download quassel. makes it more simple to jump from quakenet to gamesurge to geeknet.

http://quassel-irc.org/

Err... I don't know. My brain was reading your name as blindtalent probably because he's the only 'blind___' name I've ever seen in TF2. I suppose I just glazed over your actual name 100 times in a row. Oops.

The switch over will be happening shortly, just waiting for one last final pug to finish up in the Gamesurge channel

I personally would prefer that we keep the servers the way they are. (I ping 100 to dallas) but I would be open to adding another Dallas server to the mix.

I might take my time later to read all these messages but I will at least answer to the most important questions regarding #tf2mix.

The reason why I chose Quakenet in the first place was to consolidate the TF2 scene to one network. The European scene is already using Quakenet and it seemed like a logical choice. They are the biggest network and have been there since almost forever (one of the oldest). This proves that it would be a safe decision to chose them. The network staff has been very responsive so far and are up to help me out with the HTML IRC PUG client. It's been a lot better than what I got with Gamesurge. Keep in mind, switching to a different network is not a decision I took lightly, it has taken years to acknowledge it would be a better solution for all of us. It's also not a decision I can take on my own, I had to consult every other major TF2 channels owners. The only one who responded positively was enigma from #tf2scrim. Folowed by #tf2.pug.na (Aristolte) with a long time saying "we don't know" from a very late "no. Followed by a quick "no" from the other channels. Keep in mind that all this has been in discussion since a very long time (4-5 months ago).

Now, out of nowhere I start receiving private messages about somebody who is trying to start his own network. Let's say that I am quite hesitant about the whole idea of splitting the whole community to a brand new network that hasn't been proved to be reliable at all. So, I try my best to tell the guy I'm not really interested. Anyway, a month ago I hear about the information that both HL channels are officially moving off Gamesurge to this guy network. I was very surprised since none of the two channel owners from those services came to me to speak about it. Same goes with Fog, I learned about #tf2.pug.na switch from this thread... It's really a big "what the..." for me since none of this "GeeksIRC" thing has been discussed with me and the other channels owners. Which I consider should have been a minimum.

Anyway, if it took me so long to announce anything regarding this it was because I wanted the process to be as smooth as possible but also give all the other channels owner as much time as possible to plan for it. I think I waited an official response from "#tf2.pug.na" for 2 months, to finally receive a "no" at the end. Now they are switching off but to a network I never heard of. Do you guys really know what you want?

Final word, when #tf2mix will officially swicth to a new network we will run on both for a while so we won't force it down your throat while keeping it as stable as possible for everybody.

Strange the communication died between channel owners. Even stranger this should happen without public consultation from tf2 users.

Hopefully this works out for the better. :|.

The switch has now been completed!

If you need any assistance with stats and auth accounts, just send me a message on the channel or on steam

I am not too sure about this one, you actively came to talk to me almost every day for a good while. You were quite aggressive regarding your sale pitch. I am pretty sure I told you "no" countless times but you still came back almost every day with a "hi" or a question to engage the discussion. You even had your friends sending me private messages regarding the migration. It took me a while to figure out it was your buddies but now it's clear. Anyway, I hope the other channels owner took the right decisions because all of this didn't convince me that you were a trustable person I could rely on to move my users to your network.

Here's a quick highlight of what my IRC looked like for a good while:
http://i.imgur.com/gqEB28l.png
http://i.imgur.com/BzQ303M.png
http://i.imgur.com/YCZebzD.png

Someone requested this, so here it is: a brief tutorial on the whole NickServ thing, using HexChat:

If I catch the message asking me to identify:

If I don't:

Not pictured: if you try and fail to identify too many times, what's essentially a lock might be put on your account 'cause it thinks someone's trying to brute force it. You can undo this by doing something like:
/msg NickServ identify accountname accountpass
/msg NickServ release accountname

If you need help, you can do /msg NickServ help

Alternatively, with HexChat, you can set up your network connect to look like this.

Or, using one of the three webchats offered:

I guess I'll comment.

Because I ruin everything, it was my channel (#tf2.mix.nahl) that was the first to leave GameSurge and move to GeeksIRC - http://teamfortress.tv/forum/thread/13907-changes-in-tf2-mix-nahl. In short, we moved because I got tired of patching the issues we had with GameSurge, and we needed a solution.

We were beset by trolls. There were periods where we'd get a single person trying to enter the channel through 20-30 proxies within an hour. Initially, we had to manually ban these people on each of their proxies. Eventually, I had blindsight write a bot to do it, which was later implemented in #tf2.pug.nahl (this is the bot smakers mentioned). Anyone who joined as part of a proxy network was automatically temp banned. This greatly reduced the porn spam and racial slurs our channel suffered.

The thing was, GameSurge's temp ban lists are kind of derpy. Depending on how someone is banned on GameSurge, they can go on one of three (? I ran my channel for a year and was still kind of mystified about the various banlists, despite talking to GameSurge opers multiple times) banlists. The banlist our bot was temp banning to was full. The banlist most of our admins were banning to was also full. You might ask "why were you banning so many people?", to which my reasonable answer would be "because I'm hitler" that we weren't. Most of the new bans - especially new permanent bans - were alternate IPs for existing banned players (due to them moving, going to and from school, etc).

When considering switching networks I did actually look at QuakeNet - after all, "they have euros". The fact was, I was extremely dissatisfied with the situation QuakeNet offered. Our problem was maintaining our banlists, but QuakeNet had a really really messy ban system - potentially, banning someone by IP would result in banning their entire dorm, or entire campus. This wasn't an acceptable solution.

When blindsight offered me GeeksIRC as a solution, I jumped at it - they offered me the services I wanted, were willing to customize them to running a TF2 channel, and had considerable ban flexibility. I was incredibly willing to consider them as an option without the coercion cinq implies. Any stalling on the move on my part came from wanting to minimize how many different changes happened in my channel, so I waited for our new bot (which wouldn't work on QuakeNet without a massive rewrite, at which point it would run considerably slower than it does now) before moving.

I knew #tf2mix was thinking about moving, but didn't know how committed they were to QuakeNet. I new #tf2.pug.nahl was also going to move, but was similarly waiting to switch bots - actually to a modified version of the bot #tf2.mix.nahl currently uses (after we get some playtesting in), which again, wouldn't work on QuakeNet.

I have no desire to divide the community. However, I wonder if dividing the North American 6s and Highlander communities isn't worse than dividing the European and North American 6s communities. That #tf2mix and #tf2scrim are now moving independently of #tf2.pug.na, #tf2.mix.nahl and #tf2.pug.nahl worries me.

For what it's worth, the euros are welcome to come to GeeksIRC - the network opers, in my experience, are remarkably responsive, the network seems to be easy for any existing bots to adapt to, and channel registration is free and easy. GeeksIRC even has a european node, no people don't have to worry about latency to the network.

This pretty much sums up my reasoning for the switch to GeeksIRC.

Elena, thanks for the writeup, it is the only one that makes sense to me so far on switching away from gamesurge. I hope geeksirc works out well for tf2pugnahl.

Fog, I don't understand your reasoning based on the quoted text. Could you please explain?

Splitting up the NA 6s and HL pug scenes from one another would be devastating for the future growth of the game. It's all nice and dandy of having a unified IRC network for EU and NA, but fracturing the NA pug communities of HL and 6s does not make it worth it to attempt to have a unified EU and NA IRC network.

But both those accounts are yours.

I'm a bit confused what the choice of IRC network has to do with "dividing the community". The choice of what network to run a channel on mostly affects the people who run the channel, and barely affects the users, who I assume are the majority of the "community". With any half-decent IRC client you can be connected to multiple channels across multiple networks at the same time, and once you enter in the channel / network / nickserv info once, it gets saved so you never have to worry about it again.

I think the real point here is that IRC is so 2007, since nobody else seems to use it.

GeeksIRC provides nothing more to admins and end-users, it's a fucking IRC server...We could have easily purchased www.pugna.com or something similar and created an IRC web app like the following I made for my server (irc.lowend.fm). This web application can hide and encrypt users IP's by default, making is much more secure. As far as bans go, ban rules are about the same across all IRC servers, and if you are having problems with them I suggest learning some IRC admin commands and beefing up your security.
/rant

You seem to miss the point where other channels are already moving to GeeksIRC. I would have told you this on Steam but it seems that you've removed me because of the recent move.

EDIT: In fact, I told you about this move weeks before the move happened. I'm not sure what has changed since the last time I talked to you about this.

And I told you several times it was a terrible idea abut you did it anyway, fuck off.

I will forever hate the move decision. It was perfect before on the user end.

http://i1.minus.com/i6aHWZLGeNT31.png

r u for real

...to tf2center/tf2.gg?

rip pugna

http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/072/e/7/dota_2__pugna_by_mrscrake-d4sn4w7.png

If there's enough interest then we'll put a captaining mode higher up on our task list.

You told me the idea with Quakenet was a bad idea, but once I told you other channels were moving to GeeksIRC, you said "if that's where everyone else is moving I guess it's ok" and "let me know when you're doing the move, perhaps I can help out".

Besides, you weren't even active within pug.na for months, leaving me to run everything. Go fuck yourself.

So you (jaybenaduchi) disagree with the move so much, it compelled you to access the bot's server and remove all of the screens which ran the bots?

Fucking despicable.

I'll be moving the bots to my personal server to prevent this issue from happening again.

Fog, while I don't disagree with your decision, it seems like you just decided to move the channel without the community's input. For something as community-based as pug.na, that should have been done.

Still, whoever shut off the bots went too far.

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/38/38dcd17323ee9a2ec5a97d27a291e5d49f71b4b49b134dfc525fc8466492e570.jpg

I agree with you with asking the community's opinion first before just moving it over.

It was a huge mistake on my part, not asking the community's opinion on the move. However, I will remain committed to making this transition work

EDIT: submitted this too early, added on the rest of what I wanted to say.

pug.na is pronounced "pugnah", not "pug dot n a"