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IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat and it is a text chat system where you can talk to community members in the channel #cryptoparty on the irc.oftc.net server.
#cryptoparty@irc.oftc.net
You can use one of many dedicated IRC clients (such as pidgin, which you might already know from Jabber+OTR) or OFTCs browser client (which can also be used with the Tor Browser Bundle).
For advanced use, see the irssi+tor guide and the Torprojects Torify HowTo (irssi).
Whichever method you use to connect, it is recommended that you cloak once you have connected to the server:
/msg nickserv SET CLOAK ON
There is also an additional channel which also has news fetching irc-bots in it:
#cryptoparty-bots@irc.oftc.net