i've been trying to get back to Slowly since the pandemic, which was my peak usage. i have quite a few letters from my old penpals. but god knows why i have no motivations to write them back. maybe because it was so long ago. maybe because of writer's block. maybe because i'd need to wait for couple more months or years to get a reply back. i don't know. give me some motivations, friends

Is it me or is there no Halloween stamp available internationally?

How do I get it back. I don’t remember the credentials

No politics intended. It's just that I found a way to "travel" without leaving my room, to get some stamps... And when I set my location to Gaza, only "GZ" appeared at the place where it usually says the name of the country. Any ideas?

So i have this penpal who I have not talked for 2 months...like I was the one who send him the last letter of which he didn't reply nor did he come online on the app.Generally he and I used to reply ech other very fast like back and forth but then suddenly he jus vanished like he hasn't came to that app in two months..but he does have his other social media account to reach him out to on his profile. But he has closed his Dm so can't talk to him there also, So I jus send him my ID in case he ever comes back and wants to talk as he did say he had a pretty busy schedule so I did that plus I really thought we can be great friends due to our interests aligning so well...So what should i do now ?? Shall I remove him or like still wait for him.. because I do think about him very often which makes me sad and gets me into thinking maybe he jus deleted the app or something else happened. Also I have read some bios of people where they say that they forget they have a account here and whatever and comes back after years or suddenly it clicks them that they have account on this app.

Do you guys have any similar situation what do you do? In this situation.

I was having login problems as some of the folks on the group — I use Apple ID. The connection would time out everytime. But I realized it worked instantly if I just didn’t use WI-FI, and used 5G instead. Weird, insn’t it?

https://www.tiktok.com/@slowly.app

Penpal Reimagined

Slowly lets you meet pen pals from your smartphone!

Match with someone that shares your passion, write a letter and collect stamps from around the world.

Speak your mind – one letter at a time!

I reported a user for something, will I be told the outcome if it is investigated?

So I haven’t used the app in a few days but saw a ‘don’t initiate sex content or discussion’ box appear. Very confused. Is this a general warning or was it targeted at me?

In my open letters I sometimes place a disclaimer stating complex social issues I would talk about including sex/sex issues. Is it because this is written in it?

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Departing users, removal requests

We haven't discussed this as far as i know, and it is an interesting question.

The letters we wrote, the responses we got, all of those are significant for people who enjoy corresponding with pen pal friends.

And then, sometimes things happen. Your friend decides to leave, for various reasons. A common one being to reduce 'distractions', being busy and needing to fully focus in something important.

They decide to depart. And press the button on their Slowly client, the one that talks back and asks, Are you Sure?

And likely they confirm.

Slowly staff say that user's data will be removed as requested. But they wisely keep it around - for 30 days, giving users an opportunity to change their minds. If they do, they can resume, and nothing gets lost.

But in many cases, users turn their backs and move on. They cannot access their data, and assume that after 30 days it is gone for sure.

Or is it?

Turns out the recipient of their letters get to keep them. I can verify this as I had dear friends depart and I still keep many folders with lots of letters we exchanged.

I think we all assume this is how it should be? In the real world, if you wrote and mailed a letter, it is gone and you cannot edit it, delete it, or claim ownership of it as a physical object.

You wrote, addressed and paid postage to get that object to someone, somewhere. They get to keep it, as personal property.

I imagine the original writer has copyright on the letter content, as its creator. But they could not reasonably request that all of their mailed letters be destroyed without trace by the recipients, could they?

I asked Microsoft's CoPilot, and got a nice answer

In Slowly, how are these questions dealt with?

We had some serious discussions about Slowly and Privacy concerns in the past. I made a Guest Author blog post with an excellent document posted here on Reddit, with the author's permission, and it is one of the most popular pages on my blog.

All of our Slowly data is stored in 'cloud servers', rented online servers currently provided by Amazon Web Services, aka AWS.

We have two users in contact in a pen pal relationship. Person A, who writes a letter, and person B who is the intended recipient of that letter,

If person A decides to leave, pushes the kill button and confirms, their data is assumed to be deleted (after the 30 days grace period). Person A loses access to the service, and to their sent and received letters.

But what about the letter's recipient?

As far as I know, they get to keep it. As I mentioned above, it happened to me, people left and I still have our letters in full, sent and received.

Is this a problem? or do we consider the electronic messages/letters to be similar to the written pages we receive in the mail - and were we surely have an ownership?

What do you think?

This is a new discussion, and I decided to make a new topic so it gets to be seen, and maybe more people participate.

In your opinion, is the current situation as it should be?

Or no, a user requesting deletion should assume their sent letters will disappear as well?

I look forward to reading your comments and thoughts. Thank you!

** Now also in a Blog Format post.

Safety first stamp share

I want to share my Safety first stamp. I’m currently looking for the follow translator stamps:

• Spanish, Catalan, Russian, Hungarian, Chinese, Philippines, Arabic, Portugese, Polish and Thai.

Send me a dm if you are interests.

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Sending a full letter with Instant Delivery ?

Rocket Mail — not only a pretty stamp issued last year but a Possibility. There IS a way to send a Slowly letter Instantly. At a small cost...

[ Spoiler Alert — don't read if you prefer the traditional way ]

Great for almost missed Birthdays, or other special occasions. Or just for fun or that must send quick message. Surprise your friend, which will never imagine this can be done.

Yes, it's True — and a good insider's Joke.

Remember the “Rocket Mail” stamp that was issued last year? A very cute one, it would be a nice feature.

Rocket Mail stamp

Sending a full letter with Instant Delivery ?

Yes, it's possible. Read the full blog post here for How To do it.

Long story short, I "deleted" my account 1,5y ago. Today I received an info about stamp I voted for - it was added! I clicked on e-mail's button and stamp-related page appeared with:

- my avatar
- my username
- my e-mail

The bastards may try to dodge this issue, because my "Slowly profile" and "feedback profile" are two different things. Except there is no delete option for "feedback profile"

And look at this:

Please note that when you deactivate your account, all your data will be stored in our database for 30 days before permanently deleting it. This is done in case users decide to reactivate their accounts later.

Obviously they DID NOT delete ALL my data.
I'll send a GDPR complain. This is the result of marking an account as "deleted" while lying about actual deletion.

Are all users on the app comfortable with the length of the waiting period? It’s a really slow burner isn’t it?

So... Something happened I think? My penpal from India just sent me a letter in response that would get here in two days, but now, I notice that his account was deactivated, most probably by himself. Considering his wish to move to social media in his last letter, I do believe he probably didn't really enjoy the waiting period. My question is:

Even though he deactivated the account, I'm still going to receive his last letter?

This ever happened with one of you?

And we likely will see others added soon?

All of those are Regional Premium stamps - for sale in their local stamp store, 50 Coins each. I think it's likely we will see a 'Random Sale' mechanism for these as well, similar to the Time Machine and the European Castles series.

Fernet with Cola, Argentina

Absynthe, Switzerland

Mojito, Cuba

Sangria, Spain

Kir Royale, France

Gin and Tonic, UK

Margarita, Mexico

Piña Colada, Puerto Rico

Singapore Sling, Singapore

Bloody Mary, United States

** See also our main November Releases post here.

edit : After these stamps appeared in the Stores, we noticed ANOTHER TWO also labelled as 'Happy Hour'. So, 10 new releases (for now, expect more), plus 2 re-labeled, a total of 12 stamps in Happy Hour.

These stamps are:

- the Brazilian 'Caipirinha' premium stamp. (no change in cost, just label).

- the Peruvian 'Día Nacional del Pisco Sour', a free Commemorative, lately also on sale at Time Machine, has been renamed as 'Pisco Sour' and got the Happy Hour treatment. A previously free stamp, now going for 50 Coins.

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Another BIG batch arriving for November 2024.

37 in total - Too many to show in a single Reddit topic post, as it only allows 20 images maximum per topic. (I will also create a separate post for the excess issues - here**)

Listing by Category so it's easier to grasp...

Location stamps

Sadly, again, this batch does not include any new ones. 🙄😕

Slowly HQ is on a roll with issuing premium stamps at 50 Coins, one Dollar each, and it must help the balance sheet.

6 Regional Premium stamps

Canadarm, Canada

Switzerland

Golem, Czechia

Mariachi, Mexico

Bamboo Organ, Philippines

Shophouses, Singapore

4 new Commemorative free Regional Releases

Time limited, and available for Free only in their designated countries. Most likely these will appear later on the Time Machine for the regular 25 Coins random purchase.

Ecuador

Berlin Wall, Germany

Japan

Marie Curie Day, Poland, France?

** Availability of these stamps is still UNCERTAIN

Right now we know already that some will only appear in later months - unless you are willing to pay the 50 Coins, Can't Wait!! price... 😜✨

1 new 'Beautiful Lighthouses' stamp

Premium at 50 Coins each. 🙄

Iceland

And 2 more Sounds of the World premium stamps

Premium at 50 Coins each. 🎁

Myanmar

Romania

And 2 more BFF premium stamps

Bread and Butter

Salt and Pepper

** New Happy Hour series appeared **

With 10 Premium stamps to start. These are on a separate post here as I cannot add more images to this post.

We also got 12 new Achievement stamps

...which are documented and explained in this post.

All of those stamps will be added to our WIKI

...which is a great reference tool for anyone curious about the many Slowly stamps.

We have extra pages for each of these new commemoratives. Many thanks to u/EducationalAd_1575 for volunteering and assisting in creating these. 😎🌟😊

Tentative November 2024 Stamp Releases and Dates ?

Subject to errors, as for the most part we have to research and find the dates ourselves. I have not verified any of these dates, but think this can be useful and appreciated, right.

Complete monthly release schedule. Re-issues are NOT shown this time. Many thanks to our friends who produced these in the past, and in the future. 😎

Disregard the title, there is no help needed (at least so far lol).

So many good folks have left such heartwarming comments and DMs after my first post so here I am. writing an update to the cliffhanger.

Alas, whispers of confessions and desire has led me to this moment here. Brief TLDR is that I’ve fallen in love with my Slowly penpal, and when I realized feelings were reciprocated, we moved onwards to short form text, video calls, FaceTime until eventually… meeting in person.

We were lucky that we weren’t terribly far from each other, and hour-ish flight away by plane and the moment I had an excuse to visit a city near him, I jumped so fast to the opportunity.

I was shocked at how fast our relationship progressed even before meeting each other. Our conversations were always so natural even in letters, being able to put a face and a soundtrack to this anonymous icon… was quite inconceivable. Who would’ve guessed i would find myself so hopelessly in love with someone I’ve yet to meet? He asked if he could call me his only a few weeks in. I obliged and started to count down the days till I could see him in person.

“the wait must be succulent for the release to be sweet” was the running joke in between us that turned out not to be a joke haha. The wait was so AGONIZING, and god I see myself now to be so pathetic to be down so bad for a… for a …a boy!

Finally, the faithful day comes. October 18th. A mere few days I stayed at his place and , it truly was just a dream. His presence, his touch and feel, exceeded anything I could have even imagined. He took me to experience the most amazing foods (hotpot, coffees, pastries), we climbed at the local rock gym, we walked to his alma mater and we experienced the most beautiful sights of the horizon. It all went by way way way too fast. Before I know it, I’m back in my city and I dream of that dream through endless layers of wondering , if any of it even happened lol.

Nonetheless, I write this to either keep track of my delusions for my therapist , or to share perhaps, the most magnificent, and beautiful little thing I have ever felt. Call it what you will, I still am not sure what it is.

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A friend had a Popup offer in his mobile app

The screenshot above shows it. In a nutshell, it works as a 33% Discount (you pay for 100 Coins and get 150 for example).

While this is nice, we are not far from the Black Friday Sale - which has been always the very best pricing for coins.

Black Friday past sales were BOGO - Buy One, Get One Free, which means you buy 100 Coins, and get 200 for that price. An effective 50% off discount on the regular price.

This sale has happened in the past few years - here is the thread for last year's sale for example.

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No guarantees it will be offered in the same terms again

...but worth letting people know. 😎👍