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Problem: Celebrating Anniversaries Exclusively

ZaraSmiles February 22nd, 2016

I outlined my idea in this lovely and sincere post by @Zedda, but I thought I might create a new thread to see if we could come to a group decision on how to move past this.

Problem: The current manner of celebrating people's milestones is exclusive

What do you mean?

Currently, the method we celebrate anniversaries in is spreading around anniversary forms for a few listeners and posting this in the forums. It is always done with the best intention, and it's a very beautiful sight, but for others, it can be very upsetting.

This is because it can appear as clique-ish, exclusive, and it can be rather unfair to celebrate some anniversaries while not for others. Every single person here deserves appreciation, deserves love and deserves to feel special. It's an amazing thing to share love and spread joy in celebrating one's milestone, we all love making our loved ones smile and feel happy. No one deserves to feel unappreciated or alone or unimportant.

Solution: Create a way everyone can be celebrated

So, how can we go about this?

Perhaps, extending the Birthday Listeners Project to a Celebration Project, and these are just my ideas since I haven't talked to @JaceOfSpades, @FluffyUnicorns84, @Ali or @Luka about this or anything, so nothing's set in stone.

Instead of just having a Birthday Listeners Project, change it to the 'Celebration Project' and have it under two tracks: birthdays and anniversaries. Keep that birthday side as how it is, and here's my proposal for the anniversary section [pretty much the same as the birthdays one]. Make it a track open to, let's say, 25 people, as a rough estimate. A large number to accommodate for the large amount of listeners to celebrate. These 'celebrators' are tasked with being in charge of the Anniversary spreadsheet, in which any listener who desires will pop their join date on this calendar spreadsheet, and these celebrators can do a monthly celebration (chatroom party & forum shout-out thread) for all the listeners who joined in that particular month and wish to be celebrated. We can make sure that we include this calendar spreadsheet in our welcoming messages to ensure it is all-inclusive, and perhaps have a thread to tag new listeners who post in the forums to alert them of it. So, what do you say, y'all? If we can get this going, I'd love to help lead it.

It has been suggested to create a new track under the Appreciation Team but I don't think we should overload that team with too many tracks so having a separate Celebration Project may be helpful.

Do you guys have any other suggestions instead of this one? Or do you think this idea could work? Do post below!

Tagging people who posted in @Zedda 's post, in case they have any contributions c:

@Anggi, @Lee, @SarahLydiaa, @Roadie, @Dhara94, @EvelyneRose, @Lilylistens, @2genpoet, @QuickJazz, @amazingrea, @freshLight64, @PolarCat, @skyisblue + @Anomalia, @Laura, @Iara, @NewRomantic677, @221Skye, @Cadence, @MissZ

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Rebecca February 22nd, 2016

@ZaraSmiles

I love this idea! I personally know what it can be like to have birthdays and anniversaries go by pretty much unnoticed and uncelebrated. While we aren't here for the recognition or appreciation, when some people recieve it, it isn't at all a bad thing to want that for yourself too. When I see celebration threads for other listeners, it makes me question for a minute, "Why them, but not me? What are they doing that I'm not doing? What am I doing wrong?" Ultimately I move on from it okay, but it stings, and I know there are listeners who aren't able to move on that easily. It is exclusive, because those threads only happen for a very elite and exclusive group of people.

All of this is just me essentially saying I 110% support your idea, dovey! And, when I come back from a break, I'd be glad to help put this together/participate in the celebration of 7 Cups anniversaries.

Much love to you

Liz1000 February 22nd, 2016

I have been thinking about this lately too, glad you brought this up :)

Luka February 22nd, 2016

@ZaraSmiles

I support this idea, I wanted to implement it in the same project when it started but found it difficult to manage both. It may still be difficult with the huge amount of listeners, but if that's going to reduce the individual anniversaries threads then I totally support your idea and I'd love to see it happening! :)

Luka February 22nd, 2016

@ZaraSmiles

P.S. you are awesome for thinking of solutions for a problem that hurts others, thank you so much <3

freshLight64 February 22nd, 2016

@ZaraSmiles

This is a very lovely and caring post, I love this idea of separating anniversary and birthdays. I truly support the wonderful ideas you have here. An idea I had its how Facebook has options to mention your birthdays date or hide it. The website does have information about our birthdays and the date we joined this website as a listener, so what if the website sends an email to asks if we would like to have our listener names be mentioned on the day of our anniversary and birthday threads, perhaps like this way they wouldn't left people out? If they agree then all the people would be included for the appropriate anniversary and birthdays dates. Something like a subscription thing, where you can subscribe yourself off whenever you want?
You brought an interesting point, this kind of appreciation have been exclusive for awhile. I have been very vocal about this recently for those people who have felt left out, unappreciated or not good enough when they see this kind of festivities. I truly believe if listeners are appreciated more then it would help them feel much better about the work they do here, and It also will help people feel equal regardless of whether or not they have high roles on this community.
fluffyUnicorns84 February 22nd, 2016

@Zarasmiles - I was actually discussing this with @QuickJazz the other day, It would be amazing to extend the project to anniverseries I agree. I too worry about amount of listeners and how to reach people as we already struggle with that with the birthday's. However I am behind you 19480980% on this anything I can do shout :).

Just little side note -- the leaders of birthday project are now , @ButtonedPrincess @Jaceofspaces & Myself :).

EnigmaticRebel February 23rd, 2016

@ZaraSmiles

I have been thinking this same thing, I'm very glad you decided to post this thread because it saves me a great deal of typing lol. Thanks A Million.

2genpoet February 23rd, 2016

how many listeners are the out there

we are talking about hundred who are celebrating anniversaries every day

if tyou browse listeners you finds prople who few dozan intraction in a year

do these people deserve their anniversary to be celebrated - of course not

Everyone birthday should be clebrated -yes

As i said before what should be celbrated is a milestone of a year being on the path

and we have to set standards for what is a path that should be celebrated

otherwise a blanket celebration is as worthless as no celebration

2 replies
Rebecca February 23rd, 2016

@2genpoet I knidly have to disagree with you. People have different limits and different boundaries they have to set for themselves. Something that you are able to handle might be too much for someone else, and vice versa. Self-care is something we should be valuing on this site, and if we set some standard to say that only certain contributions, or only a certain quantity of contributions, warrants a celebration would be unhealthy. Furthermore, that would solve nothing. The reason this is being discussed is because it's exclusive as it is. Why set rules in place to ensure it is exclusive?

How do you evaluate the worth of a contribution? The worth of a listener? Any listener who is still active on the site at the time of their anniversary should be celebrated. If they've been here a year, that's an accomplishment in itself, given how stressful the site can be at times.

This is a site full of compassionate people, and if we find a way to build a project that efficiently celebrates milestones and anniversaries, then we can most definitely honour everyone. I don't want anyone feeling inadequate or like they are worth less than other people because they didn't get celebrated.

1 reply
freshLight64 February 23rd, 2016

@RebeccaEmily

I agree with what you have said here, you brought up interesting points.

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2genpoet February 23rd, 2016

If you celebrarrate mediocrity you will get more mediocrity

if you celebrate quality you will get more quality

3 replies
PolarCat February 23rd, 2016

@2genpoet

I respectfully disagree. Every listener has their own limits for what they can handle. So why is it right for someone else to decide if they should be celebrated or not? Are their accomplishments here not as valued as someone who contributes in a different way? Say someone spends all their time in the forums and not in one on one? Or in one on one and not in groups? Or someone who listens who listens one night a week?

Self-care is so incredibly important and I feel that setting any threshold, other than being here a year, would not be promoting self-care. Everyone who wants to be celebrated should be included regardless of how much time they devote to the site. Listening is listening, right? That's what we are here for. So if it's an hour a month or five hours a day, it's still listening.

Rebecca February 23rd, 2016

@2genpoet I want to celebrate compassion, which can't be measured as a quantity.

Edit: I also want to add that if we celebrate quality, yes. We might get more quality. But at what extent? We'll also get a lot more burnout, and a lot more people leaving this site. I don't want people to feel like they have to do a specific amount of things in order to be important.

The way I look at this, everyone deserves appreciation for simply being. Without being appreciated, people can feel lonely and worthless and hopeless. This is one way where we can try to prevent listeners from developing those feelings from the site. Honouring anniversaries/milestones is one way we could honour everyone, and make sure that everyone gets the appreciation they deserve.

Luka February 23rd, 2016

@2genpoet

I understan your point of view to be honest, but I also think celebrating anniversaries is not the best way to celebrate quality.

I don't think we've been even celebrating quality. Some of the listeners that have been celebrated did a really great job here, but I think few others did not really contribute much, few of them were only regulars in chatrooms for example, and while it's totally fine and they're still equally awesome people, I still don't see how "quality" is being celebrated here. The truth is that we've been only celebrating the popular listeners.

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