problem lies with the people at freenode, then it doesnt matter how active either of these two people are. For what it's worth, when I asked for my cloak a little while back, it was handled in a very timely fashion. That says to me that these two volunteers are actually very speedy, when there are no impediments.
I would be interested in volunteering to be a group contact as well, if more were needed.
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Perhaps this time it is not our contacts' problem, and it is freenode. But Sean even says in his original post... he is on a Wikibreak, and is busy in real life. This problem comes up time and time again. Sean insists the problem is under control. But I don't believe it is.
On 25/02/2008, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
Perhaps this time it is not our contacts' problem, and it is freenode. But Sean even says in his original post... he is on a Wikibreak, and is busy in real life. This problem comes up time and time again. Sean insists the problem is under control. But I don't believe it is.
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a while, and I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other people have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't appoint an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a while, and I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other people have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't appoint an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I said this has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's archives. Sean simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a feeling he will say the same again.
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I said this has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's archives. Sean simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a feeling he will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I am becoming concerned by this situation. Someone, from the Office if necessary, should contact Freenode at a high level and have them prioritize this matter. Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Newyorkbrad
On 2/26/08, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I said
this
has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's archives. Sean simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a feeling
he
will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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I think the position of the foundation was and it that it does not want to get officially involved with IRC (nota: the Group Contacts were not appointed by the foundation, they act as representatives [or benevolent dictators...] of the Wikimedia IRC community).
Thus, I presume the office won't want to make an official request to Freenode, the only people who could do this are James and Sean.
Further, As Sean is also a Freenode staffer, I trust that he knows what is going on and what we can expect of Freenode at the moment and what not. I doubt whether any official request would speed matters up...
Michael
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:36 PM, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
I am becoming concerned by this situation. Someone, from the Office if necessary, should contact Freenode at a high level and have them prioritize this matter. Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Newyorkbrad
On 2/26/08, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I said
this
has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's archives. Sean simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a feeling
he
will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
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On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 11:43 AM, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
I think the position of the foundation was and it that it does not want to get officially involved with IRC (nota: the Group Contacts were not appointed by the foundation, they act as representatives [or benevolent dictators...] of the Wikimedia IRC community).
Thus, I presume the office won't want to make an official request to Freenode, the only people who could do this are James and Sean.
This is precisely the reason the office are not involved and also the reason that we do not run our own IRC server. IRC is extremely volatile and as staff there are so many things we have to be careful of (legally we are not allowed to hold the hostnames of under-13s in our logs, for example). Also, freenode's routing and server administration staff are very highly skilled and at present they ensure that the network is up and has great redundancy due to having so many servers. Running our own server, we would never get this. Yes, many of us (including myself) could run the ircd software on a Wikimedia box, but freenode know what they are doing with regard to keeping IRC networks going.
Further, As Sean is also a Freenode staffer, I trust that he knows what is going on and what we can expect of Freenode at the moment and what not. I doubt whether any official request would speed matters up...
Unfortunately it wouldn't. To be specific, yes it is poor that only one person can sort out the relationship between Wikimedia and freenode, but this is set to change. Per the freenode staffblog, it can be seen that improvements to the slow system are in the works. We must be patient!
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:36 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
Yes. As soon as the foundation takes responsibility, it jumps into a cauldron of hot water. How it is now we avoid that problem and yet get a great service from freenode, apart from these last few weeks.
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 5:12 PM, Casey Brown cbrown1023.ml@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:36 AM, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Most IRC users do not have a large problem with this. However, if one feels that they should still be cloaked before they receive their Wikimedia-related cloak, they can request an "unaffiliated" cloak in #freenode at any time. (They have to set their nick up the same way as you do to receive a Wikimedia cloak, though.)
Thanks Casey. While waiting for your WIkimedia cloak, grab an unaffiliated of freenode staff.
I hope Wikimedia can accept that freenode are having difficulty now but can sort it out and help us in the way they have served our needs for many a successful year.
Thanks,
Sean
<quote> The freenode head of staff is the person responsible for sorting this paperwork with us and unfortunately she has been indisposed due to injury for some weeks now. </quote>
I doubt there is much to prioritize if you are injured and unable to work. Nor do I think there is much of a "higher level" in Freenode as Head of Staff (although I immediately admit that I am not that into their working structure). We can either complain now, or just wait, both will generate probably the same result, except that the first brings sad and ugly faces, and the second doesn't.
BR, Eia
2008/2/26, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
I am becoming concerned by this situation. Someone, from the Office if necessary, should contact Freenode at a high level and have them prioritize this matter. Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Newyorkbrad
On 2/26/08, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC and on a Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a more-persistent online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people would be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I said
this
has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's archives. Sean simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a feeling
he
will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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Whilst I appreciate the circumstances, it suprises me that one person being injured brings the whole process of requesting cloaks to a grinding halt. If this problem is with Freenode then perhaps it should be asked, why do we use Freenode rather than another network or indeed our own official unofficial IRC network. It seems as if there is an additional layer of burecracy that could be removed by doing this ourselves. I'm sure we could find both the hardware and the people to manage such a network and it would of course offer us more control on other issues. Is there any particular reason why the Foundation doesn't want to get invovled with IRC?
Regards,
Adambro
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:22 PM, effe iets anders effeietsanders@gmail.com wrote:
<quote> The freenode head of staff is the person responsible for sorting this paperwork with us and unfortunately she has been indisposed due to injury for some weeks now. </quote>
I doubt there is much to prioritize if you are injured and unable to work. Nor do I think there is much of a "higher level" in Freenode as Head of Staff (although I immediately admit that I am not that into their working structure). We can either complain now, or just wait, both will generate probably the same result, except that the first brings sad and ugly faces, and the second doesn't.
BR, Eia
2008/2/26, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
I am becoming concerned by this situation. Someone, from the Office if necessary, should contact Freenode at a high level and have them prioritize this matter. Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Newyorkbrad
On 2/26/08, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly <axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them
took a
while, and
I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite
smoothly. Other
people
have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why
we can't
appoint
an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC
and on a
Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a
more-persistent
online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people
would
be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I
said
this
has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's
archives. Sean
simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a
feeling
he
will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
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A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is." -dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 8:03 AM, Adam Brookes wrote:
Whilst I appreciate the circumstances, it suprises me that one person being injured brings the whole process of requesting cloaks to a grinding halt. If this problem is with Freenode then perhaps it should be asked, why do we use Freenode rather than another network or indeed our own official unofficial IRC network. It seems as if there is an additional layer of burecracy that could be removed by doing this ourselves. I'm sure we could find both the hardware and the people to manage such a network and it would of course offer us more control on other issues. Is there any particular reason why the Foundation doesn't want to get invovled with IRC?
Regards,
Adambro
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:22 PM, effe iets anders <effeietsanders@gmail.com
wrote:
<quote> The freenode head of staff is the person responsible for sorting this paperwork with us and unfortunately she has been indisposed due to injury for some weeks now. </quote>
I doubt there is much to prioritize if you are injured and unable to work. Nor do I think there is much of a "higher level" in Freenode as Head of Staff (although I immediately admit that I am not that into their working structure). We can either complain now, or just wait, both will generate probably the same result, except that the first brings sad and ugly faces, and the second doesn't.
BR, Eia
2008/2/26, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com:
I am becoming concerned by this situation. Someone, from the Office if necessary, should contact Freenode at a high level and have them prioritize this matter. Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Newyorkbrad
On 2/26/08, Sean Whitton sean@silentflame.com wrote:
Majorly,
I have the feeling you are ignoring me :)
The issue is that freenode are unable to sort us out thus we can make no progress. If freenode were more available, I could set all the cloaks in the queue. But this is totally beyond our control, and this is why I ask for your patience.
Setting cloaks does not take long for me and I can definately do it.
Thanks,
Sean
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 11:32 PM, Majorly axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
On 25/02/2008, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Feb 25, 2008 at 6:20 PM, Majorly <axel9891@googlemail.com
wrote:
> And in addition, I've had three cloaks before. One of them
took a
while, and > I had to resend it, but overall they were done quite
smoothly. Other
people > have not had such a good experience. Still, I don't see why
we can't
appoint > an additional contact(s) who isn't almost always afk on IRC
and on a
> Wikibreak.
That's fine, I don't see a problem with having more contacts, especially if those additional contacts can make a
more-persistent
online presence. I've volunteered for it, I'm sure other people
would
be willing to volunteer for it as well.
Who do we need to talk to about volunteering for this?
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Andrew, I think the only person who we can talk to is Sean. As I
said
this
has been brought up in the past. Somewhere in this list's
archives. Sean
simply said no more were needed, and he was handling it. I have a
feeling
he
will say the same again.
-- Alex (Majorly)
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Majorly _______________________________________________
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On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is." -dan
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access.
Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
~ Paul ~ [[n:User:Skenmy]]
On 26/02/2008, Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access. Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
Lots of people around Wikimedia and its projects use IRC very effectively as a working tool, but the social project fallout on en:wp in particular from IRC use and suspicion of it is ... remarkable. (See the recent arbitration case for an example.)
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
- d.
The underlying problem with that is they are also able to tell legitimate complaints no. It beholdens one of the methods of the Foundation's communications (official or not) to a 3rd party's policies, with zero oversight or enforcement from the foundation. And then, we're presented with problems like relying on a third party to protect our privacy with cloaks; newcomers that are disgusted and turned away by coming into our channels and seeing bot attacks that we are hamstrung from preventing due to stupid restrictions on ops by freenode; group contacts that have been criticized as being unavailable and unhelpful; drama involving logging policies etc.
We could bypass all of this by simply hosting the IRC server ourselves.
-Dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 9:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26/02/2008, Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access. Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
Lots of people around Wikimedia and its projects use IRC very effectively as a working tool, but the social project fallout on en:wp in particular from IRC use and suspicion of it is ... remarkable. (See the recent arbitration case for an example.)
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
- d.
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What freenode restrictions are enabling bot attacks?
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying problem with that is they are also able to tell legitimate complaints no. It beholdens one of the methods of the Foundation's communications (official or not) to a 3rd party's policies, with zero oversight or enforcement from the foundation. And then, we're presented with problems like relying on a third party to protect our privacy with cloaks; newcomers that are disgusted and turned away by coming into our channels and seeing bot attacks that we are hamstrung from preventing due to stupid restrictions on ops by freenode; group contacts that have been criticized as being unavailable and unhelpful; drama involving logging policies etc.
We could bypass all of this by simply hosting the IRC server ourselves.
-Dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 9:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26/02/2008, Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access. Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
Lots of people around Wikimedia and its projects use IRC very effectively as a working tool, but the social project fallout on en:wp in particular from IRC use and suspicion of it is ... remarkable. (See the recent arbitration case for an example.)
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
- d.
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"Catalyzing". Ops not being allowed to stay opped all of the time. Bans being removed after short periods of time.
-Dan On Feb 26, 2008, at 10:21 AM, John Reaves wrote:
What freenode restrictions are enabling bot attacks?
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying problem with that is they are also able to tell legitimate complaints no. It beholdens one of the methods of the Foundation's communications (official or not) to a 3rd party's policies, with zero oversight or enforcement from the foundation. And then, we're presented with problems like relying on a third party to protect our privacy with cloaks; newcomers that are disgusted and turned away by coming into our channels and seeing bot attacks that we are hamstrung from preventing due to stupid restrictions on ops by freenode; group contacts that have been criticized as being unavailable and unhelpful; drama involving logging policies etc.
We could bypass all of this by simply hosting the IRC server ourselves.
-Dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 9:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26/02/2008, Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access. Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
Lots of people around Wikimedia and its projects use IRC very effectively as a working tool, but the social project fallout on en:wp in particular from IRC use and suspicion of it is ... remarkable. (See the recent arbitration case for an example.)
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
- d.
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Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:50 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
"Catalyzing". Ops not being allowed to stay opped all of the time. Bans being removed after short periods of time.
-Dan On Feb 26, 2008, at 10:21 AM, John Reaves wrote:
What freenode restrictions are enabling bot attacks?
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:54 AM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying problem with that is they are also able to tell legitimate complaints no. It beholdens one of the methods of the Foundation's communications (official or not) to a 3rd party's policies, with zero oversight or enforcement from the foundation. And then, we're presented with problems like relying on a third party to protect our privacy with cloaks; newcomers that are disgusted and turned away by coming into our channels and seeing bot attacks that we are hamstrung from preventing due to stupid restrictions on ops by freenode; group contacts that have been criticized as being unavailable and unhelpful; drama involving logging policies etc.
We could bypass all of this by simply hosting the IRC server ourselves.
-Dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 9:36 AM, David Gerard wrote:
On 26/02/2008, Paul Williams paul@skenmy.com wrote:
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 2:18 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
I have considerable experience in running IRC servers and networks. They aren't particularly resource intensive - and the customisation facilities are massive if you have backend access. Just give me a shout if you need anything regarding this and i'd be more than willing to help out.
Lots of people around Wikimedia and its projects use IRC very effectively as a working tool, but the social project fallout on en:wp in particular from IRC use and suspicion of it is ... remarkable. (See the recent arbitration case for an example.)
One important and useful byproduct of the Foundation's hands-off approach to Wikimedia IRC on Freenode is being able to tell people complaining to the Foundation to go away and ask James or Sean, both of whom are highly practiced in telling spurious complainants "no."
I suppose if we had our own server they could get the job there too and do it in a similar way ... "Here, James, Sean, have this excellent chalice. Only a little poison!"
- d.
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Actually, freenode is the only network I know that does that. For the same reasons you view a network setup with perma-ops and long bans as stupid, I view Freenode's setup that invites drama, and attacks and hinders ops, as stupid. Every other IRC network I've been on, from big ones of the EFnet/Undernet type, to smaller ones, the ops are always opped so they are a) easily identifiable and we don't need a special channel just to present issues to them; b) able to receive the benefit of commands like /onotice, c) much faster to react to !kb a user (all an opped user needs to do is type !kb name, or right click , kickban, rather than /msg chanserv for ops, kick the user, deop self), d) It shows to flooder types that there are ops in that channel, discouraging attacks. For much the same reason, bans last for periods of a few weeks unless specifically overturned, rather than banning people and then allowing them back in a few days later to cause more trouble.
On Feb 26, 2008, at 3:37 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
Well most of our bans are just zombie proxies, or whatever they're called, so there's no real need for a long ban. Persistent trouble makers have longer expiries or are added to the autorem. It takes what, maybe .5 seconds to type your /cs op shortcut? I for one can just click a nick and op/remove/ban/deop in one fell swoop. Discussing operator issues in channel just invites drama. I don't know what /onnotice is but it sounds useful.
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, freenode is the only network I know that does that. For the same reasons you view a network setup with perma-ops and long bans as stupid, I view Freenode's setup that invites drama, and attacks and hinders ops, as stupid. Every other IRC network I've been on, from big ones of the EFnet/Undernet type, to smaller ones, the ops are always opped so they are a) easily identifiable and we don't need a special channel just to present issues to them; b) able to receive the benefit of commands like /onotice, c) much faster to react to !kb a user (all an opped user needs to do is type !kb name, or right click , kickban, rather than /msg chanserv for ops, kick the user, deop self), d) It shows to flooder types that there are ops in that channel, discouraging attacks. For much the same reason, bans last for periods of a few weeks unless specifically overturned, rather than banning people and then allowing them back in a few days later to cause more trouble.
On Feb 26, 2008, at 3:37 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
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I use colloquy on a mac. To op and de op, etc. I have to remember and type out the exact /msg chanserv op #channel (or whatever it is), because none of the mac IRC clients have good compatibility with freenode's services. Other networks have simple commands like !up and ! down. They also allow tools like /onotice, which works like the normal notice command, except it only goes to people who have the op flag turned on, allowing them to discuss op things within a channel, and non-ops won't see.
It's a continual source of frustration for me to have to fight against IRC to get it to work the way it should, when other networks are so easy. If we had a Wikimedia IRC network (that was using normal style IRC commands, not freenode's strange ones), it'd make being an op so much easier, and that would have a net effect on the enjoyment of the channel users too.
John if you know of a way that I can simplify the op/ban/deop process, that will work in colloquoy on a Mac, I'm open to suggestion.
-dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 4:58 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Well most of our bans are just zombie proxies, or whatever they're called, so there's no real need for a long ban. Persistent trouble makers have longer expiries or are added to the autorem. It takes what, maybe .5 seconds to type your /cs op shortcut? I for one can just click a nick and op/remove/ban/deop in one fell swoop. Discussing operator issues in channel just invites drama. I don't know what /onnotice is but it sounds useful.
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, freenode is the only network I know that does that. For the same reasons you view a network setup with perma-ops and long bans as stupid, I view Freenode's setup that invites drama, and attacks and hinders ops, as stupid. Every other IRC network I've been on, from big ones of the EFnet/Undernet type, to smaller ones, the ops are always opped so they are a) easily identifiable and we don't need a special channel just to present issues to them; b) able to receive the benefit of commands like /onotice, c) much faster to react to !kb a user (all an opped user needs to do is type !kb name, or right click , kickban, rather than /msg chanserv for ops, kick the user, deop self), d) It shows to flooder types that there are ops in that channel, discouraging attacks. For much the same reason, bans last for periods of a few weeks unless specifically overturned, rather than banning people and then allowing them back in a few days later to cause more trouble.
On Feb 26, 2008, at 3:37 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
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Why is this a problem for you? People only have to be ops in channels who *want* to be and are willing to use the commands. I don't think you are an op in any channels, so this shouldn't be a problem for you.
I'm going to respond to numerous comments in this thread in one bulk e-mail (not necessarily everything is directed at you).
freenode has its guidelines for a reason and they normally work well.
The networks that you are talking about where ops are *always* opped, don't have channel services and the only way to keep control of their channels is to remain opped at all times. This is not a problem on freenode, we have channel services (ChanServ for that).
The list of ops can be viewed by doing /msg chanserv access #channel list and you can contact someone on the list by /msg'ing *or* by visiting the #wikimedia-ops IRC channel. freenode also requests that users are not opped at all times because it turns down the heat in channels and makes everyone equals. However, it *is* technically possible for chanserv to op you whenever you enter a channel and allow you to remain opped in it (/msg chanserv help level), but #wikimedia channels don't do that for reasons outlined above.
On the subject of clients, please do not use the fact that your client does not work properly as a reason for why we should change networks. There are *many* clients to choose from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_IRC_clients and even a few that work well for macs.
If you a question about customizing a specific client, try visiting its IRC channel. For example, there's one at #colloquy on freenode.
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I use colloquy on a mac. To op and de op, etc. I have to remember and type out the exact /msg chanserv op #channel (or whatever it is), because none of the mac IRC clients have good compatibility with freenode's services. Other networks have simple commands like !up and ! down. They also allow tools like /onotice, which works like the normal notice command, except it only goes to people who have the op flag turned on, allowing them to discuss op things within a channel, and non-ops won't see.
It's a continual source of frustration for me to have to fight against IRC to get it to work the way it should, when other networks are so easy. If we had a Wikimedia IRC network (that was using normal style IRC commands, not freenode's strange ones), it'd make being an op so much easier, and that would have a net effect on the enjoyment of the channel users too.
John if you know of a way that I can simplify the op/ban/deop process, that will work in colloquoy on a Mac, I'm open to suggestion.
-dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 4:58 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Well most of our bans are just zombie proxies, or whatever they're called, so there's no real need for a long ban. Persistent trouble makers have longer expiries or are added to the autorem. It takes what, maybe .5 seconds to type your /cs op shortcut? I for one can just click a nick and op/remove/ban/deop in one fell swoop. Discussing operator issues in channel just invites drama. I don't know what /onnotice is but it sounds useful.
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, freenode is the only network I know that does that. For the same reasons you view a network setup with perma-ops and long bans as stupid, I view Freenode's setup that invites drama, and attacks and hinders ops, as stupid. Every other IRC network I've been on, from big ones of the EFnet/Undernet type, to smaller ones, the ops are always opped so they are a) easily identifiable and we don't need a special channel just to present issues to them; b) able to receive the benefit of commands like /onotice, c) much faster to react to !kb a user (all an opped user needs to do is type !kb name, or right click , kickban, rather than /msg chanserv for ops, kick the user, deop self), d) It shows to flooder types that there are ops in that channel, discouraging attacks. For much the same reason, bans last for periods of a few weeks unless specifically overturned, rather than banning people and then allowing them back in a few days later to cause more trouble.
On Feb 26, 2008, at 3:37 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
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On Feb 26, 2008, at 6:01 PM, Casey Brown wrote:
Why is this a problem for you? People only have to be ops in channels who *want* to be and are willing to use the commands. I don't think you are an op in any channels, so this shouldn't be a problem for you.
I'm in op in several channels. This is a problem for me. I may be criticized for inactivity, but the only reason for my inactivity as an op is because Freenode, as a network has a convoluted system that is far more difficult for ops than it needs to be.
I'm going to respond to numerous comments in this thread in one bulk e-mail (not necessarily everything is directed at you).
freenode has its guidelines for a reason and they normally work well.
Do they? I beg to differ. We're continually troubled with drama users who get banned and unbanned quickly, and we coddle them with a "catalyzing" policy that does not work, and does not allow ops to do what they are supposed to do.
The networks that you are talking about where ops are *always* opped, don't have channel services and the only way to keep control of their channels is to remain opped at all times. This is not a problem on freenode, we have channel services (ChanServ for that).
Incorrect I don't know where to begin. On the server where I maintained my channels, we had full chanserv and nickserv abilities, and yet every single channel keeps their ops always opped. On the other major networks that I use from time to time, they all have channel services, and yet ops always stay opped. It's not about "control of the channels". It's because there is no reason not to. There is no reason to force users to go through a silly "op/ban/deop" procedure, when they could just remain opped the whole time. Please don't assume that Freenode is doing things correctly, when in fact it is backwards.
The list of ops can be viewed by doing /msg chanserv access #channel list and you can contact someone on the list by /msg'ing *or* by visiting the #wikimedia-ops IRC channel. freenode also requests that users are not opped at all times because it turns down the heat in channels and makes everyone equals. However, it *is* technically possible for chanserv to op you whenever you enter a channel and allow you to remain opped in it (/msg chanserv help level), but #wikimedia channels don't do that for reasons outlined above.
So.....you would rather go through an extensive chanserv command, or send people to a separate channel than allow users to easily see who the ops are visually?
How does having an @ in front of one's name "turn down the heat" in channels and "make people equals"? That's a ridiculous policy, as the rest of the internet has realized. What heat is generated by me staying opped? Does having an @ in front of my name mean that people automatically hate me? Can you see how flaccid that argument is? If you can easily look at who the ops are anyway, what is the point of hiding their status?
On the subject of clients, please do not use the fact that your client does not work properly as a reason for why we should change networks. There are *many* clients to choose from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_IRC_clients and even a few that work well for macs.
I'm not using the fact that my client does not work properly as a reason to change networks, because it is not my client that is working improperly, it is the server that is working improperly. My client works fine on every other server I have ever used, except Freenode. Furthermore, please do not lecture me on the choice of IRC clients for Mac. There are few stable ones, some of which share engines (and thus problems), and none (I repeat) *none* are designed to be op-friendly using Freenode's server configuration. I'm far from an IRC neophyte Casey, you do not need to treat me like one.
If you a question about customizing a specific client, try visiting its IRC channel. For example, there's one at #colloquy on freenode.
*crickets* Suggesting channels that have no activity is a generally poor help.
We can argue the merits of Freenode all day long, until one of the list moderators yells at us for being off-topic, but that does not change the simple fact that there is dissatisfaction with freenode from people other than myself, and that it would not be difficult to host an IRC on Wikimedia servers, there are some tangible benefits to doing so, and very few adequate reasons not to, none of which immediately come to mind.
-Dan
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 5:30 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
I use colloquy on a mac. To op and de op, etc. I have to remember and type out the exact /msg chanserv op #channel (or whatever it is), because none of the mac IRC clients have good compatibility with freenode's services. Other networks have simple commands like !up and ! down. They also allow tools like /onotice, which works like the normal notice command, except it only goes to people who have the op flag turned on, allowing them to discuss op things within a channel, and non-ops won't see.
It's a continual source of frustration for me to have to fight against IRC to get it to work the way it should, when other networks are so easy. If we had a Wikimedia IRC network (that was using normal style IRC commands, not freenode's strange ones), it'd make being an op so much easier, and that would have a net effect on the enjoyment of the channel users too.
John if you know of a way that I can simplify the op/ban/deop process, that will work in colloquoy on a Mac, I'm open to suggestion.
-dan
On Feb 26, 2008, at 4:58 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Well most of our bans are just zombie proxies, or whatever they're called, so there's no real need for a long ban. Persistent trouble makers have longer expiries or are added to the autorem. It takes what, maybe .5 seconds to type your /cs op shortcut? I for one can just click a nick and op/remove/ban/deop in one fell swoop. Discussing operator issues in channel just invites drama. I don't know what /onnotice is but it sounds useful.
--John Reaves
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 4:48 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Actually, freenode is the only network I know that does that. For the same reasons you view a network setup with perma-ops and long bans as stupid, I view Freenode's setup that invites drama, and attacks and hinders ops, as stupid. Every other IRC network I've been on, from big ones of the EFnet/Undernet type, to smaller ones, the ops are always opped so they are a) easily identifiable and we don't need a special channel just to present issues to them; b) able to receive the benefit of commands like /onotice, c) much faster to react to !kb a user (all an opped user needs to do is type !kb name, or right click , kickban, rather than /msg chanserv for ops, kick the user, deop self), d) It shows to flooder types that there are ops in that channel, discouraging attacks. For much the same reason, bans last for periods of a few weeks unless specifically overturned, rather than banning people and then allowing them back in a few days later to cause more trouble.
On Feb 26, 2008, at 3:37 PM, John Reaves wrote:
Catalyzing is bit lame some times, I'll give you that. But being opped all of the time and keeping bans for longer than a few days for people without a history of abuse is just plain stupid and I would assume any IRC network set up by WMF wouldn't allow it either.
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On 26/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
On Feb 26, 2008, at 10:21 AM, John Reaves wrote:
What freenode restrictions are enabling bot attacks?
"Catalyzing". Ops not being allowed to stay opped all of the time. Bans being removed after short periods of time.
I find it remarkably sad that you chose to pick as "problems" three rules and guidelines that illustrate just how well the underlying philosophies of Freenode and Wikimedia mesh. You may wish to re-familirise yourself with our mission in Wikimedia.
Yours,
2008/3/5, James Forrester jdforrester@gmail.com:
On 26/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
On Feb 26, 2008, at 10:21 AM, John Reaves wrote:
What freenode restrictions are enabling bot attacks?
"Catalyzing". Ops not being allowed to stay opped all of the time. Bans being removed after short periods of time.
I find it remarkably sad that you chose to pick as "problems" three rules and guidelines that illustrate just how well the underlying philosophies of Freenode and Wikimedia mesh. You may wish to re-familirise yourself with our mission in Wikimedia.
Yours,
-- James D. Forrester jdforrester@wikimedia.org | jdforrester@gmail.com [[Wikipedia:User:Jdforrester|James F.]]
Ehm, mission? What has the duration of a ban or op status to do with
spreading of knowledge? It's more about culture here :) The way we want to behave, the values we share. But of course you are right that these things are actually not strong enough in Freenode according to quite some wikipedians... So funny that these are mentioned as bad :P
On 26/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
The underlying problem with that is they are also able to tell legitimate complaints no. It beholdens one of the methods of the Foundation's communications (official or not) to a 3rd party's policies, with zero oversight or enforcement from the foundation.
Oh, absolutely. I'm just noting that running our own server involves a lot more consequent work and issues than the mere technical issues.
- d.
On 26/02/2008, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
A question that has been raised for some time. Freenode has issues beyond just the IRC cloaks. Why aren't we having an irc.wikimedia.org? There's really no good reason beyond "that's just the way it is."
-dan
When Wikimedia's servers go down, freenode will still be up, so we can at least get updates still. If we hosted it, it would go down with the site.
When Wikimedia's servers go down, freenode will still be up, so we can at least get updates still. If we hosted it, it would go down with the site.
There's nothing stopping us maintaining an emergency channel on freenode for that kind of thing. Of course, if the IRC channel is run on a different server than the rest of the site, it's not likely to go down at the same time (it would require the whole cluster to go down, which happens occasionally, but not often).
Adam Brookes wrote:
Whilst I appreciate the circumstances, it suprises me that one person being injured brings the whole process of requesting cloaks to a grinding halt. If this problem is with Freenode then perhaps it should be asked, why do we use Freenode rather than another network or indeed our own official unofficial IRC network. It seems as if there is an additional layer of burecracy that could be removed by doing this ourselves. I'm sure we could find both the hardware and the people to manage such a network and it would of course offer us more control on other issues. Is there any particular reason why the Foundation doesn't want to get invovled with IRC?
Regards,
Adambro
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
G Donato
On 26/02/2008, GDonato gdonato@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
G Donato
The procedural and legal issues are such that we would be insane to run one. Procedurally that means that the IRC would then be regarded on site which would make the politics even worse. Or do you really want IRC policy and process?
Legally it would mean the foundation would have certain responsibilities towards the channel which given it's role as a general clearing house for wikipedia gossip may be less than ideal.
Using Freenode gives us denial both plausible and legal.
Then there is the advantage that it is fairly easy to contact other free content/software groups through freenode.
I think the legal issues there are drastically overstated.
-Dan On Feb 26, 2008, at 1:07 PM, geni wrote:
On 26/02/2008, GDonato gdonato@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
G Donato
The procedural and legal issues are such that we would be insane to run one. Procedurally that means that the IRC would then be regarded on site which would make the politics even worse. Or do you really want IRC policy and process?
Legally it would mean the foundation would have certain responsibilities towards the channel which given it's role as a general clearing house for wikipedia gossip may be less than ideal.
Using Freenode gives us denial both plausible and legal.
Then there is the advantage that it is fairly easy to contact other free content/software groups through freenode.
-- geni
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geni wrote:
On 26/02/2008, GDonato gdonato@blueyonder.co.uk wrote:
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
G Donato
The procedural and legal issues are such that we would be insane to run one. Procedurally that means that the IRC would then be regarded on site which would make the politics even worse. Or do you really want IRC policy and process?
The basics of IRC "policy" are pretty much already written at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_guidelines, anything else is common sense and it should not be too difficult to sort out things procedurally.
Legally it would mean the foundation would have certain responsibilities towards the channel which given it's role as a general clearing house for wikipedia gossip may be less than ideal.
This is the foundation which hosts a Top 10 website which allows anyone to post whatever they feel like ;) The legal issues of that are surely infintiely bigger
Using Freenode gives us denial both plausible and legal.
Then there is the advantage that it is fairly easy to contact other free content/software groups through freenode.
I'm not sure how often your average IRC user needs to do that.
G Donato
GDonato wrote:
Adam Brookes wrote:
Whilst I appreciate the circumstances, it suprises me that one person being injured brings the whole process of requesting cloaks to a grinding halt. If this problem is with Freenode then perhaps it should be asked, why do we use Freenode rather than another network or indeed our own official unofficial IRC network. It seems as if there is an additional layer of burecracy that could be removed by doing this ourselves. I'm sure we could find both the hardware and the people to manage such a network and it would of course offer us more control on other issues. Is there any particular reason why the Foundation doesn't want to get invovled with IRC?
Regards,
Adambro
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
I remember a few weeks ago, someone asked Tim Starling about this in IRC, or a similar question, like why only the rc bot can talk in the irc.wikimedia channels. I don't have the logs from then to give a direct quote, but the reason was basically: its too much work (running services for registering nicks and channels, staffing, setup, maintenance, etc), for something we already get from freenode.
Alex wrote:
I think Wikimedia having its own IRC setup would probably be quite a good idea. I agree with your point that it could remove bueraucracy and irc.wikimedia.org already exists (albeit only for recent changes etc.). It seems it would put the ball back in our own hands as it were. I doubt there are any issues regarding expense or staffing (but I may be wrong) so go for it, I would say.
I remember a few weeks ago, someone asked Tim Starling about this in IRC, or a similar question, like why only the rc bot can talk in the irc.wikimedia channels. I don't have the logs from then to give a direct quote, but the reason was basically: its too much work (running services for registering nicks and channels, staffing, setup, maintenance, etc), for something we already get from freenode.
Correct. Actually, at least 3 members of Wikimedia's technical team, if not more, have extensive experience with building and running various IRC networks, both the technical and the political/social aspects of it. We have ample technical resources to do so as well. However we just cannot be bothered anymore as we have so many other things to do and worry about, and Freenode does do the job.
Although I must say, personally I find Freenode one odd network with some very weird rules and ways of operation, and its nonsense continues to irritate me every once in a while.
On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 6:36 AM, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) newyorkbrad@gmail.com wrote:
Because IP's can be easily harvested when people go into the IRC channels uncloaked, this is a user privacy issue and needs to be resolved at the earliest possible time.
Most IRC users do not have a large problem with this. However, if one feels that they should still be cloaked before they receive their Wikimedia-related cloak, they can request an "unaffiliated" cloak in #freenode at any time. (They have to set their nick up the same way as you do to receive a Wikimedia cloak, though.)
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