Sinister: IMPORTANT: all chat room users

[Honey]

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
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