Wasn't a huge IRC guy, but do you essentially mean, text group chats? Servers, and channels within servers?

ICQstr ! I would give it a try

Yes that is what I mean. Instead of trying to squeeze group chats into the current way relays work, there would be a new relay structure focused on this use case. In essence, a server is a meta-relay, and each channel is an individual relay (unique message stream). server.com/bitcoin, server.com/sports, etc are each technically a separate relay. Instead of amalgamating text notes from all relays into a one transparent feed, a client would segregate the feeds based on channel. There would also be “admin” type events for channel creation, moderation, etc. In summary, opinionated relays + a tweaked client experience to create a clean chat experience, while still allowing you to build with the Nostr ecosystem of libraries and extensions

yes 💯 I've been doing some work relay side to hopefully facilitate this at relay.tools Hoping some new clients start to come out that aren't focused on being a Twitter.