This is not meant to be a general “Here's how to IRC” document, so if you're looking for that, check Google instead. ♥
If you‘ve been charged with helping maintain one of Docker’s now many IRC channels, this might turn out to be useful. If there‘s information that you wish you’d known about how a particular channel is organized, you should add deets here! :)
ChanServMost channel maintenance happens by talking to Freenode's ChanServ bot. For example, /msg ChanServ ACCESS <channel> LIST will show you a list of everyone with “access” privileges for a particular channel.
A similar command is used to give someone a particular access level. For example, to add a new maintainer to the #docker-maintainers access list so that they can contribute to the discussions (after they've been merged appropriately in a MAINTAINERS file, of course), one would use /msg ChanServ ACCESS #docker-maintainers ADD <nick> maintainer.
To setup a new channel with a similar maintainer access template, use a command like /msg ChanServ TEMPLATE <channel> maintainer +AV (+A for letting them view the ACCESS LIST, +V for auto-voice; see /msg ChanServ HELP FLAGS for more details).
The most common cause of not-getting-auto-+v woes is people not being IDENTIFYed with NickServ (or their current nickname not being GROUPed with their main nickname) -- often manifested by ChanServ responding to an ACCESS ADD request with something like xyz is not registered..
This is easily fixed by doing /msg NickServ IDENTIFY OldNick SecretPassword followed by /msg NickServ GROUP to group the two nicknames together. See /msg NickServ HELP GROUP for more information.