Groups are a big part of FetLife and group leaders play a large role in making sure that kinksters enjoy participating in groups on FetLife.

To make sure that group leaders are all on the same page we wrote the following list of general Group Leader Guidelines we would like all group leaders to follow.

Just remember, participation on FetLife is always subject to our Terms of Use.

See a Need, Fill a Need, Start a Group

Have a new idea for a group? Can't find a group that speaks to you? Want to start a group to promote your business, event or organization. Then just do it already. Start a new group.

Love Your Group

The fun part is getting your group off the floor. A little bit of time and love will go a long way in creating a successful group. Here are some tips:

• Choose a good name for your group: something that is descriptive and calls to people.
• Write a good group description: people want to know what they are joining.
• Start new discussion on a daily basis: people are always looking for good discussions.
• Tell people about your group: friends, like minded people… anyone who might enjoy it.
• Just be yourself and have fun with it: fun and authenticity, nothing is more important.

Find Good Group Leaders to Help You Out

What makes a good group leader? Someone who shares your vision for the group. Someone who will contribute regularly to the group and help you moderate it. You can never have enough good group leaders to help you out.

What happens if it does not work out with one of the group leaders you choose? No worries. A group owner can not only add new group leaders to the team but remove any of them if needed.

We Are Extremely Open Minded - But Certain Content Is A No-No

Certain topics are prohibited on FetLife. Some of them are for legal reasons and others are from limitations put on us by banks and credit card companies.

You can have intellectual discussions, but not sexualize or publicly fantasize, about the following topics: real murder, animal abuse, and anything involving minors.

As group leaders, we would appreciate you moderating these subjects appropriately. Ex:

I personally have no problems with camel pitching. I think it is natural to like pitching camels because I think their humps were made for pitching as explained in Camel Pitching for Dummies pages 69-73.

…is ok. Sharing fantasies, stories and looking for others into camel pitching (where camel pitching is one of the topics that is a no-no) is not ok.

Don't Let People Ruin It For Others

We want you to encourage healthy debate but there is a big difference between that and a discussion which has degraded into people attacking one another.

Aggressive personal attacks, criminal accusations, making fun of, trolling, flaming, bullying, racial slurs or any other type of malicious behaviour that lowers the quality of a discussion needs to be moderated quickly before things get out of control and ruin the experience for everyone. Ex:

I totally disagree with you. Camels humps are not made to fit in someone's hand hence how can we even safely pitch those heavy things?

…is good.

I think you are dumb fucktard with two peas for a brain for wanting to throw a poor defenceless camel. You should be dragged out into the street and get karate chopped by Chuck Norris.

Now this needs to be removed.

Taking Care of Your Group

When you come across any content that needs to be moderated we recommend you remove it and email the poster to explain to them why it needed to go. Copying and pasting the original content back is always appreciated so that they don't lose any of the good stuff while just removing the bad stuff.

In addition to moderating content you can also close and re-open a discussion to give people the chance to cool-down and gather their thoughts.

If a member of your group continuously causes problems then we recommend you ban them from your group. Once you ban a member from your group it's a good idea to send a friendly head's up to us at report@fetlife.com and let us know what is going on.

If We Get Any Reports About Content In Your Group

We always recommend to members of the community that they first contact you if they see or are having any problems in your group. But if we do get a report about content in your group that breaks any of our Community Guidelines or Terms of Use we will investigate and if we have to act on the report we will inform you, the group owner, of anything we did in your group. In the case of cross-posts, member deletions, and spam we will not notify you, the group owner, if we remove content from your group.

Inactive Group Owners

We know that sometimes things happen, and situations change. So, if a group owner is no longer able to be active in the moderation of their group and we feel that members are at a disadvantage as a result, we will consider finding a new group owner to take the place of the inactive group owner.

Of course, we'd always prefer that the group owner takes the initiative and finds a suitable replacement for themselves.

The Caretakers Are Here To Help You Out Whenever You Need It

The Caretakers are FetLife's support team. If you have any questions, need a second opinion or just want our caretakers to take care of something for you because you are not comfortable handling it yourself please don't hesitate to email them at support@fetlife.com.