For a while now I cannot login to the plone channel on irc (freenode). All other channels work fine with my nickname (pbauer). I usually use panicbnc to stay logged in but it does not work at all.
Here is the error:
Error(477): plone Cannot join channel (+r) - you need to be identified with services - see https://freenode.net/kb/answer/registration
The same happens when I try to use Kiwi IRC with a random usernames.
FreeNode apparently defaulted to +r on all registered channels to kill spam.
Requiring users to register is not unreasonable.
It might be usefull but it significantly reduced the usabiliyi of IRC for beginners. Also I see the number of logged in users at #plone is significanlty lover than before the change to +r which is bad for new people asking questions on gitter.
To reconnect I had to do the following:
/msg nickserv register [somepassword] [myemail]
If you do not need to have a existing accound or password. You simply need to store your password. You then get an email with a verification code and instruction to enter the following:
/msg NickServ VERIFY REGISTER pbauer [someverificationcode]
And voila, you are logged-in to #plone again. You can now configure your irc-client to auto-login using that password. I use LimeChat and panicbnc as a bouncer.
See https://superuser.com/questions/106965/how-do-i-identify-with-services-on-irc#322897
Please do not do that, if possible. They also provide SASL and certificate authentication.
https://freenode.net/kb/answer/sasl
https://freenode.net/kb/answer/certfp
Do not do what?
Authenticate by sending messages over IRC when the server connect itself supports it.