Seriously, if I ever go 48 hours without seeing a global notice on freenode IRC, I think I will fall over in disbelief.
"Um, hey guys, we're a little slow, that's all. No worries."
"Hey, me again. Someone was trying to attack us with a dictionary attack. I guess some of you should change your passwords."
"Ok, new policy, from now on, if you're not registered, you can only privmsg once a day, except on days when somebody screwed up the server."
"We are now known as Freenode, and no longer as freenode irc. Thanks."
"What's up everybody? Sorry to bother you, but I lost my keys. If everyone could check under their channel's sofa, that would be great."
I was able to turn off the global spam a long time ago, when they were going through a span of spamming every four hours or so. I highly suggest it for a better freenode experience.
