A Proposal: Optimizing Room Supporter Participation
Hi everyone,
Our group support rooms are dynamic and stand on some pillars such as good quality support, safety and moderation. Every participant in the room plays an important role in keeping these places safe and supportive and our room leaders help facilitate the same and we are very thankful towards each of you for all that you do.
As we slowly roll into the new year, we have been thinking of how we could better support our rooms and from all the feedback we receive on a daily basis from our members, I have highlighted a suggestion that I think we could all work on together.
Feedback from members: They are unaware of when their preferred topic based support rooms are opened by room supporters and thus they are never able to participate in them.
So we are thinking of updating the requirements to maintain the role of ‘Room Supporter’ in a way which aligns better with what the community is asking for.
The current requirement to maintain the Room Supporter role is: 50 messages per month.
The new proposed requirement is: 1 hour per week which could be split into 2 sessions of 30 minutes or a complete hour of active participation in the rooms which will add up to 4 hours a month. We are aiming to have these slots scheduled beforehand as per your very own availability. These slots are aimed to be “Open Chats”, “Support Sessions”, & “Guided Discussions”.
The schedule dashboard will contain the name of the room, at what time and date it is scheduled to open and the name of the Room Supporter. All of you will be able to add your names to your preferred slots and this same dashboard will be available to all members so they have a better idea of when they will have access to their topic rooms. (Details of how and where it will be visible as a schedule yet to be decided upon.) The Schedule will refresh every week. Room Supporters are expected to take up individual hours, preferred if two people are not modding/supporting the same room at the same time and preferred if not more than 2 rooms are being opened at the same hour by an individual room supporter.
Since this new change will be affecting how you spend your time on site and the expectations from you in your role as a Room Supporter, we want all of you to provide us feedback and we’re looking forward to hearing your thoughts about this new plan. We also have some ideas for incentives for consistency in your role and we will be sharing more about those in our final announcement.
Some questions to get the discussion and feedback loop started:
1. How do you feel about this new structure and revised requirements?
2. How can we better support you in your role?
3. Do you have any suggestions you want to put forward about this new change?
4. Do you have any concerns or doubts about this new structure?
Taglist: Room Supporters: @anotherfrenchtoastmafiaa @Asi1 @awesomeHeart38 @CheeryPotato @Clara139175 @curiositycrayon @cuteOrange213 @DearDaphne @Destiny00 @Felikss220 @Fireskye13 @Gozzil @hopebeyondpain @JaimieF @Joe33 @JoyfulUnicorn @Kachidim @Kassy7cups @klemen @littlePapaya2167 @littlepony @LuLuRings @Magicallykermit58 @malena292 @MoonlightPrimrose @msteacups @MyNameIsNicole @NaomiR @PinkDahlia22 @positiveTurtles @Psychstudies13 @rhlvrma94 @SerenityAndDiscourse @Sher217 @shiningDay80 @shiningSound31 @Siripiri @SofiaT2000 @SoftKat @softMusic9759 @sophiasanae @sotdspec1 @spectacularSunrise7824 @StarlitSky4762 @Sydney113 @SyedaFiyaz @Textingpals @TheAtticusFinch @TheGoodFairy @TheResilientDancer @ToniJane @VerseArt @YoungMonastic007 @Yourstruly2000 @LightofWorld @Kaeky @dani3579 @shiningPuppy49 @Dinoprincess12 @BrightHeart116 @azuladragon34 @mirakel286 @she13 GSMLS: @kindsoul10 @brilliantturtle89 @alwayseli @wendybird15 @vickyP GSQMs: @Peaceloveandpaws @isha Admins: @hope @heather225 @asilentobserver
@Isha i like this change no doubts
1. How do you feel about this new structure and revised requirements?
I like the plan behind it.
2. How can we better support you in your role?
3. Do you have any suggestions you want to put forward about this new change?
4. Do you have any concerns or doubts about this new structure?
I'm not in one of these roles but I do have some suggestions.
- Give everyone with a pop up room role the doorkeeper badge. Responsibilities comes with priviledges. I've asked before but never got a response, what's the downside to giving out this badge?
- Make the minimum monthly, it gives a bit of wiggle room if things come up for someone for a few days. I don't think being busy for a few days unexpectedly should require a formal self-care break. The expecatation can be weekly
- Be flexible with scheduling. For those who can have a weekly schedule, awesome. Some people don't have a regular work schedule though, so they may only know their availability when a schedule comes out every week. Allow for scheduling day-of.
- Allow for some leeway with requirements. Hoping for 2 30 sessions/week? In a month, set the mimum to be something like 3.5 hours, where someone can miss one because life. Let people know that more than that is also encouraged though.
Related things:
- I'm seeing complaints about things running at the same time. Go ahead an check in with related groups, ie. 35+ did a session on panic attacks recently, makes sense to see if anxiety support is planning on running a support session at the same time. Multiple things can go on at the same time though. The group rooms used to be busy when many rooms were open often. If people see them open regularly again, they can rely on them being there and pick and choose based on what they need in the moment. Multiple sessions open at the same time shouldn't be thought of as competeing for members attention IMO, they should be though of as giving members choice as to what type of support they need most for that moment.
- Get a good calendar system in place. The one we have now isn't all that user friendly, and some features it does have aren't being used well. When I click on it, it takes me to the sessions for today. If I click the forward button (which I would expect would take me to tomorrow) I se the events scheduled for the 1st of the next month. Few use the adults/teens tags, although some do. If I try to see just the adult sessions, I only get a small number of them. If we are going to stick with tockify, have a system in place as to what the tags should be (I think adult/teen/forum are minimums, the subcommunity is a good idea to use as well).
- Make the calendar easier to see. There used to be a link when on the group support page, bring this back.
@Isha
1. How do you feel about this new structure and revised requirements?
I think it could be good thing, better standards, better leaders better community.
2. How can we better support you in your role?
Hmm idk really, I can't really think of anything rn.
3. Do you have any suggestions you want to put forward about this new change?
I've heard it said that it can be hard to get a room opened or closed,,how about letting us open the said room(s) perhaps give members the RS FS tags. I believe it would help us support the rooms better. Members could come to us for information on when a certain discussion is being held, or for a topic room to be opened..
4. Do you have any concerns or doubts about this new structure?
No not really..
@Isha
I understand the intent of this change. I'm an RS in a room that's open 24/7 so I don't usually deal with the issues of opening and closing rooms, but I understand that members are struggling to know when their rooms are open and that it would be good to have a better system and better coverage of that.
I'm actually wondering how this would affect rooms which are open 24/7?
I agree with many others that 4 hours a month or 1h a week is way too high of a requirement. I'd suggest 2 hours a month max, or even better 1. I genuinely think once "the dam" is broken more RS will voluntarily take on more time if they can. I think making the requirement too high will make it hard for many RS to maintain the role over a long time.
I'm also, as others have mentioned, a bit concerned about the scheduling. I get that the point is to make it more clear to members when their rooms are open, but I can imagine that it's hard for many people with irregular schedules to schedule a time and stick to it (in addition to possible other duties on 7cups, like scheduled 1-on-1s etc.).
In addition to that you mention it would be discouraged for two people to sign up to the same slots, which means scheduling might become less flexible as there are certain times that are frequented more by others (evenings in certain timezones, certain weekend times...).
Another thing I'm wondering is: What if there is very little to no activity in the time an RS has scheduled for themselves? Is the idea for them to just hang out in the room until the hour is over in that case, hoping somebody might come by?
I think the best compromise might be setting the requirement bar low (like 1 1h session or 2 30 minute sessions scheduled per month), but generally streamlining the process of opening and closing rooms and notifying members about open rooms? Other commenters have suggested improvements or alternatives too.
Generally I would love to see changes in the structure and maybe even requirements of the RS role, but maybe there are ways to focus on the voluntary and possible aspects of it more than the requirement aspects. Maybe in addition to the message/month bar there could be checkboxes to gamify reaching a certain number of discussions led or hours opening a room?
I'm interested to see how this develops, thank you so much for your hard work!
@Isha
I'm not sure that I fully understand what all this change entails so please bare with me as I try to understand. The following are just my thoughts based on my understanding.
Issue: Members can't find or are unaware when their favorite rooms will be open
(1) I thought that is what the Calendar was for? Although I must say that it is extremely difficult for me to find sessions on the calendar as it is now. My first suggestion would be to overhaul it to be more user friendly so members can find what day and time their group have sessions available.
(2) Am I understanding correctly that the RS would be responsible for getting a room open and hosting the session solo? (No 2nd RS or Mod at the same time)
(3) One of my Teams holds sessions 5 days a week and another team 2 days a week. I already have to fill out forms and / or spreadsheets for them. Are you saying there will be another to sign up for so members can see? This sounds like a lot of 'tracking paperwork'.
(4) I already commit to anywhere from 3 to 7 sessions a week, plus time to support or host in the SC & HH (when I can). I really don't think I could commit to another hour per week on a long term basis.
Again, this is a post that I'm watching closely to learn from and also to see how it all works out. As a relatively new RS, I have more than a few concerns. Please feel free to advise me regarding any of the above mentioned questions.
Thank you for posting this for discussion. I think it's wonderful that we've given the opportunity to offer comments and feedback.
I am confused by all of it
@Isha
"They are unaware of when their preferred topic based support rooms are opened by room supporters and thus they are never able to participate in them.
So we are thinking of updating the requirements to maintain the role of ‘Room Supporter’ in a way which aligns better with what the community is asking for."
I am sorry, but I don't understand how these two are related. I have been taught through leadership education to go for the source.
Is the problem really what room supporters do and how much time we spend here or is the problem rather lack of information and a site that is hard to navigate? If members can't find the rooms, how is that the responsebility if a room supporter has no ability to moderate rooms?
I don't mind changes, but if changes are made they should relate to the problem. Either I have misunderstood or I think there are other changes that are necessary to come to terms with the issue presented.
I am thankful you ask for feedback and I do hope you take this into consideration. I am here to support members with or without a badge. That is my maingoal- always.
I wanted to add a bit to this, while I stand by my first statement, I don't see how the proposed changes in how much time we spend in the rooms, is going to fix the problem of members not being notified of rooms opening..
