Usertools IRC page seems out of date; impossible to tell plus.net

[RalphCorderoy]

Hi, I emailed plus.net yesterday:
A friend an I, both plus.net customers, were discussing http://usertools.plus.net/irc/ but neither can connect to usertools.plus.net on TCP port 6667.  Is it still available?  If not, the page could do with updating.
The email bounced with a code 500 because "irc-admin@servicestatus.plus.com" was unknown.  It's given as the email address to contact on that page if there are problems.
Wanting to ensure the message got through, I'm trying to help plus.net and future readers of that page, I open an "Other" ticket online explaining all this.  It gets a prompt reply:
Unfortunatley we don't have an offline technical team so I have to advise you to call us on 0800 432 0200...
What!?  Offline!?  What extra am I going to tell them over the phone?  If there really is something, can't they ask rather than provide a phone number?  Why should we have a synchronous conversation about this?  I don't suppose if I did ring up they could investigate and find the problem straight away anyway whilst keeping me on the line.
So I tweet to @plusnet hoping for some sanity from someone that actually uses the Internet.  ^LK directs me here.
Hopefully the original two faults will reach plus.net and they'll just delete the page.  Or if it is still working then perhaps their list of IP addresses is out of date and so the server isn't accepting either of our connections.  I've tried from several different plus.net IPs now.
But the main problem is the abysmal experience of trying to pass a technical point onto a plus.net staff member who can deal with it or just put it in the queue of someone who can.
When I joined plus.net, pre-BT, I was delighted to phone up and the person that answered knew SSH and could see how traffic filtering was hampering interactive use when a non-standard, but common, port was used.  And he got it added to the rules.
No fuss.  Seems like a dream now.
I've also received a SurveyMonkey request for feedback to help "build a world class Customer Support Centre".  Having spent considerable time so far, I don't see why I should bother.

[Chris]

Hi there,
Sorry for the very poor response you received on your ticket. Linn (^LK on Twitter) is picking that up and addressing it as feedback.
We responded again to your tweet advising that the IRC channel was removed, you can see an announcement about that here: http://community.plus.net/forum/index.php/topic,131161.0.html

[MauriceC]

Hi @RalphCorderoy
Apologies for the problem with the now defunct irc service.  The page you accessed should at least have been amended in the move, but it just got removed from the menu's ::) but the "irc-admin@servicestatus.plus.com" email address was 'live' until a week or so ago to catch any last minute issues
I've now modified the Chat page with a simple reminder of the service shutdown.

[Chris]

Thanks for the update Maurice.

[dvorak]

There's an unofficial IRC room if you want to join us.. Unofficial IRC -  irc.geekshed.net:6667, Channel #PlusnetUnofficial

[RalphCorderoy]

Thanks everyone for the help and information.  Sorry for the rant, it's just frustrating sometimes.  At least I kept it polite.  ;-)