Keeping Support Rooms Supportive: Chatroom Guidelines Announcement
All,
We hope you all are doing well and taking good care of yourselves. I'd like to first express my gratitude for all the time and effort the community has put in to keep our chat rooms a supportive and safe space to talk.
We have been listening to you, and we heard from the community about some ongoing issues in the Support Room 24/7. So this post will be addressing those concerns to ensure this room is not being misused.
First, let's understand: what is the Support Room 24/7?
Support Room is a general support room available to talk and get support 24/7. As the name suggests, it is a room for support purposes only.
That means ALL casual conversations need to be moved to the Member Community Room, which is dedicated to lighthearted chats.
We ask you to read the chatroom guidelines and strictly adhere to them. You will find the guidelines at the bottom of each chatroom labeled, Please read the Chatroom Rules
All participants are expected to be aware of the rules of engagement. This means that if you are found to be violating any rules, you will be responsible for the consequences.
Consequences of violations:
- Community Moderators can instantly mute you if you are found to be violating any chat room rules after one verbal reminder. Volunteer moderators will be sending 3 warnings to mute you after 2 verbal reminders.
- If you repeatedly and knowingly violate chat room rules, you will be muted instantly without any verbal reminder by community moderators. Also, if needed, your account can be suspended.
- Both or all parties engaging in an argument or conflict will be instantly muted. You have a personal mute button for a reason. It is your decision not to use personal mute and engage in conflict.
- If you have a question or disagreement about a rule, a topic with a listener, or a moderator, please take the issue to PMs immediately. If you continue to argue and disrupt the flow of the room, you can be instantly muted.
- You are welcome to submit a review for the Chat Room Moderators, Room Supporters, Listeners here! For members here!
We are taking these measures to ensure the Support Room facilitates helping and healing. We would appreciate everyone using it appropriately and being mindful and compassionate of one another.
Keeping chat rooms safe, respectful, compassionate, supportive, and inclusive is everyone's responsibility. Let's continue to work together to give our community our best.
Edit: Applicable for all the chat rooms w.e.f July 01, 2020
A few resources you can bookmark and find helpful! The texts are hyperlinked and clickable!
Badges Required to Unlock Support Rooms!
Frequently Asked Questions - Group Support
(Badge access link updated by Sunisshiningandsoareyou on 9/25/22)
Thank you for the reminder @ASilentObserver!
@ASilentObserver
Thank you for explaining this and have saved this in my notes
@ASilentObserver
JUst a suggestion
I feel the rooms , esp MCR, LCR and Support Room, should always have a mod there as these rooms tend to get disturbed quite a times . Guidelines are good and those always have ben there , but sometimes there are newbies or over excited or overwhelmed particiants so these get ignored . These rooms are like kids playgrounds, always need to be kept under vigil
@blissart
The room is called Support 24/7 and so people naturallly go there expecting to get support. Many people who come in with issues often leave disappointed. I would say the room is 80% hangout and 20% support on a good day. Its not enough to suggest to people go to MCR. This site has the resources to have moderation in that room at all times. The Listeners who spend time in Support are generally hanging around (and often being unprofessional) and are not helping matters. In the real world, all the support groups I know have a moderator present for the entire time. We need to follow that model. No more half-measures, lets make 7cups great again!
@DangerMaus
i understand where u are coming from and i felt the same, so i suggested a mod or supporter at all times
Its good the admins have already took a note of this concern and are trying to improve on it
@blissart I don't care to be compared to children in a playground. We are adults here not naughty children.
@ASilentObserver thanks for the reminder!<3
Thank you for the reminders! The support rooms can be such a great resource for people and I hope these guidelines will help keep it that way!
@ASilentObserver Thank you for posting this! There has been a lot of less than helpful support room activity recently that I think has made people more hesitant to use them. I think some of it has clearly been intentional with arguments and hate speech, but some of it has been people just inentiontionally using a room for the incorrect purpose. I had been struggling as a listener to find ways to remind people to mostly stick to the topic in each designated support room and will now happily suggest they carry those conversations in the member community room.
I am a little confused though, in another forum post, 6 ways to to make a difference in community rooms, that many of us got a notificaion for today, it actually has a whole section on using ice breakers to introduce levity to a support room. Is the difference essentially just how much time is spent off topic? I agree that icebreakers can be useful but am more used to using them in chatrooms that are already ligherhearted in nature.
@NightOwl5280
Good question I mean if room is meant for support only??
Thank you for this notice. Often the support room has been very busy with lots of chit chat- and sadly when someone asks for help it is ignored. Hope to see a shift - a simple reminder to take casual conversations to the member room.
@ASilentObserver Thank you for the reminder and keeping us updated :)
@ASilentObserver thank you for your wise leadership here Obs!
@GlenM Thank you for having this amazing site for us to support on!!
@ASilentObserver
Thank you for the reminder!