This should have been communicated better and for that I apologize. We published a draft policy update and worked with the community in #freenode-policy-feedback to understand the community's wishes.
The policy was updated today to make clear that inappropriate advertising was unacceptable. As many of these channels were simply wildly unmoderated and closed, yet by protocol standards, "open" under a primary (#) namespace while in "official capacity", we felt it was best to redirect users to an unofficial off-topic (##) namespace.
I apologize for this being communicated poorly. This is entirely my fault, and I take all the blame for that.
The policy was updated today to make clear that inappropriate advertising was unacceptable. As many of these channels were simply wildly unmoderated and closed, yet by protocol standards, "open" under a primary (#) namespace while in "official capacity", we felt it was best to redirect users to an unofficial off-topic (##) namespace.
I apologize for this being communicated poorly. This is entirely my fault, and I take all the blame for that.