Feature Update: Adding your forum posts to your profile
A common request we receive is to make it easier to find your own forum posts. So soon we will be adding your historical forum posts to your profile. This is already live for listener profiles on the website (e.g. click on my profile above to see my historical posts) and will be made live for member profiles in the coming days too.
When listeners try to support a member, its helpful for them to know more context about the member. Likewise, when a member is receiving support from a listener, its helpful to know more about that listener.
Thats why profile pages are some of the most popular parts of the site. Adding your historical posts to your profile makes it one step easier for all users to get better context and understanding. Right now if you're looking for a user's forum posts, you have to use forum search - a slower and more cumbersome way to find the context you need to help someone.
I hope this update will make just a little bit easier to connect with someone else and provide/receive support.
@Jon7Cups
Definitely a perk in establishing stronger connections. Thank you for all the hardwork and dedication to making 7 Cups a better place.
@Jon7Cups
Well-said and uber cool update, thank youuu, Team!🥳
Speaking of the forum search tool being a cumbersome way of finding forum threads, we can all agree there, specially since at the moment, it's also kinda not-easy to locate the search tool (currently, speaking, for the mobile browser; Im not sure if it's more visible for PC/ web version), I'm wondering if it could be possible to put the search tool in a more visible place, like it earlier (1.0) was in the drop-down menu when we click on our profile picture, I think it was "my forum threads"?
Or even if it could be relocated to the top of the screen on the forum-homepage like it was earlier (2.0), prior to the current-update, would be pretty helpful.
At the moment, it appears when you scroll to the bottom of a post/ the forum-home page (at least on the mobile browser), which for me, if I wasn't Sun-the-explorer, would've never found on my own.😅
As always, thank you (entire tech team) for continually being the glue that holds our community together, if it wasn't for y'alls consistent efforts and effective problem-solving attitude, we'd be missing out on so much. Much gratitude for each one of you! ❤
@Sunisshiningandsoareyou If the screen is wide enough, the search box becomes visible in the right column.
@Jon7Cups : will there be an option to disable that? My profile is clean, and I like it that way.
Btw. my first thought was that this change provides a great tool for making stalking more efficient ... :-/
Would be nice if it were turn-off-able... or movable to the private side.
@cloudySummer I agree with the above.
@Jon7Cups I think members should be able to readily delete their own posts and their replies to posts without having to ask someone to delete those for them.
@Jon7Cups Looking at my settings, I just saw again that the part about the user photo showing an actual picture of the person is still in.
"Please choose a head shot (picture of your face) ..."
Could that be removed, please, so people are not tempted to share private, deanonymizing info in the form of a photo? I think even the guidelines say that you're not supposed to share private info. This contradicts the upload description as well as is much safer for people.
For listeners, I think it is not as critical as for members - they are not supposed to share their mental health issues on the site.
Or, an even better idea, instead of removal, would be to invert it. So it would then ask users to not use a photo of their face that could be deanonymized by face recognitio software
@cloudySummer
Photos (even fake) might also promote harassment, particularly for some gender and age groups.
@HealingTalk You're right! I hadn't thought of that, but it's true. I don't know what the prompt says on the teen side, but I guess there it would be especially important to give instructions that protect the kids.
@cloudySummer
I know even adult Listeners who were harassed for showing their photo portraits. They had to change their username and use a drawing instead. Then the harassment ceased.
@Jon7Cups
I don't want people seeing my forum posts or finding them through my profile
@ALeXaNdEr0712
@Jon7Cups
Thats a good point. A lot of us like to have more “hidden” forum threads that are more-less a venting area that not a ton of people are aware of/have easy access too. I’m not all that comfortable with just anyone having immediate easy access to my thread. It’s one of those things that people would more than likely not otherwise look for but when it’s right in front of your face you’re gonna have the urge to take a look at it.
Maybe this could be an optional feature? At least for members since they tend to be more vulnerable in their threads. Kind of like how we can turn off a listeners ability to PM us, we could have a choice to turn off our threads being displayed right on our profiles? That way for those that are excited about this idea, they can have it turned on. But for those of us who prefer to keep our threads more to ourselves or to the select few we’ve invited into them we can turn this off.
Is that something that would be possible? To be honest, what I don’t share with a listener is none of that listeners business. They don’t need access to my thread to be able to support me. It feels quite invasive for those of us who are open, honest and vulnerable in our threads but not as much elsewhere on the site.
@Mack agreed <3 an option to disable or opt out of this feature would be cool
@jon7cups or could it be possible to be able to feature upto 3 or 5 posts on profile if one wants to? as i sometimes also make posts that im okay with more people to see and reply to 😃
so not all threads are visible easily to everyone but only a few that members are comfy sharing with the larger group of the community and they can change which threads they want to be shown on their profile or if they want it to be empty instead 😊
@Mack You are right in that a listener does not need to read your posts to be able to support you. But, please be aware that as soon as you post on the site that post is public and searchable to anyone on 7 Cups and in some instances anyone on the web. That is why it is so important for anonymity to be paramount.
I have long wanted people to be aware of the possible implications of using their real picture. https://www.7cups.com/forum/safe7cups/IVSafetyResourcesEvents_1059/ProfilePicson7CupsStayingSafeOnline_192636/
Listening - One Step At A Time!
i like this addition!
@Jon7Cups
I find it useful and nice. It helps to complete the purpose of the Profile ("Who is this person?") with some available samples of what they have been doing recently.
I understand some won't like it. For example, many members use "private" forum threads to communicate with each other, as they can't do it by PM. Or to journaling. So for them making it optional would be great.
By the way, I can't see in Members' profiles the "Group support chats" number that's important to know for certain roles, and also complements the stats on forum activity, to know where they are most active (This stat is shown in Listeners' profiles).
And there is some redundancy, I think between two stats shown in Member profiles: "Forum upvotes" and "Current upvotes".
@HealingTalk
Member stats shouldn't be there at all.
@Myosotis17
Hi Myo!
I am ok with that.
I like to know time in Cups and activity level to "calibrate" my answers, but it's not necessary at all.
Some stats are important for admittance to roles and further overseeing. But there might be a way to make available that data only to those involved, the "need to know" principle. And inform the member about that.
In any case, all their stats should be visible to each member in some way. "Group chats" which I mentioned is currently not.
@Jon7Cups
Making it easier to find your own forum posts is a different thing from putting them on profile where everyone has easy access to them.
To people asking for an easy way to find their own forum posts... finding posts from a user is already too easy:
https://www.7cups.com/forum/search/?screenname=Jon7Cups
(you just have to change screename to the one you wish to search)
Forums are not safe at all.
Forum posts are public, no need to have an account to see the forums.
Profiles are public too, no need to have an account to see them.
And now you even want to add list of forum posts to profiles?!
I also think that users should be able to readily delete their own posts and their replies to posts without having to ask someone to delete those for them.
Safety and anonymity and being able to have control on personal information are important things that 7cups is neglecting more often than not, which is disappointing.
@Mytosis17
I agree with all of this. Kinda crazy you have to wait sometimes days for things to be deleted off of your own thread. I don’t understand why we aren’t able to edit and/or delete our own posts. And just like what what mentioned above- not all forum threads are created with the intention of literally the whole community being an active part of it. For me, my two threads each serve a very specific purpose. One is a way to stay in touch with teen friends when a I aged up. That one is more whatever for people to find but not everyone will understand every single thing said there as a lot of things are very specific to the friendships we built before I had aged up. But my personal thread is my only safe space on this site. I don’t want any random member of listener to have easy access to just click on it and read things I don’t just go around sharing with everyone on cups. We take a risk of random people seeing it in forums but a lot of the time they would literally have to be looking for it or somehow be wondering deep into forums to stumble on it.
Now it’s going to be right there for any and everyone to find. Members, listeners, and yes, even non users of the site. It is extremely simple to find your own threads. And extremely simple to find any thread if you know what you are looking for. This isn’t going to scale up support but rather scale up the uncomfortable and uneasy feelings of sharing on cups. It’s opening a window to even more bullying and harassment. It’s eliminating the autonomy and privacy we have with our threads.
As I’ve said before, some people may love having their threads on one place on their profile. That’s awesome for them. Not all of us like or feel safe and comfortable with the idea though. I am genuinely interested in if it is a possibility to turn the option to have them listed in your profile off. Because honestly, if not, I can see a lot of people deleting their threads and not feeling safe enough to continue to use that space to share.
@Jon7cups
It seems updates are being made without discussing them with users. Just like it happened with other updates, the message on the dashboard does not even ask for users' opinion, it is just an announcement:
Feature Update: Forum Posts on Profiles
@Myosotis17
I agree with you wholeheartedly.
@Myosotis17 Thanks for reviewing the post and sharing your thoughts. I can appreciate that its not a change you are keen on. As you point out, 7 Cups is an anonymous support site. Its something we take seriously - and that is why we encourage the community to use anonymous usernames and profile pictures. It is also a support site, so we need to provide some context for users to help each other. Publicly posted content on the site feels like an appropriate amount of context to include.
And, yes, this part of the site is a public internet forum. Users that are comfortable posting in a public internet forum should continue to do so. But we also know many users don't want to share things publicly, which is why we provide private 1-1 chats with listeners (and therapists), group chats (where the messages are deleted after a period of time), a private journal feature on your profile and also a notes feature. If you don't feel comfortable using the public forum part of the site (which is totally understandable), hopefully some of these other features can be useful.
@Jon7Cups
It seems like everyone else’s feedback has been completely disregarded. Nobody needs context we don’t give them to support us. As I said, what I don’t directly tell a listener is not that listeners businesses.
I’m not sure why feedback that has a common theme from several users is always disregarded though. Especially when I tried to suggest a pretty good compromise.
Just because it’s publicly posted did not mean anyone could just easily stumble upon it at any point during the day. There are so many threads and posts that someone’s small little journal entries thread typically is not right there for everyone to go view. It takes searching for- and knowing what you are searching for. But now everyone will be able to find our threads. I share stuff in my personal thread that I do not share in group chats or PMs with a listener. I think you are unaware of the lack of support one is able to get in either of those spaces. The reason I prefer to use my thread is because my support system on cups has subscribed to it and that’s where I am able to get that support. And as someone who aged up just a few months ago, most of my support system/friends are on teen side. How do you suppose I can chat 1-1 with them or chat to them in group chats? I can’t.
I think if you guys would try to put yourselves in the shoes of some of us members you would be more open to the feedback we are giving. This is supposed to be a feedback based community and so far several of us have been ignored for giving feedback on this issue.
@Mack
that’s so true tbh. agreed 100%
@Mack @Myosotis17 @cloudysummer @Jon7cups
@Jon7Cups Additional note:
" and that is why we encourage the community to use anonymous usernames and profile pictures"
is NOT TRUE.
The community is still encouraged to - quoting from my settings page - "Please choose a head shot (picture of your face), ..." .
How can you claim the opposite, especially as I've just told you about the issue in my post above?
@Jon7Cups
Thank you for replying to me, but please do not disregard what other users said. As I'm not the only one who is not keen on this change.
I believe users concerns and suggestions must be considered. Instead of just pushing forward updates without checking in with users first.
I do not see many efforts being made towards ensuring anonimity and safety and other members agree too.
Another example is how 7cups keeps using google forms for forms and surveys.
I feel like some things that me and other users keep pointing out keep being ignored.
And at some point you end up running out of energy to keep giving feedback that goes unheard.
@Jon7Cups
BTW I don't use the forums for support because they proved unsafe. I also had other members talk bad of me in the forums. And in forums (just like in some group chats) there are favoritisms. I won't go into details, but I ended up asking to have all my forum posts deleted, and I stopped using the forums for things related to support, I only reply to things related to site updates and similar. Being unable to delete our own forum posts is not acceptable, really. I will surely ask to have all my forum posts deleted again.
@Jon7Cups totally awesome!
@Jon7Cups
Hi, Jon!
I wonder how one can get to see one's own profile as seen by others? What I get through my picture seems to have changed. Yes, I can get to my settings, but that page is not what I am talking about.
Also, it often happens that I need to send the same message to several members (for instance, I won't be there as usual the next day). It would be great if I could just write it in and the peeps talking with me would get a notification.
The next thing is totally off-topic but does "Sorry! Wrong chat!" means anything to anyone? It has happened many times that I forgot to hit "send" when talking to some one and move on to another chat and send to that second user what I intended for the first one. I wish there was a notification that would prevent that.
Thanks for any reply and your help always
Oooh @Fradiga the idea of having a live status as you suggest is a great one. We'll look into whether its possible to do that.
And yes profile pages were updated a few weeks ago. If you click on your own picture or name you will see your profile page. The only difference between the version you see vs what others see is that the private section is hidden and only visible to you. Unfortunately its impossible for us to know that what you're typing in a chat is meant for a different chat!
@Jon7Cups
Thank you for your answer!
About the "Sorry! Wrong chat" : I hope at least you understand the problem I was pointing to. When It happens, it's mostly because I did not realize I had switched to someone's else's chat window before I hit "Send". It does not happen too often though.