Featured Chatrooms - January

Introduction

The MN@ Team is pleased to announce this month's Featured Channels.

#iPhotograph: created by AshleyxBrooke

A new chat made specially for photographers. Its a great place to come meet other photographers and show off your work.

#DAParanormal: created by Vampyrwolf

A place to come and share experiences with the unexplained and paranormal, ask questions, and look for help and advice.

#teendevs: created by martybell

A friendly and welcoming room for deviants aged between 13-19 that gives you a great opportunity to meet and make friends with people who are a similar age to you.


The Message Network Administration Team (MN@) regularly review channels and if your channel has been chosen, it's because you've impressed the MN@ with the way that your channel is running, providing friendly support and assistance for the community and generally being an example of excellence in terms of what we'd like to see more of on dAmn.

Featured Channel Interviews

We interviewed the creators of these great chatrooms not only so you could learn more about the rooms, but also to help you in creating your own successful chatrooms.


What's the purpose or theme of your chatroom?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

To share photography photos and tips.

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

As a believer in the paranormal, and as a fan of the TV show Ghost Hunters, I wanted to set up a place to help further my, and everyone's for that matter, knowledge on the subject of the paranormal. The overall look and feel of the chatroom is based off the TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) logo.

teendevs martybell:

It's just for teens! a lil sanctuary where we can decide if we want to act like a child, an adult, or a bit of both.. without being told otherwise . chatters can relate to eachother.. we may live in different parts of the earth, but we are all teenagers!

Was there any particular reason you decided to create it?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

Well im apart of most of the photo rooms on dAmn and the name came to me and i figured it would be a cute club name and then decided to make it a chat as well

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

#DAParanormal was created with the hopes of getting others more interested, and at least try, to bring more knowledge of the subject to light. I've personally seen too much to NOT believe 'there's no such thing as ghosts.'

teendevs martybell:

Other chats seemed too serious for me sometimes, and there wasn't a chat for teens at the time so RobbyP and i thought we'd take action

How do you go about promoting your chatroom?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

When we first started out we would write up news articles. We were also affiliated with #Photohunt which had a fair share of people in there so they would just join us as well. Now we just have stamps and icons in peoples journals for getting promoted.

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

Our home account DAParanormalSociety (DAPS for short) and its corresponding chat #DAParanormal have affiliated with a few other groups and chatrooms, including my other chatroom #DAUnderworld. All the channels and groups promote each other when we can, there is a lot of "word of mouth" and since this is a fairly new channel we are going to be posting a news article to help draw in more people.

teendevs martybell:

To begin with, RobbyP and i wrote up a news article, posted some journals, then asked our watchers + friends to help out. it seemed to take off pretty quickly! next, we held a competition to see who could create the best 'teendevs' logo (plastering the chats name throughout deviants galleries!) so that really helped too. we havn't done any advertisement in a while though. hopefully being featured will draw in some cool new teens though!

How do you go about selecting your Operators/Moderators?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

Whoever is the most helpful and is around a lot. And also who knows there way around dAmn.

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

Since #DAParanormal is a new room, we've promoted people we already know from my other room #DAUnderworld. Not everyone, only those from the DAU OPs team that were interested in the paranormal. As the room begins to take off and grow, we will start promoting OPs members from #DAP, not other rooms. We also have a guideline of how we go about promoting which can be seen at the daparanormalsociety.deviantart…

teendevs martybell:

When we feel we know, or trust someone within the chatroom we'll promote them. occasionally, we will ask friends on DA that don't usually use dAmn, to come along and try moderating it's surprising the amount of deviants that havn't used the chat before. they should! everyone should!

As a chatter on dAmn, what do you look for in a chatroom?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

Rules. and if they are followed. I dont like going into a room that has none because it just gets crazy and out of control. Rules make it easier on everyone to be able to have a good time. I also look for who is running the place and if they are kind. If the main people in chat give off a bad vibe chances are the place wont last.

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

Well, I'm an adult now, and I know from experience that most of the chatters on dAmn, and members of deviantART are teenagers. So my biggest concern is the safety of these kids. We are VERY strict on keeping things like explicit sexual content and graphic material out. I don't visit any other channels (mostly due to the fact my two rooms keep me busy as it is), but my members do, and they talk amongst themselves and the OPs team, about other rooms. Some of the things I've heard over the years greatly worries me. So with that in mind, what we look for, is a room that is safe for everyone, a fun and friendly environment, OPs members that aren't Nazis, and keep the fighting, stalkers, pedos, pervs, and any trouble makers OUT of the room. With the experience I've gained from running #DAUnderworld for nearly 3 years, and having to get involved more than once with kids that are being targeted and harassed. I, nor any of my OPs team members, tolerate ANYONE being messed with. So again the main thing we want out of any chat, especially any that have my name next to it, is for everyone's safety and well being.

teendevs martybell:

A rational amount of strictness, the ability to share art (that's what the site's about, right?!), a sense of humour, and some mods you can get long with! "

What advice would you give to others who are interested in starting a chatroom?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke:

I would suggest getting yourself know by making up a news article and maybe even creating a club account to match it. Write up some rules and wah laa your all set Oh and also get some people in there to help get it up and running

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf:

1. Do not create a room just because you want a place where you can be "god." It will fail.
2. Don't expect your room to be a success. Sad fact is, most rooms do not catch on.
3. You need to have a unique idea that you KNOW a lot of people will be interested in if you want a shot at have a successful chatroom.

As an example, my other chatroom #DAUnderworld was created because I KNEW there are a lot of vampire and werewolf fans on dA, yet at the time, there was no chatroom to cater to these fans. The Underworld movies had the perfect theme (Vampires vs Lycans), so I used the movies as the base theme. With #DAParanormal, it's been a bit harder, but I KNOW there are many who believe in the paranormal, yet for members of deviantART, they've had no place that is dedicated to the topic to discuss it in real time with each other. So we started the new chat based off the popular TV show Ghost Hunters. From the response we've gotten so far, it is being well received.

teendevs martybell

Give it a go chat's are easy to set up, and there's an extensive FAQ library that's helped us out alot over at #teendevs. have your friends and watchers help you out with advertising, write up a sweet news article and make up a stamp for people's journals! (and if all that fails, try an adcast )

Are there any upcoming special events in your chatroom you'd like to tell us about?

#iPhotograph - AshleyxBrooke

Not at the moment All we have is this thing called " i iPhotograph which is just a fun way to show off your love for the chat. People note us pictures that have to do with the " I iPhotograph" phrase

#DAParanormal - Vampyrwolf

Like I said, #DAParanormal is a new room, so we've been busy getting all the rules and member guides finalized, getting the decor, art work, avatar, and CSS finished for the AParanormalSociety account. Getting all relevant resource material gathered and put together. So right now, no special events are planned, however we are trying to start a bit of a "tradition." On Wednesday nights, the SciFi channel has their Ghost Hunters marathons that include new episodes. So we encourage members of #DAParanormal to get together in the chat and watch the shows as they are being aired and discuss and analyze for ourselves what we are seeing on TV. I don't know if that could be classified as an event, but right now, thats as close as we get. We call it our "Ghost Hunter Nights." But of course, as the room grows in numbers we will be doing events and contests.

teendevs - martybell

Nothing planned at the moment, but think we're gonna have to now, since ya asked

Congratulations to the owners and operators of these fantastic chatrooms!  Don't forget to drop by and check them out!