The Techrights IRC Channel On Freenode

For a long time now I've autojoined servers and channels on XChat, recently I added one and today I finally snapped and removed one. The channel for the Techrights.org website (formerly known as Boycott Novell) becomes a joke at times, and today I finally had enough. They have 2 channels; the old one #boycottnovell and the new one #techrights. Apparently the old one is a kinda off topic area and not a lot of people join the new one as of yet. Until about 5 minutes ago I autojoined #boycottnovell.

I like what Roy does, I like the way he brings exposure to practices companies and governments would rather keep hidden. I like the way he posts his source material for each quote so you can examine it in full if you like. I don't always agree with the Techrights site but for the most part I think he's doing a great job.

Yes he has his detractors who make all sorts of accusations against him. For the most part I believe those to be just attempts to smear him and his message. This post is not about attacking the site, it's goals or Roy. This post is about the behaviour in the IRC channel.

Understandably a site like Techrights draws in a lot of trolls, plenty of them being either paid directly or indirectly to do it, or just fans of some company or it's products that they don't understand. Roy has a policy of being as free as possible, he doesn't like banning or kicking, he also posts the full logs of the IRC chat every day. From an idealistic viewpoint I agree with this, however it has it's drawbacks such as today. Initially I was just watching this conversation take place before I joined in myself.

Jono Bacon the Ubuntu Community Manager (jono) arrived to mention that he'd responded to Ryan (DaemonFC)'s blog post, and then was asked to confirm or deny rumours Roy (schestowiz) had heard about Canonical. From the outside this seemed like grown adults having an adult conversation, with a few others chipping in, and Ryan acting like a 2yr old on steroids.

From one point of view you can't control another's actions and reactions, but as a channel operator it's Roy's duty to enforce some sort of civil space in that channel. He absolutely refuses to do that with DaemonFC because he is a former MVP with Microsoft and can presumably give some insider information / rumours which help Roy create more content for the Techrights site. This means that  Ryan can do whatever he likes in the IRC channel. By not giving people the choice; either be civil or I'll kick you out, he is effectively endorsing the behaviour Ryan exhibits.

I appreciate Roy's efforts in exposing astroturfing, trolling etc done by corporations, lobby groups etc but it's seems very hypocritical to complain when you are trolled while endorsing trolling behaviour in a place where you have the powers of an admin to enforce civil behaviour. The message becomes "it's alight when we do it" or as Richard Nixon once said "It's not illegal if the President does it". Since Ryan is of use to Roy for insider nods to stories, it also smacks of cronyism, which he also rightly speaks out against, again the hypocrisy in effect.

This is just the latest in a long line of anti social behaviour from Ryan and Roy's unwillingness to do anything about it. It happened to be the one that tipped me over the edge.

A problem Roy has is that the site, regardless of how many people send him links to stories, is attributed rightly or wrongly to Roy personally. In his posts he writes as "we" when it's (as far as I know) just Roy. The "we" part includes people in the IRC channel as we discuss things, or commenter's on posts, or editors of the wiki. PR wise, Boycott Novell / Techrights IS Roy. It's a WordPress blog with one blogger. So what he allows sends the message that he endorses it. By only paying lip service with a half hearted "grow up" rebuke after stating that Ryan will in no way ever be actually punished for his behaviour just adds to the endorsement.

It's the equivalent of the manager "rebuking" an underling who happens to be his mate just to be seen to be doing something in front of the staff. "You know I don't really mean it right? We still on for the pub after work?"

For what it's worth I don't think for a second Roy does endorse it. His lack of action endorses it for him.

Ryan was banned before and was apparently much worse. He does seem to have good days and bad days, but on days like this the channel becomes a joke. There is no way you can have a serious adult conversation with behaviour like that. To me this harms the cause Roy is doing so well to promote. Several of us in the channel tried to explain this to Roy but to no avail, he stands by his decision to be as open as possible and not ban people, and Ryan has no reason to be civil.

I've watched and taken part in some great conversations in the channel, I've seen and talked with some really insightful and passionate people there. I see a great cause being ruined by people like Ryan. Like any group chat, if you join at a time when a full blown argument is taking place you can assume it's always like that. Everyone can have off days or bad moods where they lash out, nobody is perfect. The longer you hang out at a place the more you see of the people.

There are plenty of people looking for reasons to smear Techrights and Roy as antisocial lunatics, Ryan (among others) gives them plenty of fuel to do that. Anyone who comes into the channel and is curious during one of Ryan's "moments" can easily get the impression that "this is what goes on here", specially when the operator of the channel is active and just sticks his head in the sand over it. People who see that won't take Techrights or it's message seriously.

People try to portary it as negative, I don't see that. The vast majority of Roys posts are promoting FOSS / GPL projects and drawing attention to threats to them by others. This kind of toxic attitude in the IRC channel sends the message that "we're a hate site, a hate community, we will attack you if you come in". People who have been tempted to join the channel after reading some blog posts can easily be left with the opposite message because of people like Ryan. All it does is confirm in their mind, the reality of the smears against Techrights and Roy.

This is the full conversation. Look at around 7:36pm ((19:36). Judge for yourself. Until this conversation my Identi.ca posts cross post to Twitter, which was being pulled into the channel. I've given them the option to remove mine from the list or keep it, it makes no difference to me either way.

*Update*

After returning to inform Roy, Ryan, Jono and the channel in general of this post, in case the feed had been removed, the discussion that happened ended up in Roy starting an IRC policy for the channel and him handing over the operator duties to a third party.

The curious part of this was the people he chose to be operators; _Goblin and myself. Neither of us wanted it, and I for one have no clue how to use the operator commands on IRC. If this is to be something more than just a one day thing I guess I'll have to learn those commands. I guess it was more of a "who's around at the time who Roy feels can be reasonably objective".

For now I've added the channel back onto the autojoin list on the proviso that some sanity is coming to the channel and Ryan (and everyone else who behaves like him) ar on a tight leash. If this turns out to be yet another episode which goes back to the way it was before, I'll go back to my original plan, remove the autojoin and leave them to their own destruction.

My IRC autojoin list is:

irc.thelinuxlink.net

• #techshow

irc.freenode.net

• #linuxoutlaws
• #oggcastplanet
• #somethingkindatechy

irc.spotchat.org

• #linuxmint-chat
• #linuxmint-help
• #pimpmymint

Day by day I'm growing more with Drupal, I really should start being a regular in those channels and join Drupal.org but that's another story.