- Explore can be found on the tab bar at the bottom of all screens. This page profiles various groups of rafts and/ or people for you to explore based on what we think is some of the most interesting content being produced or the most engaging conversation happening across rafts created in the last seven days.
- Our Search box is at the top of the Explore screen. If you have a particular topic that interests you, you can type it into the search box. Search offers suggestions and remembers recent searches you have made to facilitate finding what you are looking for. In addition, it offers filters to narrow the results down by top (the default), rafts, people, or tags.
- Other people’s profiles show a list of rafts they’re a member of.
- The Popular option on the Posts feed shows posts for all rafts which are public or private with open content. You can tap the raft name on any post to go check it out.
Currently browsing: Support
The latest updates from the Raftr team
Raftr Support: Joining and Discovering Rafts
Raftr Support: What’s a Raft?
A raft is a community formed around something you care about. Rafts are places where members can see what events are happening when, find out what others are talking about, connect with people with similar interests, and join in on interesting conversations.
There are two types of rafts on Raftr and several different privacy settings for member management and content accessibility. The first type of raft is those that are curated by our team or the colleges we partner with (official) and the second type is those that people in the app create and curate (user-curated).
Official rafts are denoted by a checkmark for authenticity. They are loaded with interesting content and conversations. These are rafts that are generally curated by someone in the administration in your college or university, who makes sure events and content are complete and comprehensive. Students can also post and chat on these rafts, and also co-lead them.
Rafts are generally organized in the following way: they consist of a “Front Page”, that shows the rafts’ members (and admin) and recent raft activity. All rafts also have pages for messages, posts, and events; some official rafts also have a blogs page.
There are two types of rafts on Raftr and several different privacy settings for member management and content accessibility. The first type of raft is those that are curated by our team or the colleges we partner with (official) and the second type is those that people in the app create and curate (user-curated).
Official rafts are denoted by a checkmark for authenticity. They are loaded with interesting content and conversations. These are rafts that are generally curated by someone in the administration in your college or university, who makes sure events and content are complete and comprehensive. Students can also post and chat on these rafts, and also co-lead them.
Rafts are generally organized in the following way: they consist of a “Front Page”, that shows the rafts’ members (and admin) and recent raft activity. All rafts also have pages for messages, posts, and events; some official rafts also have a blogs page.
You can contribute content in three ways:
- Reacting to posts, either by selecting an emoticon, writing a comment, or up-voting or down-voting another person’s comment. These interactions all get tallied in our algorithm to surface which rafts, posts, and people are trending throughout the app.
- Creating posts and events. This is a great way to share events or your thoughts and ideas as the stories on your rafts advance each day. You can personalize and illustrate your events and posts with photos, videos or GIFs. You can also share links to external content by either pasting a link you copied elsewhere or, if you are on an iOS device, by using the share button in the app where you found the content and sharing directly into Raftr.
- Chatting live with other members of your raft by selecting the raft’s messages page, or finding its channel on the Messages screen (via the button in the tab bar that’s always at the bottom of the screen). Chat messages can include emoticons, pictures, videos and GIFs, too.
Raftr Support: Creating Your Account
To create an account on Raftr, we use your verified .edu email address (and a password) to keep the experience safe and the discussions as authentic as possible.
Raftr’s vision is to be the most student-centric social platform on campuses, where students feel a sense of belonging: welcomed, well informed, and connected. Using your verified, .edu email address works well to ensure authenticity, and avoids the commonplace problem of some people setting up multiple accounts, under different pseudonyms, that may be used for spam or harassment.
Raftr’s vision is to be the most student-centric social platform on campuses, where students feel a sense of belonging: welcomed, well informed, and connected. Using your verified, .edu email address works well to ensure authenticity, and avoids the commonplace problem of some people setting up multiple accounts, under different pseudonyms, that may be used for spam or harassment.
Raftr Support: What Is Raftr?
With Raftr, you can discover events happening on campus, find student groups that share similar interests, and make sure that you’re the first to know when there’s free food to be found on campus. If it’s happening on campus, it’s on Raftr. And if you’re on Raftr, you’ll be there.
Our mascot is a sea otter. We chose the otter because sea otters are very social animals that often eat and rest together while floating in connected groups. A group of otters linked together like this is called a “raft”. Rafts can include hundreds of otters connected with one another by holding paws. We see this as a metaphor for the conversations and connections students make with each other in communities formed around common interests, ideas, clubs and sports.
Our mission is to offer the most trusted, discoverable, easy-to-use, and comprehensive social media environment. By verifying your .edu email address, you will have access to a private experience where you can form deeper connections with classmates and keep current with campus events. This is organized around your interests, and is specifically relevant to your college, unlike other social media. In contrast to flyers or word of mouth, Raftr works in real-time, so you don’t miss things happening on campus.
Our mascot is a sea otter. We chose the otter because sea otters are very social animals that often eat and rest together while floating in connected groups. A group of otters linked together like this is called a “raft”. Rafts can include hundreds of otters connected with one another by holding paws. We see this as a metaphor for the conversations and connections students make with each other in communities formed around common interests, ideas, clubs and sports.
Our mission is to offer the most trusted, discoverable, easy-to-use, and comprehensive social media environment. By verifying your .edu email address, you will have access to a private experience where you can form deeper connections with classmates and keep current with campus events. This is organized around your interests, and is specifically relevant to your college, unlike other social media. In contrast to flyers or word of mouth, Raftr works in real-time, so you don’t miss things happening on campus.
Raftr Support: May 14 Product Updates
Android:
- Updated screens for creating and editing events and posts
- Some fixes like a crash when opening lists on Explore and notifications opening properly
iOS:
- Added topics for events and posts
- Some fixes like showing notes for pinned posts on rafts’ Front Pages and chat threads updating when messages are edited
Web:
- Update sidebars on app-level Posts feed
- Some fixes like adding a popup explaining why you can’t create content in View-Only Mode and ensuring all events can load on app and raft level feeds
Raftr Support: April 30 Product Updates
Raftr publishes app and web updates every two weeks, adding new features, improving existing functions, and providing housekeeping and bug fixes as they arise. Here’s the latest summary of updates from this week’s new platform updates:
Android:
- Added recent and suggested sections in Search
- Some fixes, like improving speed in onboarding and enabling shared raft URL’s to open the app properly
iOS:
- Continued refreshing rafts with updates to: – Private rafts’ front page – All rafts’ info page – Update pinned section on all rafts’ front page
- Fixes including adding messages when attempting to interact with content on rafts you’re not a member of or when you’re in View-Only mode
Web:
- Updated raft URL’s to include the raft name
- Updated events and posts in feed views
- Updated create event/post flow
- Added ability to add topics to events and posts (Note: topics are not yet visible)
- Some fixes including updating login button for anonymous users and enabling proper character limit for rules on rafts
Raftr Support: April 16 Product Updates
Android:
- Added “top” search results – which aggregates search results across all types of content (people, rafts, tags)
- Some fixes like saving “interest” in events from rafts’ front pages and showing time selection as AM/PM
iOS:
- Updated messaging designs
- Added cross-post info to events
- Some fixes like being able to pin events on rafts and raft admin managing raft members
Web:
- Updated “isolated” full view for posts (when opened via share links or from other views like notifications)
- Some fixes, mainly to navigation throughout the app (ie: tapping raft name on event or post opening that raft)
Raftr Support: April 3 Product Updates
iOS update
- Updated the designs for rafts’ front pages, and events and posts sections
- Some fixes, like Raftr being a sharing option from other apps again
Android update:
Added:- Search feature on Explore
- Events and posts to show less text until you tap “Read more”
- Raftr as a sharing option from other apps
- Option to report inappropriate chat messages
- How events and posts are seen when opened from compact view, notifications, etc.
- How comments and reactions are seen on events and posts
- App to open on Events screen as default
- Some fixes to messaging and other features
Web update:
- Added a “View Only” feature to enable you to check out other schools via the “Visit other universities” button on your profile
- Updated how events look when opened into an isolated view
- Some fixes like leaders being able to update raft names
Raftr Support: March 6 Product Updates
Android:
- Began an overhaul to how events and posts look throughout the app
- Began an overhaul to how events and posts look throughout the app
- Some fixes like the “join” button disappearing immediately when you join a raft and shared events and posts opening properly
- Updated profile a bit so the header and content below are cleaner and the sidebar is relevant
- A variety of fixes to the front page of rafts – like being able to react or be interested in an event directly there
Raftr Support: February 20 Product Updates
Android:
- Updated event notifications to include the start time
- Enabled opening a post into full view from a raft’s front page
- Some fixes related to the Posts feed and group messaging
- Updated event notifications to include the start time
- Added show/ hide password feature in onboarding
- Lots of fixes, like improving the view-only UX
- Added a new Events feed so that posts and events can be seen in separate feeds, logging into the app will default you to this screen
- Updated event notifications to include the start time
- Updated the header and some sidebars to simplify navigation
- Some fixes related to rafts’ front pages and group messaging