Anyone who uses the #Sinister chat room (and there's a lot who do), read this. Anyone who doesn't, hit delete and move on to the next message which will be about (a) films, or (b) onanism. Recent days have seen Virgin, our chat room server provider, changing the service beyond recognition, masking off users connection information so we can't see who's who, etc, and two days ago declaring that I as room owner sign up with them as an ISP, with a threat that the room would be removed within a week if I didn't. Having complied, they made a fundamental change yesterday without telling anyone, which we assume was yet another problem. But I'm staggered to tell you it's *intentional*: all rooms (that they define as not theirs) are permanently moderated, meaning an operator has to grant voices to every single person joining manually; no more "private" rooms (meaning anyone can see it and join) and various other changes such as no real operator abilities at all anymore, meaning we can't protect it at all. I've written the strongest possible message to them to reason this out, but as we have the channel as a privilege rather than a right, I don't think they care less: maybe they're trying to get rid of us anyway. I'll keep you informed if the situation improves but for now, I suggest we all meet up on another server. For now, please go back to your "server" list in your IRC program (it's under File-Options-Connect in mIRC) and instead of joining chat.virgin.net, join any server listed as an "Underwear", sorry, "Undernet" server. "Random Undernet Server" is probably you're best bet: it doesn't matter where the server is located (US/EU etc). Then join the channel #Sinister in the usual way. For the interim if you're the first person creating the channel, you'll have operator privileges and should type /mode #sinister +pntl 500. If you don't know what this means don't worry - a regular will come along and fix it. I'll make arrangements as quickly as possible, assuming a nil result with my diplomacy skills, to register a proper permanent channel with Undernet which should save our skins. For this I'll need 10 people seconding the formation of the room, so could a few chatroom *regulars* please mail me (proper ISP-based email address only are allowed, i.e. no hotmail, chickmail etc) and say they will be willing to support the application. Please only say you will if you can *quickly answer emails* in the next week - I'll just pick ten of you, so if you volunteer and don't get a reply from me thanks anyhow. If anyone is stuck with all this mail me. Bit boring, this mail. Honey xxx +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the reborn Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list mail "sinister@majordomo.net". To unsubscribe send "unsubscribe sinister" or "unsubscribe sinister-digest" to "majordomo@majordomo.net". WWW: http://www.majordomo.net/sinister +-+ "legion of bedroom saddo devotees" "tech-heads and students" +-+ +-+ "the cardie wearing biscuit nibbling belle & sebastian list" +-+ +-+ "jelly-filled danishes" +-+ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+