Can people explain what they like about IRC? I've often found the idea of having a community chat around some topic quite intriguing, but in practice when I've tried briefly joining such communities, I simply don't last long, as it doesn't grab my attention. Rooms tend to have tens or a hundred people joined, but saying nothing, until someone has a problem they want to talk about or question they want to ask, which is either answered quickly, or devolves into seeing that no one can help them, eg. because what they are asking doesn't make sense or is too mbitious or whatnot. Then silence again. In other words I've never gotten a clear sense of "community", but rather a forum for random and often uninteresting questions, and therefore just naturally stop visiting. All in all it just kind of gets boring very fast, I find, so I am curious how people manage to get something out of it and what motivates them to stay joined in a channel.
I haven't tried newer systems like Matrix or Discord so I have no idea if these do any better, or if so, why, although I am consistently surprised by the number of requests posted to reddit to 'join our discord community'. (My reaction is always kind of, well, we're here in this reddit where there is already a community, so..)
My point is not to dis on IRC/chat rooms here, just explaining why I've never particularly found it engaging, and so I'm curious what others see in it, as I feel it's something I could learn to appreciate if I tried a bit harder.