Tips for running a Successful and Healthy room

[Pri]

I with 11 other people operate a really great room called TV & Movies - Renegades (Also known as SciFi - Renegades).

And a few people have asked me recently how comes Ren is so popular, has so much activity in the chat and keeps people engaged. And well there's no magic to it really, we simply follow a few simple guidelines that we mostly came up with and instituted upon ourselves. So here is a short list of what you can do to save a fledging community or inject some activity in to your own room.

1. Spam, Bot Spam, Entry Spam, Trigger based Bot spam.
All this stuff may seem really cool to you and "unique" to your room but really its like having music playing on your website in 1999. Its distracting, and separates people from the conversation, it also causes strain on readers trying to defer conversation from spam and automated messages.

2. You work for your community, they don't work for you.
Never forget that there are over 1000 other chat rooms out there, if you get a god complex and start doing things because you want them and disagree with what your users want your not going to win any medals. You have to be open and honest as much as possible, listen to what your community is asking and make an effort to ask people what they think of your leadership. If you don't get any feedback you will never progress.

3. Know your Target Audience and stick to it.
If your aiming at all ages you need to maintain a friendly chat experience with little to no swearing and an active pornography filtering administration to check peoples files regularly, you also need individuals who like to engage with all ages. If your aiming at 18+ you need to clearly mark that out on your Entry message of the day and be polite when asking people who do not meet the age requirement to leave. You do not want a bad reputation

4. Spread the Wealth, Don't horde the power.
If you want your room to grow you need to hire administrators, do not pick people just because you personally think they are cool, pick people who have a good temperament, are helpful, talkative, and acquire skills that your room needs, people who are good at quelling heated discussions, people who are good with technology who can technically keep your room running smoothly and socialites who are welcoming to outsiders, These are all important skills when creating and maintaining a good room. And don't forget that your room is open 24 hours a day, Its important to diversify your Admins. Hire Admins from different time zones to make sure the room will be kept safe around the clock.

5. Do on to others as you would have done on to you.
Just because your an Administrator it doesn't mean you are better then the average joe who just entered your room, if you act like a king the people will overthrow you, it is important to remain neutral and be clear that no one in your room is above your own rules, If a member has a legitimate claim against you or one of your administrators about something you have done which was morally wrong do not sweep it under the rug, deal with it properly, accept liability and make it clear you are doing things to stop a repeat of the incident.

6. Be unique, offer people something
One of the best ways to attract new comers is to offer them something that the other rooms do not have. Custom usernames on entry helps users to feel more apart of your rooms community, offering more easy to obtain tags help them become a part of the fabric that makes up your room. If you have the capability write unique games or other programs for your room that are fun to play or functional to use.

7. Know your market, don't overextend or underachieve
If your a Movie room, check out the other Movie rooms, see what they are doing, what makes them successful, what types of files they are offering, where there files are being obtained from (Most likely Bittorrent), Look at their weaknesses and try to implement the same initiatives in your own room but while improving upon where their system is failing. Decide on only a few types of Media, Music, Video, or Games and Applications. If you over-extend and go for an all-you-can eat approach your room will become a jack of all trades and master of none.

8. Keep good relations with other rooms
It's important when you first start out to make friends in other rooms, they can help your community grow with an influx of users keyed to your aimed demographic. Make friends, don't be pushy, don't say things like "I'll park here if you park there". Your making Friends to make Friends and the benefit of support is secondary to that.

9. Don't just make a room because you want to play god.
Make sure you are creating a room for the right reasons, If you have a large collection of files, or people really like your administration style, or if you simply are making a room for a niche media type, these are all good reasons. Because you just want to ban people when you want? That's a bad reason.

10. Your room isn't a parking lot, don't make it one.
Sometimes rooms attempt to look successful by getting tons and tons of people to "park" in there room, this is by the process of them simply sitting in your room, never saying anything. But it makes your room look more full. This isn't good, if you have a room full of parkers who is going to talk to the new people who actually want to join? No one. You will simply have an inactive waste of space. It's ok to have legitimate users who need to park because they are doing something else, but to park just for parking sake is not good for a room and it will suck the life away from your community.

And Remember...
Have fun, Rooms are for people to come together and share, if its not fun anymore consider handing the room off to someone else or merging it with another rooms community. You need drive to keep a good room running and if your lacking motivation there is no point continuing it.