Addition of Community Service Model to Behavioral Points System

This is a great idea!

@disneymoonlight Thank you Disney <3

@ASilentObserver is it really helping more to improve? The feedback so general such "improve your professional levels" never gave enough informations for listeners be able to improve. As a mentor I struggle often to help listeners to understand where is their review from. And as someone who already received this kind of report, I never really been able to know what exactly I did wrong and have to improve. If you want people know what they can do for improving, then give more specific feedback. Thank you

@vivelespatates

Excellent! I have got report when I didn't know what was wrong. I also got report when the mod said I wrote this and that, I asked her to go back to read once more because I didn't write what she said, she never asked for apologize.

@vivelespatates I hear your concern, Vive. Thank you for thinking about the community and all your support. And, the good news is we were working on that front too, and moving forward will be sharing more details on it to provide a clear understanding of what needs to be improved.

I'm not opposed to this but I am confused about trialing something new when what already exists is very confusing and needs work.

We still don't have a set of rules all stated in one place.

When it comes to forum moderation, some capabilities were revoked without any information regarding that and when I asked about it my question wasn't answered while someone who asked a question hours after me had theirs answered.

Things are being handled in a backwards manner IMO. Instead of making it clear to members what can and cannot be done, community service is being implemented. This should only come afterwards. Also, we should have higher standards for listeners knowing the rules, not lower. Why is confidentiality for example 0 points, especially with the ability to reduce it? If we give listeners the grace of oops, didn't know, shouldn't we offer the same to members who are not trained when coming here?

In addition to have a one stop spot for guidelines/rules what is posted elsewhere should really be consistent. As an example, for rules relating to profiles we have:

Please choose a head shot (picture of your face), nature scene, art/symbol/image (i.e, Hope), or animal. Please do not include pictures of famous people, sexually suggestive pics, or cartoon pics. You must be fully clothed in your picture. The goal of the picture is to express warmth, compassion, and kindness. Images must be in JPG or PNG format and less than 5MB. Thank you!

Usernames - Using terms like 'Therapist' or 'Life Coach' ... in the user name are not allowed.

• Celebrity usernames ✔

• Celebrity photos - for listeners ✖

• Celebrity photos - for members ✔
• Cartoons ✔
  

(In the 4 points above, ✔ means allowed, all of those below is the opposite, they get flagged)

Listeners (usernames)-

• Saying they are a doctor, nurse, psychologist, counsellor or therapist etc. ✔

• Anything relating to drugs/alcohol ✔

• Celebrities ✖

  
  

  Members (usernames)

  • Anything about suicide ✔

  • Celebrities ✖

  
  

Listeners Bios

• Saying they are a doctor, nurse, psychologist, counsellor or therapist etc. ✔

  
  

Listener (Profile PIctures)

• Celebrities ✔

Member (Profile Pictures)

• Inappropriate cartoons ✔

• Celebrities ✖

  
  

I went to multiple places to get these and as a long term member I actually have to think this through about what the celebrity rules are for me. To be fair here, the points with the checks aren't meant for the average member using the site, but this is actually the only place where there is clear verification of what rules are being used for celebrity related things that I know of. Ditto for the suicide mentions, I knew that members cannot be currently in crisis but I had no idea that past crisis experiences for example can't be mentioned in bios.

We are said to have a service leadership model here:

"Traditional leadership generally involves the accumulation and exercise of power by one at the top of the pyramid. By comparison, the servant-leader shares power, puts the needs of others first and helps people develop and perform as highly as possible."

In many ways I think we do this well. Currently our guidelines don't, I think they are most confusing and difficult to find to the people we are meant to be serving. If members aren't understanding them I don't think the solution is to put the onus on them to educate themselves better, the onus is on us, 7 cups to offer them easy to access and understandable information. Right now some chatroom rules involve a forum hunt, that's not fair.

I do realize things are currently a work in progress. It seems odd to me though that we would implement something where members need to put in effort and learn to reduce behaviour points when they didn't even realize they did something wrong to begin with because the guidelines are a mishmash. I would much rather see effort being put into fixing the existing problems first, then we can trial new things.

I also find it odd we would treat similar violations differently. If one user does something in the chatrooms and someone else does the same in the forums, why do we allow one to be reduced and not the other?

Sorry for the multiple fonts, copying and pasting from multiple places isn't cleaning up nicely.

@AffyAvo Thank you for the support and sharing your feedback, Affy. It is helpful. We are always up to simplify the process in order to offer a better experience to our community. The team and I are discussing ways to consolidate and simplify it for the better. I could use all your help in making it possible. I will be reaching out to you for further discussion on it. Thank you for being thoughtful.

Thanks Obs! I know simplifying the piecemealed guidelines that have been implemented over time isn't a simple thing to do.

TL;DR Because yikes that is a big post.

Put the effort into fixing the guidelines and points system first. Add this in after, don't penalize people harsher based on where the same violation occurs on the site.

It sounds like it would be helpful to deal with toxic behavior that could impact negative on some people.

We have to remember that users are often vulnerable so I think protection and prevention would be better but this helps

The safety of people should come firsr.

I think this could be a way of protecting people from continuing to make not good decisions and affecting people they come into contact with directly.

We need to avoud situations where people can use a platform like this for reasons other then what it was intended for.

Empathy, compassion, understanding etc

@imaginativePear6493 Agreed with you, Pear. Providing a safe and supportive environment to share, listen and support is our priority. We will not be compromising the safety of our users but at the same time encouraging our people to take steps to improve their behavior. And, we are constantly striving to make our community better.

@ASilentObserver

That's what I got from this post. It's to help people to improve by giving them the chance to. If they are given the chance to and possibly shown how to improve it's for the better not just for them but for everyone it helps to prevent people from falling through the cracks but also protects the dignity and safety of users. I'd really like to see people work through it, because it is possible.

We need to be aware of what could happen good and bad

I agree with you totally on this one @silentobserver

@ASilentObserver

The fact that a whole bunch of my posts got deleted without warning, comment, notification, feedback or apology demonstrates otherwise.

Especially when the trigger didn't seem to be the insulting/demeaning comments directed towards me (which stayed up for a few days), but rather that I followed my Listener training (Let the member know you are uncomfortable and end the chat) as the posts got deleted within hours of me doing just that..

Everything needs context. Intentional or misunderstood or

@ASilentObserver That's a very thoughtful idea, thank you for the post.
How will repeated misdemeanor be taken into account? Especially if they repeat their behaviour despite reading the guides?
Also like @vivelespatates mentioned, would it be a better idea to provide more specific feedback so that the offenders know what exactly they did wrong so they won't repeat it?

@LavenderHere Thank you for the thoughts, Lav. Good questions. We will be keeping our people accountable for their all behavior and processed as per the behavioral point system. And, for the starters, we keeping the trial of this initiative limited for the group who received points in the range of 1-3.

And, we are working on providing specific feedback at the best of our abilities.

@ASilentObserver Thank you for your response and looking forward to the update

> All comments, thoughts, and feedback are welcome.

There is such a well known bias where people will prefer a solution they have invested in over a better solution, such an invitation at this point (i.e. at launch, after 100% of expected time/effort committed) seems like an empty one.

In case it's not, 7cups needs to prioritise making the rules knowable because they are currently not. I've seen people be told to "not use censored words" but when I ask the person who gave that instruction for the list of words that can't be used, they aren't even aware of such a list to provide. You must follow this instruction or you face punishment, but you can't actually reasonably follow it. Considering one of the censored words is ginger, a cooking ingredient (the context it is repeatedly discovered by people as a censored word in, including a Mod).. it's actually ridiculous.

I reckon I can get in trouble for breaking a "guideline" without actually breaking it, simply because the system is so broken..

@ListeningDoll Your thoughts are valid and much appreciated. I am glad you shared it with us.

@ListeningDoll

About a week ago, I had a 1-on-1 chat where my member got censored for using the word "ginger".

After we figured out what was happening, I used the Censor Updates form (listed on the 7CupsCommunity profile page) to request that this word be removed from the censor list. Hopefully it gets updated.

@ListeningDoll Ginger is censored because it's the name of a competitor in the online therapy and mental health support market. Just a few of our other competitors are also censored.

There are four lists of words, phrases and word patterns, censored in different ways in different contexts, and totalling maybe 3,000 words. The lists are not hard to find, but I don't think it's practical to memorize them.

I agree that the current system is broken. A solution would be to allow all messages to be sent, provide a filter to prevent the display of certain words and phrases, and provide an opt-out in Settings for experienced members and listeners who don't want the censorship.

Charlie

@RarelyCharlie

Thanks for context. That does seem unhelpful

Malicious, direct or indirectly, misguided, miscommunicated or repeated and negative

@imaginativePear6493 It should depend, but it doesn't and can't because of the way the censor works.

Hey obs can I pm you About this

@HopieRemi Sure Remi

Okay waiting for your reply @ASilentObserver <3

This seems like a good idea, in theory. The members who are genuinely working towards improving, will of course do better. However, If someone is going into the chat rooms intent on causing a disruption it's not going to matter to them about a point system or doing community service. The same applies for the forums. They will simply create a new account and return. Until there is some way to prevent repeat offenders from returning, I'm afraid that no amount of points or community service will help, but this is just my opinion. To grow a healthy plant you need to have a good "seed" to start with and not all "seeds" are good.

@mytwistedsoul I agree. This may help with people who really didn't understand something or just got caught up in something. Those who purposely come to troll or harass, no.

@AffyAvo

Hi can you explain what trolling is?

@imaginativePear6493 Acting in a way to purposely negatively disrupt the community.

@mytwistedsoul Thank you for your thoughts, Soul. I completely agree with you. And those who are not willing to improve, we will continue to process their behavior as per Behavioral Points System. I appreciate your presence and compassionate thoughts <3

"disobedience is caused by misunderstanding, confusion, inconsistency or lack of reinforcement, never by refusal to obey."

this update:
- doesn't remove the confusion : the listeners still don't know what improve, and there is still no clear rules or guidelines.
- it increase inconsistency : the offences in an area of site be treated differently.
- doesn't reduce the inconsistency present in the rules, neither in how mods and admins enforce differently rules
- renforcement : it only plays a bit here, but then, it renforce to do more, and not really an alternative behavior or what is done well. like if an user has no report at all in a long time or really make positive contribution to the site, it NEEDED to get behavior reports instead.

@imaginativePear6493 Yes, the Listeners take an oath.. and if you read it again, you might notice that it too is also "impossible to follow" as it makes you promise to do things you are actively told not to do..

It's actually such a impossible promise, I'd be extremely surprised if there are any Listeners that haven't broken it within 24 hours of making it.

@ListeningDoll

That is correct as far as I know. I'm not taking a shot at you or any listeners. my experiences have been varied but I respect you all for what you do. just wanted to point out the 7cups mission and values that would be the basis for conduct. It's a understanding we all should have.

The guidelines mite not be as clear as they could but if we stick to the core it should guide us in the way behave. Do no harm and help to the cause.

The more clarity we need the more new rules are needed to protect the integrity of the site.

This is all just my opinion and the end of the day and I'm still learning new stuff. I'm no expert

The emphasis should be promoting better health outcomes for all. We as users come here for help whether that be a better understanding or just to talk and have someone listen to us.

There's so much stigma and bad stuff about mental health out there that we should concentrate on making things better not worse what ever that looks like.

Are we making things better or worse?

How do we judge that? I think that's what your asking? But all I know that GlenM and 7cups is clear on it's values and mission so I guess what isn't clear is how that happens when it comes to rules

@imaginativePear6493

tl;dr: I agree with you. I am trying to get some broken things fixed, because them being broken is detrimental to achieving the stated goals of 7cups.

> just wanted to point out the 7cups mission and values that would be the basis for conduct. It's a understanding we all should have.

Agreed, and that is how it should be but 7cups isn't consistent with what it promotes as its mission and values so you can get a different idea what they are depending on what parts of it you engage with..

> The guidelines mite not be as clear as they could but if we stick to the core it should guide us in the way behave. Do no harm and help to the cause.

Thanks for proving my point that the "guidelines" are mis-named. If you act against guidelines, you get punished. That means they aren't guidelines, they are rules.

And making it even more funny, if a mod warns you but you us the app and not the web, you won't see the warning. You can quite literally end up in this system without doing anything wrong and not even knowing you were being perceived as doing anything wrong..

7cups doesn't even "do no harm" in itself and in several instances that I know of, acts in the same manner that abusers do or is otherwise triggering e.g. anxiety.

> The more clarity we need the more new rules are needed to protect the integrity of the site.

There is no point adding in more rules if the existing ones are already unfollowable..

> The emphasis should be promoting better health outcomes for all. We as users come here for help whether that be a better understanding or just to talk and have someone listen to us.

And I'm a Listener so I can contribute part of that help. I raise my objections to several of the things that happen here because I think they are actively detrimental towards that goal. I don't come here to be told off for trying to help or have 7cups engage in abusive behaviour towards me. Both of which happen.

> we should concentrate on making things better not worse what ever that looks like.
> Are we making things better or worse?

That's literally why I raised the points I did..? I'm not trying to make things worse, I'm trying to get some things fixed so that they work properly. Rules that you can't follow can't work as intended.

> But all I know that GlenM and 7cups is clear on it's values and mission so I guess what isn't clear is how that happens when it comes to rules

But they are not clear because they state conflicting values. You can't be clear what you want while by doing that.

@ListeningDoll

I guess what I was trying to say is that we know what is expected when we sign up and if some things need to change it should be for the better to help people without making easier for toxic stuff to happen which contributes a lot to stigma and bad mental health. Everyone deserves a chance to a better person emotionally, phisicaly etc

Be kind and compassionate towards others.

Don't engage in negative behavior

Be constructive with problem solving

Can you try to be a bit more positive about this maybe work together to find something that works. If you believe so strongly

@imaginativePear6493

> Be kind and compassionate towards others.
> Don't engage in negative behavior

A significant portion of what you've said to me has been insulting/demeaning, so feel free to start following these stated principles when you are ready.

I am not willing to engage in further conversation with you until you do.

@ListeningDoll

"if a mod warns you but you us the app and not the web, you won't see the warning" - if this is true, I agree that's a serious bug that needs to be reported HERE and fixed ASAP.

Re: the idea of having moderators drop the "don't use censored words" instruction, I would suggest using the site feedback form HERE. If you don't receive a response within a couple weeks, then PM Heather225 to ask about the status of your feedback.

I'm curious what inconsistencies you're seeing between the Community Guidelines, "Our Values" page, and Listener Oath.