> The encoding is almost always UTF-8, I never encountered anything else on any network I used. Mainly because there are only a handful of living IRC networks

> The encoding is almost always UTF-8, I never encountered anything else on any network I used. Mainly because there are only a handful of living IRC networks anyway. Korean IRC networks are virtually vanished as of mid-2010s (and I operated one of last such networks), and while many have migrated to UTF-8, EUC-KR never died even at that point. Honestly speaking, the modern IRC doesn't exist. The IRC today, which you refer as the "modern" IRC, is actually what IRC should have been at least a decade ago. Korean networks didn't even get to that point.