As there's many threads relating to the controversy surrounding Freenode, I guess everything about it has been already said.
It's sad to see it crash and burn this way. I have fond memories of freenode, and especially the #django-dev channel. Before Discord or Slack existed, I remember as a relative newcomer to web development frameworks, it was an invaluable resource to me. This was a time when I think Django 0.96 was being prepared for release.
I always got some help for my newbie questions and especially the core contributors were both tremendously helpful and exceptionally polite and friendly towards me every single time.
I haven't used Django in years, not because the framework isn't good, but because my career just took a turn elsewhere. The fundamental attitude and professionalism of the Django community was rock solid and from what I hear nothing has changed.
Here's to memories of Freenode and for the bright future of Django and Libera!
I rarely comment on HN, but I'm happy to come out of the woodwork to second this!
Django was my first exposure to Web development also around the 0.96 days. I couldn't have found my way into what has become a career without the friendly folks in the Django channels. What an incredible resource for newcomers.
I remember pasting full dumps of my models.py files into djangosnippets.org with vague descriptions of problems I was having, and folks I had never met before patiently sorted through possible solutions with me. Sometimes they'd nudge me away from an approach or suggest an alternative framing but they never judged me for what was probably pretty ridiculous code, considering I had no idea what I was doing.
Now that you mention pasting things into #django-dev, one thing that stuck with me was https://dpaste.com/
I think it was more closely branded as a "paste service for django community to use" than it is now, but I keep using it because it just works perfectly, without any captchas, ads, complicated UIs or other unnecessary fluff, the domain name is easy to remember and it's been up every time since around 2007 when I discovered it. Just paste, submit and share the link, and it always works as you expect.
I wonder if this is a side effect of the downmodding of "drama filled topics". When something has enough attention and enough angles, people miss the downmodded topic and end up posting related dupes.
People labeling issues as "drama" way become a convenient way to disengage from important discussions. Unless, of course, it happens to them, then suddenly it's not drama but something the entire world needs to pay attention to.
If we just let HN take its course, few will upvote these subsidiary posts, and they will slide off the front page very quickly. Or never make it to the front pages at all. I don't see a reason for downmodding or flagging something of direct interest to the HN community.
For example, this post is #77 on the third page after an hour - most people won't see it at this point. And, I was interested to see that Django had moved.
It's sad to see it crash and burn this way. I have fond memories of freenode, and especially the #django-dev channel. Before Discord or Slack existed, I remember as a relative newcomer to web development frameworks, it was an invaluable resource to me. This was a time when I think Django 0.96 was being prepared for release.
I always got some help for my newbie questions and especially the core contributors were both tremendously helpful and exceptionally polite and friendly towards me every single time.
I haven't used Django in years, not because the framework isn't good, but because my career just took a turn elsewhere. The fundamental attitude and professionalism of the Django community was rock solid and from what I hear nothing has changed.
Here's to memories of Freenode and for the bright future of Django and Libera!