Charlie's notebook

@RarelyCharlie Looking for your keys under the lamppost because the light's better.

I do this a lot.

@frigidstars27

Well said. As I and others have said before, if we are not meant to handle emergency cases (what is our baseline strategy?-thank you, @RarelyCharlie), then a better, more compassionate and efficient system needs to be in place to help people that need immediate attention to find it elsewhere. That way, we can toss the General Request queue (great idea, Stars!) and create a more robust Listener selection for visitors to EASILY browse.

@quietCloud22

I guess the only major problem with removing GR queues will be that members will not be able to find online liseners easily, especially when we alreay have a deficiency of listeners (both experienced/verified and noobies).

The Browse Listeners Page wil need t be overhauled to compensate for that. If a reverse sstem is created, where members choose amongst random online listeners with more of their bio visible, then the personal request response rte also becomes meaningless.

I believe that most of our issues can be solved by actually training listeners, not simply with smallfour pahge guides, but with better mock chats and guides that are more also give ideas about how to use our knowledge of active listening skills. (i personally liked the peer trainings, but there could always be improvment). We need more mentors to do that on a bigger scale. Bad listeners are worse than no listeners.

I beleive that we should keep AL1 (which even i haven't cared to pass yet 😅) or similar tests as the actual requirment to be able to listen to members. Maybe we could have the therapists take sessions on active listening, various mental illnesses and other chat topics or other things that are relevant to us as listeners? Maybe they could train the mentors, or host a discussion in a room once a month or something.

I'm not sure what kepps this website moving forward (if at all) but it is only our listeners with the one-on-one chats that keep this place afloat.

Also good analysis @frigidstars27 . I did not expect any better from them. Nice laughs though.

I enjoyed this short fable, especially as we have just had an election here in the UK, and the shouting has not yet subsided:

Cities & Belief: Goreme

The city of Goreme hides a terrible secret. At first, innocent visitor, you will admire the old bridge over the river, the colorful graffiti on alley walls, and the flags waving prettily in the public square. You will be impressed and humbled by how passionate and well-informed the locals are...

Charlie

Supporting listeners

In theory a listener should use their member account if they need to chat about a personal difficulty. This goes back at least to March 2014, when GlenM wrote about Listener and Member Roles:

...if a listener is in their listener role, then they should not be looking for member level type support from other listeners. If I'm listening and I'm going through a hard time I don't want to lean on other listeners from within my listener role. For example, let's sa[y] I'm a listener and I'm struggling with depression. I don't want to message other listeners from my listener account and say 'hey, I'm really struggling right now can you help me out?' Similarly, I don't want to PM other listeners or post in the forum in this manner, because it isn't helpful to me individually or the community.

This turns up again in the Listener Community Guide:

What is my role as an active listener?

As a listener, you are primarily here to support those in need, be that in 1 on 1 chats, chatrooms, or the forums. However, you are a member of the community first and foremost, and you have the right to seek support too, by logging onto a member account.

New listeners keep messaging me, usually when I'm offline, and sometimes in the middle of the night, expecting to be able to chat about some personal difficulty. Glen's imaginary opening line, "Hey, I'm really struggling right now can you help me out?" is pretty typical. Also typical is just one word, like "Hello."

What makes this complicated is that I don't think the site is well designed around this rule. I can imagine someone coming to 7 Cups for the first time to get support, and they want to know how it all works before they get into a chat, so they take the listener training. 20 minutes later they're a listener, but they have no way of knowing that the account they created just 25 minutes ago cannot now be used to get support. Becoming a listener has locked them out, and they need to make a new account.

Also, I don't really care who I chat to about what.

And worst, I don't agree with the fiction that people can be, or should be, divided into the needy and the supportive. In real life all of us have our difficulties, and all of us can be supportive to other people.

But I can see the sense in maintaining a boundary between the roles. A member should be able to trust that any listener they chat to will actually listen without being distracted by their own difficulties.

I think I'll try to enforce this boundary better in future.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

Sorry, I'm a little thick sometimes. When you talk about "enforcing boundaries", are you specifically talking about listener-to-listener boundaries? Does that mean if a listener asks you for help, will you ask them to log out of their listener account and log into their member account before you chat with them? Or are you thinking about getting a member account for yourself?

Happy New Year, by the way!

@quietCloud22 Yes, listener-to-listener boundaries specifically.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie @quietCloud22

🌟。♥。😉。🍀

。🎁 。🎉。🌟

✨。＼｜／。🌺

Happy New Year!

💜。／｜＼。💎

。☀。 🌹。🌙。

🌟。 😍。 🎶

Happy New Year!!!

Charlie

How about have a Zappy New Year!

Zap the bad thoughts and allow the good thoughts and deeds.

@RarelyCharlie

If you like to post something and get people's impressions on it, does that make you a post-impressionist?

@quietCloud22 I am unsure about this. I think perhaps it is the people who give their impressions of posts who are the post-impressionists. Or maybe they are the impressionists, and people who come along later and comment on the impressions are the post-impressionists.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

A most impressive comment. Maybe because it makes the most of the words "impression" and "impressionists".

:D

Red pill

Towards the end of last year I noticed some posts in the forum that I thought revealed how very differently different people think about 7 Cups.

Finding old posts is so difficult I'm pretty sure one of them has been removed, but I kept a copy of the text. The other one was in a long thread and I just can't find it now. Both were by people explaining why they were leaving 7 Cups, although the one whose post was removed doesn't seem to have left after all.

7 Cups' red pill, it seems to me, is when people realize (to paraphrase the way one person put it) that the hugs aren't real. Making relationships in the special environment of 7 Cups doesn't provide you with relationships in the real world. If you're not careful, it can starve you of hugs in the real world.

Even when listening is done right (which seems relatively rare), and even when a chatroom is working well (which also seems relatively rare), 7 Cups insists on a barrier of make-believe between us all.

If make-believe is OK with you, for a virtual cuddle you can use my Cuddle Button and type the name anon as your 7 Cups user name. (Only one cuddle per person, please.) For a real cuddle...well...7 Cups doesn't allow that.

I think this is why 7 Cups can never really hope to address real-world issues like loneliness and "deaths of despair". There was a time when 7 Cups' was all about the world, but it seems that never really worked and 7 Cups has become all about this little bubble of 7 Cups' own community.

I hope that maybe one day we can have the confidence to make 7 Cups about the world again, and that, perhaps far in the future, we can find a way to make the hugs real. Other online communities do.

Charlie

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie The lack of connection to the real world is one of the reasons I've cut back severely on my use of 7cups. (Another is that I had clearly gotten addicted to it.)

@RarelyCharlie

Absolutely agreed. There seemed like a fundamental shift in how the site worked a few years ago, and it was not a good one

@RarelyCharlie

Strongly agree, hopefully an ethical, safe and 100% informed way could be introduced for this to be implemented

@RarelyCharlie Yes, correct. The bubble effect. Cult-ish almost.

Blue pill

7 Cups' blue pill, it seems to me, is when people start to think 7 Cups is more real than the real world.

This came as a surprise to me, learning that some members and listeners use 7 Cups to role-play virtual families, giving each other nicknames like "sis", "mom" and "grandma".

The announcement, or warning, about this a week or so ago was followed up within a couple of hours by a listener offering to be an "older sister" to any members who feel they need that service, despite their profile saying they are not available to chat to new members. I suppose that means they only do the older sister thing in the rooms.

This seems to me to be closely related to the denial and distraction that 7 Cups for the Searching Soul warns against (although the days when that was written seem long ago).

I hope that virtual families and similar role-playing at 7 Cups continue to be resisted.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

(((Hugs)))

7cups was very helpful to me as a newcomer. Even chatting with an unskilled listener in the middle of the night was helpful, even though they hearted every single thing I said and supplied a visual inspirational poster in almost every answer, because at least I was prompted to write down my thoughts. Writing down one's thoughts is a proven way to become more mindful and organize one's thinking, so it was a START.

However, I've made the climb up the ladder and I'm stuck fearfully at the top of the slide. I feel like I need a little coaxing to let go and enjoy the slide down into the real world playground.

@quietCloud22 Looks like you took the slide - wishing you well in the real world! It has been nice reading about your thoughts.

@RarelyCharlie could you link the post please? Thanks. And happy new year.

@MistyMagic Hey! Misty! Happy New Year!

I regret I do not have the links to hand. And besides, the posts themselves are not the point.

Charlie

Chatroom access

Although I don't use chatrooms (not at 7 Cups, anyway) I find the recent changes slightly weird.

A new member who wants access to chat rooms has to do five things. I've estimated how long they might take:

Verify their e-mail address (5 minutes)
Take the member oath (5 minutes)
Find a listener who is willing to chat (up to 30 minutes)
Have a 30-message chat (30 minutes)
Review the listener (5 minutes)

Total: 1 hour, give or take 15 minutes or so

A troll who has done this before and who has their own fake listener account to "chat" to can probably create a fake member account and jump through all the hoops in under 30 minutes.

With four more fake listener accounts a troll can get into the topic rooms after four more 30-message chats—maybe 10 minutes each.

So we have a system that will strongly discourage troubled people who have other things on their mind, but is relatively easy for trolls. What could possibly go wrong?

A better system might be to randomly assign every new member to a verified listener, and after a 30-message chat allow the assigned listener to invite the member to join a specific and relevant room. Trolls would still be able to game this process, but at least they wouldn't have an advantage over people genuinely seeking help.

Charlie

Sunday morning doodle

1. On Sunday morning I was bored, and I doodled what a better dialog for members blocking or reporting a listener might look like. You might already have seen this in the discussion thread about it.

Then I had a cup of coffee and I was still bored, so I made the doodle into a working prototype: Draft block dialog. That is almost certainly as far as the idea will go.

2. On Monday, for listeners only, a new system for getting immediate support during a chat was announced. This involves a complex offsite form that, I assume, ends up sending an e-mail to someone. It seems to me this is unlikely to work well. For genuinely immediate support a system would have to be integrated into listeners' user interface and connect the listener to a supporter onsite and in real time.

3. Only a week or so ago someone reminded me that the little coloured blobs that show a listener's current status (offline, busy, online) are difficult to make out. The red offline and orange busy symbols are particularly difficult, and for anyone who has the most common form of colour blindness the green online symbol is not much better.

Long ago, early 2016, I think, but now lost in the dim unsearchable mists of the forum, I actually coded a real solution to this, not just a doodle, and posted the code in a thread where it had been discussed. But it was never adopted by 7 Cups. The user interface was later redesigned behind the scenes at least twice without any solution to the status colours being implemented. Later there was a survey about a further redesign that never happened, and that still wouldn't have addressed the colour problem.

4. And now, today, a listener asked what the buttons at the top of a chat do. That's easy to answer, because they have labels (titles, technically) telling you what they do But on a mobile device you have to know that one tap just displays the label, and a second tap "presses" the button.

However, one of the buttons has no label. One tap "presses" it. I reported this in October 2016, and I got an acknowledgement, but no label was ever added.

Some structural problem deep within 7 Cups prevents it being responsive to the needs of its users, while changes that no one ever seems to have asked for get implemented. I feel this can only be a very bad sign for the long term.

Charlie

Write for the community

I was inspired, one might say, based on some things I have noticed recently, to set out some ideas about writing for the 7 Cups community: Write for the community

I am pessimistic about whether these kinds of things do much good, because they tend to be read only by the kind of people who don't need to read them, and vice versa.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

I dont think you are pessimistic about it, rather realistic. As it is almost always the case that those writings are only read by those who dont really need to read them... It is a common technique companies use - "politics of hugging". They try to take your frustration away, which might eventually hurt the companies image, by simulating an illusion as if they really care about your item of unsatisfaction.

@RarelyCharlie

Hi, really great read of suggestions for writing.in community.

This section 'Write for 7 Cups international audience' was intriguing, would like to add that medications may also be the same, but have a different name in other countries, causing confusion.

An example could be such as, tylenol available in USA, but in UK it would be paracetemol, similar over the counter painkillers.

Really interesting read though, and tons of great points for professional styles of writing for forum. Thanks for spending the time to create this document.

@friendlySea8328 Good point! Thank you

I added an example covering this.

Charlie

Get Together

In the January 2020 Community Update, Glen mentioned the book Get Together so I've been reading it. I'm only half way through at the time of writing. A lot of materials relating to the book can be found on its website: Get Together Book

The book is a sort of extended advertisement for a consultancy called People & Company, a small team that works with organizations to help them build communities. I've been finding the book clearly written and very positive, with plenty of examples. Too positive, really, because it gives the impression that no community ever has any serious problems.

Superficially, the book seems to be a good match for 7 Cups, but I've been noticing some things that don't match at all. I've come to the conclusion that it's difficult to see how the ideas in this book will apply at 7 Cups.

One big mismatch is that in the communities the book is concerned with there's some one thing that everyone actively does. Maybe it's playing basketball, singing, running, cooking or translating—there's some one activity that binds everyone in the community.

These communities are what have been known since the 1990's as communities of practice:

Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly.

But 7 Cups doesn't seem to have that one activity that binds the community. People at 7 Cups are here for many different reasons, doing different things. Even listeners are here for different reasons, doing different things.

Another big mismatch is what People & Company calls its manifesto:

Build your community with people, not for them

But 7 Cups has a tradition of hierarchical leadership roles, a listener/member split, and an admin/everyone-else split. So it seems to me that applying the ideas in this book to 7 Cups will be challenging.

I can imagine one of two things happening. Either this book will cause a radical and perhaps disruptive change in the way we think about what a community is and how it works at 7 Cups, or we'll ignore the core ideas in the book and just use it to suggest some lightweight tinkering.

Charlie

@rarelycharlie

Hey charlie, glad to see that you are utilizing the diary feature of the forum. Just going to ask that we are mindful of the community guidelines and forum guidelines in the links that we are posting. Hope you are having a good day. I have edited a few posts to make it so that it meets site guidelines.

@heather225

@Karrot Hey Karrot! I agree with you that we should be mindful of the community guidelines and forum guidelines.

Which guidelines, in particular, are you thinking of? Would it be possible for you to quote those guidelines here, for the sake of clarity?

@heather225

Charlie

@Karrot

Hi Karrot. I really like that you are being such an attentive forum mentor. You really do a lot for this community.

I do think you may have made a slight error editing my former post here. I am not meaning to be rude, but we are allowed to discuss medication names in the forum. Forum Guidelines Expanded, specifically Forum Guideline 6

It's totally okay though, we all can forget some of those forum rules sometimes. It can be helpful to say in edits which rule it is, so the member/listener is aware of why edit has been made. I really do like you as a forum mentor, and hope I have not upset you in anyway with this message.

@friendlySea8328 Why are you correcting someones guides they may of done it for more situations then you are aware of. You should be mindful of this and if you really have more to say maybe sometimes it is better to keep quiet in these situations

@Mediclife As this thread is my diary, I will say that in my personal experience keeping quiet in these situations is almost never the best thing to do.

Charlie

@friendlySea8328 I completely agree.

You may notice, however, that @Karrot is currently on a break and therefore might not be able to respond quickly.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

I think we understand hopefully by now that mistakes have been made, I understand this is your diary so maybe we can go back to people not interfering or attacking each other. No harm was intended and i hope that we can all move on from it

@Mediclife @RarelyCharlie @Karrot

Hi @Mediclife, I do get the feeling I have offened you there, it was not intended and I am sorry for that. You are right there, I don't know what is going on for anyone here in the community. I tried to maintain a respectful tone, but some words may not as come across as kind. It's great to see the teen community participating in these threads, and to grow to be such competent leaders. I do hope to see you here, or around in the forum somewhere again.

No harm wasn intended, and I am sorry if I offended yourself or @Karrot there.

Thanks @RarelyCharlie for alerting me to the fact that @Karrot is taking some self care. I had not been aware or that as had not checked their profile.

@friendlySea8328

Mistakes do occur and they have been resolved. Hope that you are well and this doesnt cause any hard feelings on either side.