:) what is the correct one? It's different for each server, or even channel. IRC clients usually supported such custom settings. But then there was the matter of the other end of your screen - your terminal and maybe screen session I which it run.

I used to have an IRC config that was different for each server and sometimes channel, then displayed that in one shared encoding with other chat apos, then converted that on the fly with screen to match encoding of other apps.

Now I just had to make sure to convert encodings and line endings of all config files, any text file, or even source code and scripts...

Nowadays you just paste emojis in code and it's there, it works anyone, including the user. Huge change.