What are the best ways to create and/or improve the community/fan base/viral marketing/word of mouth about an up and coming indie game? I'm interested in all ways, from things to do at conferences, meetings and/or LAN parties, to online, print, and TV/radio. Things like: what are the best community building websites, or how do you get IGN interested in doing a "Game"planet website? just as an example...

Hard work, constantly showing results in something people really enjoy looking at, playing, etc...

Example:
If whenever someone visits your site they see something different, new, and really interesting, chances are they will return more and more often.

Tell us more about your game and what types of players you are targetting.

(maybe massively, probably at least persistant) Multiplayer RPG - targeting those who want something new and different and semi-casual players.

Viral marketing is the new buzz in the marketing industry. The problem is that what they mean is "word of mouth". There are three ways to generate word of mouth...
1. Have a great product that people talk about.
2. Employ stooges to sign up to web forums and talk about your product.
3. Go into web forums and talk about your own product.
4. Create a weird marketing campaign that doesn't say anything about your product but is so weird that people talk about it - then tell everyone what the campaign is about.
5. Generate positive press by sending out press releases and organising editoral. Get the press on your side and they will promote your game. Also identify Blogs that relate to games and contact the author.

Options 2 and 3 are dangerous as they can result in negative press if done badly. Hijacking someone else's thread with a post about your game or starting a thread "Check out this great game..." seldom gets good results.
Option 4 requires a lot of hard work and/or cost and the web savvy consummers of today are starting to get wise to mock-up web sites about Amadillo racing that are really adverts for games.
Option 5 Is time consumming (tracking down relevant press and blogs) but can pay off in the long run.
Option 1 is the cheapest and best but not always the easiest.