Re: [LUG] irc

> Outages have persisted for weeks.
>

And did anyone actually tell the server admin ? no...

Zleap reported them on list, and in channel.

> Freenode's have never failed in that time other than the
> occasional disconnect, which could be anywhere along my route.

You have not been using IRC on Freenode as long as I have, that's for
sure...

Oh, really? A pissing contest, is that what you immediately jump for? I am not rising to that bait, it's pointless.

Age and experience is no guarantee of being right. And as somebody else who has plenty of the former, I am reminded of that very often.

> Using icmp is not a reliable guide for performance, especially for
> someone who's historically been the target of ddos's and may drop
> pings while still providing service. I'm surprised you wave those
> pastes around like they're proof of anything. Did you try
> connection to the server during those ping outages?

Given that it took less than 30 seconds to runthe whole lot, it would
be a little hard...

Using a ping IS a good measure of connectivity to a given IP address,
or did someone re-write the rules regarding IP networking while I was
asleep ?

ICMP is not guaranteed. It is regularly dropped along the way, or de-prioritised because of more important traffic. For some purposes it may be a "good" measure, but it's a long long way from a guarantee.

I could turn off ping on any one of a number of my servers providing any number of services. It makes no difference to them continuing to provide their service, and freenode specifically has a history of doing exactly this because it's under almost constant pingflooding ddos's, like most big irc networks.

Whine all you like, but unless you tell the UNPAID server admin that
pays for and maintains the server out of his own pocket don't expect
anything to be fixed.

Providing voluntary services should be done voluntarily, not used as a threat or to make yourself more important than others. You're not the only person who gives their time, skill and resources freely - and in a LUG I would like to think that such things were given without condition and where a better solution is available, acceeded gracefully. Freenode has 454 LUGs using it for a reason.

One thing I don't understand. You must have believed the same thing too, once upon a time, to have registered #dclug - or have I got the wrong person? If not, what changed?

The end result should be to provide lug members and others an easy and safe platform. Web is good, as discussed. List is good. Irc - not so much, and having two addresses "because they're unreliable" (Not my words) is confusing to the newbie. I don't actually care who does run it; you, freenode, the man on the moon, but it should be consistent and reliable and not subject to any one ego.