Room Announcement

@warmheartedTurtle6662

oh hun. Im so so sorry for your loss. I understand cant be triggered right now. Youre in my thoughts. I wish I could help and give you a tight hug

@lilmango

💜💜

@warmheartedTurtle6662

oh hun. Im so so sorry for your loss. I understand cant be triggered right now. Youre in my thoughts. I wish I could help and give you a tight hug

@warmheartedTurtle6662 hun sending love and hugs for the loss of your mum and miss you too!

So, whats the grand vision? Obviously there is a roll out of a new strategy. I very well understand that running a freemium business model is challenging. As a user I have often felt like some of the data shown to back up the decisions has seemed biased towards quite fundamental confirmation bias. That said I wish you the very best. Its not like the global challenges of mental suffering are decreasing. Anything that can help even a portion of the people is alas needed.

On a personal note Im disappointed. Group support has been a fundamental part of me having a handle on my portion of the suffering. Currently however Im sceptical how the change can support me in the future. That nevertheless is my concer, not yours. Im very avare of that.

Sigh...

@lilmango Well said. I am also disappointed and I do not like the way this is being told to the community, I have such admiration for @GlenM. I want to support and trust his decision yet I am torn as a five year supporter of the community. This is a community is it not? I feel unheard and uncared for. I am worried this is a proposition to increase the amount of therapy paid listening which is unfairly priced imho. I will get backlash but I am not a robot. I have a lot to say. I may be leaving the community now and I am sure I will only be missed by regular members and one on ones. There has never been enough protection to listeners and I feel this was the biggest issue. Also since things have been changing over the last few months I was scolded by the new head of safety and I am offended. I have been working diligently on protecting a few of my regulars and this is the thanks I get. Glen I will do whatever to support you because you have done the same when I approached you years ago but the community has given me more strife since 2017 and I am upset.

@UnderTheTableAndDreaming I am with you on there's no support at all for the Listeners. I have (and still am) dealing with a stalker here who has targeted more people than I care to list.....when I complain, I get victim-blamed. I get told to ignore him or stay away from forums he's in, despite he's been following me around - not to mention told I must have encouraged it! All this from the people in charge here - those who cared to even respond to the issue and didn't literally ignore it. So the forums are basically off-limits then.....so my last santuary was the feed, which they took away. So the listeners are definitely not being heard and PTB have chosen to turn this site from a helpful place into a cash-grab.

@Dawn04 and @UnderTheTableAndDreaming

I'm sorry to hear there has been issues with supporting listeners. Im aware that there are issues on 1-on-1 chats going on and dealing with them. Please know listeners are immensely important!

Currently Im mostly worried about the sites ability to support group based peer support that forms tight bond communities. And to be more precise, varying communities. We find home when enough of our kind is around. Im not sure how thats possible with 2 rooms. And we will see how long the mods last to keep the other rooms open. Modding burns out people, thats a real sad truth. And Im sceptical of enforcing same expression requirements for each room (like for example now its encouraged not to trigger censor, I mean whats the censor for then?). People are different, I dont think the update with the number of chat rooms open 24/7 is really endorsing that.

all I can suspect is that chat rooms dont do well in conversion into money. They probably dont even close to break even Id assume. But, if that is the case, I would appreciate honesty. Everyone should understand that every organization needs money to run. Pats on the back wont get the bread on the table.

@lilmango Truth becomes the site wouldn't cost that much to maintain - the domain name, some server space, and some IT people to keep it running. I think the problem is too many people are now being paid too much for their job position and they would rather make more money than keep the site helping people. It's quite a sad day today is to realize this.

@Dawn04 PM me anytime. Im concerned about your stalker as I have had many complaints from my regulars. Feel free to reach out to me via PM, anytime. We little people should stick together. For it is WE who are the building blocks of this Freemium App. They can toss us aside but love always wins! *Under his eye 👁

@lilmango Hey there! Firstly thank you for being open minded about this. While this is tough and will take some adjusting, the plan is to increase safety. The plan is not to get rid of the feature but strengthen it. When a member enters a chat room, they should be confident that it will be safe and supportive. This is what we hope to achieve here. It will take some time to settle in but we are hoping to see an increase in positive experiences when topic based rooms are open. Hope this makes sense.

@Lorraine234

Lorraine, I get what you are going for. And I understand why it may be what is necessary here. I don

@GlenM

"Our goal is to focus on emotional support." Is it the reality or is the focus on sponsors/money only? Its understandable that you need to cut the finances but please dont lie. The truth would be appreciated by the community much more.

@LovingSparkle I have to agree - it seems anything free that people liked is being cut.

@Dawn04

True, however what Im the most disappointed about that 7cups head always lies, that they never tell the real cause

@LovingSparkle Everything they are cutting recently is stuff anyone will any basic knowledge of web design knows cost nothing - like the feed.

@LovingSparkle Hi there! Yes, the focu is on emotional support. Many times as im sure having spent time in the rooms you know, these chats can derail and become messy. We are focusing on the support portion of this experience. When a user enters a room they should know it will be a safe supportive atmosphere for them to share and be able to get support. Thats the aim with the changes.

@Lorraine234

Hun, why are you telling me that? Before the whole thing, I was a Room Supporter. I know what I talk about. On the adult side, the rooms were already over filled. Now the problem is at its worst with the new change.

@LovingSparkle Just reitterating on the reason for the change. We need the rooms to be safe. I'm here if you need to talk.

@Lorraine234 I'm not sure if that aim will work because the most popular room was the Depression support room and you can't get a word in edgewise there, as people are talking about anything other than depression and making lude remarks. If we have 2 chats won't they fill up and become a mess?

@fearlessWriter78 *lewd remarks

@fearlessWriter78 I think you just highlghted a fantastic point above. When members would enter a chatroom they could never be sure what to expect. With this change, we hope to get to a point where if a member sees that a topic based room like depression is open, they can go in and know for sure it will be safe and supportive. With the badge locks, we are hoping to also weed out anyone who is not here for the right reasons. This will lead to more positive experiences in group support as a whole. The idea is not to only ever have two rooms, but for our mod team to open other rooms and allow members a safe space to chat and get the support they came for.

@Lorraine234 Thanks for your response and explanation

@fearlessWriter78 No problem at all. I know this is difficult. My PMs are open if you ever need a chat.

@Lorraine234

And what are the "right reasons"?

I am on the app right now needing support but guess what? There's no support to be found. How is that supportive?! Mental illness doesn't follow a schedule!

*something bad happens to someone, and they need support*

*checks the time* "well I guess I'll just put everything on pause"

@LovingSparkle I think what they meant by focusing on emotional support is that the more number of rooms they have open, the more rooms are unsupervised. They can only get so many people to moderate the rooms 24*7 and some rooms get really messy when it's unsupervised.

I see you've also mentioned how the adult rooms are overflowing, I think it's only a certain few rooms though. A lot of them are mostly empty.

I guess what they're expecting out of this change is that if they can bring everyone into two rooms which are moderated, it'll be easier to filter malicious people and the people who do need support will be able to reach out without entering a room that says "depression support" but once you enter its nothing less than a huge mess. It can be a huge set off and maybe this change will help address the same.

@Hapish

You sound quite reasonable. But they could offer a compomise that more listeners volunteer as mods. Or they could be more clear/honest about their intentions, reasons and goals.

@LovingSparkle I guess so but again they're only "volunteers" and they can't be forced to follow strict schedules to maintain moderation all the time. I know this is a big change and it must not be easy for a lot of people to take it all in at once ❤️

I personally like it since I've been around in the adult rooms and sometimes they're either dead or there's an active room like DS which is filled with trolls and mods just have to leave it alone because they can't spend all their energy and time in trying to get a room to calm down when they'll only start back up as soon as the mod leaves. Previously CC, now DS.

Hoping this change is a good one!

@Hapish

I agree here now that Ive read more about it. 👍 I tend to prefer the forums as opposed to the chatrooms because Im afraid about the chatrooms being a cesspool when theyre not adequately supervised 😱

@Hapish Actually it will be harder as the more people the faster the chat and a lot of msgs will be missed and then the Mod will have to scroll back to see why some members are upset, therefore, missing more upsetting posts.

@caringPanda45 True!

@caringPanda45 These 24/7 rooms will be moderated and we hope that our teams will open other rooms and that they will not be as fast as we might think.

@LovingSparkle I remember when there was only 1-3 rooms open, they were well moderated, a safe place, and possible to get some support.
since there is a lot of rooms, its unmoderaterd, there is a lot of trouble makers switching rooms when mods join, and coming back when the mods leave. lot of cliques.
This change IS needed, so we can make our rooms SAFE and supportive again. with mods who will make sure the focus on rooms are what they are designed for, either light chat for distract our minds, or support focussed on support and not interumpted by people talking about politic only.
the other rooms will still open, but only when moderated, offering a safe environment, I hope this change will encourage listeners room supporter to work toward moderator role, and encourage the mods and support teams to open the rooms more often, offering an environment where the topic of the room is respected, and where we are not being pushed away by cliques who want talk about other thing that the topic of rooms and not giving you space to actually seek support about specific topic.
I really think this update is positive even if i know for sure it will create a lot of frustration in those there "for talking with friends", there are many other sites appropriate for just chat with friends on different topics, including IRC (internet relay chat)

@GlenM

thank you for caring about people glen and paying attention when you didnt have to yes there is a lot of abusive behavior in the chatrooms yes in every chatroom there should be a moderator at all times and one impartial your doing the right thing there is so much peer pressure to accept bullying dont be apart of it dont allow it its ok <3

@jennysunrise8 Thank you for your opinion and support here. I appreciate you.

Oh god, I don't even know what to say about this. There are so many people using member rooms to just talk to eachother and seek support through that. Some people including myself are not really comfortable connecting to Listeners.

I do not understand where the idea of compressing the entire population of 7c room users into 2 rooms came from, I understand change is needed but this is ambitious.

@Gyda Hey there. I agree there are many people who use the room to build connections. Our hope is that we dont loose that and that we can work together with volunteers to make sure the rooms are open enough for that to still happen. I know its a big change and a lot to take in. Here is you need to talk.

@Lorraine234

with just two 24/7 rooms its impossible

@Lorraine234 One thing 7cups needs to fix is it's "calendar" which is never completely up to date. I want to attend chats but either they don't happen, or there's a chat that suddenly pops up and it's not on the calendar, like communities have their own list of chats they're doing but it's not on the calendar. Also depression is a major issue for people, including myself - why is there no longer a depression support chat in the calendar?

@fearlessWriter78 the community runs off volunteer run activities so there can be if people volunteer to run them. We hope that our teams will do that and yes, the calendar was wiped because it was out of date and we are readding our events