Most of the day-to-day communication among active MariaDB developers is done using [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Relay_Chat|IRC]].
The Maria project's official channel is ###maria## on [[http://freenode.net/|Freenode]]. The channel ###maria-meeting## is used for official meetings. In the interest of users, we hope not to need to have a separate channel for developers. Users are asked to keep their best interests in mind when interacting with busy developers in our big tent.
If you have never used IRC before, this page will help get you up and running:
* http://freenode.net/using_the_network.shtml
Also check out the IRC tutorial here:
* http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/irctutorial.html
== Problems with Xchat and SASL ==
If you get the following error when using XChat:
**"You need to identify via SASL to use this server"**
The following instructions should help you solve this:
Download the [[http://lwsitu.com/xchat/cap_sasl_xchat.pl|cap_sasl_xchat]] script and copy it to your xchat directory (probably <<code>>~/.xchat2<</code>>)]
Then restart XChat, connect to freenode and do:
<<code>>
/sasl set freenode [your_Freenode_Nickname] [your_Nick_password] PLAIN
/sasl save
<</code>>
**freenode** above is the name of the freenode server in the network list.
You can find more information at:
* [[http://kutakizukari.ws/xchat-freenode-you-need-to-identify-via-sasl]]
* [[https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/doc/TorifyHOWTO/XChat#XChatTorSASLandFreenode|Xchat+Tor+Freenode]]
== Freenode Webchat ==
You can jump into the #maria channel without having to download and install a dedicated IRC client by clicking on the link below:
* [[http://webchat.freenode.net?randomnick=1&channels=maria&prompt=1]]
After clicking on the link you will need to fill in a captcha before you connect and you will have an opportunity to choose a custom nickname (a random nick is supplied for you).
== Statistics and Logs ==
You can view the logs of the #maria channel at [[http://marialog.archivist.info/|#maria logs]].
To view fun statistics about who chats on the #maria channel, visit [[http://ircstats.askmonty.org/|#maria @ Freenode stats by Monty Program Ab]].
