Increasing Positive Connections and Decreasing Negative Connections
We have limitations to what we are doing here. 7 Cups is never going to be perfect. As you all know, 7 Cups is a process of trying things, failing, trying new things, figuring them out, and then making progress. Remarkably, this trial and error process has led us quite far. Im really proud of what weve accomplished. Weve supported millions of people and have undoubtedly made this world a better place.
Constructive and supportive feedback have helped us get to where we are now. We are very open to and thankful for constructive criticism. Weve written extensively about how helpful feedback can be an we also differentiated between process and content.
On that post I wrote:
To begin, when surfacing a problem and providing feedback – think about it in terms of the content and the process. The content is how you describe the problem or concern. Think of this as an objective description of the situation. The process is how you describe it or the tone you make. Think of this as the emotional piece of the description. Is it stated in a warm and helpful manner? Is it stated in a goading manner? Is it stated in an angry manner? (these are all process points).
As a society, we dont really pay attention to process very much. We dont really look at how relational dynamics unfold. If someone subtly insults you, it is kind of breaking the rules to say – ‘hey, that just hurt my feelings (this would be a process comment) Instead, the expected behavior is to just kind of accept it, feel hurt, and then maybe share it with someone else later.
As a result, we are often not very aware of the process that occurs in our relationships. This is even harder in an online venue.
However, as a community, we can make HUGE amounts of progress if we pay attention to our process when we collectively problem solve. It could actually end up being our secret weapon.
Here is one quick way to think about this:
1. Identify the problem or concern.
2. Write it out.
3. Ensure youre not framing any personal opinions as concrete facts, making blanket statements or catastrophizing.
4. Ask what are the emotions that Im evoking with this feedback?
5. Ask yourself – how would I feel if someone wrote this to me?
6. If you feel good about it, then post it. If you dont feel good about it, then revise it so that you would feel good about it.
Examples:
✕ The rain sucks. Everyone hates it and we are all going to get flooded.
✔ I dont like it when it rains. I am worried it might flood.
✕ Nobody ever listens to me and its pointless for any of us to say anything.
✔ I feel like people arent hearing what Im saying and I find that frustrating.
We are going to require people practice these respectful rules when posting moving forward. Think of our forum/community a little bit like a party. You might have 100 people at the party. If 1 person is being loud, negative, and insulting, then they can ruin the party for everybody else. That is what we want to avoid here.
Weve been getting reports that some posts are negatively impacting others. If we were in a real life group setting, then wed simply take the person aside, hear them, and problem solve with them. Because we are on the Web and not in real life we need a different model.
The first step is to ask everyone to follow the above process. If not, and a person posts an insulting, overly negative or harmful post, then well delete it and then email you directly to discuss.
I also wrote quite a bit about harmful people in Chapter 6 of the book. You can find it here.
How do you determine if you should let a person into your peer group?
People have their own weather systems. They bring their weather into your world. If your disposition is normally sunny and 70, yet every time Stacy comes around it become dark and rainy, then know the gray clouds have nothing to do with you. They are coming from Stacy. When you meet a new person, simply allow yourself to get a feel for their weather. If you like it, then let them into your network. If you dont like it, then dont let them in. Dont increase the size of that persons circle by spending more time with them.
We have also spelled out much of this in our community guidelines.
All of this leads us to where we are now. Recently, weve been hearing more ‘feedback that is really just meant to inflame things. These types of inflammatory processes use up valuable resources in ways that are not actually effective, because the people engaging in them do not really want to make 7 cups better.
On the member side, we started removing people who really were not there to get help, but instead just wanted to harass others. The environment immediately became much healthier. We are now transitioning this approach to the listener side. If you find yourself being gratuitously negative or inflammatory, we invite you to reflect on whether or not it is time for you to move on from 7 cups. 7 Cups welcomes anyone, but you have to want to be here. Ask yourself if the things you don't like about 7 Cups outweigh the benefits. If you don't like what you get here, it's harming yourself, and damaging to the community, for you to stay.
For our part, we will let you know if we believe you are being toxic. We will approach you after we have staff consensus that it would be better to have you move on. Well ask you to self-correct. If you cannot self-correct, and the behaviors become damaging to yourself and 7 Cups, then well ask you to leave the community.
Specifically, this process will look like this:
Alert you that one of your posts is not inline with these guidelines, delete it and ask you to reframe it in the appropriate way.
If you are unable, we will ask you to take a 2 week self-care break.
If this process repeats itself, we will ask you to step away from the community.
The vast majority - 99.9% of people - do not behave in this way. In fact, many people are actually quite happy with 7 Cups and we are delighted with 99.9% of you! Recent survey data is captured here and suggests 93% of listeners enjoy listening to members and 80% of members feel 7 Cups has helped them. The loud few would have you believe that things are much more negative. We are no longer in a position where we can continue to invest so heavily in so few. It is not good for them and it is not good for our community.
It is time for us to close this chapter. Lets turn to a new page, start a new chapter, and get back to fulfilling our mission.
Onward and upward!
@Anomalia
Thank you for sharing this and giving ME a gentla reminder. I like supporting the members, idk I cant really explain it. Just makes me feel really good and keeps me in perspective
I'm going to start this off by saying, disclaimer: I don't know much of what's going on in the listener community, especially the adult side. 
I don't know all the dialogue going on about these problems or recent events, apparently there have been people leaving.
Personally, I feel there is a lot that is 'wrong' with 7 Cups, or with more 'positive' wording, a lot that could be better. Honestly one of the most puzzling aspects, at least to me, is whether 7 Cups operates on a business model or a democratic model. I don't mean economically or anything, but whether the chain of command is meant to be followed, with different rights and responsibilities given to different tiers of the hierachy, or whether all voices in the community are truly given a voice.
I don't espouse either as bad or good. But right now, I feel like there's been a muddling, with an attempt to crush together a 'top down' and a 'bottoms up' model into one, ineffectively. I think the issue with saying all suggestions/etc. are taken into account, is that people are expecting immediate results, possibly in line with what they feel the majority/best option is. But realistically, that's not actually happening. People in different positions, especially 'higher' up, *do* have more authority, and more ability to bring about change, especially in practical details like the site UI and far-reaching projects such as AL 1/2/training. Not every suggestion can actually be used, and because of that pick and choose, I imagine there are people who are frustrated that changes which they felt were important weren't implemented, especially if that change seemed to have been passed over multiple times. From what I see, there are a few selected people, not all, who *are* choosing what the next option is, what step 7 Cups should take next, as they believe is best, and I think trying to complete remove all traces of an "us vs them" idea is impossible for that reason. Of course that idea shouldn't be used as a basis for hostility, but systematically, it is undeniably there. It is even *necessary* as times, but I hope that that is not something that is either misrepresented or misunderstood. Eg. On the newspaper staff, it could be possible for the editors and writers to work together really well and trust each other wholeheartedly, but that doesn't mean there isn't an inherent disproportion of different powers and responsibilities.
Also, some issues I find notable, as in I've seen them brought up ever since I first joined, are better listener training (for how listeners should deal with abusive/difficult chats, then listener quality, and now for self care) and a need for listeners to focus less on: reviews/compassion hearts/cheers/projects. I think it's funny really, how some issues simply persist, even if in a different form. Because of how persistant they are, I don't think it's anybody's fault, or any one person/group/aspect of this site. I know in the past measures have been taken to try and solve those problems (the initiative to connect all new listeners with mentors, limiting the maximum daily amount of compassion hearts received from an individual to 10 to try and decrease competition, the new pop-up when 500 messages have been sent, etc. though how effective they are is of course unclear). But what I think is the most important take-away from that is these problems cannot be immediately solved and cannot be solved by only tackling it from one direction, and it is unrealistic to expect or say that could happen. Eg. I believe the 500-messages pop up could be helpful in reminding listeners to practice self care, but that certainly does't mean all listeners will take a break, for many, many varied reasons. Only addressing the problem of lack of self care from one angle won't result in the most effective results.
Here're my thoughts. <3 I think they're completely neutral, not positive or negative. Tbh, I think that's what we should aim for. I hope that we can all openly acknowledge the complexity of situations arising on 7 Cups, especially when 7 Cups is such a human site. One of our goals, apparently, is to create a safe haven. That's really unprecedented, especially on such a large scale. Businesses can work well on a large scale because authority and a chain of command is established, and emotions and personal feelings and the messy side of human nature can be mostly ignored. That can't be done here. Everything's not always going to be nice or going well or all happy. That doesn't happen anywhere else anyway, but in a place where people feel like they have a personal stake in the game, and there are high expectations and personal desires for the direction of this site being brought in? I don't think it's really surprising that people have been upset, even if it's sometimes expressed inappropriately. XD It doesn't make it right, necessarily, but I think it's understandable, and furthermore think that few people are only out to lash out without any thoughts of making things better.
I hope we'll all be firm where needed, but only take drastic action where Intent to hurt exists. I hope likewise that we will have a goal to head towards, because I've noticed we have a bunch of different initiatives and ideas and problems to be solved going on, and personally I feel everyone's scattered in every direction. Personally, I have not seen a true unity in the 7 Cups community, and I think that's not because the energy isn't there, but because the goal is confused.
I personally remain on 7 Cups for the members. I've always thought that was the point of being a listener. I know that people can fit into different roles on here, which should theoretically all help bring us closer to the ideal. But at this point, what really is 7 Cups's goal?
I like @GlenM 's 5 Principles of 7 Cups. I do think though that some ideas have been floating around a lot for a long time, about a worldwide haven of compassion, etc. but I personally am not sure what that means, practically. I'm also not sure how many people see 7 Cups as so. I admittedly don't, not in its current stage. I think it's come a good way, but also has a long way to go to reach anything resembling the ideal.
Which only makes it more complicated, when I wonder what 7 Cups's ideal is, not any single person's, but the entire community's. I wouldn't be able to answer it. I think it's almost silly, but definitely concerning, if there isn't a clear answer to such a basic question. Again, it's not an answer from one person or a few, but an answer from the entire community involved.
I'd love to know the answer. Maybe it's just me, but I don't see it. I'd hope we could all come together to decide on one.
@GlenM
psssst Glen rolling down memory lane. So how is "your tree" doing? I see it thriving, growing, producing all kinds of fruit from the leaders and community. 
Hmmm...Godwin's Law in action, perhaps 
Still, the point is a good one. Simply sounding positive is not enough. I've been thinking maybe a degree of radical acceptance would be useful, rather than an obsessive need to understand. If acceptence is conditional on understanding, then when understanding fails (which is not too serious) acceptance also fails (which is much more serious).
@Staths