Members' guide · Getting started
The global community's limits
The global community is free, with limits that keep its cost flat. A listing is archived 90 days after it last changed, an event's photos go a week after it ends, a poll leaves the board a week after it closes. Up to 5 photos a listing, the nearest 500 listings on your phone, 3 places to watch.
Free, with limits
The global community is free. Anyone, anywhere, can join it, so it could grow without end. A few limits keep what it costs to run flat, so it can stay free.
They are the same for everyone, and they are all on this page.
These are the global community's limits. A local community runs on its own server and sets its own.
The limits
- A listing is archived 90 days after it last changed. It comes off the Market and the Map, and its photos are deleted. Editing it, pausing it or putting it back up all count as a change: opening it with Edit Post and tapping Save keeps it for another 90 days. A deal on it counts too. None of this moves it up the Market, which lists posts newest first. When one of yours is archived, you get a notification with your Marketplace Activity alerts. You can post it again any time.
- An event's photos are deleted a week after it ends. An event leaves the Market and the Map when it ends. Its host and the people who went can still open it, without its photos, and its chat stays for 30 days after the end, as on every community.
- A poll comes off the board a week after it closes. For that week everyone who could see it still reads its result, and the person who started it reads its typed answers. After the week, the person who started it can still open it, with its result and its typed answers. See "Polls".
- Up to 5 photos a listing.
- Your phone keeps the nearest 500 listings, within 250 km of your area. It also keeps your own, and any you have a deal or a conversation about. The Market lists the ones within 250 km of your area newest first, each card saying how far away it is. The Market's search still finds listings from everywhere. See "Your area".
- You can watch up to 3 places with Tell me when one starts here. To watch another, stop watching one. See "Finding a community near you".
A new account also has a few daily limits for its first days. See "Reporting a problem".
Why these
Photos are most of what the global community stores, so a listing nobody looks after doesn't keep its photos for good. A listing that is still wanted only needs a change every three months to stay up.
The other limits keep what each phone and the server have to carry small, wherever you are.
What is not archived
Only Offers, Needs, events and polls are archived, as above. Your chats are not. Your account is not either: it goes only if you delete it. See "Leaving or deleting your account".
Related
- Beans and the global communityWhat the global community is for, one community among many, and what you see there: the 🏘️ Local community marker, the example community Example Valley, why Beans wait there, and how to start or find a local community.
- Posting an Offer or a NeedPut up something you can do or give, or something you are looking for.
- Your areaThe rough place the global community uses to show you the listings near you, and how to change or clear it.
- Finding a community near youFrom the global community, find a community near you and ask to join it, be told when one starts near you, or start one yourself.
- Reporting a problemTell your community's moderators about a post, an event, a Pulse post, a project, an enterprise or a message in a chat.
The same guide is in the BeanPool app, and works there without a connection: open Settings, then "Help & how it works" under BeanPool. Every other rule, guide and manual is in the Help Centre. Guide version 165.