I'm dividing the unofficial version of the official FAQ into four threads. This one covers the section on Groups.

The main FAQ was written by site admins. This version was updated by me and members of this group and is unofficial. This particular one is mostly rewritten by me, in fact, and even mentions site bugs you should probably know about.

The Unofficial Main Groups FAQ

FAQ’s for Users:

What are groups, and why are they so awesome?

Groups are one of the coolest things about fimfiction, and I hope you’ll take a minute to check them out and see why everyone likes them so much. Groups sort of bring together all the neatest bits of Fimfiction all in one place.

First of all, you can use them to find stories you like. Groups exist for all sorts of stories. Maybe you like adventures, or humans roaming about Equestria, cute and fuzzy stories, things that warm the heart, or you just want to read about your favorite ships or cute pony pairings.

There’s a group for you. Maybe even two or three. And if you join them, you can get notifications anytime someone drops stories in you might like, talk about them, and maybe post some of your favorite stories.

The groups all have forums to talk about things, though some have more rules about it than others. Any user who has joined a group can create a thread there, if they haven’t been banned, that is. You can get notifications of new threads, and see activity over on the dashboard - the page that comes up when you hit that group button at the top of the page.

Groups are a great place to meet new people, run events, organize contests, or just hang out. Just remember the site rules, and any ones that have been posted in the group itself.

So how can I find one I like?

Well, there are a couple of ways.

First, if you click on the groups button at the top, there’s a list of groups that are Trending. These aren’t necessarily good groups, but they are the ones the most people have joined in the last week.

You can also go into the dropdown under your username and hit groups. At the top, there’s also a search bar where you can look for groups. It’ll list your groups, and if you hit “Browse All Groups”, there’s a huge list of all the groups there, ranked by how many members they have.

The New Groups group lists new ones that come out, and member publicise new ones there. The Shameless Self-Promotion Bureau promotes everything, including groups. The Twilight’s Library group is mostly gone, but there’s a nice big list of groups to join on the front page, too.

And The Writer’s Group is pretty popular, of course. There are lots of places. You can even look on the user pages of people you like. There’s usually a group list there.

I found one! Now, how do I join it?

To join a group, just go to the group’s page and click the “join” 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 my story to a group?
In two ways.

First, from the story page, you can click on the little picture that looks like a person with four dots around its head at the bottom right of the description. That’ll show a list of groups. Click on the group, and it’ll show the folders you can add it to. Click on all the folders you want it in, then either click the ‘x’ to close it, or click the group name at the top to go back to the group list to find other ones.

The other way if to go into a group’s folder list, go to the folder you want it in, and click “Add Story”. It’ll show all your stories, and you can choose one and add it. The other way lets you add anyone’s stories, though, and to multiple stories at once. I’m not sure why you’d do it this way, actually.Why can’t I add a story to a folder in a group?!

The admins who run the group can set the folders up so that not just anyone can add stories in them. Folders can be set up so only admins can add stories, or so admins and contributors can add stories.

Read that group’s rules, and someone will probably have talked about their rules for adding stories to the group.

I can’t post to a thread I wanted to in the group’s forum!!

There are a couple possibilities:

First, did you join the group? You can’t post to groups you haven’t joined.

Second, does the thread have a lock by it? That means it’s locked, and no one can post to it.

You might click back on the forum and see if the thread is still there. Maybe someone deleted it while you were typing.

You could also be banned from the group. If you have a “Join” button instead of a “Leave” button on a group you know you’re a member of, click it and if you are banned, it’ll tell you. Talk to the admins of the group if this is the case.

I said something really stupid. Can I delete or edit a comment?

You can delete a comment you wrote by clicking the trash can at the top right of the comment. You can also delete it if you are an admin. It’ll still leave a spot behind saying that a comment was deleted, and who wrote it, though, and you can’t delete the first comment in a thread. For that, see the question about deleting threads.

There’s also a pencil next to it if you want to edit it. Only the one who wrote a comment can edit it, though, even if you are an admin.

How do I reply to something someone wrote?

If you hit the little >> picture next to a comment, it’ll copy two >’s and a number to the bottom of the comment you are writing. That links back to the post you are replying to, and they’ll be alerted when you post it.

They won’t be alerted if you edit that in later, though.

How do I post a thread?

Once you are in the forum, click on the “New Thread” button. Then type in a title and your thread, and hit “Post Thread”.

It said I’m not allowed to post threads!

Well, the same reasons as not being able to post to a thread apply, but there’s usually a simpler explanation. Posting threads is buggy, and knighty hasn’t fixed it. If you wait too long before hitting that “Post Thread” button, it’ll error out. It’s been that way for years.

Just copy all the text of your post somewhere, and go back to the forums again, hit “New Thread”, and paste it into a new thread and try again. It’ll probably work this time.

And if you decide to bug knighty about this, ask him to add a preview button for new threads while he’s at it.

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, or if you wrote the thread.

Can I change the title of a thread? (Or lock or sticky it?)

Yep!

Hit the ‘Modify’ button at the top of the thread, and change it there, then hit “Save”. You can only do this if it’s your thread, or you are an admin.

There’s also a lock option to lock it here so no one can post to it, and if you are an admin, there’s a sticky option, to make it stay at the top of the forum thread.

How do I change my group notification settings?

Click the “Settings” button at the top of the group page. There, you can set if you want to be notified of new stories in the group, and also new posts in the group forums.

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.

That’s enough about using the groups. What if I want to make a new one, or run one?

Well, in that case, continue on to the Admin section below.

FAQ’s for Admins and Contributors:

I just had an awesome group idea! How do I create it?

First, you might want to go back to the section on finding groups, and see if anyone has already done it. A lot of great ideas have been.

If you are ready to go for it, though, go to the dropdown under your username and hit groups. Then type in the name of the group you want to create at the top, next to where it says “Create Group” and hit the “Add Group” button.

For some dumb reason, a button will appear below it saying “Add Group Anyway”. I’m assuming a warning was supposed to go by it. Just click it if you’re sure you want to create the group.

An edit group screen will appear. This is mostly like the normal screen you get when you go to edit a group, except it has a “Create Group” button at the bottom.

While you are here, let’s do few things:
Make sure the name is the way you want it, though you can change it later.

Where it says “Status”, you can set if other people can join or not.

Also, there’s a “NSFW” option. By default, it is on when you create a group. Unless the group is mostly about NSFW stuff, turn it off. If you turn it on, you can post links to NSFW stories in the forums, which normally isn’t allowed. (Though you can never post NSFW pictures.

If you want a group icon, hit “Upload Image”, and choose a picture. It’s going to only show the top 100x100 of the picture, so scale the picture in advance!

Now, where it says “Banner”, you can put a url for a banner picture. That one should be 1000x250. NSFW banners are not permitted.

And where it says description is what’s going to show on the main page of the group. Just type it up like you were typing a thread.

The normal edit group box has options for folders, too, but they don’t show here, so just hit “Create Group” when you are done. Then go advertise your group over in a few places, but make sure they allow posting about it.

How do I edit a group or delete it?

On the list of groups you are in, there’s a picture of a pencil writing on a piece of paper you can click on to edit groups you are an admin of. If you are the founder, there’s also a trash can to delete it. Make sure you're really ready to delete the group though, as deleted groups (and subfolders, threads, etc.) are unrecoverable!

If you are already in the group, the pencil picture is by the name of the group.

Most of the controls here are the same ones I talk about in create a group, except for the ones for managing and creating folders.

So how do I manage and create folders, then?

This can get tricky. Let’s make a folder first.

So, go into the screen for editing groups first, then click “Create Folder” at the top. Now let’s go down this screen.

First, where it says folder name, type in a name.

Next, see where it says “Parent Folder”? Don’t touch this. It’s a trap! If this is on anything other than “- Select -”, it’ll go to a really messed up screen and won’t let you create it. It’s always been like this because knighty messed up when he first made this and never fixed it.

Later on, if you want this to be a subfolder, go back and edit the folder, and choose whatever folder you want it to be in here.

“Show stories in Subfolders” is so it’ll show stories in any folders you put in it, as well as the stories in it. Usually you don’t need to fiddle with it.

“Posting Permissions” is where you set who can add stories to a folder. User means everyone can, Contributor only lets contributors and admins add to it, and Admins is for admins only. Pretty straightforward.

Then, talk a little about what the folder is for if you want in the Description field, and hit “Create Folder” to create it.

Now, lets go over to the quirky “Manage Folder” button. This gets kinda tricky.

It’s going to list all the folder in the group. There are numbers to the right of them, which will start out set to 0. You can change these to set the order of the folders. It won’t reorder them unless you go to the bottom, make sure that “Perform Action” is on “Save Folder Order”, and hit save changes.

It also shows how many stories are in a folder, and if you click on the folder name, it goes to the edit screen, which looks mostly like the creation screen, only this time that “Parent Folder” dropdown won’t crash things, and you can put folders in other folders with it.

There’s also a list of the stories in the folder on the edit screen, including who wrote them and who added them. A dropdown below the list lets you choose how many show on a page, and there are controls to go between pages.

You can put checkmarks on stories here, and under “Perform Action”, either choose “Move To Folder” and pick a folder next to it if you want to move a bunch of folders at once, or “Delete” if you just want to get rid of them. Hit “Save Changes” when you are done.

Theres one more thing to talk about here. If you go back to “Manage Folders”, remember there were two options? The other one is for deleting folders. You can hit the circle next to a folder, change it to say “Delete Folders”, and to the right of it, either choose “Nowhere” to get rid of the stories in it, or choose a folder or move them to.

If this seems complex, it is, kinda. Maybe one day, knighty’ll add the same code for moving bookshelves in for reordering folders, at least. Until then, though, that’s how it works.

How do I make someone an admin or contributor, set them back, or ban them, and what are the differences?

Assuming you are an admin, in your group, click on the member list.

Next to each users name, there are four pictures. The crown is for admins, the plus for contributors, the person for regular members, and the circle with a line through it is for someone who is banned. Assuming you are an admin, click on the picture that indicates what status you want them to have. You can’t change the founders status.

Now, admins can edit the group, delete comments and threads, set thread to sticky or lock them, modify what level a user is, and delete stories out of folders.

Contributors are like normal users, but you can set folders to only allow them and admins to post in them.

Users are everyone else.

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'.

This is also mentioned in the section about creating a group.

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.

This is also mentioned in the section about creating a group.

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'.

This is also mentioned in the section about managing folders.

References:

This is where I'll post where any information I referred to in this faq came from that I remember. All the stuff 'bout site bugs happened to me.

--Sweetie Belle

4192364
This is impossible! I am the creator of the group and I wanna promote someone to Admin. I tried clicking the little person icon, but nothing happens..

4192365

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.

This is confusing to me. When does one day end and the other one begin? Or is it about the period between the chapters that has to be over 24 hours long?

If I publish Chapter 1 now, when may I publish Chapter 2 to avoid a penalty?

7910598
Well, the unofficial FAQ is something I haven't worked on for years, and in this case, the part you are confused on is verbatim from the Official FAQ:
https://www.fimfiction.net/faq/questions/126/a-chapter-i-added-didnt-bump-my-story-to-the-frontpage-why-is-this

If you want clarification on that, I'd suggest one of the site staff...

--Sweetie Belle