Managing Your Commitments
Your Helping tab shows every active exchange you're part of — requests you've offered to help with, matches proposed to you by an admin, and exchanges you've already completed. Cards are sorted by wha
Managing Your Commitments
Your Helping tab shows every active exchange you're part of — requests you've offered to help with, matches proposed to you by an admin, and exchanges you've already completed. Cards are sorted by what needs your attention most urgently.
When you've offered on open asks that are still waiting on the requester, Dashboard Home shows a short "You've offered to help" preview that links each ask to its detail page and points here with View all in Helping — so the full list of what you're waiting on always lives in this tab. When a community admin or matchmaker suggests you as a helper, Home shows a second "suggested you as a helper" preview that points here too — the actual accept/decline waits in the band below.
Offers and match detail pages now use the same warm card shell and humanized status labels as request detail. The status chip should read like plain product language, not an internal token.
The "Needs your response" band
At the very top of the Helping tab is the Needs your response band — every decision you owe right now, server-ranked so the response a counterparty is waiting on rises above your own housekeeping:
- An offer on your request — Accept it to match, or Decline it.
- A suggestion to help — when an admin or matchmaker suggested you as the helper on an ask, the band reads "{requester} suggested you as a helper" with Accept / Decline. (Home only previews these; you decide here.)
- A reserved request (Dibs) — Accept or decline a trusted first-ask.
- A finished exchange — Mark it done so both sides get credit.
- A completed exchange — Rate it (see below).
The band only appears when you actually owe a response — when you are all caught up, it disappears. It lives here, with the rest of your commitments, rather than on Dashboard Home, so browsing new asks stays separate from acting on the ones you've already taken on.
Action-Priority Ordering
Commitments are sorted into three tiers, and you always see the most urgent tier first:
| Tier | Status | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Needs Your Response | A match has been proposed and is waiting for you to accept or decline |
| 2 | In Progress | You've accepted and the exchange is underway |
| 3 | Completed | The exchange is done |
Within each tier, commitments are ordered newest first. This means a match proposed five minutes ago appears above one proposed yesterday — but both appear before anything "In Progress".
This ordering is intentional: proposed matches have a real person waiting. Responding promptly is part of building trust in your community.
The Step Indicator
Each commitment card shows three dots near the top right corner. These represent the three stages of an exchange:
- ● (filled dot) = current step
- ○ (empty dot) = future step
So a card at the "In Progress" stage shows: ○ ● ○ — past, current, future.
Hovering or tapping a dot shows its label (Proposed, In Progress, Completed).
Accepting a Proposed Match
When a match appears in "Needs Your Response":
- Read the request details on the card
- Click Accept to confirm you can help
- The card moves to "In Progress" and the requester is notified
- Use the inline conversation to coordinate timing and logistics
If you accept and then realize you can't follow through, cancel promptly so someone else can step in. Reliability is your most visible reputation signal.
Declining a Proposed Match
If you can't help:
- Click Decline on the "Needs Your Response" card
- The card is removed from your commitments
- The request returns to open status so another helper can be found
Declining is always better than accepting and not showing up.
The Inline Conversation
Every commitment card has a built-in conversation so you can coordinate without leaving the page.
To open the conversation: Click the chat icon on the commitment card. The conversation panel expands inline below the card details — you don't navigate away.
While open:
- Send messages directly to the other person
- See your message history
- The unread count badge on the chat icon updates in real time
To close the conversation: Click the chevron (∧) button at the top of the expanded panel. The panel collapses back to the card's compact view.
The conversation stays open as you scroll — it only closes when you explicitly click the chevron.
Completing an Exchange (Two-Phase Confirmation)
Completion requires both parties to confirm. This prevents karma from transferring until the help has genuinely happened.
How it works:
- After the help is done, both the helper and the requester click Mark Done / Confirm Done on their commitment card
- The first person to click sees: "Your completion recorded — waiting for the other party"
- Once the second person confirms, the exchange is fully completed:
- The card moves to the Completed tier
- Karma transfers from the requester to the helper
- Your trust score updates to reflect the exchange
If the other party doesn't confirm: The exchange stays "In Progress." You can message them via the inline conversation to let them know you've marked your side done.
Rating a Completed Exchange
Once an exchange is fully completed, both people rate it — the requester rates the helper, and the helper rates the requester. Each rating is independent: the other person rating first never uses up your turn.
- A Rate prompt appears in the "Needs your response" band for the completed exchange.
- It is durable — it waits there until you rate (or skip), and it survives a reload. You do not lose the chance to rate just because you weren't the one who clicked the final Mark Done.
- Once you've rated, the prompt clears for you; the other person's prompt is unaffected.
Ratings are private trust signals used to compute reputation — they're never shown back as a public score.
Withdrawing an Offer
If you've offered to help but circumstances change before the requester accepts, you can withdraw your offer:
- Find the ask in the "Offers awaiting requester" band of your Helping tab (or via the You've offered to help preview on Home) and open it with Open ask →
- On the request's detail page, withdraw your pending offer
- The offer is removed and the request returns to open status
You can only withdraw before the requester accepts. Once a match is accepted ("In Progress"), reach out via the inline conversation instead.