To be fair, https://dontasktoask.com/ should be basic etiquette on any chat platform at this point. I understand that some people may not be familiar with this etiquette but I won't be surprised if someone doesn't receive a response to "Hello anyone here?". What does one expect in this case? If there are 13 people online, all of them should reply "Yes, I'm here"?

Low volume irc channels are useless because of all the join quit spam. As well as username spam where bouncers will auto change the username based on away status.

First thing I configure is to hide part join. I’ve been wanting for a long time to write a plug-in for irssi to hide it for all but those who recently spoke.