Fake team members

Wiki ▸ Documentation ▸ User Documentation ▸ Fake team members

⚠️ This feature has been removed from the current release version of Buoy.

You can add "fake" team members as part of your personal emergency response team in Buoy. A fake team member never receives emergency alerts from you if you press the crisis button. Nevertheless, from their point of view, it appears that they have been added to your team.

This feature makes it possible to appease pushy, aggressive, abusive, or untrustworthy "friends" who insist that you add them to your team but who you do not actually trust to respond with appropriate support in the event of a crisis.

This walkthrough describes how to use the fake team members feature in Buoy. It assumes you have already created at least two accounts (the alerter's account and a responder's account), perhaps by following the directions in the Buoy Walkthrough.

Step 1: Invite someone to your response team

At any time, you can instruct Buoy which members of your response team should receive alerts from you and which should not. You do this by telling Buoy which members of your response team are "real" and which are "fake." There are two ways to do this in Buoy. We'll go over both of them.

Step 1-A: Add a "fake" team member immediately when inviting them to your team

You can instruct Buoy never to send alerts to someone you add to your team in the same step as when you add them to your team.

DO THIS to add a team member as a "fake" when you add them:

1. Log in to your Buoy-enabled website if you haven't yet done so.
2. Go to the "My Team" page by clicking on the Buoy icon in the left-hand sidebar. (If the left-hand sidebar is not available, click the "hamburger menu" [the three lines stacked on top of each other] near the top of the screen to reveal the sidebar.)
3. Type the user name of the responder's account you want to add to your response team in the "Add a team member" box.
4. Check the box marked "Add as fake team member" next to the box.
5. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

The user you invited will be shown under the "Remove a team member" heading with the words "(pending, fake)" listed next to their name. The "pending" indicates that they have not yet accepted your invited, while the "fake" indicates that even if they do accept your invitation, no alerts you send will be delivered to them.

Step 1-B: Toggle a team member's status to or from "fake" after adding them

At any time, you can set whether or not individual team members you've previously invited will receive future alerts from you. To do this, change their status between "real" and "fake" using the controls provided on the "My Team" page.

DO THIS to toggle a team member's ability to receive alerts you send:

1. Log in to your Buoy-enabled website if you haven't yet done so.
2. Go to the "My Team" page by clicking on the Buoy icon in the left-hand sidebar. (If the left-hand sidebar is not available, click the "hamburger menu" [the three lines stacked on top of each other] near the top of the screen to reveal the sidebar.)
3. Under the "Remove a team member" heading, each member of your personal response team is listed near radio buttons labelled "real" and "fake." To ensure a team member receives alerts you send, click or tap "real" next to their name. To ensure a team member does not receive alerts you send, click or tap "fake" next to their name.
4. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

This completes the fake team member feature walkthrough. It's important to note that while you can always see whether or not someone on your team is a "fake" team member who will not receive alerts, they have no way of knowing their status when viewing the screens while logged in to their own account. Never give your log in password to anyone and always encourage other users to log in with their own accounts.