Frequently Asked Questions

What is Offline?
Offline is an online directory that connects people through social networks at colleges and universities.
How do you get our information? Does the school give it to you?
Your school is not providing us with any information about you. All information and pictures are provided voluntarily by users.
How can I protect my privacy?
You can adjust your privacy settings to allow only people within certain divisions of certain schools to see it. You can also set it so that only people who share something in common with you (eg. house, year, a course, friends) can see your information. And further, you can create different privacy settings for the four different parts of your profile: contact information, personal information, courses and friends.
What does it mean when friends display on the left side of my profile?
Offline chooses 6 of your friends at your school completely at random to display on your profile.
Can I transfer my account to another school on the network?
Yes, you can request a network transfer on your my account page. Note that you need a valid school email from your new school.
Can people from other colleges join the site?
People from other colleges can join Offline, but nobody from another college can see your profile or social network unless you have listed them as your friend. Each college has its own subsection within the site where its members can view each other's profiles.
Where do I say what college I'm going to?
When you join Offline, you aren't just joining one large network. Instead, you are affiliating yourself with a specific network on the site that just includes other people from your school. When people from other networks view your profile, it will automatically display which network you belong to.
What is the browse page?
The browse page shows all users whose privacy settings allow you to view their information. To make things more interesting, we also limit it to only users who have submitted pictures. When you click on "browse", ten random users from your network are displayed.
Why does the browse page repeat people?
Since the selection of who is displayed is random, there is a chance that the same person will be displayed on two pages. This problem will alleviate itself as more people join.
How do I search for something besides names?
Try the advanced search on the search page.
If I reject someone, will they find out?
No. When you reject someone, their friend request will leave your list of friendships to confirm, but they will not be notified. They also will not be able to send you another friend request for some amount of time, so to them, it will just seem as if you haven't confirmed their friendship yet.
If I remove someone from my friends list, are they notified?
No, but all friend links are reciprocal, so you are removed from their list as well.
How can I view the visualization?
In order to see the visualized social nets, you need to go to your my social network page.
Why is the visualization slow?
Every time you view a visualization, we need to figure out whether you have the appropriate privileges to see each person on the graph. This takes time. In addition, in order to maintain the overall performance of the rest of the site, we have set up the site to process other requests with a higher priority than requests to generate visualizations.
How do I navigate through the visualization?
Left-click and hold while dragging to scroll, or use the mouse wheel to zoom. Left-click and hold on a connection while dragging to reorganize the graph.
Can I change my name and password?
Yes -- you can request a name change and change your password on your my account page. For quality control purposes, we confirm all name changes before they take place. Password changes take effect immediately.
What is poking?
We have about as much of an idea as you do. We thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you're not getting an explanation from us.
Who made this site?
See the about page.
When was the site started?
It was launched to the public on Thursday, February 4th, 2021.
Is this a class project?
Nope, just for fun.
What kind of graph theory algorithms are you using to process connections?
I'm going to pretend you didn't just ask that.
The site says I don't have a valid email address. Why?
Currently, you must register with a valid school email from one of the schools listed on the front page. This is both the way we authenticate your affiliation with that school's network, and the way we direct your login.
My school is not on the Offline network - why not and how can it be added?
Each school on the network has a custom site built for it before students from that school can register. We plan to include many new schools to the network over the next year. This requires no action on your part or by your school, but we do take suggestions.
I have a question that's not covered in the FAQ. How can I ask it?