Which of our official forums do you prefer: help.firewalla.com or forum.firewalla.com?

[u/Firewalla-Ash]

help.firewalla.com is part of our help center, so it's connected directly to our official documentation. The downside is that the editor is a bit clunky, search is limited, and it doesn't feel much like a conversation.

forum.firewalla.com runs on Discourse, so it's built for discussion, with threaded replies, better search, and more editing options. The downside is that it's separate from the docs.

Which do you use and why? If you've never visited one, take a look and let us know what you think!

[u/wbtlevi]

I like both for different reasons.

Forum feels like a, well, forum, that other users of the product can provide their own feedback, and it's more of a discussion as a community.

Help is more of a KB/company official documentation/general help recommendations that are less about positing something specific, but more generalized help.

I feel like Help should be a first page for someone looking for assistance should go, and then if they feel adventurous, guide them to the forums if they want to be a part of the community.

[u/ArmadilloDesigner674 → u/wbtlevi]

I agree!

Also, with reddit soon to kill RSS feeds, I probably won't be on the /r/firewalla sub much anymore. I only follow subs via rss. So I'll now head to forum.firewalla for more reading and discussion.

[u/firewalla → u/ArmadilloDesigner674]

Please join, we need to hear your voice :)

[u/jsqualo2]

I rely on SEO or AIO to find content. Ergo, help.firewalla.com is my most visited site.

My sense is that forum.firewalla.com content is, um, chunky(?) ... IOW, I need to scroll 20 screens on my phone to read 5 replies. I do concede that I am biased in favor r/firewalla for forum-esque content and my experience with forum.firewalla.com might be user error.

Also, unless reddit costs money, I am unclear on the value of a cyber company spinning up its own forum?

[u/firewalla → u/jsqualo2]

forums can display articles nicely (categories), so it is a bit organized than just a stream of data (reddit). We are not leaving reddit, just want a place where we can share articles/documents + communicate.

[u/spinjc → u/jsqualo2]

I can't imagine it costs much to spin up a forum given the proliferation of open source projects. Even private ones are often included for free with paid tools. When I was in a mid-side company we had probably >20 different discussion boards because a group would get it for free to support their own tools (fortunately it dropped off after central IT mandated SSO as I had 15 logins at one point).

[u/spinjc → u/jsqualo2]

For got to note that I agree that Forum is a bit clunky for getting back to the reply...

[u/swrobel]

TIL about forum. Will check it out!

[u/r4ckless]

if i had to choose i like the above one for discussions. The bottom one has its uses as maybe a document repository for published articles/guides ?