why not share your know-how in \s so everybody can learn from what you've learned?

he already did (although '\v' shouldn't be included there):

\s match a white space, same as [:space:] or [ \t\r\n\v\f] not just a $chr(32)

from there, you should be expected to realize that an IRC message may include \t and \f, therefore using \s in place of a regular space, when you mean to match a space and only a space, is incorrect.