Those commands somehow didn't work, but now I could join the channel with the menu bar. Not that I have understood all subleties of IRC yet, though. For example how is a username "secured" is there a need for action, setting passwords etc? I am guessing no?
CTCP Version is just testing your client, so basically the server is just checking what irc client you are using.
Similarly, there is CTCP ping that you can ping someone to see if their connection is still alive.
Both you can ignore, you want to /join #channel, /part #channel, /msg nickname, and so on.