How Chains Work

When creating a chain it is important to know the rules of how links are created and how to link to another person. You start off by creating a basic profile with information about yourself. The most important information we need is your email, name, gender, date of birth, location, and state. You may leave the "About Me" section blank. Once you have created a profile, you will be given a unique identification number, or ID. This ID can be used for searches and will also help keep track of anyone who we suspect of making multiple accounts. The next step is finding a friend or family member to link with. In order to do so, they must create their own profile. Then you must find a photo to link with that only has you and your friend/family member in it. You must be on the left and the person you wish to link to must be on the right.

After you have your photo picked out, you may then send a link request to this person by clicking "Start a Chain" then adding his/her email address as well as the photo you have picked out. They will then receive an email letting them know that you want to link with them. The email will contain a link in it that they can click in order to process your request. Upon clicking the link and logging in, they will be presented with the photo of the two of you and will be asked if they would like to accept or reject your link request. Once accepted, the photo then appears on both of your profiles. You are now officially linked and it is up to the person you linked to if they want to continue increasing the size of the chain.

In the following example, I will use letters to represent people, and the parenthesis will represent a photo: (A&B)(B&C)(C&D)(D&E)(E&F) This chain features persons A, B, C, D, E, and F. If person F wants to continue the chain, he/she must find another person to connect with. If they found one (lets say person G) they must take a photo together, with person F being on the left side, and person G on the right side. The photo would look like this: (F&G) Because person F linked with person G, person F is now linked-in to that chain. Anyone who appears in two consecutive photos is considered linked-in to that chain. Basically everyone except the first and last person in a chain will be considered linked-in.

The Rules

There are two very important rules at this point. First, you are only allowed to be linked-in to one chain. You cannot be linked-in to multiple chains because that would create the issue of either allowing chains with the same person to link together, or having numerous chains out there that cannot link together because links would appear more than once. The other important rule is that there is no concept for chains at this point. This site is about trying to link as many different people together as possible. Which means that everyone on earth has the ability to join the same chain. I do not want to see chains created that will not allow certain people to join. For instance, no chains like "The Smith Family" or "McDonald's Employees" should be created. Everyone should be able to join any chain at any time. When the concept of this site is understood by many, I will add the ability to join chains with different ideas. This means that there will eventually be chains out there that will only accept certain people.

When you have been linked-in to a chain, you cannot be linked-in to another. However, you may start as many as you wish. To start a chain you MUST be on the left side of the photo so only the person you link with can extend the chain. In the example chain that contained persons A through G, I will take person C and use them as an example. Person C cannot be linked-in to any more chains. If he/she wanted to start a chain with person X then they need to be in a photo together with person C on the left side (C&X). Then, person X increases the chain with person Y (X&Y) and so on. As long as person C does not appear on the RIGHT side of the photo, he/she can start as many chains as they wish, as long as the people she wants to link with are not currently already in a chain.

You will get credit for starting a chain if 5 people are linked together one at a time. I will not allow any more than 1 person to be linked at a time and still give credit to someone for starting a chain

The Competition

It is important to get credit for starting chains, because that is one of the main competitions involved with this site. The other being chain lengths. I have created a list of numerical marks for both chain lengths and chains started. These numbers will stir up competition in two ways, the first and the quickest. For example, the first numerical mark for chain length will be 100. The first chain to reach that mark will be recognized for doing so and will be kept in the record book. That chain cannot change because it was the first. Over time, it might get surpassed in the quickest category. Lets say that the first chain to reach 100 took 13 days 4 hours and then a month later a chain reached 100 in 11 days 21 hours. The latter chain is now in the books as being the quickest to reach 100. The same concept goes for chains started by individuals. If you are in a chain or started chains that reached these milestones either first or quickest, you will have that title put in your accomplishments section of your profile. You may some day be the first to start 20 chains as well as be linked-in to the chain that reached 5,000 the quickest, who knows?

I hope I have explained my website to you in a manner that is both understanding and exciting. There are many other ideas I have for this site, but the main goal is to have everyone understand how this all works, and then go from there. Thank you for your time.