Chat channels for FreeNAS users?

[Stilez]

WOuld a FreeNAS social/chat/community support channel on Telegram or similar vbe seen as useful, or would it dilute the forum and fragment community interaction?

I often find myself missing having a chat place with other FreeNAS users on chat, who I can keep up to date with pon common interests, chat about successes/problems, or ask quick questions to. I have this for several other projects - there are channels for BSD and BSD coders, for the FreeBSD router project OPNSense (fork of pfSense), for Android, XDA and my specific version of LineageOS.... but nothing for FreeNAS.

It's too soon to say if it would be for users generally, newcomers, or developers, and if it's general (but FreeNAS mainly) social chat, support, development - those are questions that could be faced at some later stage if the idea itself is good.

I'm not in a position to start a channel (I don't think) and I wouldn't know how to run one, but I'm curious what others feel about the idea, and if someone else has experience and wants to grab the ball and run.... please do :)

Poll instructions: ​

• Pick one option that says if you like the idea,
• Pick one option whether you think you'd use it (if it did exist),
• Also pick any/all chat systems you would be OK with (try to be as flexible as possible so we can see if there are clear preferences/dislikes!)

Please don't accidentally check multiple items in the top 2 sections!​

 

[SweetAndLow]

Have you tried the freenas irc channel? There is also some people who hang out in mumble.

 

[Stilez]

Have you tried the freenas irc channel? There is also some people who hang out in mumble.

A lot of open source projects use IRC. But a lot of "everyday people" who might use or be interested in FreeNAS don't. These days IRC is less the go-to chat for many people (most probably don't use it), and it lacks a load of features people expect/value in a chat, like scroll back if offline, asynchronous chatting, files/images shared easily, and less arcane/no service commands.

I definitely don't want to divert into "is IRC still relevant/outdated" - for many people especially those with a history in open source communities, it is indeed still widely used.

But I think its definitely worth checking if some kind of space should be set up elsewhere, because of those aspects, and because support on other chats is now common in other OS projects - although perhaps bridged to IRC like many other projects do.

Now added Mumble - thanks!