One day in 2004, I got the bright idea to try the meta-network set-up of an IRC Network. I didn't invent the idea, but I thought is was worth trying. I've talked about it with a few friends on a network I helped out on that no longer exists. We tried and failed as we were using unsuitable software and none of use knew how to code. I forgot all about it and moved on. Sometime in 2007 I thought of it again and with the help of Jobe, registered the domain, set-up DNS and lay in the first ircd and services that was called CollectiveIRC. My personal network was called IRCMOJO, which was renamed into the first CoreHub of CollectiveIRC, Incognito.Hub.CollectiveIRC.Net.

Soon after, we picked up Vadtec's server twilight.hub.collectiveirc.net and our first linking network, InvictaChat with HyperMutt soon to follow. While still using Unreal and Anope we had the peak user count of 150 users. All was well with the occasional glitch. Most glitches were how to handle conflicts between how we wanted to do things and the restrictions of the IRCd Protocol. RFC1459 rarely come into play, it was more or less all about the software again as it was in 2004. This time however, I was bit older and wiser having a little bit of coding skills mainly with Anope and Jobe and Vadtec having coding skills as well.

We then switched from Unreal/Anope to ircu/X3 on our testnet and found that vanilla ircu wasn't what we wanted and switched our testbed to Nefarious/X3, which worked more to our liking. The more we played with Nef/X3 the more we liked it and switched our production network from Unreal/Anope to Nefarious/X3. Shortly after we found a few bugs, some serious enough to cause crashes and fixed them. Since then we have been using custom coded software. While our base is still Nefarious and X3, our software is not vanilla. We have plans in the works to replace our Nefarious, which is built on older ircu, with a new custom IRCd that will be Nefarious like, but will be on a new ircu and take advantage of features Nefarious doesn't have.

At that time I as the "head honcho" having all the decisions solely my own since I was technically the "brain child" of the concept and having several years of network administration experience. Jobe was the "second in command" and in charge of routing. Once we moved to X3 we had numerical oper levels ranging from 0 to 1000. I was 1000 and Jobe 999. I found that as a 1000 level I can grant 1000 level and moved Jobe to 1000. It was later decided to add a third admin at 1000 so that no person would be required nor solely accountable for the success or failure of the network. We added Vadtec to our little group and become a threesome. We do this by maintaining seperate access to the network resources making it impossible for any 1 person to "take over" the network. It would require at least 2 senior admins to make an effective take over. For example 1 Admin will have access to services but not to DNS or would have access to DNS but not the website, etc ..

Today, we are a unified network and not a meta-network, we are still interested in linking like minded servers/networks in the pursuit of  bettering IRC in general by  consolidating such networks into 1 more successful network.