I just saw an IRC log on NoThreading. There's a text formatting rule on this wiki that should handle IRC transcripts, that should make the table layout unnecessary.  If you paste from an Emacs [[IRC]] client, it should "just work".

<pre>
11:25 <kensanata> yow
12:14 <dut> Hello!
12:26 <DasSheep> yawn
</pre>

Turns to:

11:25 <kensanata> yow
12:14 <dut> Hello!
12:26 <DasSheep> yawn

Well, to be honest, there are some minor glitches, such as notices:

12:21 *** dut QUIT "Lost terminal"

-- AlexSchroeder