The MN@ Newsletter is posted in an effort to educate and update the community on the Chat Network and the Forums.

In this edition we'll be talking about running a successful chatroom, exciting news about a Featured Chat Event, and more!

Update on the MN@ Team

Currently, the team consists of:

Senior MN@:
@Narfmaster, @sapphiretiger, @shutdown, and @youthculture.

MN@:
@Sting1, @leaf-lover, @kyza, @kamizu, @limetastic, @anjules, @ananasjihad, @autumnights, @parliamentFunk, @Rendarin, @quickdraw, @yashachan, @VernonX9000, @sine-out, @karyaazure, @realillusions, and @Little-Vampire.

What do the MN@ do? Please refer to the following +faq for more information:

FAQ #294: What is dAmn?

Running a Successful Chatroom

The most important aspect of your chatroom is the theme. All successful chatrooms have an idea behind it whether it is a chatroom for photographers, comic lovers, traditonal artists, music lovers, etc. Try to think of a theme that hasn't been done before!

Setting up your Chatroom

You want to set up your chatroom so that only the people you trust have control. Remember that the chatroom you create is ultimately your responsibility. You probably don't want Guests to be able to change your topic and title right? Or worse, let them promote themselves to Founders where they'd have the ability to modify privclasses and privileges!

You are expected to maintain a certain amount of control in your chatroom and make sure that it abides by the rules for Unofficial Chatrooms. A good strategy for ensuring this is to promote enough trusted friends to a privclass that has +kick and +ban privileges - after all, you can't be in your chatroom 7/24 to moderate it all by yourself.

As you probably know by now, the promote and demote commands are used to allow members in a privclass to move users to different privclasses in your chatroom. /promote userName PrivclassName is used to move a user to a higher order privclass and /demote userName PrivclassName to a lower privclass.

The promote and demote privileges work together to specify the range of the highest and lowest privclass the current privclass can promote and demote.

You generally do not want to allow a privclass to promote to a privclass higher than itself because higher privclasses usually have more privileges. Although, if done carefully, you can produce a chatroom where users can freely promote and demote themselves to different privclasses and at the same time not create an atmosphere for abuse of privileges.

The bottom line: think carefully when setting up privclasses in your chatroom that the promote and demote privileges are set up exactly how you want them to be.

Promoting your Chatroom

You have several options to promote your chatroom. First, you can promote it in your Journal and Signature. Mentioning it in your Signature is smart because in effect you'll leave a little advertisement with every comment. The only place that is appropriate in the Forums to promote your chatroom is in the Official Chatroom Advertisement Thread in the dAmn Forum. You can also post a News Article to introduce your chatroom to deviantART in the Culture -> Chat News category. If you do this, please take the time to insure your article is informative and written well - people will take you more seriously if it is.

Unsolicited advertising is frowned upon - most people find it rude if you vist chatroom after chatroom just posting a link to your chatroom.

Another great way of generating interest in your chatroom is to hold events or contests! @leaf-lover wrote an comprehensive guide to planning/running events that you can find here. You can also attend an event happening in another chatroom to witness first-hand how it's done in other chatrooms.

Upcoming Featured Chat with Stuart Immonen

Stuart Immonen has been involved in the comic and graphic arts industry for some time. He studied at Toronto's York University and worked at several smaller comic book companies before being hired by DC Comics and Marvel Comics in 1993. Since then, he has drawn such high-profile characters as Superman, Hulk, Ultimate Spider-Man, the Legion of Super Heroes, and the X-Men. He also had a 12-issue run penciling Nextwave, which paired him with Warren Ellis.

Featured Chat Details

This live featured chat event will take place on Sunday, June 29'th, 7pm EST (your local time here) in the #Auditorium chatroom. Doors will open 15 minutes prior to the start of the event.

The format of this chat will be a "panel style", which means that places for asking questions will be limited, however you may join the audience and enjoy the chat between our panel participants and Stuart.

If you wish to be on the panel, please note both $Tachy-on and ^misskittyoooo. Include in your note why you want to participate, and list 3 questions that you would ask if given the chance to be on the panel.

It's Coming...

Something fun and exciting is coming to dAmn very soon. I won't give any details, or hints, but I will say that it should be fun for all and there are some big prizes involved.

Did you know...?

• There are specific Gallery Forums in addition to the Main Forums that can be accessed from this page or by using the Categories dropdown button on the main forum page.


• dAmn it! is the place where you can read and submit funny quotes you've experienced on the chat network.


• The #MNAdmin chatroom is the place to go if you require operator assistance with the chats or forums. If you need help with anything else deviantART related you should be checking the +faq, visiting the #help chatroom, or be contacting the HelpDesk.