OPNSense Discord is growing!

[Srixun]

Hey guys! Just an advert post for the OPNSense Discord (just another thing we've got better than PFsense. lol)

We've added guides, troubleshooting forums, alongside automation topics and more, as well as adding a donate to OPNSense link in the discord as well.

Growing quickly, crossed 150 members, and its very active! Edit: We just crossed 300 members overnight! thank you guys! 6/18, Just crossed 40 members! thank you guys!

Just wanting to make sure if anyones looking for this as a venue then its there for you guys to hop in!

https://discord.gg/BFPFj2uBAY  (Note: This is an Unofficial discord, and community run.)

[Srixun]

Noting, if youre a mod of the reddit or forum community, PM me and Ill get you Mod tags. Already made and awaiting yall

[passeri]

Observing this deliberate division of the community and support, I am reassessing my commitment to OPNsense and monetary contributions thereto.

It wasn’t broken.

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

Maybe its good there is a community where no official staff is involved. When the reddit communities got merged, the biggest concern was having staff as mods.

Having something independant could increase trust and show its really open in any sense.

[Srixun]

Observing this deliberate division of the community and support, I am reassessing my commitment to OPNsense and monetary contributions thereto.

It wasn’t broken.

Hey passeri,

Id be very curious on how this is a division?

Some notes I'd like to make here,

1. We have been working to ensure everything is as tied into the forums and the standard community as possible, Links to the forums, links to the opnsense donation portal, notes stating "the forum is still the best place for advanced troubleshooting"

2. If you have 10 legos, and someone brings 1 more lego, is that destructive to the other legos? Or does it help build?  If this was simply a "this OR that" conversation, I could see your point for sure. However, we are adding onto the already existing community.

3. Is this going to make opnsense some wildly popular Palo Alto competitor overnight? Nope. Its not honestly going to do a ton overall imo, however, it gives people a place, with familiarity to join in, learn, troubleshoot and network with other users.   Will we grow the community? Im not sure, Do I hope so? Yes I do. Do I think it will? Yes I do.

There is no deliberate split of the community. I would say that if you come talk to me or the discord for a few minutes, its very apparent we are all tied into this thing together and nobody wants to do anything other than help build and grow this thing we enjoy.

This is UnOfficial.  and asking the mods to join up isnt handing them over anything but making sure they can see and have some visibility, as well as seeing a community theyve worked hard to grow, at work, interacting, and growing as well.

[Srixun]

Maybe its good there is a community where no official staff is involved. When the reddit communities got merged, the biggest concern was having staff as mods.

Having something independant could increase trust and show its really open in any sense.

I can understand this take for sure.  Just note, we have Mod Roles in the discord, doesnt mean that they would necessarily RUN the show or anything like that, but they would be able to join in on the conversations, see the community interact and grow, to which theyve been working to do long before I came along.

We do the same mod roles for the reddit and facebook group guys too (I think the reddit are the same) but facebook has a massive group and we've offered those guys to tag along as well.  


Also, we doubled our numbers overnight. Grew to 300 from 150 yesterday!  Thank you everyone!

[Greg_E]

The concern is over splitting resources. How many places can one person look for assistance with an issue. Suppose something big get uncovered in Discord and fixed, but that info never gets back to official channels, so they never officially fix the issue?

I get it, discord can be "live" assistance and any forum is just a post and wait thing. But fracturing the help away from official may not be the best way. But it's a free internet (for now), use it as your passion suggests. I'll probably just stay here, they were kind enough to build it, kind enough to monitor it, and kind enough to come in here and answer my (sometimes) stupid questions. To me that shows a strong company because I deal with a lot of companies that may put up a user forum, but they never come in and help people fix their problems or even let us know when something is happening.

[Srixun]

I couldn't agree more about the company. Watching these forums is what pulled me over from PFSense.

The community is great, but data loss is always a risk, right?

How many problems in IRC got fixed and never reported? Or in FB groups, etc.?

I think there's some valid pushback, and then there's just some sour pushback from people who simply don't want Discord at all, no matter what, because they see it as a "younger" thing. I'll tell you right now, I'm almost 40 and a director of cyber at a Fortune 10 company. Its ease of use and functionality are solid. Is everything going to make it back here? Nope. But of all those other platforms, even IRC, how much of that data makes it back here as well? We don't know.

I understand the concern about splitting resources for sure. However, I would say that with how we're running the Discord, with a Reddit tracker, it has led to a lot of people getting into Reddit to resolve issues when they see something come up.

I would love to find a way to track the forums as well. For example, if someone makes a forum post, it notifies in Discord, and our people there see it, respond, and resolve.

Gotta find the perks, bud! I think we have plenty of perks here to justify this. It's not like I woke up and chose violence to make an OPNSense Discord. haha.

It's just another avenue, another lane on the highway to OPNsense. If that lane or avenue ends up increasing the number of people in the community, then overall, it may end up resolving more problems in the end or at least expanding the footprint.

Heck, I'd love to find a way to bring OPNSense into work and use it for our dev environments. I tried with PFSense, but the PFSense team ended up just being a bunch of asses and ruined the process for themselves. Shrug I have total faith that if I can set that up again, OPNSense would answer the call very well.

[passeri]

Greg_E gave most of the detail, to which I will add that there is no such thing as "live" support from a single differentiated location in a world with 24 hours. The forum is asynchronous but reliable. Replication and resource-splitting are therefore pointless from that perspective. I have yet to see a good reason advanced.

I do not control what others do, only my own optimal response to the conditions presented. The fact is that whereas where OPNsense won out in previous consideration, my other three options retain coherent support and I continue to follow their activities the same as I peruse this site daily. Optionality helps.

[Srixun]

Greg_E gave most of the detail, to which I will add that there is no such thing as "live" support from a single differentiated location in a world with 24 hours. The forum is asynchronous but reliable. Replication and resource-splitting are therefore pointless from that perspective. I have yet to see a good reason advanced.

I do not control what others do, only my own optimal response to the conditions presented. The fact is that whereas where OPNsense won out in previous consideration, my other three options retain coherent support and I continue to follow their activities the same as I peruse this site daily. Optionality helps.

No such thing as live support would be blatantly false.  We've got people troubleshooting "live" even as we speak in discord. Someone wasnt able to connect to a game and hes getting help in real time to fix the issues. Im watching it as we speak.

now theyre talking about DOOM, or not doom and how FPS gives them headaches. but the issue is working through and should be resolved.

Everything else you have no arguement from me, options are always good, hence why Discord is here. Optionality is a good thing.

Keep in mind, since you were threatening to stop donating to OPNSense because someone in the community made a discord, this discord isnt official and is run by a group of community members around the world.

Happy Friday! and to those who celebrate it, Happy Fathers day this weekend!

[Srixun]

Just crossed 400 members! Thank you guys!

[passeri]

No such thing as live support would be blatantly false.  We've got people troubleshooting "live" even as we speak in discord.

How to miss the point.

Never mind. I am not here to debate it and won't post further on it.

[Srixun]

No such thing as live support would be blatantly false.  We've got people troubleshooting "live" even as we speak in discord.

How to miss the point.

Never mind. I am not here to debate it and won't post further on it.

Ok.

[Srixun]

Thank everyone who has been joining as we close in on 500 members.

[gimbleguy]

I joined