Groups Guidelines

Ipernity offers you the possibility of creating and participating to Groups.

Groups are a commonplace bringing together several members around a common topic, allowing them to share documents and chat at the same time.

The present charter is intended to help you better understand the different roles that you could hold within the Groups, and gives you a clear picture on the best practices to adopt.

The success of the Groups, within the Ipernity environment lays solely on the respect of the rules by all. Thank you for reading the following rules and regulations hereafter.

You are the Administrator of the Group.

You become the Administrator of a Group when you create one, or when another Administrator appoints you as the Administrator.

  • Invite people … but be careful with spam!
    • A Group is by definition a set of members, so invite people who are likely to be interested in the subject of your Group. First of all, favor the Ipernity members who have added you to their network, it’s proof of confidence by them and your invitation will have more impact with those people. You can also invite by email. However, do not invite the whole world, people you are targeting might consider you as undesirable and you might trigger a negative effect totally the opposite of what you were aiming for. So keep in mind the aim of the subject of your Group and target your invitations towards those who could be interested.

  • Lead!
    • Bring to life your Group by posting yourself the first documents and by launching discussion subjects. The members as well as the visitors will appreciate your constant presence within the Group, reflected by the messages that you will leave regularly throughout the discussions.

  • Delegate!
    • Your Group is growing and this overloads you with work? You are going to be absent for a while? Don’t leave your ship unattended without a captain : delegate! You have the ability to handover certain rights to members of the Group, even to name others as Administrators. The success of a Group is often shared by several people.

  • Moderate!
    • Moderation is one of the key elements in obtaining the success of your Group. A Group that is well moderated will be high in quality and relevant and will gain in popularity. To best moderate, have a read at the following few paragraphs.

You are the Moderator of a Group.

The Administrators of a Group are by default Moderators. But you can also become the Moderator of a Group by being appointed by one of its Administrators. The role of the Moderator is to ensure that the contributions by the members are in line with the subject of the Group and abide by the specific rules of the Group and those of Ipernity.

  • Do not abuse your authority
    • As a Moderator, you can be brought to delete contributions, even exclude either temporarily or permanently a member. Do not abuse your authority. Act using common sense. Do not banish a member before having temporarily excluded them as a warning. And do not forget that a decision is always better accepted when it is explained to the party in question.

  • Moderate regularly
    • Keep a constant eye on new contributions. The quality of your Group will only be improved. And do not leave requests for contribution too long without a response. You will only discourage the members and the activity in your Group could be affected.

You are a Member of a Group.

  • Respect specific rules of the Group.
    • Certain Groups have specific rules, decreeted by its Administrators. Please ensure that you consult them before joining a Group, and please ensure to adhere to them at all times.The Administrators and/or the Moderators could possibly make decisions that could very likely displease you (membership refusal, removal of your contributions which are against the rules of the Group, temporary or permanent exclusion from the Group … )If this is the case, please make an attempt to understand the reason behind the decision by communicating with them. If you still then don’t come to an agreement, and their decision is not satisfactory to you, you can therefore assume that the Group is not made for you.

  • Participate!
    • If you want to be a member of a Group, you can’t just watch the flies fly! Submit your documents for others to see, start discussions, in other words : be active! Life within a Group is all dependent on what you want to invest.

  • ... but keep in mind at all times the subject of the Group.
    • It’s quite easy to stray away from the subject of the Group, especially when conversations tend to heat up. Therefore, please be sure to keep in mind, at all times, the subject of the Group when contributing. If you want to discuss another subject, why not create a new Group?

  • Respect the life of the Group.
    • Please be polite and respectful of other members. .. but all that is already written in the Members Guidelines that you’ve already read. If you don’t remember, it’s over here …http://www.ipernity.com/about/guidelines

Thank you very much to have taken a few moments of your time to read this important document.

We wish you a lot of fun and new discoveries with the ipernity Groups.

Last update of the French original: 17/09/2007
Last update of the English translation: 18/09/2007