The last stand of ##politics-uncensored

christel@freenode.net
complaints@freenode.net

Dear Ms. Christel Dahlskjaer (and to whomever else is reading this message)

I am writing this letter in hope of preventing or reversing or postponing the action of shutting down ##politics-uncensored (from now on P-U).

Nearly 2 weeks ago, while I was in a business trip and highly occupied, insomnia informed me that a staffer told her that the channel might shut down in 2 weeks. According to insomnia there was no reason given other than it was a "maintenance burden" for staffers. Also according to rumors there is a decision that the channel will shut down in just a day. While I stated in #freenode to Fuchs that I am uninformed and unaware of any such decision I have still not been contacted by any staffer. Because of that I am forced to act based on rumors.

I would like to remind the usefulness of P-U. Political channels will always be a second-order sideshow to freenode's greater purpose and are sometimes even seen as an unpleasant part of freenode. However, these channels, when run effectively, do have a purpose for the rest of the network in keeping it 'clean' and having a space for things not desired in other channels. Political discussion is inevitable when free culture advocates are put in the same place together, and even outside of that, politics and technology have become inextricable. I believe our particular channel's existence is justified and in the interests of the communities hosted by freenode. As an active user of freenode on-topic channels, I believe the alternative runs counter to these interests.

Existence of P-U provides an *effective* outlet for political discussions without such discussion disrupting other channels. Effective because it operates in line with the expectations made clear by freenode's policies, and the laws they cite in policies as applied by the Crown Prosecution Service's public guidance on those laws - but also because it actually allows political discussions of any kind (fitness for purpose), within this framework.

As it is well known P-U was created due to demonstrated political bias by other political channels on this network. As it has been demonstrated in the past the owners/moderators of those channels have been trying to have our channel closed since its inception (a few examples are CosmicWitch in 2017 and monkers 2 months ago https://pastebin.com/uBjru9YL ). It is clear that certain actors (more on this later) have been engaged in sabotage and disruption of our attempt to provide an outlet for unbiased discussion of subjects in which we have legitimate interests and a basic human right to speak freely about.

This network, cannot at once rail against censorship by large corporations such as Microsoft, Google, Twitter, and State Actors such as the NSA as revealed by Edward Snowden and the PRC with their legendary Great Firewall of China, while simultaneously shutting down a minuscule political discussion channel graciously hosted by an Internet Privacy advocate such as Private Internet Access, as I also stated in the latest channel announcement https://politics-uncenso.red/the-continually-evolving-fight-for-freedom/

This channel has collaborated in the past more than any other political channel in order to operate accordingly to freenode's policies and this is demonstrable:
1) We have spent a considerable amount of time to produce extensive and properly formatted documentation of the Channel Guidelines along with a dedicated website: www.politics-uncenso.red
2) We have made known both via the Channel Guidelines as well as by having visible operators where users should go to report incidents that violate our Channel Guidelines (which include freenode policies)
3) We have experienced active operators who, at times, have been staffers as well
4) We have dealt with 100% of the cases reported to us

Usually political channels on freenode do not strive as much as we do to collaborate with freenode as well to operate in line with freenode policies. This is also one of the reasons one can easily observe:
1) More frequent usage of racial slurs in other political channels
2) Death threats (which are non-existent in our channel with its zero-tolerance policy)

Volunteer staffers should have 0 time spent for an off-topic channel. Because of that I made a proposal a year ago. I believe that as long as there are willing operators to deal with reported incidents, users should simply report the incidents to the operators. If the operators resolve the incidents in a timely manner there is no need for any staffer to spend any time. If a user reports any incident to a staffer without reporting it to an operator, the staffer can simply direct the user to report the incident to the operators. There is no reason for staffers to handle reported incidents that haven't been reported to operators.

There are people who want to silence minority opinions and these people know that I handle 100% of the cases reported to me. These people will purposefully report incidents to staffers, wasting valuable volunteer time, for the purpose of silencing us.

One notable and provable case is roshambo (who is regularly and provably using sock puppet accounts as well).
1) He has stated before that he's keeping pastebins of violations but he declined to show any of them to me so that I won't be able to take any action https://pastebin.com/GxvRpf9m
2) He has violated freenode policies as well as channel guidelines. Just in one day https://pastebin.com/g8uATcUJ for which I banned him for 5 days (as a warning) and,
3) permabanned him for continuing it https://pastebin.com/ppG7u50r
4) ban-evading the permaban https://pastebin.com/HrNVrs47 (has used other nicks as well persisting on ban evading)
5) Harassing me via PMs https://pastebin.com/YE4sfcvk (also pasting content from P-U which means he has a sock puppet on the channel thus ban evading again)

Also by looking more closely at the logs of our bot (DrJekyll) and the PMs it was receiving I have found out that he was the abuser of our topic a year ago https://pastebin.com/B2Q3qfdV We had to lock our topic due that abuse despite our wish to leave it unlocked for users to be able to express themselves.

If you truly believe that P-U shall shut down then I believe it is demonstrable by the same standards that many other channels with multiple user violations should shut down including other political channels and #freenode

I would like to request for the prevention/reversal/postponement of the action of shutting down P-U because:

1) I believe P-U has a purpose for society in general as well as in freenode specifically
2) I am (and always have been) willing to apply freenode policies
3) I have always cooperated with staffers whenever it was requested
4) I have always dealt with every case that was reported to me or that I have observed or that I have investigated
5) I have always worked towards informing and/or warning users (a net-positive for their participation in other channels as well)
6) I consider P-U to be facing much less serious issues of user violations than the other political channels
7) I believe a large portion of such user violations are either purposeful or purposefully avoided to be reported to me for the goal of enforcing a shut down of the channel in order for minority opinions to be censored
8) I have no responsibility of other users violations who have no employment, a lot of free time and find joy in censoring minority opinions
9) I am still uninformed whether such an action is about to happen and I can't properly inform the users based on rumors
10) I am currently faced with a non-actionable situation, with no way to resolve anything

Additionally I would like to request more information on the situation as I still have not been contacted yet from any staffer and I am still forced to act based on rumors.

Yours Sincerely,
Vassilis Palassopoulos