Blocking / Reporting Vs Letting it go

@prashpal84 My perspective on this is different. I think the positive message to both members and listeners is: You are not powerless, because you can block and report.

Now, there are some other issues to consider alongside this positive message, and they are as follows:

• Coaching emails: I agree with you. I think the coaching emails are a bad system that could be greatly improved. However, we should not place the responsibility on members because listeners suffer from a bad system! We should fix the bad system.
• Expressing your concern [about a listener] directly: I agree with you. I think expressing concerns directly can often help someone to improve. However, members come here for emotional support. We should not place the responsibility on members for helping listeners to improve! We should fix listener training and support.
• Not to report [a member] till the time it’s absolutely necessary: I agree with you. However, if a volunteer listener suffers rudeness, or worse, then the time when it is absolutely necessary to take action is right at that moment. We should not place the responsibility on the victim to delay taking action! We should do all we can to protect our volunteers.
• Competition about who clicks block option first: I agree with you. The block option is badly designed because it sometimes appears to be a competition. However, we should not place the responsibility on members and listeners because of a badly designed option! We should fix the option.

On blocking/reporting vs letting it go, in my opinion there is no "vs". Blocking and reporting pass responsibility to the community so that you, the victim, can let it go. When you have the misfortune to become a victim of bad behaviour in a chat, it is not your responsibility to fix it. It is the community's responsibility. Therefore you must block and report in order to pass on the responsibility for what happened and let it go.

To summarize my opinion: Sometimes things go wrong in chats. When something goes wrong, we must not make it the victim's responsibility, and we must not allow the victim to feel powerless. The positive message is: You are not powerless, because you can block and report.

To increase happiness in our community, I feel we should do all we can to reduce powerlessness and to avoid making victims feel responsible.

Charlie

@prashpal84

I've had many experiences in which i'd explain politely to my listener the way in which i'd like to be supported, and then they get offended, and tell me to find a new listener. and then i have to start all over and open up from the beginning with another listener, with the thought in my mind that, "oh no this is going to end bad again"

I disagree, and my opinion is much more in line with RarelyCharlie's on this. There is also a difference between members and listeners:

For members, I would encourage reviews to be made as much as possible. I will admit I do not review all my chats. but I do review at least 75% of my first chat with a listener, probably more. Sometimes it's difficult to give a fair review and other times I'm just tired or need to go right away. I find it really frustrating when a listener has a 5 star review and all what they say is things like ok and hmmm. I think if there were more reviews being done we would have a more realistic view of which listeners really are awesome at what they do and which need to strengthen their skills.

When it comes to blocking - first of all I fully recommend members use this for their safety if they think it could help. If they are concerned a listener is someone who is abusing them in real life, if they are concerned something about a listener is triggering them, if they think it's the best way to shut down a conversation quickly (I disagree this is the best method, but in a panic maybe it's what someone sees first), etc. These types of blocks do not need to involve a report. Listeners who are blocked can also be unblocked later.

In terms of reporting - I think it's also good to report issues that come up. A listener is pushing advice? They should get training on not to do that, it's not up to the member. They ask for a phone number? Maybe they just didn't pay attention to what the rules were and wanted to offer a better way to support and just need to be told. Or maybe it's the 25 time they have done it on the site. Members do not have training to be here, members are not responsible for teaching listeners. Reporting even minor things can help 7cups reach out to listeners who just need a bit of information and it also helps listeners who do threatening things from possibly doing real harm to someone.

If there is something small, like a chat is going ok, but a listener calls me dear, sure I may say call me Affy. There can be other small issues within a chat though where trying to give feedback in that moment would interfere with actually getting support. I don't think we need to put that responsibility on the member.

Listeners are trained, are not supposed to be taking chats when in distress, have supports to help them with chats, and aren't sharing details of their personal lives that they need support on.

I do not think listeners should be blocking just because they felt uncomfortable. If they feel unsafe for whatever reason they can end the chat. Ideally it would be something like this - I am sorry, something suddenly changed and I need support myself, if you like, I can try to refer you to another listener (if they can spend the time doing that). If not - I am sorry, I suddenly need to go, please connect with another listen if you like. If a member continues to chat I would then suggest to state please, do not send me anymore messages right now. If the member continues, at that point the member has crossed a direct request made by the listener and blocking can be done with the honest reason why for example, I felt overwhelmed, ended the chat, asked to not receive more messages and the member continued to message me. I actually think this should be an option to select from as I do think listeners should always provide a reason for why blocking was done, but if they feel distressed they can just click that option and not have to explain further if they choose not to.

For other small issues, say a member asks for an email - I think listeners need to remember that members have not had training. Yes, they should look at rules but when in distress I also think it's understandable they may not be able to recall what they all are. I know that I have mixed up rules myself between different things. So remind them. Listeners are supposed to be professional, members should not be expected to be. If after being reminded they keep pushing, that is different.

In terms of feedback received there are a few different things going on.

- I think listeners need to learn to not take blocking personally. I think that should be in training and I think we should actually be encouraging a culture where members do not feel like there is a barrier or anything to encourage a perception that a listener may be hurt or offended if they are blocked. We should be supporting a block by the member if that is what they need to feel more comfortable.

- Minor reports shouldn't be seen as serious things. Having a minor instance documented shouldn't be seen as a major thing. If it's a trend, that's where it does become more of a problem. I think it would be nice if they feedback system could distinguish more with when someone needs more information or training or even support during a bad time vs. someone who is purposely acting inappropriately.

- I do think the coaching emails could be improved, based on the little I know of them, I am uncertain what changes have occurred with them over time. Again, that is not on members though.

- As for the race to block. I do not think that should be an issue, and is something 7cups should change. Give the capability to make a report even after being blocked, give the capability for in system message captures instead of screenshots that can be faked.

@prashpal84 The more I think about the review aspect the more confused I am. Do you think members should only give 1 or 5 star reviews (and maybe 4) and not 2 or 3? How is that a helpful rating system?

As for this:

I know even guidelines say we should choose blocking or reporting as last resort but I feel we all can take it more seriously & it will definitely increase happiness index of our community.

Do you mean only for listeners? If not where does it say that for members? I thought we were more under a if you see something say something encouragement on 7cups.

Ie. https://www.7cups.com/forum/SafetyKnowledgeat7Cups_181/Guidesonhowtomanagesituationson7cups_1059/IfyouseesomethingSAYsomething_190979/

Here's some of the information from that:

The bottom line here is if you see something, say something. It's better to be safe than sorry. You have plenty of tools at your disposal (block in 1-1, mute in support rooms, etc) to shape your expereince, but if you ever feel like you need additional assistance, please don't hesitate to reach out by email, or to one of us!

@Power as a lot of this affects safety aspects I would love to hear your opinions here.

@prashpal84

💯 ! Thank you Prash for devoting your time and looking forward to improve the happiness In:Dex of cups !

I agree coaching emails should atleast mention where we need improvement :/ It feels like they listen to one side of a story and send those emails ...for example if i refuse sharing personal contact details,i get blocked. If i don't give advices, i get blocked etc etc and god knows what they write in the reason for blocking and this eventually leads to the race thing ...!

I absolutely agree with all what you said 💜 Great work 👍👍 ! 💯

☕ 🍪 xD

@prashpal84

Nice post ty for sharing.

It seem like we don't take blocking and reporting seriously. There indeed is a lot we can try doing in a chat before blocking and reporting becomes a resource or an option to do. 🙁

If we are going to volunteer to speak with people who are struggling, there is some forbearance and patience that we should have even though it might not be returned. That is why one person is designated as the listener than one person is a member. The support is expected to flow one direction.

Obviously, there are limits to this. But I’ve almost never needed to block anyone, though I have ended several conversations that get inappropriate.

People really do get upset when the listener sounds robotic. I think the training we do can lead us to sound wooden and impersonal, so sometimes putting some more personality in, even if it is sassy, can help remind people that we are humans.

But yes, sometimes people are impolite—that’s to be expected, as are people being creepy on the internet. Sometimes it gets to be too much and is upsetting but most of the time I can accept that’s the way it is! If you can’t stand the heat get out of the kitchen. You know within reason. If the kitchen is a fire pit then don’t go in there in the first place 😆

@prashpal84

Hey hey, Prash! I found this post only a bit ago and I thought of chipping in, I really hope that’s alright to do. First of all, I would totally understand if your own bad experiences with the reporting system, either reporting someone or being reported has prompted this post, and I’m really sorry if that is the case. I do agree on a lot of points with you, and for the rest, I hope I can share my views clearly.

1. I’m a listener too and I’ll have to agree with you about the coaching emails. Though I perfectly support their idea to help listeners improve, but does that always work as it was intended to, does it serve the purpose?

I understand that listeners are offered to connect to coaches, but it can be a tad bit difficult to seek help with our skills on basis of a rather vague description in these emails. I highly believe that this system can be worked on, and maybe, we can still be a bit more detailed? Or perhaps reminding us of the broken guideline in a way that listeners cannot trace back and come charging at any particular member for the report? Because that would be terrible and scary!

2. Having said the above, I can also understand that coaching emails can sometimes be the result of being falsely reported too, which can be demotivating understandably. So that, once again, is a flaw in the system where we can’t blame either the listener or the member. In some cases, the block button can be misused but it’s also an integral part of maintaining our safety. I really cannot think of a better and faster way to ensure our safety as a member (and also as a listener), than the block button at the moment.

3. Expecting the member to correct us, I don’t think that is the best approach here. A few reasons I can think of why. First, a member is here to seek support. If I put myself in the shoes of a member, I can imagine already having a lot to deal with. To top that, if I have to explain the guidelines to a listener, I might find it frustrating at the least. Plus, not everyone would react well to direct feedback, even politely framed, I can imagine that. So that’s not on the member.

4. Not reporting members till it’s absolutely necessary as a listener. I won’t say I disagree with you because we do have a standard protocol of warnings first, followed by ending the chat (discouraging them to message us further, as you said) and blocking/reporting as the very final resort.

Having said that, the harassment faced by a volunteer listener might require reporting before anything too. But say, a listener blocks a member simply because they aren’t comfortable with the topic, I really don’t encourage that at all. We can end the chat after honestly and politely telling them why. So it really does depend on how we use our powers and if we follow the guidelines till we have a better system in place.

5. Coming to the competition about who clicks the block option first. I agree with you entirely. There are many loopholes in the block button and I would go on to list them, but I’m sure you’re aware of it already and this is certainly something that can be worked on.

So all in all, we don't stand in a place to blame anyone, neither the listeners nor the members, but we can definitely show some responsibility from our end and the current system in place can be worked on too. I’m not an expert in the Quality or Safety domain, but I really do think this thread has great potential to be used as feedback for the Community Team to focus on. Thanks a lot for sharing your views too, Prash! Tagging @EvelyneRose, our Quality Specialist for better insights.

I believe if a listener behaves in a predatory manner, such as seeking to connect off of 7 cups in the first listening session, when they are male and I am a female and adult survivor of childhood sexual and other abuse, that I have the right to block them as soon as I realise what is happening, and that I have zero obligation to alert them to their predatory behavior (which they may not be likely to see, perceive, acknowledge or accept as true about themselves). 🌸🙏🏻