Forums mIRC Help Reccomendation's for a simple chat room?

Hi. I am trying to set up a chat room for about 200 people who will on and off use the room. Maybe about 10 people in the room at any time, but 200 member's in total that would have access to the room.

I tried to access the dal.net random server, but I understand that most of the address's for the random server do not work anymore.

My question is...

How do I know how or what server to choose to have my channel on? How do I know if said server is known for reliablity? Sorry if these are newb question's, but I do not know the answer's nor was I able to find the answer in search.

This chat room is not related to any specific topic such as computer's or gaming. It will simply be a "chat room" for a bunch of friends.

Thank you for any help

Each network has its own servers, connecting with any of those servers will take you to the same "place". You and your friends dont have to be on the same server, just on the same network.

DALnet's random server (irc.dal.net) is set to not resolve in a way that you can connect with it. You can find a list of current DALnet servers on their website, www.dal.net as well as on http://edk.dyndns.org/servers/ . To use any of them, close the connect dialog window and in the main mIRC window (status window) use /server putthe.serverinfo.here
Any server on any network is subject to splits or downtime, no way to guarantee anything, but as long as you have several servers to use, that isnt a prob. You dont register your nick and channel on a server, its registered on the network.

While you're at DALnet's website, take a look at their help documents area, there is a lot of good info there on a variety of things including managing your channel. Happy chatting

Thank's man. I will check out that info.

However, are there some server's that have a greater reliability record than other's? I really want to put my chat room in a server that is stable (I know it is not gauranteed) and support's ChanServ or other bot's.

You could have a look here for some network stats.

Everyone has their favorite network, i've been on DALnet and Efnet for several years and yet there are ppl who refuse to go to either of those. i dont know that there are any networks/servers that havent been subjected to attack or had technical difficulties at some time. Running a server is timeconsuming and costly, so it isnt surprising that any network will have regular changes in their server list.

Every network has their own policies about bots and services. Even within a network, some servers will allow a user one friendly bot, others wont. One place you can compare different networks is http://www.irchelp.org/irchelp/networks/
There are networks that have been around for many years, but that doesnt mean a newer and smaller one is less reliable. It really is a matter of personal choice. Check out that website and visit a few of the network websites to get a feel for what they are all about.