Somebody explain to me how one reaches a silent consensus over IRC?

Or is this a joke/reference I don't know... or is this a subtle clue that the whole thing is made up?

no one says that explicitly, but everyone wants to have some fun :)

One way is an IRCop issues a /shun leaving you speechless on the network. While the others decide the outcome of your whatever.

But this is the same, the owner wasn't present apart from it's agent and so it was decided without the owner that this was to be the outcome.