Blocking / Reporting Vs Letting it go
Hello Everyone
(@Fristo thank you for your help in creating this post)
I feel, somehow blocking & reporting option is used very generously by lot of members as well as listeners.
I am of the opinion that we can use it very conservatively only when there is absolutely no other option but to block or report. I will try to share my perspective & will like to hear from you all what you think on this
· I feel getting blocked or receiving coaching emails (standard template emails, where listeners don’t even get to know what exactly written against them) are very discouraging for all listeners. Specially for volunteer only place, when someone is devoting their time with the intention of helping someone, getting blocked or receiving standard coaching emails can work negatively & I know lot of listeners being moved out of 7cups because of this.
· Some of the reasons why member choose to report or write negative reviews, they gave advice, they took time to reply, they didn’t show empathy, I felt like talking to bot, they were asking too many questions, they asked my age or sex etc. I feel for such reason, moving out of the chat by expressing your concern directly & politely with listener can help listeners to understand your concern better & they will definitely consider working on that. Also, we cannot connect well with all listeners, but that listener can be a good connection for lot of other members. I feel negative reviews or reporting can be used conservatively for only some unavoidable instances like abuse, or stalking etc. I feel if we all can follow that it will significantly increase the happiness index of our 7cup community.
· Some of the reasons for which listeners choose reporting option like member was rude (I think we can definitely try to calm them down; I know it’s not justified but we can consider giving them chances of improvement), they asked me personal information or they shared their personal information. I feel we can try our best not to report someone till the time it’s absolutely necessary like when we have tried explaining them, we have tried ending chat option. I feel some times just discouraging someone by not answering them can work better than reporting them, as reporting is taken very offensively & then someone can try to take revenge (though it’s not justified).
· I feel, at times there is sort of competition between listener & member about who clicks block option first, because they fear that if they don’t do it other person will do & they will get in trouble. So, I feel both listeners & members can be very conservative in choosing blocking & reporting as option & we can just let it go. If at all we are unhappy about something, we can directly let the other person know in the chat & we can end the chat or stop replying that itself will give a strong message to the other person.
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.
@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
@RarelyCharlie
Thanks for your reply
I completely agree with you, if we can fix the system the obviously blocking & reporting are the better options. But I as listener feel helpless when I receive blocking or reports, and I personally have not received a single reply to my mails to community. So in given circumstances, I feel using blocking & reporting option more carefully can be a little better option.
I have seen listeners being forced out of the system because of reports & I think similar things must be happening on members side as well. I feel sometimes in the heat of the moment we push block or report option but later we may feel that we could have ignored it.
But I definitely respect your opinion that system should be corrected but that's going to take lot of time for sure.
@prashpal84 Here's a question for you that may help figure some things out better on the listener side
Why do you feel helpless when you are blocked? Why does it feel like a negative thing?
@wonderfulMagic99
Getting blocked specially in chats where I hardly even started the conversation, I feel rejected & I feel like I did something wrong. Because when we get blocked we dont know the reason for that, the chat just disappears & then we also get doubt whether its only blocking or someone has also reported me (because false reports are also common here).
And specially its not about me, most of the queries in LSR are based on being blocked or getting coaching emails, getting reported & that says blocking is used very generously by lot of people
@prashpal84 I agree, false reports are definitely a problem and I can see how that can make someone feel upset or concerned with being blocked.
I hope that is something that can be managed so false reports don't or at least rarely result in any consequences for the person being reported.
Then hopefully we can get to the point where most of us can be comfortable that being blocked just meant we weren't the right listener at that particular time for someone.
@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"
@Nick324
Thanks for your reply
I understand that it is indeed very difficult to find listener who understand us, relate with us & help us the way we need at that point. I hope you are aware about browse listener option, where there are many filters like chat topic, age group, country, lived experience, sorting by number of chats etc.., these filters can help a bit in finding the right match (though I understand its definitely not easy).
Also just for my understanding (only if you want to answer), how blocking or reporting helps in the scenario you mentioned?
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.
@AffyAvo
Thanks for your reply, its very good to get member's perspective on this. First of all I would like to apologize if you feel hurt (as member) by this post, my intention is not to make member or listener powerless, my only point is we can be little more considerate for blocking & reporting. I know these are important options both of member & listener, & I am not saying we should remove these option from the system.
when you say listener should not take blocking personally. I agree to an extent, but its just human mind that gets hurt (specially consider new listeners coming to this platform gets blocked multiple times on their first day as listener). So only thing I suggested is if possible & if its not very urgent (like panic attacks) blocking can be avoided.
Minor reports should be ignored by listener. Here I have different perspective, as a listener we dont know what is minor or major, we just get standard coaching template by email. If we are made to read our own reviews or if they are just posted on my profile as it is, I feel that is more meaningful for listeners. I personally have issues trusting those standard mail templates, and we (as far I am concerned) never (hardly) get any replies from community email, if we raise concern over our reviews. So I definitely agree, if the system is improving, then reporting even the smallest possible thing in the conversation will help listeners grow, but I feel under current system, its more of a discouragement ( I know lot of listeners left the site for this reason).
Thanks once again for explaining your perspective, the idea is to get more perspectives so that system can be improved
@prashpal84
you are welcome to pm me anytime if you have questions
@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.
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!
@AffyAvo
Regarding reviews, I personally never ask for reviews, its upto my members to decide whether they want to review me or not. I personally dont like to influence my members to write reviews (because I feel as a human tendency, listeners will only ask for a review after good chats & then we get more biased reviews). I also have one forum post on this topic but that I have shared on listener side, I am not sure whether you can access that (https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerLearningJourney_149/ListenerResourcesMockChatGuides_2381/AskingforReviewsFeedbackvsleavingtomemberstodecidewhethertheywanttoleavereview_257386/)
Once again I am sorry, if you feel hurt by my post. Its more for inviting different perspectives, & I am not trying to set any new rules for the community(neither I have that power).
@prashpal84 :)
Thanks for tagging and sharing it with me.
I completely agree with you on this Prash .
We are here to help other's as we are volunteer's and we do our part with whole dedication and we make sure we follow all rules properly.
It's not a compitition where we have to win the race , no not at all but we are hear to care for members:) and also for our fellow listeners friends :)
Because we stand with each other at times when we are in real need of help for each other after an awful chat .
Thanks for coming up with this form post ☺️
Thanks Parsh :)
All the best 👍
Exactly, I agree with you @lovelyWaterfall2170. I feel that listener and members are both here to seek and give emotional support and stand firm with one another in times of need. I personally have blocked many members due to their behaviour or overall demeanor not being able to meet my expectations and I feel that blocking a listener or member shall be taken into consideration rather than reporting them because reporting will perhaps keep them from joining the community back again and some other person who might get along well with them will not be able to access chat with them. Many listeners have members connected to them since a long time and they all kind of have a relationship with them and some member promptly reporting the listener instead of just ignoring or blocking them based upon the experience they had with that particular listener consequently results in the relation of that listener and their former members getting ruined leading those members to have an emotional setback. I really think we should all as a matter of fact need to think on this.
@prashpal84I really agree with your other post.
I think members should be encouraged to leave reviews though, but just across the board, not in relation to specific chats. Ideally, the portion of reviews for good, ok, mediocre, bad and really awful chats would accurately reflect the number of chats for each of those quality levels.
As it is though, ratings tend to have a bias towards great and awful. So when someone doesn't have the best experience, but it wasn't awful I don't think we should discourage them from giving a review.
Plus as mentioned above, having the constructive feedback can help a listener improve. Sure, it can be given directly in the chat, but then the listener needs to take the initiative to seek out what to do next. If they get negative feedback via a review, there's the opportunity for someone else to reach out to them to help them with their skills.
@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
@FighterArpi:)
Hi agree with you @Fighter Arpi on this
We do receive mails but nothing is mentioned in it.
I have members requesting me to share for personal information we can't give... On that some member say other listener give so what's the problem with you. Is that considered to my fault. Some member ask for linkden link ,insta link and we don't give they say everything and anything to us so we have to just ignore and these are ones who complaint against us for no reason. . I am not comfortable with intimate chats so I say no to them as i am not comfortable so kindly let me know where am i wrong and what proffessionalism need to be followed more from my end so that the necessary step would be taken by me. Apart from all these things we are not getting heard how many screenshots should we save on daily basis.
I completely agree with you and parsh on this.
Thanks
@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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
@amazingNutella24
Thanks for reply & thanks for giving honest views. As rightly pointed by you, my thought behind writing this post is to invite more & more perspective both from members & listeners, so that we all can be little more sensitive in using block option & the 7cups team can use this thread as feedbacks to improve the current system.
I wanted to post this since long time, not related to my personal concern (Luckily I have received only 1 coaching mail in almost 2 years as listener here.. haha), but most of the times this concern is being raise in LSR & I am sure even members will be feeling the same at times. So this is just opportunity to members & listeners to come together to understand both sides of the story.
@amazingNutella24
👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
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). 🌸🙏🏻
Hi, @peacefulpisces. I am so sorry if you've had such an experience! Absolutely and please definitely report someone right away if that is behavior you are witnessing. Your safety and comfort is paramount. 7 Cups is meant as a confidential safe space for all and we take it very seriously. Thank you for sharing this important observation and I hope your experience with listeners is not typical of what you just described. Again, you are incredibly important and your confidentiality is paramount.