Hi,
Some people don't like IRC (we're #prometheus on
irc.freenode.net) and prefer Slack these days for usability and persistent history across multiple clients. However, Slack has a number of drawbacks (
http://sircmpwn.github.io/2015/11/01/Please-stop-using-slack.html), mainly not being an open system, and currently requiring a browser tab per Slack team that you're part of (and gobbling up huge amounts of RAM in the process).
Matrix.org combines a lot of the benefits of both systems (open, federated, persistent history, various clients, etc.), but also allows bridging IRC channels into Matrix. They have great open clients such as
https://vector.im/ and are already bridging all Freenode channels into their main server. We just got admin rights over the bridged Matrix.org Prometheus channel and configured it to have visible history for anyone, plus open guest access.
Try it out now:
Also check out the main Vector page for mobile clients:
Bonus: Matrix.org are using Prometheus to instrument their software :)
Cheers,
Julius