Early-adopter-turned-whale and famous plankton connoisseur James 
1. Implement public channel pruning
No one needs the public room history. Amount of messages could be limited either by number or by time (prune after 24 hours). This can be done in three ways:
a) via batch script using API's "cleanHistory" method
b) by creating a TTL index on the messages collection in MongoDB (this is by far the easiest)
use rocketchat
db.rocketchat_message.createIndex( { "ts": 1 }, { expireAfterSeconds: 3600 } )
c) by listening and reacting to changes realtime via the new MongoDB 3.6 feature called change streams and then reacting via the API.
2. Create more official topic channels
These should be pinned and visible to new users on the left sidebar right away:
- #art
- #science
- #trading
- #photography
- #programming
- #begging - a popular theme (this could be auto pruned every 10 seconds) /j
3. Log in via SteemConnect V2
You should be able to sign up/sign in with your Steem account via SteemConnect V2 api. It would help to reduce spam and to provide 1:1 mapping between users on steemit.chat and those on steemit platform.
Here's a great tutorial by 
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