I Came, I dAmned, I Founded [13]

In this ongoing series of articles, we probe the minds of some dAmn's channel founders to find out what makes them tick, how they've made their room a success and what tips they can provide to budding channel owners.

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This month we have FionaCreates and :#digitaldolls:

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1) First off FionaCreates, can you tell us a little bit about yourself!

Hello I'm Pyrochan and I'm a dolloholic. I was GM of digitaldolls for nearly 18 months and even though I have lots of IRL pressure and stress I can always find time to squeeze out a digital doll or two.

2) When did you first discover dAmn, and can you remember the first room you ever chatted in?

I discovered dAmn way back on my old teenage account but I only tried chatting in the big forums and found it was just too big to actually talk to anyone so I sort of didn't try again. There are other ways on dA to make friends

3) What prompted you to create :#digitaldolls:? Did you feel dAmn was missing a room on a specific topic? Did you think other rooms weren't catering to a user's needs? Tell us all!

I created :#digitaldolls: because PurpelBlur told me to XD I'd just become the first ever dedicated dolls GM and we thought it would be a good idea to have a chatroom. Dolls was a fairly new category and as such there was a huge gap in the market to unite digital dollers from across dA. Dollers historically have been off dA forum based communities, but having the instant chat in DollChat became an instant success and now has quite a large pool of regular users.

4) When you created :#digitaldolls:, did you promote it, and if so how?

It was promoted on my journal and a couple off the off site forums so have gathered a number of users from across the dollosphere.

5) Have you ever held any contests or events in :#digitaldolls: in order to generate more exposure and more traffic? If no, why not? If yes, what sort of events / contests?

I think I'm mad but I've run a couple of all day parties when I was GM. I received a number of prizes to hand out and invented lots of doll related party games, such as "10 minute doll", (as it sounds, 10 minutes to create a doll) and "Face that Base", where the participants had 20 minutes to add a face to a body template I created. For each party I wanted to allow people from all time zones to take part, so I sat in chat for over 12 hours each time.

6) Do you have any advice for new room owners? Should they collaborate with existing rooms? Should they pester their friends to help promote?

If a room already exists for the topic you want to make a room for, think twice before starting your own. The one that exists might be super fun so perhaps you could hang out and get involved with that room.  A chatroom can't be successful without regular visitors. Sometimes you can have a better chatroom if you just take part, than if you want to run your own rival room.

7) Has the Groups platform aided you in managing your chatroom; if so, how?

I haven't been heavily involved in any dolls groups so I'd say that groups haven't aided me with the room.

8) Anything else to add?

I'd like to thank the current 'DollWatch' team and all the regulars for making :#digitaldolls: such a great place to hang out with, because despite how awesome I am it would be pretty dull without you guys.

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Thank you FionaCreates and everyone be sure to check out :#digitaldolls:
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If you would are the founder of a chatroom and would like to be interviewed for the "I Came, I dAmned, I Founded" articles please contact the MN@ at MN-Volunteers on this blog.