Advanced Topics

Deeper features for swap hosts and experienced members. This page grows over time as more advanced functionality lands.

Angeling

Sometimes life happens. A member of your swap signs up with the best of intentions, then can't actually mail their item — illness, a move, work, anything. You as the swap's host can step in and angel for that member: you do the swap on their behalf, so the partners they were assigned to still receive something. This is what's affectionately called "angeling."

How it works

• On your swap's detail page, find the Participants list. Each row has a ⋯ menu next to the member's name (visible only to you as the host).
• Pick 😇 Angel For on the member you're stepping in for. The member sees a notice on their dashboard and gets an email letting them know they don't need to ship.
• The recipient that member was assigned to still gets a package — from you, on the original member's behalf.
• You can undo it from the same menu ( Cancel angeling) if circumstances change.

Why angeling stays out of the rating system

Angeled shipments don't move Reliable, Timely, or Tenacity for either side. The original member's reliability isn't tanked (they weren't able to ship, but they were helped — that's not the same as a no-show). Your reliability isn't inflated either. The angeling itself is the visible recognition.

The Angel badge

When you've angeled for more than five members across your swaps (counted per swap-and-member, not unique members), an 😇 Angel badge appears on your profile with a running count. It's a small thank-you from the community — a signal that you've stepped up for fellow swappers more than once.

You can angel for the same member in different swaps you coordinate — each instance counts toward the badge. You can't angel for yourself, and only the swap's host can angel for the members of that swap.

Host dashboard on the swap page

When you open a swap you're hosting, you'll see a small Host dashboard section just below the swap's status indicator. It surfaces operational numbers at a glance so you don't have to count things by hand:

• Marked sent / Marked received — running tallies versus the total assignments in this swap.
• Until mail deadline — days remaining (or how many days the deadline is overdue, in red).
• Until signup closes — visible during the open and signup-closed phases.
• Members — non-banned, non-cancelled count.
• Awaiting assignment — members who don't yet have a partner.
• Past mail deadline — appears only when the deadline has passed and at least one member hasn't shipped yet (the "chasing" list count).
• Ratings given and Ratings outstanding — how many partner ratings have been submitted vs. how many members marked Received but haven't rated their sender yet.
• Angeled members — appears when one or more members have been angeled.

The dashboard is host-only — other members never see it. Numbers are computed fresh on each page load, so a refresh always shows the latest state.

Per-member & per-watcher table

Below the stat cards is a table with one row per member of the swap and one row per watcher (members who have clicked Watch but haven't joined yet — distinguished by a "watcher" tag and a slightly tinted background).

Member columns:

• Username + avatar.
• Joined date, with a late marker when the member joined within the last 25% of the signup-to-mail window.
• Profile created + Last login dates — useful to spot dormant accounts.
• Sent date, with a red late marker when sent after the mail deadline.
• Received date.
• An action: Block future — flag this member so they can't join any future swap you host. Doesn't kick them from the current swap. You can lift it from the same row or from your settings.

Watcher rows show profile-created and last-login dates plus an action:

• Invite / Re-nudge — sends a friendly system DM nudging the watcher to join. Limited to once per 7 days per (swap, watcher) so watchers don't get spammed.

Top Swap Hosts leaderboard

The left sidebar shows a Top Swap Hosts list — the ten members ranked by their host-rating performance. Hosts qualify after they've received at least five host ratings; the ranking combines smoothed average host stars with the three positive flags ( Helpful, Organized, Creative). The smoothing means a few perfect ratings won't outrank a steady track record.

The list is recomputed nightly. Synthetic onboarding-bot accounts and suspended/banned/inactive members are excluded.