We [released a few new feature upgrades](http://swap-bot.com/blog/2007/01/20/new-new-new/) yesterday and of all of them, I am most excited about the [new way coordinators assign swap partners](http://www.swap-bot.com/faq.php#question17). I feel like we have taken a positive step forward in eliminating bad swappers from participating in [Swap-bot](http://www.swap-bot.com/).

The idea of making coordinators manually start the partner assignment process is something I have been working on for quite a while. Before this change, the process was automatic. As soon as the deadline to signup passed, partners were instantly assigned. The problem we were running into, however, is that the scammers discovered that they could sign up an hour before the partners were assigned, which wouldn’t leave enough time for the coordinator to ban them. While I feel very strongly that we have a great community of swappers, **the average rating given is a 4.6**, I am aware that even one bad apple will ruin the swap for someone. After many email discussions with helpful members of the Swap-bot community, I came up with the process we released yesterday. The coordinator now has three days manually initiate the partner assignment process. If, after three days, the coordinator hasn’t assigned partners, Swap-bot will automatically assign the partners for the coordinator.

Swap coordinators should already be aware of this change, an email went out to the those that are in charge of swaps that ended yesterday alerting them that it was time to initiate the assignment process. I just checked and 4 of the 20 swaps that closed signup yesterday have already had their partners assigned.


Assigning partners in Swap-bot is very easy. After signup has closed for the swap, the coordinator should return to Swap-bot to view the final list of signed up swap participants. If any of the participants do not meet swap requirements, such as minimum rating, geographical location or any other requirement, the coordinator can ban the participant from the swap and ensure that they will not be assigned a partner. Once the coordinator is happy with the final list of participants, they can simply click on the ‘Assign partners for this swap’ link.

Assigning partners adds a few minutes of work for the coordinator, but I feel it will greatly enhance the swap experience for all participants. I hope you agree. Any feedback on this feature would be greatly appreciated.

This is the exciting first installment of the Weekly Featured Swap! Every week we will pick a swap that we believe is a great example of an interesting, fun, and well-organized swap. We will make sure the featured swap is open for sign-up through the following week.

This week’s featured swap is the Magic Yarn Ball swap coordinated by Katy. This is a great swap for people who would love to receive (and send!) yarn that could be used in knitting or crocheting projects. The swap is marked US only and has a few other restrictions, so please read the entire description before signing up. (Also, we just implemented a new feature which allows coordinators to check over the final list of participants and ban anyone they need to before partners are assigned, so make sure you meet all of the requirements.)

So, what exac

tly is a magic yarn ball? Katy describes them likes this:

Basically, you wrap cool little treasures up in a ball of yarn, and give it as a gift. As the recipient crafts with the yarn the treasures fall out one by one, and they discover the fun as they knit or crochet.

It sounds like a lot of fun! There are all sort of little trinkets and treasures you could include in your magic yarn ball for your swap partner to discover, like buttons, candy, beads, little figurines, fabric, ribbon, toys, etc… Anything small and playful that your partner will be delighted to see unraveling from their ball of yarn

And for those of you who live in Europe, there is a Europe-only Valentine Magic Yarn Ball Swap coordinated by Lixie. This swap is open through the end of the month, so make sure to check it out!

Swap-bot finally has a new look! We remodeled the home page and added a rotating selection of images from Flickr that all have the tag “swapbot”. Check it out! (If you still want to see the original home page, don’t worry, it is right here.) The rest of Swap-bot is still pretty much the same… with the addition of the awesome new messaging system.

Your faithful and intrepid Swap-bot webmaster is busy working on lots of new ideas for the site. Look for updates in the swap search system and the swap image gallery in the near future.

We just released some great new features for Swap-bot!

You can now send Messages to all of your buddies and swap partners via the Swap-bot web messaging system. Now, when you contact other members a message is sent to their inbox on Swap-bot.com. After logging in, you can check your messages by clicking on the link at the top of the Swap-bot page.

In order to cut down on bad swappers signing up for swaps at the last minute (when it is too late for coordinators to ban them), we have made it so that every coordinator has a chance to check over the final list of swap participants before partners are assigned. It is now the coordinators’ responsibility to initiate the partner assignment process. See question 17 of the FAQs for more info.

You might have also noticed that the Swap-bot Blog got a little face-lift. We are planning on updating this blog MUCH more often about changes and updates to swap-bot. I am also going to start featuring a cool swap every week on the blog. Look for the “Weekly Featured Swap” to be posted every Sunday.

We hope you like the new features! Please keep us posted about things you would like to see on Swap-bot. We love to hear your feedback

I was just checking out our Swap-bot stats for today found the map of where our visitors come from to be pretty interesting. I find it strange that we don’t get any visitors from the middle of the United States. Do they not like to swap great things in the middle of the country?

User ratings was quietly released today. Rating and commenting on a user’s swap performance works, but the reporting side of things is lacking. Currently the reporting is on a member’s profile page, but I am afraid that page is going to turn into a mess. Any suggestions are welcome.

You can get to rating by viewing a swap you are in and clicking on the ‘rate your swap partners’ link under the list of things you can do as a member of the swap.

I made a change this morning to the way the database indexed the rows and it screwed everything up. All the swap partners in every swap got changed. Not good. The solution only took a few minutes to figure out, but I took the scare as warning sign to fix how partners are stored. So now swap partners are stored a little more statically, which is a very good thing.

Please email or comment if things aren’t looking right.

I added a bunch of new features to Swap-bot tonight. First, since we were getting so many swaps, I decided swap categories were needed. You can now assign your swap up to three categories and users can search for swaps by category on the View Swaps page.

I also tried to increase usability by clearing up actions that users could preform when they belonged to a swap. To check this feature out, log into Swap-bot and view the details of a swap that you are a member of. (My favorite feature is the photo upload – if it doesn’t work on Windows please let me know).

Finally, I added the ability to make comments about a swap. It is a very basic feature at this point, but as suggestions come in, I can make improvements.

If you find anything wrong with any of these new features, please let me know and I will get them fixed ASAP.

I got most of the category features finished tonight. All that remains is adding the final categories!

If you have any ideas for categories, please leave them in the comments.

• Thank You, Mr. Moto video

Work is underway for both swap categories and swap partner rating. Categorization takes on a higher priority because the number of current swaps is getting out of control. Just take a look at the View all swaps page to see what I mean. It is becoming difficult to keep track of the swaps you are interested in.

We are going to come up with a list of about 10 categories and then allow each swap to belong to a maximum of 3 categories. From the swap search page, then, you will be able to search for swaps based on the category. Pretty simple stuff. Should be rolled out to Swap-bot sometime this coming week.

As for partner rating, we are making progress on that as well. It might be in place as early as next weekend. I’m noting making any promises, we’ll see…