This article is within the scope of
WikiProject IRC, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.IRCWikipedia:WikiProject IRCTemplate:WikiProject IRCIRC articles
This article was nominated for
deletion on 1 December 2008. The result of
the discussion was keep.
Ok I corrected it further to include the fact that EFnet IRC operators are not required to follow the traditional standard IRC administration guidelines (IRC Operators Guide).
Simonapro20:04, 26 April 2006 (UTC)reply
The link you provided actually says those guidelines apply only to EFnet operators, while your statement implies the opposite (that they apply to everyone but EFnet operators). Granted, it is 9 years old, and I know IRC networks have changed a lot since then. Even so, they were guidelines to begin with, not steadfast policies. You've also made an unprovable statement when you say that all EFnet operators do not follow those guidelines. —
AKADriver☎20:29, 26 April 2006 (UTC)reply
SSL is good for giving people a false sense of security. I'd be more worried about currupt irc server admins than network snifing if i was discussing anything really secret on irc.
Plugwash16:00, 29 May 2006 (UTC)reply
The word biased implies there is a personal interest in presenting it in one way rather than another. There is no such interest, this is merely a reconstruction from memory and historic mail folders from a perspective of someone who experienced massive service disruptions and wondered why that had to be. The operlist archives help understanding both sides. In the end it isn't all that important what really happened, but it is interesting to see how history has been written by a certain side, even with things that happened in the digital domain where a lot of evidence is still available. For the purpose of Wikipedia maybe somebody completely uninvolved should have a look at those operlist archives which luckily are not available on our site, we just link to them. Btw, nice seeing you again Wump.. and funny how you rewrote my headline.. ;) --
lynX
I'm not implying that at all. It's biased as it doesn't meet fact in some ways -- one point of a Wikipedia article is not just to repeat the hysterical accusations of the heat of the moment, but also look at fact. I'm glad you liked my joke. -- wumpus
Greg23:06, 12 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Oh, you call it hysterical. Well today there is a
whole new chat system based on the philosophy of being server-open. So I wouldn't say this was a minor issue. The fall of eris was the day when IRC stopped being like SMTP or most other decentralized protocols and became
oligarchic instead. I wouldn't advocate the
technical merits of this new decentralized chat technology, but politically it is quite a step forward. The creation of EFnet is of philosophical and political relevance in the
History of the Internet. So in the end it's not hysterical, it's not an accusation either, or at least not intended as such, but it may be of historical relevance. --
lynX
Um, Duh. An architecture which permits server open without compromising security is a fine way to solve the problem. That was obvious 15 years ago, too. Doesn't have much to do with this Wikipedia article, though. -- wumpus
Greg02:02, 18 December 2006 (UTC)reply
IRC was never decentralised in the way that smtp and jabber are, it relies on replicating the entire network state to every node in the network, a fragile tree of persistant connections and almost total trust between servers. Those who wanted a workable decentralised network needed to start more or less from scratch.
Plugwash01:05, 21 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Thanks for the elementary tutorial on IRC, I am aware of this. I could show you all the design documents of what I was thinking about doing to IRC, however, I went to work on my PhD instead. What's this have to do with this article? -- wumpus
Greg16:28, 21 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Yes, both
PSYC and
Jabber started from scratch with a new
URL-based approach to avoid the distributed database. Okay, Jabber doesn't use real URLs. Anyway, the only thing this has to do with the article is how the creation of the EFnet exposed the political implications of the IRC technology in a painful way. Season's Greetings. --
lynX09:21, 24 December 2006 (UTC)reply
Well, one thing I have found interesting about the IRC network splits are how they can be paralleled to the thirteen colonies declaring independence from Britain. I'm actually writing a paper on it for school. lol --
65.10.135.12302:20, 27 September 2007 (UTC)reply
Whoever the anonymous user from choopa.net is whom keeps spamming the external links needs to stop.
stats.efnet.org is already listed once, no need to add 4 more deep links. The user is also trying to hijack the link to map.efnet.org after making a carbon copy of the site. Seems like this user has a real desire to push stats.efnet.org.
STOP SPAMMING WIKIPEDIA
It would be nice for this article to become protected or semi protected until this stops.
This article has been semi-protected as per a request at
WP:RFP. Anonymous users, please register accounts and discuss changes to the article here on its talk page before making potentially contentious edits.
A Traintake the14:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)reply
April's fools
Wikipedia fooled by April's fools?
"Undernet has decided to rejoin EFNET, and EFNET is to change thier name to EFUnet."
Well, this piece of "news" was posted on Efnet.org "posted on 03/31/2007 at 23:43:32 EDT by Pills", dangerously close to April 1st.
I'm removing this line from the page. -- Tor I. Pettersen
—Preceding
unsigned comment added by
66.160.171.98 (
talk •
contribs)
02:40, 9 April 2007 (UTC)reply
It has been proposed that
Noppa is merged into the EFnet article. However, I don't see any mention of bots in the article. This leads me to question if the bot is
notable enough for an article. A quick google search doesn't come up with much, but maybe others can bring up something more. Being the first bot on EFnet does assert some sort of notabilitiy. If we can
verify that, a merge could be appropriate.
Martijn Hoekstra22:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)reply
the article appears to have been written with the pov of an experienced irc user. this type of article isn't necessary on wikipedia since it serves a very small portion of readers. a re-write of the article with the assumption that it's basically a living person with constantly changing figures would be more in line since citing user/channel counts that are constantly on the decline isn't relevant.
Woods01 (
talk)
04:42, 24 August 2009 (UTC)reply
Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a
wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to
be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out
how to edit a page, or use the
sandbox to try out your editing skills.
New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to
log in (although there are
many reasons why you might want to). --
Hm2k (
talk)
09:01, 24 August 2009 (UTC)reply
NickServ
With regards to this statement currently in the article...
This also disputes these edits
[1][2]
Was Nickserv ever on EFnet? I for one do not ever recall it, especially since EFnet's policy is "Nicknames are not owned", however my knowledge only goes back as far as 1998. The reference supplied with the statement says the following...
"Nickserv "was born" on July 1990, and was shut down on April 8th, 1994 by the same person who created it. "Some people always argued about Nickserv and its purpose, and even some operators killed it randomly. This was one of the reasons for the shutdown" (Gruner, e-mail communication, June 4,1995). There were additional reasons, such as the dramatic increase in the number of Nickserv users, which caused a significant Net overload.
Further more at the bottom of the article it says:
"All fieldwork for this study was carried out on Efnet."
However, none of this means that NickServ was ever on EFnet.
Ideally, if someone with authority on EFnet (and a good memory) could confirm or deny the statement, it would make it a lot clearer.
Thanks. --
Hm2k (
talk)
14:59, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Sure, there was indeed a
NickServ on EFnet in the early 90s, but it didn't kill connections that used a registered nick anyway so it was possible to simply /ignore it (which many people did). As you mention, the citation currently used in the article
[3] contains the footnote "All fieldwork for this study was carried out on Efnet." and you have to remember that many of the IRC networks that exist today (which have
IRC services such as NickServ) simply did not exist in the early 90s. You can also find information about the EFnet NickServ in the
news:alt.irc FAQ, which was written and maintained by Helen Rose. Numerous versions of the FAQ have been reformatted and copied around the web and ftp archives. One of the older versions of the FAQ that turns up in the first page of Google is
[4] which was written while the EFnet NickServ was still active. Later versions of the FAQ such as
[5] and
[6] were edited after the EFnet NickServ was shut down. Original versions of the alt.irc FAQ such as
[7] can be found via the
Internet Archive at
[8] with the original url for the FAQ still being linked from the
ibiblio.org archive.
[9] The original web location for the FAQ was
[10] but it was gone from that location before the Internet Archive came to be so the only thing archived there is a pointer
[11] to the
irchelp.org website. The An Introduction to IRC document written and maintained by Tjerk Vonck also discusses the EFnet NickServ. It too has been reformatted and copied all over the place and has been revised numerous times. A maintained version can be found at
[12] Lots of others such as
[13] and
[14] also turned up and an older archived version of document can be found at
[15] and in other ftp archives. This document is also distributed with later versions of
mIRC. (Note that this is not the same document as the ircintro document by Steve Harrison, old versions for which seem to be difficult to find, although it did turn up in a few locations such as
[16] and
[17]) This FAQ
[18] also mentions /ignoring EFnet's NickServ. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
18:44, 22 September 2009 (UTC)reply
I asked for someone with authority to respond. I've already spoke with some EFnet opers with regards to this, and they agree that there was in fact never a NickServ on EFnet to their memory. I raised the question so that it could be confirmed on Wikipedia too.
Having said that I reviewed your references. The first few links talk don't talk about EFnet and appear to be talking about other networks such as Undernet, however shockingly the intro on mirc.com
[19] does actually say "In the past on EFnet, NickServ registered nicknames", but could just be a mistake that was never corrected, I'll ask Tjerk Vonck to confirm. Finally
[20] does talk about ignoring EFnet's NickServ, but I suspect it's because it used to message users on connect saying that EFnet had no nickname services, thus ignored.
Considering my background with EFnet, IRC, and the fact that I personally used the original NickServ on EFnet back in the early 90s, I think I've got some authority here myself. It could be that the current EFnet operators are unfamiliar with EFnet's short lived NickServ since most of the current opers were probably not around back then and iirc it was an event many of the current operators back then wanted to forget (I don't think any of the original servers exist anymore either). The reason
[21] mentions ignoring EFnet's NickServ is since it did not enforce "nickname ownership" people could and did simply /ignore it. When other networks began adding IRC services, the (then obsolete) ignore could cause problems. You may still be able to find many old
ircII scripts in the various ftp archives with a hard-coded ignore for "NickServ" due to this. Note that the FAQ we are discussing uses ircII syntax for the /ignore command example. In addition to Tjerk Vonck, I would suggest you also try to contact Helen Rose (possibly hrose[at]eff[dot]org) and some of the other EFnet operators from back then. Helen Rose was a developer and an oper on the Boston University irc.bu.edu EFnet server. There also used to be a massive IRC documentation and software archive at
[22] but last I checked it was long gone. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
16:59, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Something else I should point out is the FAQ
[23] I linked to above that was written by Helen Rose was written with a focus on EFnet. Try Google searches for the channels listed such as #hottub or #Twilight_Zone as well as the hostnames of the various irc servers listed in "(5) Which server do I connect to?". --
Tothwolf (
talk)
17:15, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
That FAQ seems to be about IRC pre-EFnet, before the first split. Like I said, I'd prefer to hear from an authoritative figure on this. --
Hm2k (
talk)
18:57, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Earlier versions of the
alt.irc FAQ from Helen Rose (also found a copies in the ibiblio.org archive
[24] and Google Groups usenet archive
[25]) mention "NickServ@service.de" and later versions of the FAQ
[26] and the
An Introduction to IRC document from Tjerk Vonck mention it was run in Germany (which of course .de is).
If you Google for "NickServ@service.de" you'll find a ton of information. Note that this predates
DALnet, which was founded in July 1994.
Yeah, so irc.bu.edu was on the original IRC network (when there was only one) and then split with EFnet.
With regards to NickServ@service.de -- a google search doesn't exactly fill me with confidence...
NickServ@service.de +EFnet I think you'll find this was never on EFnet.
The threads and sites you have referenced clearly state that NickServ was part of the IRC network BEFORE the EFnet split.
The thread shows how the 1991 public wanted NickServ back and wasn't at all happy with the policy of nicknames not being owned. The thread also mentions the IRC War that had taken place before and led to the separation of the EFnet from the free IRC later also termed Anarchy-Net by the EFnet people.[34]
I'm pretty confident that this means NickServ was on the IRC network BEFORE EFnet split away from it. It's clear now there was no NickServ on EFnet, so thanks for clearing that up for me. However, if you're still unsure, feel free to invite
lynX to the discussion. Perhaps he can make it clearer for you.
You are confusing two of the EFnet "splits". NickServ was on EFnet after the A-net/EFnet split in 1990 but before the EFnet/IRCnet "Great Split" in 1996. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
20:43, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Maybe the confusion here is how the EFnet/IRCnet split occurred. EFnet actually existed first, IRCnet split away from EFnet. It pretty much split along the lines of American/European servers with the American servers remaining EFnet and the European servers becoming IRCnet. The split occurred due to a disagreement over how to implement timestamp in the servers to deal with things like nick collisions and stealing chanop in channels during netsplit/netrejoins. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
21:22, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
I'm not confused. The reference is clearly talking about when the original IRC network split into EFnet and the so called "Anarchy-Net" around 1990, forget about IRCnet for now. Why this split happened has not been questioned by me, but it would be ignorant to think that the split was due to a single issue, but rather that a single issue triggered the split. --
Hm2k (
talk)
21:38, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Well, the Anarchy-Net/EFnet split technically was due to a number of things but the open C/N lines on eris.berkeley.edu was the underlying cause, see
[35] for one viewpoint. (Note that the link to
[36] at the bottom was the later EFnet/IRCnet split so the text describing it as a different pov of the earlier Anarchy-Net/EFnet split is obviously wrong.)
This is actually talking about two different events though, the oper killing NickServ and taking its nickname and the earlier Anarchy-Net/EFnet split. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
22:11, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
So, now you're pretty much debunking psyc.eu as a reliable source. Instead, I've emailed Armin Gruner who originally wrote
NickServ, as described
here. This will confirm or deny the statement which is currently supported by that reference. --
Hm2k (
talk)
22:20, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
I never claimed psyc.eu was a reliable source – I pointed you to it because it links to lots of historical documentation. Maybe this usenet thread from February 1994 will help
[37] --
Tothwolf (
talk)
22:31, 23 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Where does it not say EFnet? Helen Rose and many of the other people in that discussion were EFnet IRC operators and the server names (with the exception of where someone explains what
Undernet is), are EFnet server names. Why don't you contact Helen Rose and bring them into this discussion so we can finally settle this? --
Tothwolf (
talk)
00:15, 24 September 2009 (UTC)reply
(←) The difficulty is that while the existence of EFnet is undoubtedly notable and can be reliably sourced, a lot of the details of its existence are a little murkier when it comes to reliable sourcing. It does seem, based on the above, that the NickServ was there (although I don't specifically recall it, and was there for a time just a bit before the NickServ was said to have been taken down). If Mr. Gruner were to respond, that would certainly alleviate concerns on the "truth" of the matter, though, and
wp:rs would seem to be satisfied by the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication piece. user:J aka justen (
talk)
00:45, 24 September 2009 (UTC)reply
Helen Rose is unreachable. I was able to reach Armin Gruner, he said NickServ appeared from spring 1990 until somewhere in 1994, with a break in-between, however he said that the split actually occurred in 1988 or 1989. Armin also pointed out that NickServ in it's original form was never designed to prevent the use of registered nicknames, just notify the user that the nickname was registered. The important characteristics here are the "nicknames are not owned" policy, which always existed and that in fact there was once a NickServ service on EFnet, but not the NickServ that is recognised today. --
Hm2k (
talk)
16:25, 6 October 2009 (UTC)reply
The mention of a break in-between for NickServ seems to be corroborated by the usenet posts where there were multiple discussions after it was shut down. The split Armin Gruner is referring to must be the Anarchy-Net/EFnet split since the EFnet/IRCnet took place much later. His mention of NickServ only notifying also correlates with the FAQs I linked to and with what I mentioned earlier. Glad to see that this is cleared up now :) --
Tothwolf (
talk)
23:58, 6 October 2009 (UTC)reply
It's very murky waters. However, it's much clearer now and I intend on rewriting part of the article to reflect what has been discussed here. --
Hm2k (
talk)
08:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)reply
I'll leave it to you. Some of the above links that I dug up previously may be usable as references as well. Have you come across much about the EFnet/NewNew irc.eskimo.com split? It should probably go into the timeline as well as it was a big deal when irc.eskimo.com was juped and eventually delinked. A quick Google search turned up
[38] as well as a
Linux Journal article
[39] that discusses the irc.eskimo.com machine. Something I did note while doing research on other IRC-related topics is a number of people seemed to have gotten the EFnet/IRCnet split information wrong (and even a few books too). Some claim that IRCnet existed first and EFnet split away from it (clearly wrong and not supported by the historical information we have). I have no idea how they came to that conclusion unless maybe they just assumed that "IRCnet" came first because it has "IRC" in its name. This may be something we want to note in the article as well to point out the inaccuracy. --
Tothwolf (
talk)
09:38, 7 October 2009 (UTC)reply
Timeline/The Great Split
"In July 1996, disagreement on policy caused EFnet to break in two: the slightly larger European half (including Australia and Japan) formed IRCnet, while the American servers continued as EFnet. This was widely known as the Great Split [3]." -- according to the source, European part was actually smaller than EFNet's. But it contained .fi hub, from which IRC originates. --
194.149.88.193 (
talk)
15:10, 6 October 2009 (UTC)reply
Is any more detailed information on the relative size available? In any case, I believe the split was roughly half/half, with the original IRC server being among those that split off, which makes the claim that the present EFnet is the continuation of the original IRC network somewhat contentious.
Rp (
talk)
18:18, 17 December 2009 (UTC)reply
Questions regarding the current state of efnet.
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"In July 2001, after a string of DDoS attacks[6] a service called CHANFIX[7]" shows the quoted DDoS attacks as outdated when you visit the link. There is nothing but advertising left. Should be removed? — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2003:CB:3FFF:BE8:0:0:0:0 (
talk)
09:15, 16 September 2019 (UTC)reply
Highest User Count
It would be interesting to know the highest number of online users and when that occurred, if anyone knows of any reliable sources for such data. I came here wondering when EFnet was at the height of its popularity, and that's one piece of info that could shed some light.
137.254.7.165 (
talk)
17:49, 22 April 2021 (UTC)reply