This is the room update feedback spot
Hi there-
If you have positive or critical feedback about last week's room change, this is the place to post it. We will respond to feedback and questions that are professional and kind as best we can and with the info we have.
As such, complaining or providing feedback in the rooms will no longer be acceptable. The rooms are for support and support programming and not about site feedback. This is also the forum area for feedback. Moving forward everyone will be directed here if you would like to discuss room updates.
The paid mods, the ambassadors, and anyone else in the community did not make this room decision. It is inappropriate and unfair to take out your frustrations on them. This room plan has been in the planning stages for most of the year. Many options and ideas were considered, many staff teams were involved. Based on the existing site and on the needs of the community (safety, focus on support, etc) this is the plan that was moved forward. Do not take your frustrations out on volunteers and on the mods.
To everyone who is accepting of this change thank you. We appreciate the messages and feedback of support. Especially from those who aren't sure about the change but are willing to give it a try.
And to those of you who are unhappy about it, we hear you. We know it was sudden and a large scale change. Please give it a chance knowing we are focused on improving the long term experiences here.
Enough from me, post your feedback below!
we kind of wish the basic non support community room was there for using things like games to help various people cope with things that anyone could just go in and host or just hold a friendly conversation as a mean to zone out.
@RevanentOfTriquetra
I hear you completely! Games, trivia etc are helpful ways of coping and good distractions as well. I really hope you get a chance to attend them when they are hosted in the rooms in the future.
I know every avenue of support has its own special place and value but I would like for you to get a similar experience if possible by joining in our >>Hobby Zone<<forums! This Sub-Community has a lot of fun and exciting forums. Many of our listeners and members participate in them. If you are comfortable with trying it out, please do join us! Thank you so much! 😀
@RevanentOfTriquetra I hear you for sure. We will be opening rooms for games and fun stuff to try and keep that option available. Give us some time to organize but the goal is to have more room activities in the pop up rooms and more often. Appreciate your feedback!
@RevanentOfTriquetra keep a look out for music therapy rooms i live DJ take requests for members using #1 coping method noty only does it get this is so fun comments but many feel uplifted after i have a taglist i use when im due to go live my taglist can be found on community projects and events subcomn find the music therapy subforum and its there along with my DJ Schedule
im live next november 17th 5-9pm ET
I have spent a lot of time in both MCR and Support Room 24/7 over the past couple of days and I must unfortunately say they aren't as supportive as the Admin team would have expected. What's even more worrying is the amount of arguments in this room, and sometimes the Community Moderators aren't present for up to 60 minutes, which spirals down the room into a negative pit.
I honestly believe two general rooms is not enough. Whilst I understand this was meant to increase supportiveness, people come from all backgrounds and other rooms and the atmosphere is, something I'd describe, as pretty negative and generally uncomfortable.
My two cents.
7CUPS STILL GAVE NO APPOLOGY
Percieving what we believe in is decieving and has no meaning as life's mistreating dishes out this beating leaving us bleeding but we cant see it if we close our minds and we cant think about this when we're blind, so walk away and you will find, a freind here waiting for a sign!
So take your time and organise whats on your mind and you'll find you're not really behind, so relax your eyes and realize you're fine, just the way you are. And you can reach for the stars, put cream on the scars, and healing transpires. The delusional parts only confuse our goals and corrupt our souls leaving us with a heart full of holes. Set goals now and your mind will see what closed eyes has failed to believe, don't let sight deceive keeping us on our knees; throwing logic into the breeze. Winds at your back excited, Winds of hope reignited me. Step by step confide so we can share secrets of life thinking "what could be" If we let it, if you hold back you'll regret it.
There, Now I've gone and said it!
We hold ourselves down; Dirty on the ground I've found myself tourmented and bound by invisibility. I've ignorged all possibility, so I must set myself free of a self-inflicted confined mystery.
We are all due an appology
As I see it, I believe advance notice was what we need
@humorousDay8793 hey there! Did you write that? I like it.
It was a really big change and with very little advance notice. I apologize personally for the confusion and frustration it inevitably created. As you know, normally we try to give plenty of notice and answer questions and discuss ahead of time, so this caught many off guard. The decision was made to "rip the bandaid off" and that is what we did. I am genuinely sorry for any frustration it caused.
@Jill7Cups I think it would help to hear the reason behind that decision.
@Jill7Cups
Thank you Jill,
I appreciate seeing your message this morning. I hope things are starting to work as planned, but please convey to the leaders its ok to "rip off the bandaid" sorta speak but when it's on my would; I'd like to be ready next time. What if they tore it off when I was driving and the surprise caused an accident?! I love 7cups as a place I've see and been part of healing magical conversations, so I know we need a place like this. I didnt find it until after 14 months of suffering, ER visits, crisis calls, and inpatient stays. But I'm happy to say, having found this site, I've been able to defeat anxiety and idiation is less frequent. I found purpose in helping first to be most helpful, then my taking over 500 chats in a three week span burned me out. Right now this self care break has given me a chance to process all those conversations positive points and it was a great place to come in as a member and find my voice again. Many wonderful people here have become my only support, so seeing them all in chaos was very difficult. Might I reccomend next time they should send advanced notice to everybody in a personal chat message so we dont miss the memo?
Thanks again for being a part of the solution!
Blessings, Reed
@humorousDay8793 appreciate your message and response. I personally would prefer we give more notice the next time we make a big change and will advocate for just that.
@Jill7Cups
Thank you so much for all of your efforts! Its comforting knowing you're looking out for us.
I will tell my cup buddies what you said. Have a great and blessed day
😊
Honestly, I'm pretty frustrated by it. Mostly because of how shaken everyone is, especially the members I have connected with from the rooms.
@wildghostmemories
I am sorry to hear that. If you would like to share more about how you are feeling, my PM's (Private Messages) are open to you for peer support. I know change can be uneasy and difficult , and can bring in frustration. I completely understand. Please reach out if you need to ❤️
@Tazzie I apprecite your reply, I don't need support on it but I would appreciate advance notice in the future for changes so myself and others can get used to it.
@Jill7Cups
I am shocked but have volunteered my free hours to keeping 35+ chtroom open as long as I can. I feel the Members that have stayed are thankful for myself Amiablepeace and CaringPanda to give our free time to be here for those in need.
We still maintain the chatroom rules, and ask that they be followed.
@pamharley003
Pam, Ive seen you and panda keep the room open. I want you to know it is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
@lilmango
We do this because We care about our Members and still want those who stayed to have a safe room.
@pamharley003 you Panda and ami have been phenomenal and are greatly appreciated!!!!!!
@pamharley003
Thank you, Pam. 
You and Panda are the good ones.
@pamharley003 I'm sad to see that this change has forced so much work on the people who already contribute so much.
@Jill7Cups
I find these latest moves (sudden leaving of community managers, sudden closing of chat rooms, sudden drop of feed that leaves no time for users to recover their data) to have been disorganized and not respecting members and listeners alike - while it could all have been planned and prepared, it forced people into reacting and working and appeasing others when they probably had other plans already, or were hoping to get their self-care time.
I would like to hear the reason for the lack of openness and public planning for these changes.
If they had been planned for almost a year - how come that it has apparently been forgotten to tell your users about it on time?
Additionally, I would like to ask why 7cups needs to use Google forms for asking their users things. Privacy-wise, this is one of the worst things one can do, Google can identify and associate the people with the user names on 7cups. Is it so difficult to set up some open source app for use for these?
@cloudySummer
I think your feedback on the rooms and other features is quite legitimate, but I do not think discussing Laura's departure is appropriate here. She is allowed to leave the community just like any other user or employee and is not required to transition out more slowly than anyone else. I miss her too, but her departure should not reflect beyond the fact that she wanted to leave.
Regardless, I know that change is difficult, especially when we haven't been able to prepare for it, and I'm proud of you for sharing your feedback here.
@MonBon Of course she is. It's all that secrecy around things here that bothers me so much. It leaves too much room for speculation, and in the end, it's undermining users' trust. Building a community without trust is not going to work, in the long term - at least if it's not all about sharing pictures from one's latest holidays.
@cloudySummer
I understand your point about secrecy <3 I just don't think Laura's departure should be considered when discussing that. I agree with you on trust. Trust is a hard thing to build, but an easy thing to break
@cloudySummer I understand where you are coming from. There have been a lot of changes lately. Laura chose to leave for her own reasons, and we all miss her dearly. I don't feel it my place to discuss, you should reach out to her directly if you want to discuss it further.
Totally agree about google forms and have been asking for on-site forms/surveys/docs etc since I started working here. They are also a pain on our end and I wish we had something better.
I'm sure it feels like secrecy on the user end, I get that. I think I would feel the same way if I was in your shoes. We often work in things for a long time before we present the idea to the community. Usually we are looking at data and testing things and trying to figure out what is best but it is always messy as our platform is frankly messy. Usually it starts with a goal and a simple idea- like hey we have a problem with rooms getting side-railed by off topic or inappropriate convos and multiple accounts what can we do? How about we have a room application system so we can add/remove people to ensure quality conversations and safety? No that would be impossible to build. Okay. How about we... etc etc etc. This is multiple teams (engineering, product, community, etc) trying to not only solve a problem but solve it given our existing site build and limitations. That can take months, as is the case with this. Everything also depends on engineering projects and what they have time for. Did I mention it is messy? Yeah. Sometimes we work on things for months and then decide it isn't in the community's best interest until xyz can be fixed, etc. That is why we try not to communicate too openly about things until we know it can move forward, imagine if we kept announcing these things that never happened. It would be really upsetting. Having said that, it would have been ideal to announce the room change earlier. It moved very fast. This is definitely unusual for us.
I hope that helps somewhat to provide some clarity?
@Jill7Cups The fact that there was no notice -- which you say is unusual for 7cups -- is one of the things that is making people complain about secrecy and speculate about reasons. It gives the impression of the software changes having been pushed through in a hurry, before the announcements and setup (like which badges were needed and a good description of their requirements) were ready.
@Jill7Cups Hi Jill, I sincerely thank you for this glimpse into what's going on. I hope you're doing okay.
I understand about messy code and technical debt. It's not an unusual thing, esp. in startups, as far as I have heard, and it's something that gets worse and harder to tackle with time.
I agree, it doesn't make sense to announce things that won't happen - I've had my fair share of that in other places, and can confirm that users feel betrayed when that happens. There is an option to communicate the uncertainty clearly, though - not useful in all cases, but sometimes, that makes sense to do.
There are a few places, where user involvement would work. Not all of these would make sense always, but considering them as options might be useful.
1. Before the decision is made, formulate the problem, and ask for help with brainstorming solutions. A larger pool of people may come up with more options. The more details you are able to give, the more fitting can the suggestions become.
2. When a couple options have been identified as being possible and doable solutions by the team, ask for feedback on those options - this doesn't mean that you've got to choose the option that is favored by the users, but you know what to expect, and people can familiarize themselves with the fact that something will indeed change.
3. When you've decided on one of the options, ask for things that need to be addressed before the change can go live. There are real specialists here among the users here who know every badge, and every corner of the site. Asking them for their help will make them feel heard, and will give you the opportunity of making small adjustments that can make a large difference.
Thank you again for being so open, this is a good change, in my view, and makes me feel heard and more involved.
@pamharley003 @Amiablepeace @CaringPanda thank you all for spending time in the room to keep it open, this is exactly what we hope our SC mods will do to offer moderated support sessions and open chats. I acknowledge it was a rough transition, I'm sorry for the unexpected stress and frustration.
@pamharley003 totally agree we are trying to do our best to help members in this transition and hope it doesn't fall on you more when i have to go back to work next week.
and @amicablepeace77
"This room plan has been in the planning stages for most of the year"
WHY WERE WE NOT ALL WARNED TO PREPARE FOR CHANGES?
@humorousDay8793 look at my response to cloud for insight on our process
@Jill7Cups
Hi, Where can i find it? This place is such an easter egg hunt. Might i suggest putting an actual from page messageboard on the sight for important memoes with a notification bell shown so EVERYBODY knows to look?
Please suggest this on the behalf of many ive discussed this with.
@humorousDay8793 it is a total easter egg hunt, I feel you! I swear I spend more time scrolling to find things than I do reading feedback and responding. If you scroll up from this post a bit, not too far maybe a dozen or two dozen posts (I'm guessing) you will see a wall of text from me.
Based on a lot of the comments I've seen from you I don't think it will satisfy you honestly, I know you are upset. But please know we are considering the constructive critisism and trying to figure out what options we have to try and maintain any safety objectives while also giving our people what they want and need. It is a process. But the very fast announcement to room change was not ideal, 100% acknowledge that.
@Jill7Cups
Hi Jill, Ive been reading and seeing how hard you're trying, and you took on the monumentious task.of trying to aswer everybodies questions, so im stepping back and having faith and I'm grateful that you are trying so hard to help us all.
Thank you so much for all you are doing on our behalf!!
My thoughts are already posted and just knowing you are trying is very comforting. I wont add anything else because you have quite a task ahead.
To sum up
1) A message page for important announcements with a notification bell so everybody gets it personally (in good advance) would be very rewarding in avoiding chaos.
2) A monitored suggestion box clearly marked for only that puepose could help all members pass on good ideas.
3) A demerit system so only tge offenders in the chatroom get punished; (such as a 24 hour ban for first offence, 3 days for second, 1 week third, and 1 month 4th, then 6 months)
Thanks very much Jill!!
@humorousDay8793
I agree with you Day. I was having a WTH moment when the announcement appeared regarding the changes/
@Jill7Cups
Excellent post Jill. 
I applaud the change(s), it was truly a long time coming, especially bringing back badge locking the rooms. I cringe though when I see a certain room pop up for an Open Discussion, and almost immediately, some of the same troublemakers that were in the old pre-change(s) room of that same moniker (room name) go into the room, and when the room is closed, go back into another specific room (still causing trouble of course).
Volunteer Mods and Community Mods need to be made much more aware of old and new troublemakers, and take swift action (mute and/or ban repeat offender/violators) as opposed to just posting a verbal warning to the troublemaker or a general reminder to everyone in the room, which most often, simply does not work, is ineffective, as is any sent out private warnings.
Here's to a vastly improved site with greatly increased safety, secuirty + protection for the marvelous 7 Cups community.
@BeautifulBreeze So what you're saying is that not only was the change highly disruptive, but it didn't actually solve the problem! That doesn't surprise me.
@stressBear
You said:
"So what you're saying is that not only was the change highly disruptive, but it didn't actually solve the problem!"
No, absolutely not. That is not what I said.
Granted, some (not I, as well as numerous others) here have found the change "disruptive" or abrupt, though It immediately solved a BIG problem with badge locking the rooms. This prevents those bad apples, who have had a distinct tendency to keep creating new [fake] Member accounts, from instantly going into the chat rooms with the sole purpose/intent to cause trouble. This will also prevent new bad apples from doing the same right out the gate.
The troublemakers that can currently access the chat rooms, as was [clearly] evident when a certain room popped up for an Open Discussion, and then when that chat room was closed, the troublemaker appeared in another related room and naturally disrupted the conversations(s) going on in there.
These specific individuals will need to be removed (as they are easily spotted/identified) from the site, and it is highly-doubtful that they will want to jump through hoops so-to-speak to gain access again to the chat rooms, only to do the same thing again, and then get removed (banned), having to start the process all over again. Not worth it for them. Too much of a hassle to go through.
I repeat, here's to a vastly improved site with greatly increased safety, security + protection for the marvelous 7 Cups community.
@BeautifulBreeze Thanks for the clarification -- I appear to have misread your post. Or just missed the part where you said that the returning troublemakers are being dealt with.
@stressBear
You're welcome. :)
No problem. I sometimes misread stuff here or even skip-read stuff, though never intentionally, lol.
Thanks for being a part of the 7 Cups community. Hope you have a great upcoming new year.
@stressBear
@beautifulbreeze
SOMETIMES EVEN THE BRAIN HAS A BREEZE (of sorts) lolz
Rooms will be open only when mods want to talk at you and when they have free time to open a room for an "open chat" under careful parental supervision. Because... Hey if you grow up emotionally and form scabs where your wounds were.. Who's gonna keep this site relevant ? Because guess what.. When there's authority of any sorts around.. People often dont speak their minds and arent comfortable speaking what they really want to say, because of how it may be perceived.. And all humans are biased..
Often times the healing is more painful than the wound.. Often times we have to tell ourselves uncomfortable truths in order to heal and accept our scars far in the future.. Even if it feels cruel to us at the moment of hearing them.
@SirJambabwe totally agree that healing is often more painful than the wound. But that doesn't give excuse for people of all stages of healing to be mistreated by those whose style of healing may come across abusive. Mods keep the rooms safe from this abuse and focus on all people feeling welcome versus a few.
@Jill7Cups Changes are often hard. I am used to one thing, I am seeing another, but I am open to that change.
I would propose that if 5 members or more are into having one of the pop up groups open for them, they should be given the chance, so long as there is a listener mod with them. There could be even temporary mods, made mods for that group for that occasion. I think this would help avoid unhelpful rooms (after the original 5 members leave the room, though, the room could be shut until other 5 ask for it to be opened), while keeping support. These groups could also have a limited number of people (maybe 7, 10 tops) to make it easier to follow.
And maybe a lessons learned log could be cute, to be accessible to those who want to use the room but can't, but that could benefit from those who could.
@DragonView2
This is actually the case. If a mod is able and willing to moderate an open chat, then a pop-up room can open.
@MonBon 1) The person has to be a mod, not just any listenee. I propose that any listener above certain level should be able to be a mod if the members request.
2) Who has to make the request for the room?
@DragonView2
1) I apologize for misunderstanding, you said: " so long as there is a listener mod with them " which is the case. If there is a listener mod (which by default, all mods are listeners) they can open the room. From your response I take it you are meaning normal listeners who are not mods? My response is I would encourage those listeners to become mods.
2) I think anyone can approach a mod. I am frequently asked to cohost discussions or open chats. Obviously it's down to the mod for the final call on whether they are able and willing to open the room and moderate. The only caveat I have here is that not everyone is a global mod, so not every mod will be able to mod every room, if that makes sense.
@MonBon some of us simple mortal listeners aren't into becoming mods, but are willing to do a group of people in need a favor. That's why I say "temporary mod", that is, one that isn't always a mod, but that can be made one ad hoc if no "real" mod is available.
@DragonView2 highly doubt 7cups going for listeners getting mod on n off like that all mods are required to meet requirements and be trained
With all the respect, but I think people gave A LOT OF feedback on those 2 official notification posts: the one about the major room change and the new message from Glen.
I feel like we would repeat ourselves if we typed everything again, so a good starting point would be reading everything that people wrote there and evaluate, but shortly: most people are extremely disappointed about the fact that we don;t; have the feed and most chat rooms anymore.Not having the feed and the chat rooms is a hugs step back, not matter what is said by those who implemented these changes.
@ImaginaryPainting You misunderstand my friend.. If this were a game of chess you arent even a pawn, but a dust particle under the chess board. Much like in the real world actually.
Why would theycare for the opinion of a few dust particles under the chess board ? They only care when they become so many that they are too visible to be ignored, too distracting to fake ignorance.
@ImaginaryPainting
Jill created this thread because people were derailing other threads and disrupting rooms. So now, any and all feedback must be directed here to keep other rooms and threads on topic.
