Room Announcement

@AffyAvo Here

https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupSupport_168/LorrainesLounge_1969/RoomupdateFollowup_211732/

Listening .... One Step At A Time

@AffyAvo i was already room supporter on a popup room, so it will not be change for me. the rooms will open when mods are in the room and then the room supporters will can help in there. just that the rooms that are currently 24/7 will become popups.

@AffyAvo exactly! it gives away from the focus to take away the categorized rooms. it will only create more overwhelm and anxiety if there are one or two larger chats where everyone is discussing random topics. the chats will get flooded and not everybody's concerns will be tended to or given support.

@MistyMagic Thanks for sharing that.

Unpaid people should not be needing to do that though. This was planned, Thinking Space just disappeared without any announcement and no one would say anything about it for over 24 hours other than "we are investigating".

The least that could be done was a proof read before posting such a major change.

@AffyAvo we will look into the issue with that badge- but agree we should add the criteria. Will add shortly, thank you!

@AffyAvo Hey Affy! Good question.

Listener badges: Tick Tock ("for reaching reaching ten 1-on-1 chats"), 5 positive chats (this is a new badge)

Member badges: 7 day streak ("for completing a step on the Growth path for 7 consecutive days"), Hopeful heart (I assume it's reaching that cheer level).

All this info has been taken from the FAQ on badges and cheers (member one here and listener one here)

@AffyAvo *helpful heart. Apologies for the typo. 50 compassion hearts so you should def have it.

(Tazzie replaced badge description )

@SparkyGizmo

oops, 5 people helped

@SparkyGizmo Well, if you'd ever need a positive review, I am active in leaving reviews when I believe a chat was good :)! So we can have a chat (perhaps next week, this week I am a bit hectic and a bit of a handful I'd admit)

@warmheartedTurtle6662

This update does not affect 1-on-1's

@warmheartedTurtle6662

seems to be so at least for now turt. Hugs miss you hun

@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.

@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.

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

@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.

@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.

@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)

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

@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.

@Gyda

Not sure if this is catastrophic thinking, big picture thinking or simply thinking of things in terms of Newtons first law of energy, I think it was. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. I wonder if the member rooms are compressed from 7 to 2, and already this was the only place for members to interact with one another, if members will consider just becoming listeners now even if they never were interested in that before, or rushing to become a listener before they are ready?

If that happens, we will be a community comprised of a lot more listener activity than member activity. People may rush to become a listener if they don't quite feel comfortable in that role. I imagine that is one way to reduce member wait time, as the grs list might not have an opportunity to become flooded. I imagine in my silly thinking 50 dogs fighting over one bone. Just being silly there.

I have to wonder if 7 cups will quickly come on to that activity and remove pms between listener to listener. Either way we have only 2 listener rooms as it is. I wonder if we will see a bottle neck there, way too much activity for one or two rooms to handle. Again, silly thoughts. I envision a restaurant where the fire Marshall always comes in and determines how many people are allowed in at one time, based on the code for safety reasons. I wonder if now the rooms will end up having a waiting list like the grs. If people will become overly focused on that as opposed to staying in a chat with their members?

But maybe none of this will happen or maybe these things have been thought of already and there will be even more plans rolling out soon to mitigate this? Sounds like an adventure to me.