I may be wrong about this, but wasn't one of the attractions about hosting your own IRC server for sourceforts, rather than depending on gamesurge (more or less) the fact that you could make clan channels without having to go great lengths?
If so, why aren't there any clan channels?

That wasn't one of the stated reasons, but I'll add it to my list. That's now a reason .

I haven't written an IRC guide yet, but for those who want channels, it's as simple as joining the channel you want to register and typing "/ChanServ REGISTER #[channel name]".

Sadly, privileges that are given to your friends won't be saved yet - I have a few bugs to iron out from merging it with the forums, but that should be done soon (I'm just too busy with the v2.0 beta code at the moment). At some point in the future, I'll be writing web interface for this.

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"If they rape and kill me, I hope they kill me first. That way, I sort of win."

My team has a channel on Gamesurge (#velocity.sf). It's new, and small, but I'll think about getting one on the new network.