Ask HN: What are nice, drama-free and informative IRC channels?
I've heard good things about #rust-beginners, but what else is there for people who would like to read smart people talk about cool stuff they're doing?
Petty flamewars and off-topic discussion (e.g. the channel regulars chit-chatting about their hobbies or personal lives, 4Chan-like memes, etc.) are why some Freenode communities decided to set up a new channel with a double ##- prefix to be strictly on-topic, while they let the old channel just go to hell.