Hi,
Instead of quitting one could try IRC combined with the Matrix protocol bridge. This creates a very low threshold to ask questions (IRC on liberal.chat), while keeping the possibility to interact later even on the phone with the Element app.
It would require someone who is doing the setup and ideally also maintain for more than three weeks. Though if someone really wants to do it and there is actually a use for it, why not.
Maybe its time to quit IRC totally, its rarely used and no devs "hang out" there much now anyway.
Redirect the few questions to github discussions or a free discourse somewhere. Do it in a browser and then smartphones and other platforms are possible. And with these previous conversations are visible without having to read "backlog" in a different place, so questioners can even see previous answers (gasp horror how modern!!!).
Sounds very reasonable to me, especially from one who regularly supports our users in different media. I just a had quick look at the IRC of the last months and it is indeed very quiet. Shutting it down would remove some maintenance scripts and most importantly the very old and outdated IRC bot software...
I don't have any experience with Github discussions yet but it might be worth a try. Still one more area where we couple with Github but I guess this doesn't make so much difference anymore (meaning if we have to migrate to another service, it doesn't matter much if we move the discussions as well).
And one less password and broken autostart of hexchat.
:)
Regards, Enrico