# Profiles

Every member of Fun Swap has a profile page at `/users/your-username`. It's the public face of your account — what other members see when they click your name in a swap, comment, or member list.

## What's on your profile

- **Avatar** — your profile picture. If you signed up with Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, or X your social-login picture appears automatically; you can replace it with a custom upload at any time by clicking the camera icon on your own profile.
- **Username** — your unique handle, used everywhere on the site.
- **Member since** — the year you joined.
- **Bio** — a free-form Markdown introduction. Click the bio to edit your own.
- **Country** — the country you mail from. Helps coordinators of country-restricted swaps see at a glance whether you can join.
- **Linked sign-in providers** — small chips below your name showing which social accounts you signed in with (Google, LinkedIn, etc.).
- **Hearts** — see the dedicated section below for the full earning + spending rules.
- **Stars** — coordinator recognition earned when 75%+ of participants vote positively after a swap you ran.
- **Rating average** — the running average of ratings you've received from your swap partners.
- **Swaps completed** — how many swaps you've finished as a participant.
- **Activity, Ratings, and Comments tabs** — historical detail behind the headline numbers.
- **A "Gallery" link** in the action-button row — see below.

## Your gallery

Every member has a personal image gallery linked from their profile via the **Gallery** button. It's a place to show off finished projects, works in progress, or anything else you'd like other members to see.

- Up to **50 images** per gallery.
- Each image can have a Markdown caption (bold, italic, links).
- An optional intro caption appears above the grid — also Markdown.
- Clicking a thumbnail opens it near full-screen, with a × in the corner to dismiss.
- Only you can upload, edit, or delete from your own gallery; visitors see a read-only view.
- **Copy a link** to any image: hover over the thumbnail and click the chain-link icon in the top-left. The full image URL goes to your clipboard, ready to paste into a swap description, comment, or message. The icon flips to a checkmark for a moment so you know the copy worked.
- **Uploads are scanned automatically** against the content policy in our [Terms of Use](/content/help/terms/index.html). The first time an image is rejected you'll see a warning; a second rejection suspends your account. The scanner is good but not perfect — if a clearly-fine image is rejected, contact support.

## Hearts on profiles

Hearts are a small recognition members give each other. Two sides:

- **Earning** — every time you receive a 5-star partner rating on a swap, your _hearts to give_ balance goes up by 1. Your dashboard shows the current balance.

- **Giving** — when viewing another member's profile, click the heart icon next to their name to give them one of yours. Their profile's heart count goes up by 1; your balance goes down by 1.

Profiles with zero hearts received show an **empty heart** **outline**; profiles with at least one show a **filled heart** with the count parenthesized next to it. The button is disabled (with a tooltip) when:

- You're looking at your own profile (no self-hearts).
- You haven't earned any hearts yet (get a 5-star rating to start).
- You've already given this person a heart — it's a one-per-(giver, receiver) lifetime gesture, so you have to spread the love.

## What's _not_ visible to other members

These pieces of your account are kept private and never shown on your profile or anywhere else other members can see:

- **Your mailing address.** Only used by the system to assemble partner-assignment slips, and only revealed to the specific partner you're sending to in a given swap. Never published, never shown on your profile.
- **Your email address.** Used for sign-in, password reset, and notifications you've opted into. Other members cannot see it. Use the in-site Direct Messages to contact someone.
- **Your date of birth.** Collected for age-eligibility only.
- **Your friends list and your blocked-users list.** Both are private to you.
- **Your subscription status, account history, and payment information.**

## Editing your own profile

On your own profile page, several fields are inline-editable:

- **Avatar** — click the camera icon. Replacing a social-login avatar prompts you first.
- **Bio** — click the bio area to open the Markdown editor with a live Preview tab. [Markdown reference](/content/help/markdown/index.html).
- **Country, mailing address, and notification preferences** — under the Account, Display, and Notifications tabs at the bottom of your own profile.