Learn about Folk.Share

One account, wherever you are

The app and folkshare.org are the same Folk.Share. Sign in to either with the same email and password, and everything you post, every message and every plan is in both.

Members are people who live on Salt Spring Island, and people elsewhere who are connected to it. Every profile is read by Folk.Share before it is approved. Before Folk.Share opens to the whole island, what members post is seen only by other members who are signed in, never by the public.

Share what you have

Your profile says who you are and what you offer, in your own words.

• Skills, from mending a fence to portrait photography. Each one says whether you charge for it, do it for free, or would trade it.
• Things to lend: a trailer, a ladder, a crate of books. Each one can be borrowed, given away, traded or rented, and a thing for rent carries a photograph.

Updating what you offer takes a minute, and a new listing is one press from your home page.

Find what you need

• Search reads what you meant. Type it the way you would say it, “a trailer for Saturday” or “help with a gate”, and members whose listings fit come first.
• People lists the members, so you can see who is near you and what they do.
• Suggestions on your home page: who might help with what you are looking for, who you could help, and where the two of you could help each other.

Ask for something

Post a request and say how you would like to have it: free, to borrow, in trade, to rent, for pay, or as a collaboration. Offering a trade, you can name which of your own skills or things you would give for it.

Cross the water together

Going to Victoria or Vancouver with room in the car? Offer a seat or boot space. Need to get over? Ask for a ride. Or ask for something to be picked up or dropped off on somebody else’s trip. Fuel and the ferry are settled between you.

Talk, and make a plan

• Messages go straight to the member you write to. In the app, a notice tells you when somebody writes to you or tags you, the way a message app does.
• Plan a time for a pickup, a drop-off or a visit, right in the conversation. Once you both agree, it goes into your own calendar, and moves or disappears there if the plan does.
• A lending or rental agreement, when you want one: filled in with both of your details, the thing, the price and what it would cost to replace, signed by you both and kept on both of your profiles. It is between the two of you, not Folk.Share.

See what people are making

Follow members and their updates come to your home page: something they made or finished, a few photographs, a link. Like them, comment, and tag the people who were part of it.

Fair to everybody

The order of search and People is decided by a few plain things: how well a listing fits, replying to people, keeping your profile current and taking part. Members who are close together are shuffled into a different order every day, so nobody holds the top spot for good, and listing more things does not move you up.

When you need a break, press I’m away on your home page. Your listings rest and nobody can start a new conversation with you until you are back, while the ones you already have carry on.

How search works says exactly what decides the order.

Looking after each other

You can block anybody, and they are not told. You can report a profile, a listing, a request, an update or a comment, and Folk.Share reads every report. You can delete your account from your profile at any time.