IRC, or Internet Relay Chat, is a very popular means of multi-user communication often preferred by developers. Conversation on IRC is segregated into channels with several channels on one IRC server. There are many popular IRC servers, but Freenode seems to host the most popular and geeky channels. I write for Linux.com and we host a channel for our readers on OFTC.net.
Note
You can connect to only one IRC server using the IRC gateway. You cannot have some users on one network and others on another.
You can change the channel you want to log into from the Options slider. By default, it's set to log in into irc.freenode.net. If the channel you want to connect to is on another server, you'll have to specify it here. Because an IRC server has several channels, the IRC gateway has an option to view the list of channels on a server once a user is connected. To see a list of channels, select the Allow MUC room list checkbox (refer to the following...