7Cups Admin AMA's Responses

Hey Community!

On May 20, 2020, there was an Admin AMA Live but due to some technical difficulties, it didn't happen successfully. We switched to the chatroom to answer some of the questions community members asked. Here are the responses of Glen, CM Team, and Ambassador Team for the questions we received for Admin AMA. Thank you for asking the questions and giving us an opportunity to share our thoughts with you.

• What is your favorite thing about 7Cups?

Glen: Our people in our community. I love our people. Heather recently posted that we are like a city. I see us that way too. I see us as a city on the outskirts of other major cities. Some of us are different, some of us more sensitive, some more compassionate - all of us are gifted in different ways - and we have found one another - and we have created this city together; this beautiful place/a haven where we grow stronger and support one another. Im a LOTR fan and I think of 7 Cups like a virtual Rivendell. A city without people though is not really a city. Our people are what I love about 7 Cups. We collectively are 7 Cups.

• What inspired you to set up 7Cups?

Glen: A couple of things As many of you know, like many clinicians, I am also a wounded healer - meaning that Ive overcome some challenges in life and became a psychologist to learn how to better help others. Im also a tech entrepreneur and was thinking about how I could use what I learned in tech to better help people. Then one day my wife - who is a therapist - was talking to me and I felt better and I thought - everyone should have a compassionate person to talk to to help them! And that was when the main idea of 7 Cups started. What if, no matter where you were in the world, your financial status, or the language you speak - what if you could connect with another caring person to really listen. That was the start! And it has been an amazing journey with all of you from that point in early 2013 to present!

• What does an Ambassador do at 7cups?

PolarCat: An ambassador leads and oversees different projects within their track. They collaborate with mentor leaders and mentors regarding the project and how it can best benefit the community.

• How can you become a leader on 7cups?

PolarCat: Find an area you are passionate about and get involved. For me, that was quality so I found a Quality mentor and asked what my options were for becoming more involved and eventually found my place.

• For whoever thought of the idea of sharing circles- what inspired you to create these daily support discussions? I love being a part of the sharing circle team/discussion leaders team.

Hope: Group rooms serve many purposes from providing a space where members can come together and share whats on their minds to providing many discussions one can be a part of. There is something about the live chat experience with multiple people that many enjoy. However, one thing that is difficult to achieve is to share uninterruptedly while all others in the room take a step back and simply listen! Seems simple enough? However difficult to get that in a room filled with users. Glen has talked about the Alcohol Anonymous model and the effectiveness it. That helped connect the pieces! AA and OA (Overeaters anonymous) understand the power of providing a space where you can share and the rest listen and the results are great! AA and OA have meetings all around the world so clearly the simple principle works well for a large number of people. The base of sharing circles is derived from the AA and OA models. It is great to see the impact of sharing circles and how the community has come to love it. Of course, it is understandable that it may not be everyones cup of tea (pun intended) but so far it has achieved its purpose and that is to give people the space to share what's on their mind in a room full of people yet they remain uninterrupted! We are incredibly grateful for all of your support especially to those who have been hosting sharing circles.

• When will the new General Leadership training course be made available?

Glen and CM Team is working on structuring and designing the General Leadership Training Course and will be available soon. We will make an announcement to update how it will work and all relevant details anyone would need to take the training.

• Where is the page that explains who the admin is and what they do? Sometimes brand new (m) wonder who y'all are and what you do here. (gee, sometimes I wonder this And I myself do not know the role of the ambassadors enough to even ask them a question. I think I probably see them 'round, but I don't know who they are - this makes me feel sad like I am not giving them the respect, boost of confidence, or thanks that they deserve! (yes, even though I do not know what they do exactly).

You can find the Community Management Team Info here along with the Community Guidelines- https://www.7cups.com/about/communityGuidelines.php

Here you can find our current ambassadors- https://www.7cups.com/BrowseListeners/?badge=70

• How to improve our listeners' quality? What plan will you have?

By providing additional training and monitoring. Training will help us to educate them while monitoring will help us take care of any behavioral reports. Ambassador Team and CM Team collaborated to upgrade quality efforts.

To make it successful, we need active support from the listeners' community. First, participate in the listener support chat room, encourage new listeners to reach out to listeners support chat room for support and help, share resources with them, and as a team ensure we comply with the community guidelines. If you notice anyone violating community guidelines, send a report through proper channels to get it reviewed.

• Could you please explain in detail: what the chatroom rules are, for the new members and new Listeners, who may not be aware of them and what happens if your caught breaking the rules, what happens?

Chat room rules are important to follow. It is applicable for everyone in the community regardless of their status, role, and position in the community. Chatroom rules are available at the bottom of each room. Like this -

When you click the text in blue, it will open a pop-up window listing all the chatroom rules that you need to follow. All need to follow the chatroom rules to ensure to provide an inclusive, compassionate, safe, respectful, and moderated chatroom for all to participate in.

If anyone found to be violating community guidelines or chatroom guidelines, they will have to face the consequences of it. For more info on consequences, please check here- https://www.7cups.com/about/communityGuidelines.php#consequences

• Please explain what Triangulation is and why 7cups have that rule?

Please refer to this post - https://www.7cups.com/forum/SafetyKnowledgeat7Cups_181/ConflictResolutionQuestionshowtosandmore_1372/WhatisTriangulation3StepstoAvoidingStoppingitfromhappeninginthecommunity_35107/1/

• Can you please explain what the Listener Code of Conduct is, and why is it important to follow it?

Please refer to this post - https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupSupport_168/ASilentObserversOffice_2008/Pointstorememberasalistener_222131/1

• Can you explain the different types of Mods, and what is the difference between them, for example CommMod vs a Mod.

We have three categories of Moderators present in the community.

1. Community-centered Moderators focus on active moderation in the specific chat rooms. Their privileges to moderate only works in the specific chat rooms they are moderators in.

2. Global moderators focus on active moderation for all chat rooms and are able to exercise their moderation abilities in all member support chat rooms.

3. Community moderators are assigned specific time blocks while volunteer moderators (community-centered and global) participate whenever theyd like. Community moderators have global moderation abilities and are able to moderate any chat room that needs monitoring.

For more information on community-centered and global moderators, you can refer to this post - https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupSupport_168/GroupModerator_1242/HowToApplyForGroupModInformationonCommCenteredGlobal_112280/1/

• Will any portion of the feed be returning to 7cups.com in the near future? (meaning perhaps sometime this summer -N. Hemisphere - or sooner?) Is this even being considered/worked on? Is there something that admin and/or ambassadors consider "better" that will take the Feed's place? If so, please explain (yes, ahead of time, please.) I and several of my 'feed' friends - we really miss the feed. Even just adding back the personal feed would be good for me.

We are thinking. We might be able to use the feed portion. But how? What will we be using it for, etc. are some of the questions we need to answer. So as soon as we will have answers to all the questions and are feasible to implement the changes, we will let you know.

All suggestions are welcome on how to best use the feed portion.

• Can we get a time schedule per week of using 7 cups of tea?

There is no time schedule to use 7cups. You are welcome to check-in and use it as and when you are available and comfortable to do it. We are here with you.

• A user has told me they fell sad and depressed and have no one to help them.

We are here with them to listen and support. We have different resources they can use.

They can connect with listeners 1-1 anytime to share their feelings and challenges.

They can participate in group support chat rooms to discuss in a group set up with fellow members.

They can use the topic-specific sub-communities to get support, check resources, etc. Like we have one for depression - https://www.7cups.com/home/depression/?cr=dash

Reminder- You are not alone. We all are here with you to listen and support. We will get through this phase and will do better.

We are thankful to you!