More Survey Responses:

Defender:"Instant communication with more than one person."

Anonymous1:"The structure (channels) makes it easier to meet others with common interests. It is easy to hold 'private' chat sessions while simultaneously chatting on a public channel to a larger number of people. It offers control features such as channel operators, an ignore feature and so forth. Basically, IRC has been around a longer time than most other form of Internet communication (barring e-mail); so it has evolved to it's current form which is easy to use, and with which it is easier to meet people with similar interests based on channel names/topics."

Jamesey:"it's easy, and there are a large variety of rooms for me to chat in, so I can talk about anything, anywhere. There are a lot of things you can do like run fserves*, or web site chat rooms."

Anonymous2:"I believe it provides the best media for freedom of speech and acceptance of diversity of cultures."

Anonymous3:"because you can get tons of information from people who have done the stuff you are trying to do"

MissMinx:"the channels allow you to be part of a conversation if you choose without being in the spotlight all the time..or you can have a private conversation.. i use it for these reasons and because you can meet lots of people in a relatively short amount of time.. "

*fserv: file server, using irc to transfer files back and forth, PIRCH98 has file server capabilities internal, check the tools menu for it. Please see Net Knowledge Base's file about File Servers for more information at http://www.netknowledgebase.com/tutorials/fserv.html