New Criteria Updates: Group Chats Easier To Access Now!
Hello everyone,
As you all know in Nov 2019, we introduced certain criteria to access group chatrooms. We badge-locked group chatrooms due to safety reasons and to ensure a supportive and friendly environment for the community members.
Over two years, group chats went through a lot of changes and improvements. We are grateful to all the members, listeners, and group support leaders who helped to maintain and sustain the safety and support levels and went above and beyond to increase them. Thank you to everyone.
I am excited to share that accessing rooms will be easier than ever now. We are making changes to the criteria to access rooms. We are keeping certain criteria to ensure to keep our rooms safe but it is lowered compared to earlier criteria. The new criteria to access member group chatrooms are as follows:
Only for Member Group Chats
- For Members: (Both Adults and Teens)
-
Tier 0 (Accessible by everyone)
- Rooms: Sharing Circle, Free Hugs, ASilentObserver Office, Support Session, Special Events
-
Tier 1 = Basic Chatrooms
- Rooms: Support Room 24/7, General Support, Member Community Room
-
Badges will be required: Either Chief Chat OR First Post OR Complete 10 path steps
- Chief Chat: for completing the first conversation 1-1
- First Post: for creating the first Forum Post
- Complete 10 path steps
-
Tier 2 = Topic Chatrooms
- All Topic Rooms (Anxiety, Depression, Trauma, LGBTQ+, Disability, Relationship, etc)
-
Badges will be required: Either Chief Chat or First Post + Compassion Hero badge.
- Chief Chat: for completing the first conversation 1-1
- First Post: for creating the first Forum Post
- Compassion Hero: for members who have successfully completed the group support compassion course https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScMEXP6lopKu4ZJAtmctmwk0vq9Fp7T892gWJteqmQoIJa_Dg/viewform
-
For Listeners in the Member Group Chat (Both Adults and Teens)
-
Tier 1 = Basic Chatrooms
- Sharing Circle, Support Room 24/7, General Support, Member Community Room
-
Badges Required: Refresher and Community 101
- Refresher: for updating active listening skills with a practice mock chat. https://www.7cups.com/listener/mockchat/
- Community 101: for learning about the 7 Cups community best practices & skills. https://www.7cups.com/listener-community-guide/
-
Tier 2 = Topic Chatrooms
- Topic Rooms like Anxiety, Depression, Relationship, LGBTQ+, Disability, etc
-
Badges Required: Refresher, Community 101, First Chat, and Listener Oath
- Listener Oath: for taking the 7 Cups of Tea Listener Oath. https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerLearningJourney_149/ChatSupportResources_61/ListenerOath_117/1/
- First Chat: for making it to one chat with a member
- Community 101: for learning about the 7 Cups community best practices & skills. https://www.7cups.com/listener-community-guide/
- Refresher: for updating active listening skills with a practice mock chat. https://www.7cups.com/listener/mockchat/
The changes are work-in-progress and will go live soon. I will let you know once the changes are rolled out. With all these changes, we are looking forward to providing better support and making group chatrooms accessible to everyone.
PS: All texts in blue color are hyperlinked and clickable!
@ASilentObserver
That would be wonderful Obs.
Once again, you truly go above and beyond, thank you <3
@FrenchMarbles Thank you Marbles <3 I appreciate and grateful to you for all you do to scale up the compassion and support in the chatrooms.
@ASilentObserver
Thankyou for sharing the update, Obzieee. It is nice how the community is always undergoing a change. ❤ and Yayyy communityyy!
It's wonderful to have this post to know what rooms are accessible by everyone, what requirements one needs to meet. Kind of like a one place for everything.
I do have a concern to share though, I feel the chatrooms like sharing circle room and special events room etc ~ that focus on script based sessions, that have a structure and some additional guidelines to follow whilst participating in them, shouldn't be accessible by everyone at first, the newbies I mean. Countless times I've come across new people entering the sharing circle room and causing interruptions in the sessions (hosts and mods do share the guidelines, and welcome them, give a mini explanation too) but sometimes it isn't very feasible, for instance when another member is already sharing and has to experience some interruption (we do expect basic level of patience and consideration, yes but not everyone sadly complies), and then feel discouraged, it is also not a great first time chatroom experience for someone new who feels lost and unattended.
Which is why, I would rather prefer the newbies to have a a different "first room" experience. Perhaps the support room247 could become accessible to everyone, or if possible, we can open another room for new members specially that could be the initial "meet&greet" spot, any com mods or volunteer mods/ listeners could drop the chatroom rules, member pack etc greetings for the member?
Looking forward to hear any thoughts on this. ❤
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou Good points! Sun. Thank you for sharing it.
But, the point to consider here is rooms like Support sessions or Special events are pop-up rooms and open only at selective times as per the sessions schedule. And, we believe as they are guided in nature, it would be a good experience for our new users to have. Because these sessions would not only provide them with certain information related to a topic but also allow them to participate in a structured and formal environment to gain support.
While sharing circle specifically allows users to take a turn to share and get heard which again may help our new users feel heard and comforted. Even based on the feedback we received, any new user who participates in sharing circles an average of 3 or more times, usually sticks around and feels better.
Because of all those main reasons, they are under Tier Zero Level.
However, we are working on something similar to your suggestion of Meet & Greet Room. It will be a welcome room and I will share more progress on this idea in a separate post.
I agree with @Sunisshiningandsoareyou about the interruptions in Sharing Circle but I understand your points @ASilentObserver. We always welcome newbies but it can be unfair taking time to explain the rules during the middle of a share.
I very much like the idea of a Meet and Greet type of room for tier 0, like a reception room to ask questions about how the site works and meet new people, to accompany the option of a structure room like SC.
@ASilentObserver
Coming here a bit late lol, but thanks Obziee, for addressing the thoughts and suggestions. It makes sense and I see y'all have a way to track participation, and assess the metrics involved, I however, still do feel it's person-to person observation, and experience here, could be (and is) different for people.
About the meet and greet room idea, any updates on that front?
Also some of what I was referring to, is shared by community members in these posts (just two of the many many voices, that all deserve to feel heard, I believe), one at a time hehe!
https://www.7cups.com/forum/NewbieHub_27/General_2418/Iwishtherewasanewbieschatroom_287722/
https://www.7cups.com/forum/NewbieHub_27/General_2418/Lonelyinthechatrooms_287409/
Really appreciate all the efforts being taken by community users to make the chatrooms a safe, supportive, welcoming space for everyone, and yes yes, long way ahead, we can always continue trying at it together. Go teammmmm! ❤
Everyone else who shared their thoughts, I really appreciate you. ❤
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou
While I agree it's tough in SC when new people come in, I feel that limiting access would only deter people from participating. I
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou I agree with this.
A guided discussion, I think it's easier to catch on.
With Sharing Circle I think it would be really easy to do a simple badge lock to a forum post about the guidelines/structure that people need to read first.
I am concerned a bit about the topic based rooms - I know some changes were done to the compassion course, what is the turn around like on getting that approved?
@ASilentObserver
I am happy to see these changes I think it will be less deterring for new members.
@SystemFireSkye I agree.
@ASilentObserver Thanks for updating us on these changes.
Hopefully, it will encourage more members coming into the rooms, for either helping others or for seeking support.
These changes were long over due, in my opinion.
Thanks for taking the time to read my opinion, on this matter.
It means a lot.
I know how busy you get at times.
@ASilentObserver
Thank you for the information, will have a detailed look at it. :)
@ASilentObserver I am a bit confused, I completed the refresher but never got the badge, and I think the chat rooms are still locked for me. Or are they only open on a rotational basis?
Hey @Kait, you do have the refresher badge on your profile (you can check on your impact page) and also meet the other requirements for unlocking chatrooms, as mentioned in this post.
Which rooms do you not see?
The topic focused rooms are indeed rotational, opening on specific days and/ or for some discussions/ open chats.
For the Group Support Rotation Schedule, click HERE.
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou I got my question answered in the chat room, thanks for your help!
Good morning, this is my first time sharing and I am looking forward to making healthy connections. Is this a good place to start?
@ASilentObserver so how would i join
Hi @Bazzust0, welcome to Cups.
You can visit the group chatrooms here: https://www.7cups.com/connect/groupChatrooms.php
@ASilentObserver
Bump!
@ASilentObserver very helpful <3 thanks!
