Time capsules

People each put in one letter, and everyone reads them together when the set time arrives. A capsule can belong to a channel or to a group.

• You reach it from the time capsule card on a channel home or a group home
• A channel or group can have several capsules at once
• Each capsule shows how many people have put something in and when it opens

Opening the time capsule screen without going through a channel or group only shows a short note, because it does not know which capsules you mean. Go in through the card on the channel home or group home.

A capsule moves from collecting to sealed to opened, and never back. It moves on when the sealing time and the opening time set at creation arrive.

Once the sealing time passes you can no longer change what you put in. It is published exactly as it stands when the opening time arrives.

Sign in, write in the box on a capsule that is still collecting, and put it in. One person gets one letter, so putting one in again replaces what you wrote before.

• One letter per person per capsule
• While it is collecting you can write a new one over it as often as you like
• What you put in is not shown back to you, so keep your own copy if you want one
• There is a character limit per letter, and the input box stops at it

Putting a new letter in erases the one you put in before, and that cannot be undone. Only the last one stays in the capsule.

A channel capsule is created by that channel's owner, and a group capsule by that group's leader. Everyone sees the create button, but without the right role you get a message explaining why it did not go through.

1. 1Go in through the time capsule card on the channel home or group home
2. 2Set a title, a sealing time, and an opening time
3. 3It opens in the collecting stage as soon as it is created

• The sealing time has to be in the future
• The opening time has to be later than the sealing time
• The title has a length limit

After creation the title and the times cannot be changed, and the creator cannot delete the capsule either. Check the times once more before you create it.

The text in an opened capsule is visible to anyone who opens that channel's or group's time capsule screen, including people who are not signed in. Who wrote which letter, however, is never shown at any stage.

• Collecting — participant count and opening time are public; the letters are not shown to anyone yet
• Sealed — no letter text appears on the screens people use
• Opened — all letter text is public, shown anonymously with no writer name

Letters are encrypted while they are stored. Before the opening time the text is not included in the list, nor on the screen of the person who wrote it.

When there is a genuine operational need, operations can open a capsule early, take one down, or read what is inside. A record of who did it, when, and why is kept in those cases.