Since the topic of using this group's story section came up on another thread, I got in touch with lowl3v3l about it. We both agreed that since the other polyamory group is primarily focused on stories, doing the same exact thing wouldn't be worthwhile; the idea was always that the other group is focused on polyamorous stories, while this one is about polyamorous people and discussion.

But that's not to say that we're opposed to hosting stories, just to doing the same thing. My initial idea was to be a bit more strict on what we'll accept. The other polyamory group pretty much defines polyamory as anything that isn't exclusively monogamous (including casual sex with multiple partners, adultery, etc.). I thought it would be nice to have a group with stories that are solely about polyamory (or use it in a major way). Similar to how the LGBT group doesn't allow every one of the many F/F shipping stories, focusing only on stories that actually explore LGBT themes and topics.

lowl3v3l also brought up the idea of using the story section to promote stories for active group discussion. Additionally, we could link non-fiction articles and stories in the forum for similar discussion of things related to polyamory. It is the polyamorous discussion group, after all

Of course, these ideas aren't mutually exclusive, and we're definitely open to any other ideas. What is everyone else interested in?

I like the idea of a more curated story selection, but of course if we're going to have curation we will need some currators. I'm pretty new to this whole community so maybe there's some established procedures for this already, but we should take care to make sure this community is sustainable. I'd love a place to find more cute poly stuff though!

I wasn't aware of this other group until just now. Good to know there's a place I can find poly stories.

5840174
Whoops, I guess I shouldn't have assumed everyone in this group was also in the other one I'll go back and add a link to the first post, in case anyone else isn't aware of it.

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As far as I can see, there are two ways to curate which stories are allowed. Either way, first we'd need a solid set of rules for what criteria we find acceptable. Then we either allow anyone to submit stories and rely on group members to notice stories that don't belong so lowl3v3l or I can remove them (this is what most groups do. As an example, someone could add a Flutterdash story to the Twishy group, it would just then get removed by a group admin for not being appropriate), or we could make it so only admins can add stories, and other people can submit stories by PMing an admin (this is what the LGBT group does to prevent people from posting general shipfics that feature same-sex romance without actual focus on LGBT themes).

The plus side of allowing anyone to submit and weeding out what doesn't belong is that it encourages people to actually post stories by making it very easy for them to do so. The downside is that obviously something inappropriate may still be posted. I do think most users tend to follow the rules for posting stories, but I kinda also worry that a lot of people will unknowingly post stories that aren't necessarily about polyamory.

The plus side of only allowing admins to post stories is that anything that gets posted is indeed appropriate, as it's been reviewed beforehand. But on the flipside, it could discourage people from submitting stories at all since we'd be adding a barrier of entry (no matter how small the barrier is). Additionally, stories being submitted would then be at the whim of someone's time constraints. Not a problem if the people approving the stories have ample time on their hands, but a major problem if they don't.

5841285 Apparently, I'm not keeping that threat to only lurk. I agree that creating any sort of a barrier to non-admin submissions will really cut down on how many people are interested in doing so. What I'd suggest, though I've only seen it in a few other groups and don't have any idea how it works or how to set it up, is creating a "Submissions" folder that anyone can add stories to, but only allow admins to move stories out of that and into the proper, primary folder. Definitely doesn't scale well, but I'm not really seeing the group suddenly getting a couple hundred highly-active members, and even if the sorters get overwhelmed, at least the stories show up somewhere. Whatever we wind up going with, free submission or not (and how), just make sure it's very clearly spelled out on the front page.

I will say that it might be nice to base the curation on themes rather than relationship structure. There's certainly something to be said for "story focused on a strong asymmetric quad relationship", and I definitely wouldn't mind it being sorted into one of the folders, but given the nature of the group, "duo realistically discussing expanding the relationship, but ultimately deciding non-monogamy doesn't work for them" could be just as valuable -- though I kind of doubt there's too many fics fitting that particular description. Besides, there's already quite a few groups out there for trios, and those tend to be more focused on tight relationships than it sounds like the other poly group is.

And I love the ideas for encouraging discussion. Definitely would be nice to get that going (though probably would be best to do so after the rest is settled). Maybe have another note on the front page explicitly encouraging resurrecting old threads if people have something to add, assuming everyone else here agrees with that? I know I tend to be pretty hesitant about doing so unless that's clearly the culture of the forum.

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Ah yeah, that's a good idea with the submission folder. I've seen that as well, but forgot about it when considering options. Figuring out organization is certainly going to be another thing to think about. I'd certainly like to have something, but there's so many configurations of polyamory and so many possible themes. I'd rather avoid having a bunch of folders with only one story in each of them.

I know people tend to be against reviving old forum threads, but I think it better serves the groups discussion purpose to explicitly allow it. Sounds like we're going to need some actual rules, so I guess I should get started on making some

I think, since the problem of scaling had been brought up already, that this wouldn't necessarily a problem A possibility i could think of would be assigning some trusted users the rights and duty to review the stories as well and notify the admins on them. This would be a compromise i could live with, even though i do not always have time :)