[wkat4242]

> 2. From a user perspective, an IRC replacement ought to compete with Discord. That means support for posting images and videos, audio/video chat, offline history, easy switching between desktop and phone, deep and granular admin controls, etc. I'd love for there to be an open source & open protocol option here, but I'm terrified to even imagine an RFC that implements all of this in a way that works in practice.

Ugh no.The reason I love IRC is precisely because it's not Discord. IRC with Quassel (and QuasselDroid on mobile) adds most of the mod cons already without being overly bloated.

Besides, if you want something like that you already have Matrix which is just what you're looking for and fully open and federated.