Sad to see how much IRC has declined recently. I spent much of my youth on DALnet, and that's what forced me to learn about computers. There was lots of hacking, exploits, social engineering, you name it. Combine that with how IRC standardly revealed everyone's IP, and it made for quite the environment. If you were going to run major channels back then, it was either learn to protect yourself, or get pwn3d. I had no choice but to do the former, and I'm still working with computers today.
Contrary to your gauge of IRC being in decline is that it isn't like DALnet of the 90s/early 2000s, I see that as a good thing. "Quite the environment" is quite the euphemism.
