Let's get you on board

Getting started

Let's not wait anymore and get you started!

This platform aims to be easy to use and navigate, as simple as possible but not simpler, and welcoming. This is why it has just a few features and a simple design. You should start by:

First steps

1. Register and directly set up your user profile.

2. In the "About Me" section, you are free to add additional information about yourself that you find important or would like to share in order to make the profile more personal. You can always change or add something later.

Please remember: this is supposed to be an anonymous space where nobody can be identified, for their own safety and privacy, but also to lower the barrier for people who want to talk to you. I believe that not knowing the person behind the words can lower the barrier and, due to the absence of prejudice, allow you to focus entirely on the words you exchange.

3. Add a funny fact about yourself or answer my icebreaker questions (sorry about that already...) to make your profile look less like a soulless bot profile.

4. Choose whether you are "Open to share experience", "Need advice urgently", "Happy to talk", or even an "Allrounder". This makes it easier for your peers to approach you, categorize you, and decide whether you are suitable for them. You can also leave that field empty. The difference between "Open to share experience" and "Happy to talk" is that with the latter, you express more interest in talking and exchanging.

5. Most importantly, assign tags to your profile and add as many tags as describe the struggles you deal with or have dealt with, but still keep it simple. This will be interesting and helpful for other users. I chose not to allow you to create your own tags, since I want to avoid redundancy and Aufsplitterung, as well as tags that are outside the topic and use case of this platform. In case any tags are missing, feel free to reach out to me.

6. Next, please take a look at the rules that apply to this website. For this platform to be a safe space where everyone feels welcome and free to help and be helped, it is highly important to remember the rules at all times. It depends on you, and only you, whether this place dies or flourishes. So please be a lovely part of this safe space!

How to continue

7. Depending on the intention and reason you had for registering here, continue with the following:

   • If you have struggles you want to talk about with someone who has experienced or is experiencing something similar, go on by browsing through the matching profiles that show up in your user profile after adding tags. If you don't find the user profiles suitable for your case, go ahead and browse through the tag search library to find your matches and send a connection request. There, you can either type a topic into the search bar or simply click on tags from the right-side tag list. You can also combine several tags, because the selected tags are collected right below the search bar and all get packed into the semantic search together. So yes, you can build your own little mix of struggles, uni chaos and topics and see what comes out of it. On the right side, the colors help a bit: selected tags are highlighted, and tags that currently match your search show up in light blue. Based on that, matching profiles will be listed for the tags that overlap with what you searched for, or at least with some of it, which is exactly the point here. And because just seeing a username is a bit dry, you can hover over the matching profiles and get a small preview, with the profile labels in the top right, so you can place people a bit better before clicking on their profile.
   • If you registered as a person who is willing to share insights and experiences without currently having a need to talk to someone, also check out the matches and the tag search library and feel free to send requests to matching user profiles to lower the barrier for those who might want to start a chat but haven't managed to do so yet. Take the first step! Otherwise, even though you don't have an urgent topic to talk about, you might still want to chat about some issue without any urgency. That is just as valid, and that is what this platform is for as well! Go ahead and send a request to matching user profiles.
   • If you don't feel like starting a connection and conversation, you are free to browse the Posts section, which collects thoughts and questions on any topic, or add your own thoughts anonymously.

After sending a request

After sending a connection request to a matching user, you have to wait for their response. In case of acceptance, you can start chatting! Yayyyyy! To make it less individually awkward and more personal, the fun fact or icebreaker in your profile is added to the email (still awkward, I know). Write a few lines about your intention and click send! After that, your request will first appear under requested chats in the Chat Index. If the other person accepts or rejects it, you will also get that update through the little bell at the top right, so you don't have to keep checking manually all the time. Just click on the activity bell and jump to the right place from there.

Where to find your chats and updates

You can find your requested chats as well as your active chats under Chat Index. For updates, take a look at the bell icon in the top right corner of the page. Whenever you receive a new message, a new incoming chat request, or a response to one of your own requests, a green dot appears on the bell. If you click on it, a small activity menu opens and shows you the latest updates individually. From there, you can directly jump to the relevant place in the Chat Index, for example to your requested chats or the specific conversation where the new message appeared.