A few suggestions to improve the site
I have a few suggestions on how the site could be improved:
1. changing policy around suicidal people: I started thinking about this because I heard about an autistic transgender man in Arizona who was murdered by police after a suicide call. He called the police because he was suicidal. When they arrived he had a knife and said I'm going to kill myself and the police shot him. We shouldn't turn suicidal people away because the reality is that we need all the resources we can get to help these people because hospitals, police and hotlines aren't always helpful. Sometimes, as we saw with the tragedy in AZ, if we send people to the police we send them to get murdered. I know its not pretty and not something people want to think about, but its just reality.
I realize this is a triggering issue and I agree it should not be discussed in the group chat. However, I dont see why listeners can't be trained in dealing with suicidal people and help these people 1 on 1. Quite frankly I find it sickening that we currently turn these people away and I think it is our responsibility as people who claim to care about others to prevent such tragedies from happening again. Opening up one on one conversations to people who are suicidal would be a good step in that direction.
2. Having a room for sharing positive things only: Sometimes im in really good mood or feeling great about something and i go into the room i usually frequent to share with my friends but there's so much negativity in the room it ends up making me feel bad. I'm not saying people should stop being negative. It's just when I'm feeling that way i need to be in a positive environment so it would be great to have a room where people can go just to share positive things.
3. An uncensored room for venting : This is someone else's suggestion but I decided to include it because i like it. Sometimes you just need to vent but don't have anywhere to go to do so (lets face it, its really hard to find a good listener and sometimes the people in the group room can't deal with it). It'd be great to have a room specifically for that so people who want to vent and cuse all they want can do so without feeling censored or like they can't do so. Of course any kinda of hate language should still not be tolerated in such a room.
4. Making all listeners become verified listeners and have a mentor: As i said above it can be extremely hard to find a good listener. This would hopefully make it so there would be better listeners on the site.
5. Conduct in the group rooms: Too many of my friends have been leaving the site because of how bad the LGBTQ+ room has gotten. There is a troll who keeps getting banned and just creating new accounts each time, a listener hit on a member who needed support and several others have been making unsupportive comments. I have reported these people and i know others have too, but it doesn't stop and needs to be addressed more. Unfotunately, i dont feel like I understand the process well enough to offere suggestions, but still wanted to include it because it's important.
@BlueWabbit
Interesting suggestions.
Could you tell me what is it you don't find very helpful right now when in a 1-1 chat? That's their reason to exist - for venting, listening. Chat rooms are a different environment, more active. If everyone was venting, it wouldn't be any order in there.
Have you attended any discussions yet? Those are a way to feel more positive, learn more about yourself and others.
@Heather
@cristiana33 most of the time when i request a listener they dont respond. They also dont correct their behavior when i tell them theyre not being helpful and give too much advice.
@BlueWabbit discussions have not been helpful to me but its fine they are there. They can be helpful to others. I wont say anything more.
@BlueWabbit
I see. In that case it may be possible you've connected with 'bad' Listeners only. I personally never give advice but try to help the member explore the options they choose in the way they want to work on them. It's easier to give directions but better not to give them. I'm sorry to hear you've experienced that many times and I hear you about waiting for too long when connecting. I would try to improve the experience instead of ditching it and going to group support only. The kind of support is totally different, not as intense and personal because it's impossible to make everyone feel present in the same way in one session, if that makes any sense! But I understand you and I really hope we can work on making the 1-1 experience better. Do you have any suggestions on how it could be improved?
All interesting suggestions!
I partly agree with you about suicide. It might be helpful if we think this through again in relation to our values, although I cannot imagine listeners will ever be the right people to take responsibility for urgent life-threatening situations like the one in Arizona.
For all listeners to be verified and have mentors sounds good to me, but many listeners join with no experience at all, or they join with experience from some other organization that they have to unlearn, and it takes time.
I'd be interested to know more about your experience of finding it hard to find a good listener. I'm wondering if we might be able to find better ways to describe listeners, so that people who have different ideas of what good would mean can find the right listener for their needs more easily.
@BlueWabbit
@BlueWabbit thanks for the feedback! I'm going to comment on your suggestions so you have a bit more insight on how likely these are to happen and just to chip in my 2 cents.
Changing Policy Around Suicidal People
I agree that this would be a great thing to be able to do, but listeners don't get much training at all, not even for active listening. Quite a few listeners don't even feel adequately prepared to take the 1-on-1 conversations that are currently permitted on the site. Most, if not all, crisis intervention sites/hotlines require significant training in order to volunteer services. In fact, to my understanding the National Suicide Hotline in the US requires that their staff do 100 hours of training in order to take chats. This is definitely one of the most demanding training requirements that I've heard of, but it gives you an example of what kind of training can be needed. For new listeners, I don't think taking on suicidal members and guests would be the best idea.
An idea I have might be to add additional training to become crisis counsellors. It would be optional, and require a number of hours of training to qualify for the role, and be much more intensive than the training to become a listener. I know this would be difficult though, as someone would have to write this training, and it would be difficult to get started up for sure. I don't know what the chances are of this happening, but it's something to consider!
Room for Positive Thoughts
I am only a teen so I don't know about the dynamics of the adult rooms, but I believe the community rooms should be more positive, light-hearted environments. I don't know if you have been in the community room before, but if not, I recommend checking there!
Uncensored Room
My only concern with this is that while the room may start off as people just venting, I can see it easily turning to people directing their frustrations at each other. Perhaps it would be a temporary room, only opened by an experienced moderator when they are available? That way they could ensure the room remains respectful and supportive.
Verified Listeners and Mentors
While I agree that this would be wonderful, we don't have enough mentors to support all of the listeners on the site, or to enforce becoming a verified listener. This has been proposed a number of times and there are goals in place to increade the number of Verified Listeners and applications for chatting with Quality Mentors, but making those required doesn't seem to be in the horizon right now.
Conduct in Group Rooms
Unfortunately this is a tricky thing, because it seems to be a recurring issue in the community. All I can suggest is to continue reporting, and to request a mod using the form found in the chatroom rules. You could also try to contact community@7cupsoftea.com and see if they can provide further assistance.
@ i love all your ideas! Thank you! I dont see why the site couldnt do these things w the donations instead of having paid staff but maybe i sont understand the dynamics of maintaing the site. Dont really wanna talk about it though. Just hope my thoughts and your ideas help push 7 cups 2 be better, but im tired of discussing it.
@BlueWabbit - I was about to write a detailed response when I read @RebeccaEmily 's response and she said exactly what I was going to!
The one thing I will add is that while the community rooms are definitely meant to be the places for more light-hearted chat, that's not necessarily the same thing as positivity, and I definitely think there could be a place for a room for that. Can I ask you to submit it to the suggestion box so that I can keep track of the suggestion and make sure the admin team sees it?
Thanks for thinking about ways that we can be better as a site!
I wanted to let you all know i wont be on the site as much until things improve. Things have really gone downhill since one of the mods left and many of my friends have left because of how bad things are. Its sad that things are so bad that we are forced to leave to take care of ourselves. I am unsubscribing from this thread bc im burnt out and dont want to say anything or hear anything else about the issue. I just hope what ive said will make a difference. Thank you.