Well, I don't remember any time where IRC was not a flame fest, but anyway you are right that it's a worthless medium for collaboration and for offering support. The problem is that the Dancer project, like many in the Perl world, as you say, continue to state that the IRC channel is the "official" support method.
The Dancer channel is largely silent, and when newcomers ask a question there's usually a long period of silence and most often the newb has left when someone acks. On the other hand, as I mentioned in an update, like many projects nowadays, the most activity for Dancer is found around the Github pages for the repo.
The way forward always starts with a minimal test.
