Swap-bot looks different – what’s going on?

In order to improve the speed of Swap-bot we had to switch to a better web hosting service. We made the full switch to the new server on Saturday night. This switch required some slight infrastructure changes which led to a few more changes that we think are an improvement. Following is a list of the site changes:

• Faster service – Swap-bot should now load much faster and we hope to never have periods of extremely slow service like previously experienced. Sweet!
• Layout changes – In order to pay for the new hosting service we have to publish more and better ads. The new layout includes a standardized center column that allows us to show display ads in the right column. The new size of the center column is smaller for the Find Swaps and Dashboard (previously My Swaps) pages, but larger for the profile pages. This change may affect your profile layout. You may have to adjust how images flow on your profile. We are sorry for that inconvenience. (The new profile column size is 490 pixels… that info could help when making graphics.) You will also notice that the large left sidebar links have been moved to the top right of all main Swap-bot pages. There are additional links to many main site pages, including the Terms of Use and FAQ, in the new footer at the bottom of all pages. You probably also noticed our new, cute airmail mascot in the upper left corner. Yippee!
• Dashboard = My Swaps – We have changed the name of the My Swaps page to “Dashboard.” Eventually the Dashboard section will contain more info (groups, friends, updates, etc), but for now it simply contains all of your swap lists: Current Swaps, Sent Swaps (Previous Swaps), Archived Swaps, and the new Watchlist. The swap lists also look slightly different. The number of total swappers is now located in the top left corner and the beginning of the swap description is no longer shown. Also, all group swaps and private swaps now have that designation automatically added to the title.
• Watched Swaps – Due to popular demand (and because it is a great idea) you can now watch swaps. Under the sign up link for each swap there is now a link to watch the swap instead. By clicking the watch link the swap will show up under your Watchlist on your Dashboard. You will not be officially signed up for the swap, but you will be better able to keep track of those swaps you are thinking about joining. You can receive email alerts about your watched swaps (sent one week and two days before the sign up deadline) by going to “Preference” under the profile “Edit” screen and checking the last email preference box. The default is that you do NOT receive email notifications for watched swaps. Also, you will not be automatically signed up for your watched swaps. You must log in and click on the sign up link for your watched swaps in order to be officially signed up.
• Twitter – Swap-bot’s Twitter works again! If you are a member of Twitter you can sign up to Follow Swap-bot here. You will then get a tweet every time a new swap is created.

These new changes – especially to the layout – will take a little getting used to, but we think it will be worth it. All of the same site content is still here, there just might be a slightly different way to get to it. We realize there is still a lot to do and we promise to keep improving everything as quickly as we can. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.

I am sure everyone is aware of the “slow downs” in Swap-bot service that we have been experiencing periodically. We have been having difficulty with our current web hosting service and are in the process of switching to a higher capacity service. The final switch to the new server will happen tonight. The switch will require about 15 minutes of downtime which will occur at approximately 10 pm US Pacific time TONIGHT. I am sorry for the inconvenience, but it is necessary.

In conjunction with the switch there are some significant changes that you will notice on Swap-bot. There will be a few layout changes and a few feature additions – including a swap “watch list.” Mostly you will hopefully just notice that the site is running much quicker. More info about the site changes will be released soon. Please have patience as there will surely be a few little glitches as the changes are implemented.

Also, Travis and I are doing our best on this site. I wish we could provide the kind of service we all expect from large sites like Facebook or MySpace, but frankly, we cannot. I am extremely (disgracefully) behind on answering support email, but I am trying to catch up. I am sorry. We really enjoy running this site and providing a fun tool, but we must do it on our own terms. If it is no longer fun for you to use or visit, I am sorry. Like usual, I will suggest using groups if your want to interact with an exclusive set of users.

Ok, so thanks for your patience as we switch to the new server. It is a big job, so wish us luck!!

I have not done one of these in a while, but here is a lonely edition of Friday Link Love:

• Swap-bot was mentioned on the blog of hip, Australian magazine, Frankie. We were also mentioned in May on TrendCentral. Press is great. Let us know if you see Swap-bot mentioned anywhere.
• For matchbox lovers, you must see Abigail Brown’s matchbox birds and creatures in boxes. So adorably pretty.
• Two fun sites created by my friends that you gotta check out: bumberstickr & hilarious.net Wonder Woman on dvd

Swap-bot is ever-changing and we have some new improvements to tell you about:

Air Force One movie </p>

• Biggest Deal – There is now a “latest discussions” for all of your group forums. When you go to Group Forums Home you will now see a list of the 25 most recent forum conversations from all of the groups you belong to. (Sticky conversations are listed first.) The latest group discussions take the place of the simple list of group names that used to be on the Group Forums Home. There is also now a link to your group forums on the public forums sidebar.
• Woot woot! There are now a couple of group email notifications! You will now receive email notifications whenever a new swap is created in one of the groups you belong to. You will also receive an email when a new announcement is posted in any of your groups. (Announcements are the comments listed on the group homepage. The idea is that founders and officers could use the announcements section to post things that they would like to notify the entire group about.) Both of these email notifications are completely optional. You can choose which type of emails you would like to receive for each group. Go to the new “Groups” link within the “Profile Edit” page in order to set your group email preferences. The default is set so that you DO receive ALL of the group email notifications.
• Speaking of editing your profile, in addition to the “edit” link at the top of most Swap-bot pages there is now a new link on your profile page that will take you to the edit screen. Some users were having trouble finding the profile edit page, so hopefully this will make it easier.

Have fun!

We have been working on a few small site changes this weekend. Here are the details:

• Swap partners are no longer auto assigned. This has been a confusing subject mostly due to my own mistakes and bad info, however we have now come to a solution which we believe will be most effective. Coordinators are now completely responsible for assigning partners for their swaps. The Swap-bot computer will NOT auto-assign partners at any time. Coordinators have one week (7 days) to assign partners for their swaps. If partners are not assigned within one week the swap is DELETED by the Swap-bot computer. All participants will receive an email letting them know that the swap was deleted. Air Force One on dvd Side note: If a swap has been deleted because the coordinator has not logged in for over a week and never assigned partners, we consider it perfectly acceptable for one of the swap’s participants to start a similar swap.

• You can now drop from swaps at any time before partners are assigned. Before you could not drop from a swap if the sign up deadline had passed, now you can drop after the sign up deadline if partners are not assigned.
• I have revised the FAQ to reflect these changes, but as always let me know if you notice any errors.
• One more little change for group founders: We have added the date that users requested to join a group under their info on the group “Approve Join Requests” pages.

We hope you like these changes. Happy swapping!

UPDATE: My wording above may be slightly confusing. Coordinators do not actually have to pair up the participants in their swaps, they simply have to initiate the process by clicking the “assign partners” link. The Swap-bot computer still matches all partners. It just does not ever initiate that process automatically. Sorry for any confusion.Hondo dvdrip

Goal II: Living the Dream rip

Do not use your swap partners’ contact information to send unsolicited emails, advertisements, junk mail, or chain letters. Chain letters are illegal and everything else is super annoying. If you are found to be sending unsolicited material to your Swap-bot contacts your account will be suspended.

Swap-bot has never, and will never, give, rent, or sell your contact information to any third party. It is only released to your swap partners and coordinators on this site.Twisted download

Wonder Woman movie download The Duchess dvd </strong>

• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian movie download

We finally just jumped in and did it – we have publicly released the Swap-bot Groups system. The system is still a bit clunky and definitely not perfect, but if we waited for perfection nothing would ever get done!

So, what does this mean? It means that everyone can now (easily) create and search for groups! The “Find Groups” link is now located on the left sidebar of non-forum Swap-bot pages. There you can search for groups that match your interests and go to their homepage to request to join. Or, you can create your own group! Have fun!

GENERAL GROUP INFO

Swap-bot groups were created to better enhance the swapping community. You can create groups around any interest, demographic or anything you choose! Multiple groups may be created that address similar interests. That is ok. Everyone is free to create any groups they want. However, kindness and consideration are always appreciated. If you plan to create a group that is identical to one already in existence, it would be best to contact the other group’s founder first…

Membership Levels

There are three different levels of group membership:

1. Member: Group Members join group swaps and participate in the group-specific forum.
2. Officer: Group Officers have the same privileges as Group Members, plus they can create group swaps and invite other Swap-bot members to their group.
3. Founder: Group Founders have the same privileges as Group Officers, plus they can approve group join requests, remove Members or Officers from the group, promote or demote Members and Officers. In addition, Group Founders have swap coordinator privileges for any group swaps (even if they did not create the swap). At this time each group can only have one founder. In the future we hope to make it so that there can be multiple founders.

FYI: In the future we hope to make the group membership levels more fluid and changeable…

Groups Swaps

Only those Swap-bot members that belong to the group can join a group swap. (The Swap-bot computer prevents non-members from signing up.) Group swaps are not listed on the public search page or any of the swap lists. However, group swaps are listed on member profile pages and are not meant to be hidden from non group members.

Accepting new members

In addition to forming niche swapping communities, Groups can be used to ensure you only swap with other members you trust. If you are a Founder or Officer in a group it is your responsibility to the group to ensure that only trustworthy swappers make it into your group. Swap-bot admin cannot help with any group conflicts.

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We are very excited about Swap-bot Groups… but it has proven to be a much larger endeavor than first thought. There is still much work to be done. Please explore the system and give us any feedback you have. Like all of Swap-bot, Groups are an evolving and constantly improving entity.

The Group Beta Testers have been an awesome help. They have given us tons of suggestions, many of which we are still working to implement. If you are a member of the Swap-bot Beta Testers group

, please go to the homepage for information about adding a special beta tester badge to your profile.

Thank you to everyone for your help and patience!

Happy swapping,

Rachel

Swap-bot Admin

I have a few updates to tell you about…

1 – “Your Swaps” has been changed to “My Swaps”. It is just a word change and the link still goes to the same page. It is a change which lays the ground work for the site to be consistent as we add features in future.

2 – We have implemented a new user swap sign up limit. All new users of Swap-bot now start with a five swap limit. They can only sign up for five active swaps at a time at first. This limit lasts until they have received three positive (5) ratings from their swap partners. Once they have received three positive ratings, the swap sign up limit is completely removed and they can sign up for as many swaps as they would like. This is the first time we have implemented any type of swap limit, so we may make adjustments as we receive feedback. Also, this new feature is not retroactive.

3 – Swap-bot Groups are slowly being tested and released. To learn about being a group beta tester go here

. There will be much more info about groups provided once we get closer to officially releasing the system. They will basically be a way to organize swapping and chatting among communities with similar interests. Any members with over five “5” ratings will be able to create groups, and each group will have a home page, private forum, and group-only swaps. Pretty cool. We are excited about the possibilities!

4 – The [FAQ page]((http://www.swap-bot.com/faq.php) Jumper full is constantly being updated, so check it out when you have questions. If you don’t see your question there, please let me know so that we can add it.

Ok, that is about it for now… but stay tuned for info and announcements about GROUPS!

Like many Swap-bot users, I received an outrageous “investment opportunity” message in my Swap-bot inbox on Thursday morning from user, sand208karaka. If you received a message from sand208karaka please know that it is a scam and delete the message. This bogus user was able to spam hundreds of Swap-bot members in a very short time. However, the account was quickly shut down and the user can no longer log into Swap-bot or participate in any way on our site.

We do not allow spam of any type on Swap-bot. I you receive any other messages that you believe are spam, please forward them to me at rachel [at] swap-bot.com. We may implement additional security features in the future which will further prevent spam from being sent to our users. I will keep you posted.

Hi swap buddies!

Just wanted to let everyone know that we have created a few new swap and forum categories. Here are the additions we made:

• New “Ephemera” swap category
• New “Children’s Items” swap category
• New “Tag and Trade Problems” forum sub-category under the “One-on-One Trades” main category

• New “Real Life/Off Topic” forum sub-category under the “Fun” main category

These are all in response to user suggestions. Thanks for all of your help!

Also, we are currently working on a new user swap limit and a groups feature which will hopefully both be released in some capacity on Sunday. For more info on the groups feature, check out this forum thread.

Happy Saturday!