The (Dead) Unofficial FAQ Group 48 members · 5 stories
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SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

I'm moving this to other threads, so this is a little out of date. I'll fix it up later.

This is where I'll be updating the FAQ, based on feedback, and what I think needs changing. It'll start out close to the original, but should gradually end up being more useful. It's already got a fair number of changes. This thread has the original for comparison.

I'm going to be going through and adding some of the questions that have been asked in the comments on the official FAQ and the answers, too.

Note, this is an unofficial version of the faq! Changes in here are based on my knowledge and it is a work in progress. This isn't the official FAQ that you get when you click the button at the top of the screen. If you think anything is wrong here, reply in this thread, and don't bug the staff about it.

This is Unofficial. An unofficial unofficial faq.

--Sweetie Belle


General

What is Fimfiction?

Fimfiction is dedicated to hosting fanfiction based on the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic tv series and comics, as well as the Equestria Girls movie series. It's also a community and gathering place for fans of FiM, as well as a pillar of the fandom in general. Fimfiction has the largest collection of MLP fanfics around!

FIMFiction, FimFiction or Fimfiction?

Fimfiction is what knighty prefers, but all three are fine.

How does it work?

That's a pretty big question!

Here is the basic idea. People join fimfiction by creating an account, and verifying their email. People can join to read, rate, and review stories, be part of the groups, forums, and chat, or just to hang out. It isn't just for writers!

The writers can be part of the site by writing stories, publishing them, and talking with other writers and users about writing or whatever they want. You might make a group for something you think is missing, review other stories, make a fanclub for your favorite stories, or just hang out and make some friends. With a few exceptions, like NSFW stuff and roleplaying, the sky's the limit!

There's a lot more to it, but that gives you a general idea. The site works by having cool people join and do whatever they want, while the staff tries to keep all the gears running smoothly to make it a great place for everyone to be.

Things are broken down more below, so keep reading if you want to know how any one part works.

How do I avoid being banned from the site?

Don't do anything dumb and use your common sense, mostly.

Here are a few things that you shouldn't do on fimfiction, and could get in trouble for:
Don't harass other users. This includes, but isn't limited to, posting blogs badmouthing them, threatening them, spamming their stories with comments, downvoting all their stories without reading them, writing stories that attack them and creating alts to get around when they've blocked you.

Don't create a bunch of alts and use them to upvote or downvote stories more than once, or to get around bans.

Posting NSFW material or linking to it is forbidden on fimfiction even if it is a story on fimfiction.

Follow all the guidelines that show on the new story page, and don't change the story to violate the guidelines after it is approved.

There is no roleplaying on fimfiction any more. You can talk about it and post links to where you are doing it, but you can't roleplay in the forums.

Don't try to mess with the way the site works. Groups for nothing but upvoting stories to get them in the feature box'll get you in trouble, for example.

You aren't allowed to kill yourself, or at least, you can be banned for leaving a suicide note in a blog, then actually going through with it. If you are depressed enough that you are thinking about it, but aren't actually going to do it yet, post about it in the Anti-Depression Ponies group. If you're actually planning on doing it, post in the Feeling Suicidal? Talk With Us group, but please actually talk to them.

Contact
How can I contact the administrator?

You can send an e-mail to knighty@fimfiction.net, but it's best to check the questions below first if you're a registered user.

Who works on the site?

Please check the staff page.

Who do I contact if I have a question not listed in the FAQ, or a general inquiry or comment about the site?

If you have any questions or concerns not addressed in this FAQ, feel free to PM someone on the mod team, or leave a comment on their user pages. We can't promise that it will be addressed immediately, but they'll certainly do their best to take a look and get back to you as soon as they can. You can also ask at the bottom of the faq page page in the comment section.

Someone is harassing me on the site! What should I do?

Your best friend here is the block tool. You can find this in the dropdown below and to the right of their name on their userpage. This will prevent them from sending you further private messages or commenting on anything you make. You can also report users by clicking the dropdown next to their name on their userpage and clicking report.

Please put in as much information as you can. Screen grabs, dates and times, etc. can all be helpful.

Does the site have a chat room?

It sure does! You can find the connection information on this page as well as a web client to use if you don't have a dedicated IRC client. Note that we do not support the embedded web chat client, sorry! There's usually lots of people active at all times of the day, and site moderators will occasionally pop in as well.

How do I report a bug or request a change to site functionality?

If you have a bug to report, please PM one of the moderators or admins. If you have a suggestion for a site improvements, feel free to send knighty a PM.

Help, I've been banned! How do I talk to someone about this?

If you've been banned, please don't try to make a new account to contact the staff. Instead, send an email to one of the site's moderators, who will review your case with the rest of the staff.
Contact Details:
Obselescence: obselescence@fimfiction.net
Alexstrazsa: alexstrazsa@fimfiction.net
Wanderer D: wandererd@fimfiction.net
Poultron: poultron@fimfiction.net

User Account
How do I make an account / register?

Seriously? To make an account, click on the 'login' button in the top right hand corner of the site and then follow it to the registration page. Fill out the required account details, and be sure to check your email for the email sent out shortly after your registration. You'll need to click the link in it to validate your email within 24 hours or the account'll go away!

Is there a minimum age requirement for making an account?

Yes, new users must be at least 13 years old. This is due to the requirements under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requiring parental permission, additional reporting, and extra security when users are under the age of 13.

I didn't receive my signup email, what should I do?

If you didn't get your signup email, first check your account information to make sure you gave us the correct email address. If you did, check your spam folder/filters to make sure your verification email didn't get blocked. If you've done all of that, you can hit the 'resend verification email' button on the main navigation bar, but make sure you're positive about that, because verification emails can only be sent once per hour.

If you're still having issues with receiving your email after that, send knighty@fimfiction.net an email and he'll look into the problem for you.

How do I delete my account?

Account deletion is not supported at this time. If you have a reason to have your content removed, you can always delete your stories themselves. If it's for a personal matter, you can PM one of the site mods/admins to request a ban.

How do I change my account name?

You can change your account name by editing the 'user name' field under the 'edit account' section from your username drop-down in the main navigation bar.

How do I change my password?

Passwords can be changed from the 'edit account' section of the username drop-down in the main navigation bar. Just make sure your password meets our minimum security requirement of 8 characters in length. Heck, throw some uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols in there too!

How do I upload an avatar?

To upload an avatar, select the 'avatar' option from the username drop-down menu. Then you can either upload a file from your computer or provide a link to the image hosted on another site.

Fimfiction doesn't like my avatar! Whatever should I do?

Make sure the image you're uploading is a jpg or png and is under 1mb. If you are using an offsite image, make sure you link to the image itself (ending in .jpg or .png) rather than the page it is located on.

How can I enjoy Fimfiction in the company of an interactive Rainbow Dash?

To peruse Fimfiction with a Rainbow Dash to call your very own, click on the 'Enable Interactive Pony' checkbox on the settings page. Warning: Interactive Pony is permanently in beta status, and as a result does not feel pain or joy, nor does she have an understanding of innuendo.

Activating my account didn't work, what should I do?

If you don't activate an account within 24 hours of signing up, the account will be purged from our database and you'll need to sign up again. You can reuse the same name and email, though!

Someone got into my account, what can I do?

Send an email to knighty@fimfiction.net and, depending on the circumstances, we may be able to help.

My account keeps logging out, why is this?

Automatic logins are currently tied to IPs, so if you login from a different computer or network, you'll need to login again.

Why are my story views on my profile so low compared to how many total chapter views I have?

The total story views on your profile page actually just adds the most viewed chapter on each one of your stories together. For example, if you had a story whose highest-viewed chapter had 300 views, and another with 200 views, your Total Story Views would be 500.

I forgot my password. Help!

Don't fret! If you've forgotten your password, you can reset it from the main menu while logged out. Note that this means you'll actually have to log out to see the reset option if you're still logged in and just want to change your password because you can't remember it.

Stories
I need some help with my writing!

For writing advice, including grammar, storytelling, cliches to avoid, and other helpful advice, please check out this excellent guide by Ezn. You can also seek help in The Writer’s Group, The Proofreader Group, and The Equestrian Critics Society.

How do I create a story?

To create a story, select the 'stories' section from your user drop-down in the navigation bar, and click on the 'new story' button in the top left corner.

How do I edit a story?

Stories can be edited by selecting the 'edit' button from the stories page in the dropdown under your username.

How do I submit a story? What does submitting do?

Submitting a story can be done by clicking the 'submit' button at the top of your story from the main story page.

Doing this sends it into the site's approval queue, where it will be looked over by our story approvers. If the story meets the submission standards, it will be added to the approved queue, and will appear on the front page of the site under 'new stories' shortly thereafter.

Submitting a story also makes it possible for it to show up in the 'featured box' and 'popular stories' bar, as well as allowing it to be added to groups. If you haven't submitted a story, you can still give a link out, and people can read and comment on the published chapters. In the edit section of the story, you can add a password if you don't want just anyone with the write link to see it.

Why can't I submit a story with less than 1,000 words?

A thousand words is the minimum story word count we allow on submitted stories. You're free to post a story with fewer word and share it as an unpublished links, but it was decided as a reasonable lower limit for how many words you can tell a proper story in.

Note that for smaller stories, such as flash fiction or prompt-based writing, a good solution is to collect multiple stories as chapters and submit them all as one story. Please also note that padding a story of fewer than a thousand words with lyrics, spam, garbage, or author notes is not acceptable and may cause you to fail moderation.

How do I publish a chapter of a story? What does it do?

To publish a chapter, simply click the 'publish' button in the top left-hand corner of the bar at the top of your chapter's text while viewing the chapter. Publishing a chapter makes it visible to other users of the site. Until it's published, the only people who can view a chapter are you and the staff.

What defines whether a story is rated as teen or mature?

For the purpose of stories on Fimfic, how to rate a story relies on the description and events contained therein.

'Teen' is anything more risqué or salacious than content you might see in the show: foul language, minor violence with brief descriptions, physical affection more intense than a quick peck on the lips, blood, etc.

‘Mature' is anything that should require an aged or mature perspective to read: things like extreme violence, explicit descriptions of physical intimacy, or content intended for older audiences.

The divide between ‘Teen’ and ‘Mature’ is generally in how much is mentioned and how much is shown in the story. If a character only makes reference to having sex, that would typically be fine with a ‘Teen’ rating. If characters in the story actually have sex, that would require a ‘Mature’ rating.

Just use your best discretion, and feel free to PM a mod if you have a question about the specific content of your story. At worst, you can always submit and be told that a change is required if the rating you've selected doesn't match the discretion of the story-approval team.

When should I use the 'sex' and 'gore' tags?

This is simple enough: use 'gore' when there is explicit description of violence/grotesque imagery in your story, and use 'sex' when there's... well... sex. On a Teen rated story, 'sex' can be used to indicate sexual humor or situations that are heated but don't have explicit sex.

What do the categories mean?

Here's a quick rundown from Meeester:
Tragedy: It is not just for a tragic death ending; an entire story can be a series of sad, tragic events.
Sad: Boo hoo Derpy is being bullied. :c
Dark: Lighter form of Grimdark in that you've got evil goings-on & characters (worse than in the show)
Random: No sense or point other than an idea that came out of nowhere that doesn't fit any other category.
Crossover: If you have the Tardis, Mario, Batman, etc. in the story or significant chunks of a game/universe not related to MLP.
Adventure: Pinkie goes on an adventure to find out the magic 8th flavor of cupcakes spanning space and time.
Slice of Life: Pinkie bakes normal cupcakes. A day in the life of anyone with nothing out of the ordinary (blocked from being used with Adventure)
Alternate Universe: 'What if' situations where you take an episode/event from the show in a different direction from how it occured. (i.e. Chrysalis being successful)
Human/Anthro: If you have a human character in the story or everyone is humanized/anthropomorphic.

Why can I only have 6 categories on my story?

Categories are meant to be broad descriptions of a story's content or themes. We set them up in such a way that no more than six should be required at any time, and we feel some of them conflict and shouldn't be used together, as listed in the next entry.

For this reason, we ask that you restrict your story to six categories or less. Any more than that, and you should probably think more about what your story is really all about, and what ideas and moods are at the heart of it.

Why do certain categories conflict?

Adventure and Slice of Life
Given that an Adventure involves going completely out of your daily life, even by Ponyville standards, it completely takes precedence over the Slice-of-Life, which represents day-to-day experiences. Defeating Discord is simply not a day-to-day experience, even if the story spends some time on the characters’ daily routine.

Comedy and Sad
Sometimes people get confused and think that morbid humor or a sad story with some jokes is equal to a sad comedy. It isn't. You cannot have sadness in equal measure to comedy in a story. One will inevitably take the spotlight, because in the end your story will achieve primarily one outcome: either it makes the reader sad... or it makes them smile.

I'm afraid to post my fiction for the negative feedback it might receive. What's the best course of action?

A good way to avoid a lot of problems is to find a proofreader or two who have some experience writing)and ask them to take a look at your story for you and tell you their honest opinion of it. You can refer to 'I need some help with my writing.'

Why can my story only have 5 character tags?

Character tags on stories are largely in place for readers, and not for authors. While you might have a lot of characters in your story, the character tags are intended to make it easy for people to search for stories that feature one or more characters in an important role.

For this reason, we have a limit of 5 character tags per story, as the notion of focusing on any more characters than this as key players in the story is not really practical. If you feel your story is an exception, we would ask that you consider ranking your character tags in order of significance, and try to add just the ones that would best correspond to reader interest in your story.

How do I add author notes?

Author's notes can be added to each chapter by editing that chapter and typing the notes you wish to add into the 'Author's Notes' box at the end.

How do I find statistical information on my story?

Clicking on the 'stats' button on the main page of your story will allow you to view detailed information on its statistics, including views over time, favorites, and referrals.

I have submitted my story for review, and [insert timeframe] has passed. Why hasn't it been approved yet?

While we have a hard-working team of dedicated prereaders and mods on staff, the Fimfiction approval process is still subject to human participation. As such, it might happen sometimes that none of the site's staff have had the time to get around to approving your story. In instances like this, all we ask is that you be patient with us, and know that your story will be looked at as soon as we can get around to it. For further information about the approval queue process, please see Poultron's Blog Post.

How can I chose to view/not view mature stories?

The 'view mature' checkbox can be toggled from your user drop down in the main navigation bar. It can also be enabled from the settings option in the main navigation bar.

How do I rearrange/sort my story's chapters?

Story chapters can be reordered by dragging the four-dotted symbol to the left of the chapter. Just make sure you save the order by clicking the 'save chapter order' button below!

My story doesn't seem to be accumulating views, what's up?

Story views are only cached every 20 minutes, so you may need to wait a little while to see new views.

How does the 'popular stories' list work?

Various actions add 'heat' to stories which falls off over time. The popular stories list shows the stories with the highest amount of heat.

What does the 'Revoke Submission' button do?

Revoking a submission makes a story invisible on the site again. It will need to be submitted again and go through moderation before it is visible on the site again.

How are featured stories selected?

Featured stories are completely automated. They are calculated on a mix of a few things. The number of likes a story has received, the proportion of likes to dislikes, the total number of ratings, how frequently it's being viewed and the time since it was approved are all factored into the equation.

I found a story which violated the rules, what can I do?

Use the Report button at the top of the story to report the story, and one of us will look over it to see if it does. Note that we hold the final decision as to whether or not a story violates our rules.

What is the 'view password' option?

By giving a story a view password, you can restrict who can see your story while it is not approved. Approved stories can be viewed by anyone. If no password is provided, everything will be visible except for unpublished chapters.

How do I add chapters to my story?

You need to create the story before you can add chapters. Once you've done so, use the Add Chapter button on the story page to add a new chapter to the story.

A chapter I added didn't bump my story to the frontpage, why is this?

Your story can only be bumped at most once a day. If you are caught bumping by adding and removing chapters, your story will be removed. If you've ever published the chapter before, even if the story wasn't actually submitted yet, publishing it won't bump the fanfic, either.

How do I download stories?

To download individual chapters, hover over the icon to the left of the chapter, and click the .txt or .html icon that comes up. To download an entire story, hover over the below the chapter listing and you can download it as a txt, html or an epub file to read offline.

What are story referrals?

This is a list of web pages that have linked to your story, so you can find out where people are discovering your work on the rest of the internet.

I can't find a specific story, even though I know what it's called. Where is it?

Well, that could be one of two things. One, it might not actually be on the site! If you know that it's on the site, make sure that you have the "View Mature" option checked, or you won't be able to see Mature content at all.

Help! I accidentally deleted my story. Is there any way I can get it back?

If you've accidentally deleted a story, you can PM one of the moderators to have it restored.

Is it possible to transfer stories between accounts?

Yes. You can PM a moderator and ask for a story transfer, but there better be a good reason for it.

Bookshelves
How do I create a bookshelf?

Hover above the Library button and select "New Bookshelf". A menu will appear that allows you to choose an icon, icon color, name, and description for the bookshelf. You can also change its privacy settings between Private, Public, and Unlisted.

Other option are for whether you want to have the icon for the bookshelf show up on the quick add bar at the top of stories, if you want to know how many unread chapters there are in the bookshelf, if you want to see blogs for stories in the shelf, and if you want emails about updates on the stories.

There's also a 'New Bookshelf' button below the list of bookshelves to the right when you are on the page for any bookshelf.

How do I delete a bookshelf?

Go to your library page and click the trashcan next to the bookshelf's name. Alternatively, go to the bookshelf itself and press the delete button on the sidebar.

What's the difference between a Private bookshelf, Public, and Unlisted?

Private bookshelves can only be accessed by you, authors are not notified when their stories are added, and they aren't shown in your library when other people look at it. Public bookshelves can be accessed by anyone and authors are notified when their work is added. Unlisted are like Private ones, but you can share the links to them with other people.

How do I change the order of my bookshelves?

Go to any of your bookshelves. On the right, there's a list of all the bookshelves in your library. If you move your mouse over them, a bar with three dots will appear on the right. drag that, and the bookshelf will move to whatever position in the list you want, and that will be the order it will show in the bookshelf button bar at the top of stories as well.

How do I only look at the unread stories in a bookshelf?

Click the red text next to the number of stories telling you how many unread chapters you have.

How do I change the way a bookshelf is sorted?

Click on "Filter", over to the right, change the order, then hit search. You can also make certain tags, characters, and search terms required, just like with a normal search, and change the way they are shown with the dropdown next to Filter.

How do I see someone's public bookshelves?
Check the little Menu bar next to a user's name, and click the "Library" tab on it. This'll bring you to a page listing all of their public bookshelves!

It says there are unread chapters that aren't there, or shows more stories then are in there!

Bookshelves are still a new feature and may have glitches. Try editing the bookshelf, turning off tracking, saving, and then turning back on tracking. Also, adding or deleting a story may help. If that doesn't fix it, you might have to either live with it or move everything over to a new bookshelf and delete the old one.

Unfortunately, you can only move stories one by one between bookshelves, and there is a limit to how many stories you can add to bookshelves in a day, though it's pretty high, and you're only likely to hit it if you are working with a thousand or more stories at once. If you stop being able to add stories to bookshelves, just wait, and they should be working again within twenty-four hours.

Blog Posts
How do I make a blog post?

To make a blog post, select the 'blog' option from your user drop-down menu in the main navigation bar, and click the 'add blog' button at the top of the page.

How do I tag a story in a blog post?

At the bottom of the blog creation page you can select one of your stories to tag in the blog post. If the story is not relevant to the blog post then it is considered spam and will be removed, possibly with punishment.

Groups
What are groups, and why are they so awesome?

Groups are one of the coolest parts of the Fimfiction community, and we hope you'll take a minute to check them out and see why we like them so much. Groups combine the functionality of some of the raddest bits of Fimfiction's infrastructure.

For one, they can be used to find stories that interest you; groups exist for all types of stories. So, if you like adventure stories, enjoy tales of humans in Equestria, or just want to read about cute pony pairings (shipping), there's a group for you - especially useful if you want to get updates any time a story is added to a group with an idea you particularly like.

Groups are also the site's de facto forum interface - in most groups, any user can create a thread, and you can get notifications sent to you when a new one is created, as well as seeing thread activity on your dashboard.

Finally, groups are just an awesome place to meet members of the community - they're a whole subsection of Fimfiction's functionality, where users can run events, organize contests, or just hang out.

Why can't I post comments or add stories to a particular group?

If you can't post comments or add stories to a certain group, the administrator of the group you're dealing with has likely configured the permissions of said group to restrict certain actions by basic users.

How do I join a group?

To join a group, just go to the page of a group you're interested in and click the 'join group' button. If the group isn't accepting new members, you could also try sending a message to the groups administrator to request them to open it long enough for you to join.

How do I add a story to a group?

To add a story to a group, go to the page for the story you want to add and click the 'add to group' button at the bottom of the story's description. Then, select the group you want to add the story to (and the relevant subfolder if one exists).

How do I edit a group?

To edit a group, just select the 'edit' next to the group you want to change from the 'group' page from your user-name drop-down in the navigation bar.

How do I delete a group?

To delete a group, use the 'delete' button next to the group in your group-nav page. Make sure you're really ready to delete the group though, as deleted groups (and subfolders, threads, etc.) are unrecoverable!

How do I prevent people from joining a group?

To prevent people from joining a group, edit the group from your groups page and turn the status to 'closed'.

How do I add a custom banner to a group?

Custom banners can be added to groups by pasting the url of the image you'd like to use in the 'banner' section of the edit page for your group. NSFW banners are not permitted.

How do I change my group notification settings?

Group notification settings (dictating whether to get notifications from new stories, new threads, both, or neither) are selectable from the 'settings' button on the actual group page itself.

How do I restrict the posting of stories in certain folders?

When you create a folder in your group (with the 'add folder' button from the group edit page), you can select the permissions of adding to that folder with the drop down, with the three options being 'User', 'Contributor', and 'Admin'.

How do I create a forum thread?

Forum threads can be created from the group's home page by clicking on 'Forum' section in the group, and then clicking on the 'new thread' button below.

How do I change the title of a forum thread, lock it, or stick it up on top of the forum?

Click the 'modify thread' button while inside the thread. Change the title to whatever you want, and toggle the lock or sticky settings, then click save. You can only do this if you posted it or are an admin, and stickying is limited to admins only now.

How do I delete a forum thread?

A forum thread can be deleted with the 'delete thread' button on the top right within the thread itself if you are an admin.

How do I search for groups relevant to my interests?

Searching for groups is easy: just use the search bar and the 'find a group' button from your groups page.

As a group moderator, how do I delete a member's comment or ban them from the group?

To delete a comment, just click the delete button at the top right of any comment in the group or a thread. To ban members, go to the members page at the top, search for the user and click the ban icon next to their name.

What is the difference between Admins, Contributors, and Regular Members in groups?

Admins can set the permission levels of any other users except for the founder, as well as delete comments and modify threads. Contributors are like regular members, but you can set folders to only allow contributors and admins to post in them.

Who should I contact first about a problem within a specific group?

For issues within a group, please PM the administrator of the group in question before bringing the problem to the attention of the site admins. An exception applies for problems regarding user security or site stability.

What is the forum, and how do I use it?

Explaining forum functionality in the context of the site is a bit of a big task, but the basic idea of a forum is a collection of conversations and discussions participated in by users on topics relevant to their interests. Forums/threads are a subfunctionality of groups, and can be accessed by clicking on the 'forum' button within a group. Replying to threads works just like comment replying, bbcode and all. If you have further questions about how forums work in general, more information can be found here.

Comments
How do I reply to a comment?

You can reply to a comment by hovering over it and clicking the 'reply' button in the top right corner of the comment - it's the one that looks like two speech bubbles.

How does comment sorting work?

Comments can be ordered to show latest comments first or last.

What are the guidelines for comment posting?

The basic rule of thumb for comment posting is the same for behaviour across the site: don't be a dick. That said, for more concrete guidelines; don't spam, don't advertise, try to be constructive and pleasant, and try to restrict yourself to commenting to when you have something worthwhile to say. Eg. 'First!' and 'I'll be reading this later' as well as similar comments are worthless, and we would ask that you avoid making them. Keep in mind that particularly bad comments may be downvoted, and repeatedly downvoted/flagged comments may result in administrative action.

When should I up/down-vote a comment?

The short answer? When you like a comment, upvote it. When you don't, downvote. For a more elaborate explanation of comment voting policy, please see knighty's already existing comment guidelines.

How do I report a comment from a terrible person?

You can go to a user’s page and use the report function to notify moderators. Be sure to include details and links to where the comment was made.

How does BBCode work?

For a full explanation of BBCode and its role on Fimfiction, please see this helpful guide put together by CosmicAfro.

Following
How do I follow someone, and what will I see in my notifications if I do?

To follow a user, simply click the 'follow' button (the eye) on their user page (or on the pop-up that appears when hovering over their username). If you follow someone, you'll see new stories they publish and blog posts they make.

User Page
How do I edit my user page?

Either click the 'Edit User Page' button from the user drop down menu or the 'Edit User Page' button at the top left of your actual user page.

How do I add modules to my user page?

After clicking edit user page, click on any of the buttons in the 'Available Modules' panel to add a module of that type to your page. By default they are added to the bottom left of the left hand column.

How do I move the modules on my page?

In the edit user page mode, drag the header of any module to move it to a new location. You can switch column by just dragging it between the columns. Make sure you click 'Save Module Layout' at the top when you're done.

How do I remove modules from my page?

In the edit user page mode, click the 'Delete Module' button below any module to remove it. Make sure you click 'Save Module Layout' at the top when you're done, otherwise the modules are not really deleted.

Site
Who made the emoticons on the site?

Midori-no-ink. You can find them on her DeviantArt here

When was Fimfiction.net started?

Development began in April 2011, and the doors opened on the 10th of July 2011 for beta.

Does the site have an API I can use?

It's being worked on, but you can currently grab story information using http://www.fimfiction.net/api/story.php?story=[story_url_here], supporting JSONP with a ?callback parameter, as well as CORS. I'll make proper documentation for it when it's done.

Got a high resolution picture of that logo?

Sure do!

Click for fullsize transparent image

Furry Communist
Group Contributor

PROPOSED EDITS:
A large number of sentences in the FAQ require some form of ending punctuation. I'd list them all, but that would be a bit much.


Also, this one should probably be removed. Knighty contradicts himself in several other locations and it's not like anyone actually pays attention to this one.

FIMFiction, FimFiction or Fimfiction?

Fimfiction is the correct usage


This one is entirely pointless now:

Why can I not delete my biography module?

There is no biography module.


Does the site have a chat room?

Adding a link to the designated chat rules could be useful.


I didn't receive my sign up email, what should I do?

Consistency edit: there should be a hyphen between 'sign' and 'up'.


How does BBCode work?

For a full explanation of BBCode and its role on Fimfiction, please see this helpful guide put together by CosmicAfro.

Replace this with an up-to-date guide placed in the section or linked to. Either way works. I might write one if I have time.


How do I change the title of a forum thread?

To change the title of a thread, select the 'modify thread' button while inside the thread.

How do I delete a forum thread?

A forum thread can be deleted with the 'delete thread' button on the top right within the thread itself.

How can I force a thread to always be at the top of a forum?

To pin a thread within the forum, select the 'sticky' option from the 'modify thread' button.

How can I lock a thread to prevent people posting in it?

Posting in a thread can be locked by picking the 'locked' option from the 'modify thread' button.

Mention that you have to be either the thread creator (only applicable for the first two) or a group admin.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4158904

I've been going through fixing missing punctuation and adding paragraph breaks in places, and some other minor edits. I changed around the FIMFiction, FimFiction, Fimfiction one an' deleted the biography one.

I haven't gone through your other suggestions yet, tho'.

Edit:
I changed 'sign-up' to sign up for the moment.

For the BBCode guide, linking to one is best. That one's old, but I think it's still accurate. I'd have to look, tho'. If you're gonna write one, you might post it here, and I'll link to that.

--Sweetie Belle

Furry Communist
Group Contributor

4158970

For the BBCode guide, linking to one is best. That one's old, but I think it's still accurate. I'd have to look, tho'. If you're gonna write one, you might post it here, and I'll link to that.

Some of the tags no longer work in forum posts and some have had their behavior modified.

EDIT:

I changed 'sign-up' to sign up for the moment.

Yeah, that makes a lot more sense.

EDIT:

Fimfiction is the preferred usage

'The preferred usage' sounds odd. I'm not sure if this even counts as a usage issue.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4159018
A new guide is probably a good idea, then. CosmicAfro's kinda retired as an admin, so I don't know if he's keeping that up to date any more.

I went ahead and changed the "Fimfiction" one around again, and I think I covered all the group sections you mentioned. Of course, there's other stuff missing from the group guide that should be in there, but I expect this'll be in progress for a while...

--Sweetie Belle

Furry Communist
Group Contributor

4159055

Fimfiction is what knighty likes best

"Is what knighty likes best" could easily be replaced with "is preferred".

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4159119

How 'bout "what knighty prefers"? I don't know if any of the staff prefers one of the other versions...

--Sweetie Belle

Elric of Melnipony
Group Contributor

The site does have a minimum age requirement, but it's often overlooked due to not being anywhere in the FAQ. So here's a suggestion for the User Account section:


Is there a minimum age requirement for making an account?

Yes, new users must be at least 13 years old. This is due to the requirements under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act requiring parental permission, additional reporting, and extra security when users are under the age of 13.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4159173

That looks pretty good. I added that right after how to create an account.

--Sweetie Belle

Furry Communist
Group Contributor

4159135 That should work.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

I just thought I'd mention that I've already revised and rewritten a number of entries, usually from the top down.

I'm not only trying to make things more accurate and make sure everything covered, but also to make it a bit easier to read. Sometimes I just read things like "the detail of a story's rating lies in the description and events contained therein", and have to wonder.

Just mainly wanted to make sure everypony knows I'm still revising things here, tho'

--Sweetie Belle

4158700 [/d]
Who wrote this FAQ, are the rules in there actually real and being enforced? Because some things in there isn't really clear.

Posting NSFW material or linking to it is forbidden on fimfiction even if it is a story on fimfiction.

So we can't link to mature fimfiction story on fimfiction? Or we can't link to mature material even when writing a story with mature text?

What exactly is the rules on nsfw anyway? Are you suggesting that mature stories should be suppressed and hidden from view?

Because if it's forbidden to link mature story, than adding to group, talking about it, saying X story is the sequel/prequel, being on updated/hot page all counts as link (since a link is present, whether added using URL tag or the site's system), mature story are basically being hidden from view.

So is this FAQ knighty approve? Is it his final goal to silence all mature content here? is a G-rating site what knighty envisioned? Or is this simply a misunderstanding?


Edit: The rule section is up. I believe that means this "updated main faq" will be written according to the rule?

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4168853

This is an unofficially updated copy of the official faq. The changes from the official faq are a work in process and not necessarily endorsed by the staff, but were done to reflect the rules as they have been enforced. knighty did just put up a new Rules section, and this hasn't been updated to that that page into account yet. I thought the "Unofficial" in the title was enough, but I'll add some extra text at the top.

I'll revise the section on things that could get you in trouble, but it was something that until that rules page was put up was hard to find unless you know where to look. This is where it comes from:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/240121/the-great-nsfw-purge-of-2013

Note the last part that says:

As a final note, as of now linking to nsfw stories from a sfw story (whether in the comments, description or chapter), a blog post, or a group thread is forbidden. Linking to any off site nsfw material is ALSO forbidden in these places I realise this is an annoying but we can hopefully allow that again once we have our new bbcode system up and running which can detect these links and automatically disable ads.

Edit - You can't link to NSFW content or stories from your user page either. You are allowed to put Mature stories in your Favorites/Featured Stories module, though, since those won't show up to users with Mature content switched off.

I'll try to make that a little clearer, but I'll have to totally revise that section now that the rules post is up, anyways, and see if any differences are changes in policy or just how it's written. The official rules page seems a little murky on this subject.



--Sweetie Belle

4168931
Thank you. The rule section is up as of now. I guess the general rule of thumb is all nsfw content/link can only be seen with nsfw enabled. Although the rule section still isn't clear on when it is ok to link to nsfw text. I hope the mods will clear things up soon.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4168944

Yeah, I haven't had a chance to update anything here in at least a day, and that went up an hour ago. Part of the reason I started this in the first place was that there wasn't anywhere that officially stated the rules on NSFW links and roleplaying other than old blogs of knighty from more than a year ago, but they were being enforced. So you'd get hassled when you pointed out things were against site rules because they were buried where they were hard to find, but you could still get in trouble about them.

Meeester and Eldorado are actually members of this group, so hopefully they'll clarify. Roleplaying seems to have been totally left out of the rules, too. That was this post:
http://www.fimfiction.net/blog/299306/role-playing

It's a shame, 'cause those were kinda the most important things to put in there.

--Sweetie Belle

4168966
We still got a long way to go... The rules are really lacking. I totally forgot about roleplaying issue, that was quite a major change made that made people cry "WHY", and yet now the rule section still lacks info on them.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

4168998

I'm happy things are getting updated, but they do need to be clearer and include everything. I'm trying to change things here to be what I think they should look like officially, really. I'm still figuring out how I should handle an update with the rules, tho'.

I was a member of several roleplaying groups at the time that happened, and I still am, though they're dead now. They all stopped doing any roleplaying when it was posted. That's one reason I always remember that rule and bring it up if I see roleplaying going on.

I do understand why they don't list exact consequences for things. Things need to be flexible, and if you say things like "you will be banned after violating the rules this many times", you'll have somepony say "well, so-and-so didn't have that happen", even when it was totally different circumstances and one was violating rules a lot more majorly then the other was. You do need to be clear on what all the rules are, though.

--Sweetie Belle

4169019
Exact consequences are a bit too fixed, I'm suggesting one where the rules states something like "Posting NSFW image can result in your post being delete and a ban up to <X amount of time>". It should define a range of how severe punishments should be. So a user won't get perm ban for a what the user think minor offense while mod thinks it is a felony.

Having the consequences made public would give the user a sense of how severe things are. So in the case they are being punish, it would be less likely that they think the punishment is unfair. Having people think the site admin/mod is treating them unfairly can become a cause of hate and even attacks against others.

The rules exist so people can know what they could do and couldn't do, it is the foundation on which 'our little society' exist on. We have exist for so long with clearly defined rules without breaking apart because we all have a common background (ponies), our idea of proper conduct is the same. However, with the act of banning role play, a small rift a appear between what the user think is ok and what the mods think is ok. The rules need to be clear to prevent this rift from growing. As new policies are introduce, the rift will keep growing and growing, its effects may be small and unnoticeable, but in the long run, it can still be damaging

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