With Bayohne reply in mind, here's how I would like to see global chat channels work, which is solely based off my experience from EQ (which, it seems, is loosely based on IRC channels):

Note: You are not signed up to any channel by default. You must join all channels manually.
  • /autojoin <channel name[: password optional]> -- automatically joins the specified channel when you log in.
  • /join <channel name[: password optional]> -- join a channel.
  • /create <channel name[: password option]> -- create a new channel
  • /leave <channel name> -- leave a particular channel by name
  • /leave <channel #> -- leave a particular channel by number
  • /leave all -- level all added chat channels
  • /list -- list all chat channels you belong to
  • /list # -- list the names of all the players in a particular chat channel
  • /list <filter> -- list all public chat channels that you can join (public being all channels not password protected). Where <filter> can be "official" for non-player created channels (read: SE created ones), or just a keyword in the channel's name.
  • /# <text> -- sends text to a particular chat, where # is the channel number


And I'd like to see this...
  • /tell <world name>.<player name> -- Send a tell to a player on another world. For SPAM protection, you can only send crossworld tells to someone on your friends list. This would require the ability to add people to your friends list that are on different servers.
  • /tell <friendlist #> -- Send a tell to the # person in your friend list. E.g. To send a tell to the 2nd person in your friend's list use: /tell 2 Hello!

Thoughts, comments?