Groups
Fun Swap Groups are a way to build a swapping community around any shared interest, craft, demographic, or theme you choose.
Membership Levels
Each group has two kinds of members:
Member: Joins the group so they can participate in group swaps and comment on the group's discussion thread. Members can leave the group at any time.
Admin: Everything a member can do, plus approve or reject pending join requests, add members directly by username, promote members to admin, demote other admins back to member, remove members, and banish trouble members so they can't rejoin. Admins also act as the coordinator for any group swaps.
The person who creates a group is its first admin. A group can have multiple admins, but at least one admin must remain at all times — you can't demote or remove the last admin.
Group Swaps
A swap can belong to at most one group. Swaps stay publicly visible in the regular Find Swaps page, but they're also listed on the group's home page. If you try to join a group swap and you're not yet a member, Fun Swap will file a join request for the group on your behalf and queue you into the swap automatically once an admin approves you.
Joining a Group
Click Join Group on any group's page. An admin will be notified and has to approve your request before you're added. If you change your mind, you can cancel the request while it's still pending. Admins can also add members directly.
Running a Group
If you create a group or get promoted to admin, you have full authority and responsibility over what happens inside it. Fun Swap administrators won't intervene in disputes that aren't technical problems — if something goes wrong in your group, you handle it. Use the Banish action sparingly, but don't hesitate to use it when a member is harming the community.
Cull inactive members
Group admins can use the Cull inactive members button on the group page to clean out members who have stopped logging in. Click and Fun Swap shows a confirmation dialog with every member whose last sign-in was more than the threshold ago (default about six months). Each row has a checkbox, all checked by default — uncheck anyone you'd like to keep, then click Remove from group. The server re-checks each entry at submission time so a member who logs in between the dialog opening and you submitting won't be removed.
Auto-deletion of stranded groups
If a group ends up with no viable admins — meaning every admin's subscription has lapsed and stayed lapsed — Fun Swap waits about two months and then deletes the group. The clock resets the moment any admin renews their subscription. To keep a group alive, make sure at least one admin has an active Essential or Unlimited subscription.
Practical note: Fun Swap won't let the last active admin leave or demote themselves directly — that prevents accidental orphaning. The auto-deletion rule is for the case where active admins drift into lapsed status over time without anyone noticing.
Block a member from your future swaps
On the host dashboard of a swap you're running, every member row has a Block future action. Use it for a member who behaved badly: they finish the current swap normally, but will be blocked from joining any future swap that you host. You can lift the block on the same row or from your settings.
Invite-only groups
When creating or editing a group you can mark it as by invitation only. The public group page still lists the group, but the Join button is replaced with a polite message saying that an owner will add members manually. The only way in is for an admin to add a username via the existing add-member action.
If you flip the toggle on while there are pending join requests, Fun Swap auto-rejects them and notifies the affected members.