Few days ago there was this post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21691802 which had many public(non onion service) irc servers listed but I am looking for irc servers that is only available as onion service which has the right property for high barrier entry (setup) and provide anonymity for open conversation.
intelligent discourse on non-tech(politics, culture,e.t.c)
In my opinion, you mentioned two things that are not compatible, even with the most vigilant moderation. The moderation, filters and access controls required to prevent chaos would simply drive people away. You might find a small handful of regulars that behave, but I think you would mostly hear crickets chirping.
I like the idea though. I wish such a thing could work. You could always try it as an experiment. Set up an IRCD and Services, maybe LDAP backend so you can also tie it to a website and expose it on the Tor network. As part of the experiment, perhaps you could share on HN how many people created accounts, what the account churn rate is like and how many people had to be banned per day vs. people offering intelligent discourse.
A better site for someone wanting high level discussion on a narrowly focused topic is Reddit, although you will have to choose your subreddits carefully. It can be a difficult needle to thread, but there are quite a large number of quality subreddits once you know how to search.
I don’t think this really happens on Tor IRCs, at least not at any significant scale.
>People who mentally unstable with paranoia.
It’s mostly this, and pedophiles
Generally you want a subreddit with a small but active userbase. Not too small or it tends to die off, but also not too big or the S/N ratio drops off.
I did find several servers via google on the first page.