Replying and confirming in time, and marking yourself away

People who write to you or book you are waiting on you. You have 24 working hours to answer someone who contacts you for the first time, and you confirm every new session someone books with you at least 12 hours before it starts. Miss either and every live listing you have here is paused, and you cannot change your listings for a month.

What starts the clock

Only first contact from someone new starts it:

the first message in a conversation you have never written in

a booking request

Six messages from the same person are one question, not six. The clock starts when the message actually reaches you, so one held back by the automatic message check starts nothing until it clears.

You have 24 working hours to answer

After 12 working hours you get a reminder by email and as a push notification. After 24, your listings are paused and restricted, and the person who wrote to you is told you are not available right now. Working days are Monday to Friday in your own timezone (Schedule → Preferences). Weekends and days you have marked away do not count.

Question arrives            Reminder          Listings paused and restricted
Tuesday 10:00               Tuesday 22:00     Wednesday 10:00
Friday 18:00                Monday 06:00      Monday 18:00
Friday 18:00, away Monday   Tuesday 06:00     Tuesday 18:00

What counts as an answer

any reply you send in that conversation

accepting or declining a booking request

declining the message request, which is an answer too, and the sender is never told

Only silence counts against you.

What never counts against you

a message the automatic check flags, or one a moderator flags later

anything sent by an account that is then banned

a message the sender deletes, or a conversation they leave

Confirming the sessions you are booked for

A session someone books with you waits for your confirmation. You get an email and a notification saying when you have to confirm by: 12 hours before the session starts.

Open Schedule → Sessions, or follow the link in the message.

The session shows Waiting for confirmation and the time to confirm by. Press Confirm.

The person who booked is told straight away, and you meet as booked. Nobody can book you less than 14 hours ahead, or less than your own minimum notice in Schedule → Preferences if that is longer, so you always have at least two hours to confirm.

One hour before the deadline, 13 hours before the start, you get a last reminder. At 12 hours before the start, a session you have not confirmed is cancelled and the time is freed in both calendars. Your listings are paused and restricted, and the person who booked is pointed to others who can help. The cancellation counts against your place in search results, as any session you cancel does.

Booked           Session          Last reminder    Confirm by
Monday 08:00     Tuesday 19:30    Tuesday 06:30    Tuesday 07:30
Monday 08:00     Monday 22:00     Monday 09:00     Monday 10:00

A session you accepted from a booking request, and one moved to a new time you proposed, need no confirmation: you already said yes.

While your listings are restricted

A restriction lasts one calendar month from the miss: missed on 5 November at 10:00, it ends on 5 December at 10:00. Another miss while you are restricted moves the end to one month from the new miss.

Until then a yellow banner across your dashboard says when it ends, and you cannot create, edit, copy, pause, resume or delete listings. Messages, the sessions already booked and the rest of your account work as usual.

Our team can restrict listings too, for a set time or until they lift it. If you think we made a mistake, write to us from Help and support, on the Support tab. The banner has a link that opens it.

When the restriction ends

We email you. Your listings stay paused: nothing comes back on its own.

Sign in and open Listings (on some of our sites it is called “Consultations” or “Engagements”).

Each paused listing says why it was paused.

Open the ⋮ menu in the top right corner of each one, choose Resume and confirm. It is live again straight away.

Answer anything you missed before you return. The person who wrote to you was pointed to other listings when yours were paused.

The same question never pauses your listings twice. A new unanswered question starts a new clock.

Going away

Say so before you go, and none of the reply rules apply while you are away.

Open Schedule → Availability.

Under Special days, press Add special day.

Choose Date range, then set First day and Last day. Leave Full day ticked and the status on Unavailable.

Save.

While those days last, nobody can start a new conversation with you: your public page shows the date you are back instead of the message button. Conversations already under way carry on as normal, and a question that was already waiting is frozen until you return. Sessions already booked still need your confirmation, so confirm them before you go or cancel the ones you cannot hold.

One range covers up to 90 days, and deleting any day of a range deletes the whole range. Part of a day (a start and end time instead of Full day) counts as busy time rather than an absence: it closes those hours for booking and leaves messaging on.