As Chris pointed out the Eclipse community is really embracing IRC. I am a lurker on the #eclipse channel and the one thing that has always impressed me is the awesome support provided by the community.
In particular, Remi Suen is machine in responding to questions. Yesterday, I found this site that logs the #eclipse irc channel, including stats. Sure enough Remy is the top contributor; almost 5x the number of lines.
It is people like Remy that really make Eclipse a great community! Thanks to Remy, #eclipse IRC is an important part of that community.
