How we can attend more members in less time with better quality

@Meandros

Hi meandros!

@Meandros

This is an interesting topic--thanks for bringing it up. 😊

Here is my usual flowchart for what I'll do if a member ghosts me or stops responding:

• [If chat is already in progress] Try reflecting/summarizing things the member has already said
• [If chat is already in progress] If no response or conversation is still stuck, try asking an open question
• If no response after a few minutes, ask if the member is still there
• If no response after a few minutes, say something like "It looks like you’re not here. I’m going to end the chat and take another chat request" and then end the chat.

Some of the benefits are that 1) I'm only waiting 5-6 minutes to end a ghost chat instead of 10+ minutes, 2) I don't have to worry about one of the ghost members PM'ing me 30 minutes later expecting me to respond while I'm in the middle of another chat.

***

I definitely have a similar experience of enjoying chatting with some members more than others. Some of the things you mentioned (e.g. member seems distracted, member doesn't have much to say or only gives one-word responses) are also things that can make a chat feel less enjoyable or meaningful for me.

I'm personally opposed to penalizing members for these things though, for a few reasons:

• Many of these members are still legitimately seeking support and deserve the same care as people who might be more interesting/enjoyable to talk to
• Unless if a member is being abusive or inappropriate (in which case the listener should warn/block/report them), the member isn't breaking any rules or doing anything wrong
• Different listeners are going to have different criteria for what they consider to be a "good" member or "bad" member. (E.g. I might dislike casual chats but another listener might love them.)

I think your feedback possibly connects to some broader feedback other people have given about the current GR system, which is that it's not very good at ensuring compatibility. Neither listeners nor members using the GR queue have a good way of guaranteeing that they'll get matched with someone they actually enjoy talking to.

There have been a couple positive things going on recently that might possibly improve this in the near-future:

• A suggestion was made to have members fill out a short text form describing their issue before entering the queue and then to display this in the queue for listeners to see. I like this idea a lot, and there seems to be at least some chance that this might be implemented based on the response from the community account.
• My understanding is that 7 Cups is also working with some researchers to brainstorm ways of improving the compatibility of listener-member matching.

P.S. I've seen some of your posts in the Relationship forum and you're doing amazing work. 💜

I find this concerning as it's normal for people experiencing a distressing situation to be distracted. That doesn't mean they aren't deserving of a listener.
There's also some ableism built into this - afk can be due to things like symptoms. Sudden bathroom needs, vomiting, bleeding, I've had a skin lesion pop and gush fluid, etc. There are also aspects like brain fog, neurodiversity, triggers occurring in a chat.
When my brain fog is fairly significant won't take a chat as a listener but I might as a member.

Also when it comes to being polite, I think members may get bad ratings for maintaining boundaries. I have had numerous chats with listeners who have 5 star ratings who have been disrespectful, told me I just need to see a doctor (despite regularly seeing multiple) try to sext, ask for my phone number or pictures etc etc etc.
If a listener starts calling me Dear I think I would probably get rated lower if I said something like Don't call me dear. Instead of Please, if you don't mind, I prefer to just be called Affy. They crossed the boundary first and is something that listeners shouldn't do, yet is common.

I could see rating members as a possibility if listener quality was greatly improved first and listener's had clear training on specifics why a member should get a lower rating. Until then, implementing this is going to penalize members for listener shortcomings or their issues they likely came here in the first place. I think there's also a fair number of topics that would result in low ratings. As an example, see some of the past posts about pedophilia and support here. I'm not talking about child abusers/planning abuse. I'm referring to people who are scared or horrified by what they feel attraction to. There has been a number of judgmental statements by listeners including some experienced, well reviewed listeners. I think this has a huge potential to build on existing stigma.

@Meandros I basically agree, although there are some things I would do differently. We already do this kind of thing to some extent. A member who misuses 7 Cups does not get full access to support.

Some other comments…

7 Cups has always found forum discussion about complex topics difficult. Discussions in the forum tends to be ignored. 7 Cups has not yet learned to value viewpoint diversity or to trust the community. Instead, 7 Cups has always trusted distant experts, at first in Silicon Valley, and more recently at Carnegie Mellon University, more than even the most experienced community members. We've been told that experts at CMU are coming up with plans to improve the general request system, and whatever they say will probably happen some day with little warning and no discussion. So don't be surprised if your ideas not taken up.

An IP address does not identify a person. It might have done 50 years ago, and some very old networking textbooks might still give that impression, but the Internet has moved on and IP addresses are now allocated dynamically. I can change mine, even to another country, with just a few clicks.

Charlie