Help me to help you on FetLife!
Some of you might know that FetLife, the hottest BDSM, Leather & Fetish Community on the goddamned PLANET is hiring. They are looking for a Community Manager.
I am beyond ass-tinglingly thrilled to say I’m in the running for this position! I’ve a second interview in a little over a week, so I’m getting all of my ducks in a row!
Then tying them up.
…and spanking them.
You can hep me land this amazing opportunity and help you at the same time!
Part of what a Community Manager does is  to listen to what the Community wants, needs, and faps about, and then see how best to reflect that back to you in as efficient and useful a manner as possible. Obviously, we all can’t have everything. But what excites me the most about this job is the newness and limberness of a company run like FetLife. having spent 2 years working for a company that ostensibly served my community but gave me blank stares when I suggested we needed to have a booth at the Folsom Street fair…and asked exactly what that was and why it mattered, I have a profound appreciation for what it takes to be TRULY sensitive to the needs of those you serve.
This is the part where you come in.
Tell me what you want. Gimmie something to bring to the table when I talk to Baku & Crew. What do you LOVE about FetLife? What about it would you absolutely never ever change? What about it could use a helping hand?
And you can also feel free to post publicly and tell the world why I would be so awesome for this job!
Cross your fingers toes, eyes, legs and balls (if you can) for me!
One Word: Privacy Filters
Let Friending someone MEAN something, that they have access to things people who aren’t friends don’t have. Take the LiveJournal model, where you can filter access.
Here’s my reasoning: Anyone who joins Fetlife can see EVERYTHING. Anyone can join Fetlife. This is a slight danger to our community, as evident during the BLP Castle Play party “Scandal” in Bethesda this year.
Here’s another example: My brother, who is in the scene in a different geographical location, does not need to see scene reports about my play. But we can still be friends so I can vouch for him to others. I’d just like to filter him out.
Make sense?
I’m not saying groups should be filtered – but Photos, profiles, status updates, and journal entries should be able to have different levels of privacy.
I’d also LOVE to have a “choose/fill in your own description” option for a relationship beyond “it’s complicated.” But that’s me. I hate traditional labels.
There are some other interface things that drive me buggy, but I’ve gotten used to them – the privacy level ones have always been my major frustration with the site. I’d even be willing to pay a small yearly donation, or a lifetime user something (like livejournal) for such privacy features.
I would really, really love a more streamlined interface for posting updates; I rarely go in & do it because the linking & formatting is challenging; it’s not really HTML, and not a WYSIWYG system either.
In any case – I can’t think of a better person to take on this job, and I’ll be happy to tell them (btw, Mark is awesomeness – you’ll love working with him if you become a member of their team!).
.-= Sarah Sloane´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Tuesdays Toy: Love U Silicone Lube =-.
I generally do not use fetlife because of a few bad experiences. I am mainly on there for when friends post things.
I wish that there was an option to not post your location. Sure, I could lie and maybe I will do that. Or have the location be unavailable to people who are not my friends.
I have no interest in meeting local people, nor so I wish my anonymity to be threatened by that.
The only other thing that I would wish is that there could be ratings based on an IQ test. Perhaps users would read a profile, and then be forced to answer questions on that profile before they received a certain high IQ flag.
For example, if I say I am not a domme, do not email asking to be my slave.
And for god’s sake, unless I ask for a picture of your junk taped to your stomach, do not send it.
.-= Andi Marie´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…I Forgot to Mention – I Was on Fleshbot! =-.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mollena, Sarah Sloane. Sarah Sloane said: RT @Mollena: WONDERFUL news! I made final cut for the #FetLife Community Manager position! Now, I need YOUR help! http://tinyurl.com/2fqqrh7 […]
Definitely privacy filters. Also, need to be able to make it so that non-friends can’t comment on yer pics! … The reason I don’t have any of my 79,000 professionally taken photos up on Fetlife is because of this. (Oh, and photo albums would NOT HURT.)
I hope they hire you, you would rock on the team. =)
I’ll second that – allowing us to make lists of people who can see certain things and lists of people who should only see one or two things…
My biggest thing right now is how complicated it can be to navigate the groups, especially when you’re a member of a bunch. I understand that’s it’s similar to a forum system, but I’d really like to be able to filter group posts. I don’t have much time AT ALL to surf FetLife and more often than not end up just ignoring the groups (that I used to love) because trying to find relevant or useful topics instead of gossip is just frustrating. Maybe a rating system for topics or even something where people can click options such as “informative” or “funny” rather than just thumbs up or thumbs down…
Finally, I think you’re the perfect person for this job and even though I don’t have any say in anything, I hope you get it. You have always been kind and gracious to me, a nobody in the grand scheme of things, and yet you make it a point to acknowledge me when I have something to say. I may not be awesome enough (I don’t know) for you to consider me a friend, but I will always consider you a good friend. None of this “acquaintance” crap.
I’d love to see you get this job. You are articulate, service oriented, and in touch with communities across the country. You are already a spokesperson for IMsL. What better qualifications could there be?
I don’t actually like Fetlife. I have an account because the majority of my friends use it and it’s convenient to stay in touch. If you fixed the following 3 things I’d participate in the forums. Otherwise it takes too much time.
–bailey
1)Make email notifications actually work. I get two emails for most initial posts to a group and none afterward. I have never gotten “follow” via email to work except on a hit & miss basis.
2) Mail out daily digest for each forum much like Tribe did… each new comment in each thread for the day. Include 3-4 lines and a link to click through if you want to read more.
3) Friend vs. Acquaintance. I like having a handy index of people I know but I only want to follow the activity of a subset of those people (the “everything” page). My choice now is to limit friends or just give up reading the everything page (which I did). For each of my friends can I opt to follow or not follow?
4) Extra credit: include 3-4 lines of each new post in the email notifications now sent out. Then I can get in idea of what the post is about before clicking through… some people just do not make good use of subject lines.
I was hoping this was the job you have been hinting about. It is perfect for you. I “met” you first on Alt when I was just starting to explore my submissive side. I began to read your blogs, and follow you on twitter and facebook. So many times every day you would make me smile. When I had a personal question, I did not hesitate to formspring you, and got a quick, yet well thought out answer. A real answer from you, not a canned response. You are so real, open, and honest and you have helped me more than you will probably ever know. John and the rest of the gang at Fetlife would be fools to let a chance to get you pass them by. Good luck Mollena!
.-= SlipperyWhnWhet´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Welcome! =-.
Yay! The job description is scarily huge… But I can’t think of a better person to pull it off. You’ve got the drive, the caring, the smarts, the stubbornness and the love of a heap big number of people in the community.
Keeping my fingers crossed. If I thought it’d help, I’d even go as far as crossing my legs this weekend. The ultimate sacrifice. *That’s* how much we wish ya to get that job. Muah!
.-= Lovings Webmistress´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Becoming Dominant =-.
I don’t like that when you de-friend someone, it posts that to the wall. Very annoying.
I also think that more filters would be great – I’d love to have the ability to see what some people and not others are doing, and be able to streamline my page and profile in to groups (especially by how I know someone) like on facebook. I have a filter for people from school, high school, family, pervy friends – so I at least know where I know people from.
My biggest bitch with the site is this ridiculous “play nice” policy John thinks he can enforce, but only truly enforces when people decide to fight back against racist/homophobic/fatphobic/transphobic trolls and then said trolls complain and get the oppressed minorities silenced/deleted. Fix that, please.
John wants us all to play nice and be respectful of each other. I want to be able to stand up and fight for myself and others when people are ignorant offensive fuckwads, whether I do so nicely or not. That’s why we need a community manager – is to get in between me and John, because motherfucker just. don’t. get. it….
.-= Sunshine Love´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…tSunshineLove: Disgusted at the whiny idjuts on the #Shibaricon list complaining about having to listen to loud scenes. Solution: Untie and fucking move. =-.
I definitely think you are perfect for the job.
While I think some privacy levels would be great, that would require a major system overhaul, and a nightmarish database management process…However, the ability to delete things you have posted would not be as difficult to implement…and would be great…along with the ability to write-in your own orientation/relationship/gender etc…isnt circumventing other people’s labels half of the point!?! lol
That said, fetlife intentionally prevents a large amount of surfing for tail which I actually really like, so Id say dont change the search features eventhough it may be hard to locate people you actually know…and also while the serendipity of other social networking sites makes them charming in their robot-like anticipation of your needs, I like that fetlife still requires a direct engagement with its members to seek out and develop your social network, much in the same way we do in person. That should stay the same, and continue to make it harder for random wankers to harass people, eventhough many/some still find a way :)
I <3 you forever.
.-= klawdya Rothschild´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Handout: Bondage for the Differently-Abled =-.
I would love to have more search options (which is unlike Klawdya above, so this might be a some love/some hate thing). I think it would be great to search within a metro area for people/kinks.
I also would love privacy filters.
And, I think it is in the works already, but I would love a mobile version (or at least a non javascript version.) I can read things fine on my blackberry, but I cannot reply to anything. :)
.-= StacyCat´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Creationism and Science =-.
I hope you get the position. I don’t belong to FetLife for one reason. No privacy filters. If they did that, I’d join.
Good luck!
Robin
What I fucking love about FetLife:
– the option to display specific relationships to specific people. It’s not a requirement, but I love that I can do it and I love that I can quickly see how others choose to represent their relationships to other FetLife users.
– the way that the Events section is displayed. It could get more use from Seattle peeps, but I love that I can see what’s going on near me nonetheless.
– the preview option for posts. I am *so happy* that they got that put in place. whee!
– that one must join to view … pretty much anything. Love that.
– captions for pictures. Should be a no brainer, but some sites don’t do that … which is why I think that some users don’t take advantage of the function — they’re probably not used to it and instead post their captions in the comments area.
– the “I Support FetLife” badge. I got mine because I noticed other people had theirs and couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I got a love letter from their severs. hee hee!
– the error pages. *snerk*
– the use of FetLife users as models for the front-page photos. yay!
What fucking twonks me about FetLife:
– just because I like the idea of getting notices when someone posts a new journal entry, it doesn’t mean that we know each other well enough to consider each other “friends”. I know, I know — it’s semantics. For some people, having folks who want to read what they have to say *does* make them friends. But not everyone feels that way.
When I friend someone on a service like FetLife, I like being able to say that I can vouch for — or at least give an opinion based on in-person experience — pretty much anyone on my friends list. Someone can go through my friends list as though it’s a referral service and ask me what I think of This Person, as they’re considering playing with them. I can respond about my experiences of This Person, as I consider them a friend. However, I can’t tell people what I think of This Author past the fact that I howl with laughter at their posts. This author lives in fucking Greenland — how the hell am I a good reference? Or perhaps if That Person is on my acquaintance list, I’m a handshake away from someone who *can* give them a reference, and can pass that along.
I would appreciate having levels of readership: friends, acquaintances and readers, say. Heck, I’ll even settle for just “friends” and “voyeurs”. Yes, I realize that there’s the potential for some people feeling a slight, but I’m a literal woman and detest claiming someone I have no direct positive experience as a friend. If someone can’t tell the difference between a real world friend and someone online who likes your photos or what you write, maybe they should get slighted enough times online that they start going out more.
I am so glad that you applied for this job. You’re magnificent at outreach and FetLife is a wonderful cross-subculture platform. YAY! Good luck, beautiful!
Hi Mollena,
What I like about Fetlife is that due to the sheer mass of people who sign up on a large international site, you actually see the presence of kinky people in parts of the Earth I don’t hear from in terms of kink that often, as well as discussions of rather more unusual fetishes and activities, which can be hard to find quality content about on smaller sites: ‘what’s most normal and most common in sexuality is diversity’ as Heather Corinna says. At present, if someone has a really hard time locating other kinky people in their country because there aren’t many public gatherings to be found via the usual searches and listings, I tell them their best bet is probably to try Fetlife. I think Fetlife’s long term strength would lie in giving room to and actively acknowledging a very wide spectrum of interests and persons, rather than catering to some imagined kinky ‘mainstream fashion’, which the present front page photos and present advertisements suggest it does.
Two main factors put me off from actively using Fetlife, even though I have a semi-dormant profile. If these should ever change, I might be attracted to looking around some more in the group discussions.
1. Colour scheme white text on black. How about at least giving users a button where they can change their viewing theme to something more eye-friendly? (The same factor makes it hard to read your interesting blog.)
2. Dominant + female automatically defaults to a gendered ‘Domme’ on Fetlife. Hello sexism. So inviting. At present I’ve chosen ‘top’ instead, which strangely enough doesn’t default to ‘toppe’.
I must also say that the past debacle of blatant sexism in the defunct ‘This week in kink’ podcast didn’t exactly contribute to making the site more attractive. Lip service doesn’t overcome scepticism that stems from experience; action and showing a backbone might.
.-= Ranai´s most recent blog moment of Zen on the net was…Out of nowhere =-.