[Announcement] Group registration and fundraising.

A quick note on a few current topics. First, new manual group registrations have been, if anything, slower than before. We apologize for this; we're working on ramping up the freenode-registry project and concentrating on coding for the moment. The code is in the early prototyping stage and is going fairly slowly, though it's beginning to pick up speed. However, the current manual group registration process is suffering while we work on the code which will eventually automate our processes. We'll try to pick off some of the more active projects in the group registration queue and get them moving again. Thanks in advance for your patience.

A new social channel, #freenode-groups, has been set up for current holders of primary channel group cloaks. If you're not in that category, the channel will forward you to #freenode, the old network staff social channel, which is actually currently forwarded, in turn, to ##bookmark (on a temporary basis) while we sort out which channels the network project is going to use.

Also, you may have noticed that the 2006-2007 PDPC fundraiser has not yet begun. Preliminary budgeting suggests that we're very much on track for 2006-2007. We'll likely have one or two small fundraisers during this fiscal year rather than a single large one. We'll keep you posted, and you can help us stay on track by making a donation now instead of later.

Finally, the staff of freenode and PDPC want to thank you for using the network. We're grateful that you continue to use the network in record numbers, and we'll keep doing our best to help things run smoothly. Have an excellent week!