I agree that it doesn't work and is antifeatures. I also like that on IRC you can just sent messages and there it is. You can have public logs, possibly server

I agree that it doesn't work and is antifeatures. I also like that on IRC you can just sent messages and there it is. You can have public logs, possibly server side logs (although as far as I know, implementations of this aren't common, but this is easily possible without altering the protocol or clients at all); private messages would not be logged though, so if you wish to remain private you should send the message private instead (the server administrator should not look at private messages either, unless the message is addressed to them). Messages that you do not like, you can filter out on the client side (if the operator can provide a default filter file for uses who do not want to see everything or to customize it, that could also do; however, (public) messages should probably still be stored except that you do not have unlimited disk space, so you will have to avoid some anyways).