What to do about Listeners abandoning or blocking members/guests?

I like many of your ideas, but there's an issue with the messages being sent. We are told everything we are saying is confidential. I do think it would be nice if members had the option to send those though - then we have a say if we want others to see our private conversation or not.

I think another issue is that we are not told that if we report the listener it won't go through - we can fill out the report as usual, so many assume it works. If the report form is disabled once blocked it should appear that way as well. In general this site often gives the appearance of being able to report when it doesn't actually go anywhere.

Hey @curiosityofnature
I totally agree, many listeners take chats, don't say anything, and then we can't review or report them.
or they answer 4 hours later (when we are lucky), and wonder why we are no longer around or why we are unhappy with them.
and we can't review them because it takes at least 2 messages from the listener for review them.
I'm not sure about what the solution is because we also need to protect the legit listeners who don't answer to their bully. But we need to seriously think about it.
the same with block option, they block the ratings for protect the listener who is bullied, assuming that the listeners use correctly the block function, but actually there is a lot of abuses, and the block is really used as a way to avoid a negative review.
and like @AffyAvo said, it's not okay that it appear like if the review was sended when it is actually not recorded or sent anywhere.

We really need a way to report the listeners who don't say anything, take chats and are not even able to say hello, or who block right away when taking a chat, or when they see we are unhapppy or ask them to change the way they act with us.
Are you ok with me moving this thread in the Community Problem Solving section of forum ?

@curiosityofnature I like a lot of your suggestions and think they are very practical solutions! However, I just want to voice my opinion on one that you brought up (and one that I've seen mentioned a few times previously by other members which boggles my mind and feels needs to be addressed).

I know that the block feature can/is used incorrectly but I honestly would find it frightening and a bit demeaning if listeners could not block members. In spite of its abuse, everybody has the right to feel safe and that is what the block feature is mainly for (as there has been good reasons to why some listeners have had to block a member and I support the block feature for all, despite being unfairly blocked myself a few times). Listeners have the right to ask for and receive respect and to be treated kindly, just as much as a member does. Does that always happen? Of course not but that is why repeated and unrelenting abusive conversations sadly call for this feature. I don't see how we could deny a listener the ability to block a member but still provide a safe atmosphere for them. I fear some members use listeners as "whipping boys" and forget that they are just normal joes who volunteer for 7cups. Listeners are obligated to abide by the rules set by 7cups (one of which is being held responsible for unfairly blocking members) but other than that, listeners do not owe us members anything. If we as members have this block ability, so should listeners.

As I said, I've seen this suggested a few times now but I have yet to see how someone could truly justify this and not sacrifice the safety of listeners. If anyone has a practical solution to this suggestion, I have yet to witness that also. Almost any cause can sound good on paper, but we must have equality for both parties to make it truly work. I know it really sucks to be unfairly blocked (and I truly empathize with you, as I know how hurtful it is by experience) but we have the right to report listeners who do not obey the rules. If a listener blocks you from reviewing them, you can email 7cups and tell them what happened and the listeners name (but I do hope that changes so that members can review a listener despite being blocked). In addition, I definitely would not be opposed to 7cups keeping a record of how many times the block feature has been used on the listener side. It could help in finding out which listeners are using it too frequently and are receiving complaints about their behavior.

Make sure to put your suggestions in the suggestion box!

@curiosityofnature

I'll just share some points regarding your ideas;

- Some people have suggested that members/guests should still be able to leave ratings and reviews after being blocked - Whilst I support this idea, there's a part that's hesitant due to the ease for trolls to review listeners before they even chat. A troll could start a chat with loads of listeners and then give them all 1* and get them all suspended by writing something like "they bullied me/spoke sexually with me." Moderators could receive messages from people with some mod hate and give them a false review out of spite. It could cause a lot of mayhem and then genuine reviews would be less likely believed due to the volume of false ones.

- Some think the block function should be abolished entirely, at least on the Listener side - I don't agree, due to the abuse some listeners have received. They don't deserve that treatment and they reserve the right to protect themselves. More listeners need to be educated of when to use the block feature (which we regularly do) but there's still those who block for the slightest thing or because they're triggered.

- Obviously, the Listener training needs to be improved A LOT and it needs to include extra info on how to treat "difficult" members/guests and how to end unwanted chats - I agree, a lot of these issues could be very easily resolved if they were incorporated into listener training.

- Personally, I think the best case scenario (though it may not be realistic resources-wise) would include a block by the Listener automatically being recorded, incl. the last few messages from both sides, and someone from the 7 Cups team/admins etc. would have a look at what happened - I agree, but I know members would not like it and become paranoid that their chats aren't confidential.

- My best case scenario for Listeners just abandoning chats would include an option popping up for the member/guest to report an unresponsive listener after, say, 10-15 minutes - This could only apply to listeners whose status is set to online, but it could work.

- How about Listener profiles showing their number of blocked and deserted chats! - This would be harmful and negative towards the community. We don't need to name and shame, we need to educate.

- Otherwise, how about at least a message popping up to confirm a block, with a warning of what a serious measure it is? This would also prevent Listeners from accidentally hitting the block button, or thinking it was just a way of ending the conversation. - I don't think it's possible to accidentally block someone as you have to choose an option etc. The pop up already says when you should and shouldn't block someone but listeners simply ignore/don't read it.

My solution would be to incorporate a description of how to use their offline/online status correctly in listener training. New listeners, I believe, are automatically set to online when they join which throws them into the deep end immediately and increases the chance of ghost chats. I recently spoke with a new listener who was overwhelmed with chats and didn't realise he could set his status to offline/busy to stop new messages coming in. He ultimately was late responding/missed chats. Also, let a person review a listener for not responding despite taking the chat when their status is online, after 10 minutes of no response.

cc:@laura

A few points in response - it wouldn't be paranoid of members to be concerned about confidentiality. We are told our conversations are private so having them shared with a group of people because of a bad listener is a real issue.

While I like the idea of the popup for a listener who doesn't respond when their status is set to online, that only works for personal requests. There are instances where listeners have their status offline/busy and they take a chat from the GRs and never say anything or say hi and then stop responding.

Hello everyone, thanks for the peaceful discussion here. There are some great ideas & suggestions. One thing I will mention, I just went to double check, the listener quality score has held steady for past few weeks/ months (Including in the last few days). So nothing has changed recently to the site or community that would impact quality negatively. Over the years, we have updated the training on a few occasions based on feedback and ideas from the community. These updates to the training did not result in high quality listeners. In fact, the quality level remained the same after every update.

I'd like to point you all to a thread @glenm made back in September entitled "Next Generation Support." In this post, he clearly outlines where we'd like to see listener quality move in the upcoming months. We are always looking to make improvements to ensure our sures have supportive interations, but need more resources, technology and support to get there. We are on our way! 7 Cups has grown a great deal in its 3 years and I hope to see us continue to grow and evolve in the next 3. Thank you for being patient, we are a supportive community that is here for you.

And don't forget, we have so many awesome listeners who have and continue to do an incredible job! I encourage you to give them some appreication and love in our new Appreciation and gratitude sub-community! yay!

@curiosityofnature

"How about Listener profiles showing their number of blocked and deserted chats!"

that would be interesting, though i could see it demotivationg. there are already few listeners avoilable nowadays, i feel, so explicitly showing that wouldn't help bring in more listeners or keep them motivated. rather, i feel tehre should be some underlying algorithm that takes into acount the number of people that they blocked RATIOED WITH the number of people they've also not blocked.

as for the warning before a block: that does exist, i think. i think the listener has to click a specific reason as to why they are blocking you. so as the lsitener is going through the reasons, they understand when to and when not to block.

i've personally am being blocked a bit much here recently, even before conversations take place. it's not too annoing though. i usually just keep reconnecting until i get a listener who actually responds to my request (either personal or public though i've stopped personally requesting becausebecause i feel most listeners don't repsond to mine.) another thing that has helped me is selecting the topic "Social Anxiety." i think i tend to get more understanding listeners with a topic pre-selected.

but i wish listeners wer not able to block people before the conversation even starts. there's a certain number of transactions that must take place before a lsiener is allowed to be rated, and i feel that same number should also be similiarly applied to when a listerner should be allowed to block a member or person who needs their help. it feel very offensive and hurtful because it feels they are judging me before i even said a word. not only that, but i get pulled out of queue and so i have to manually put myself back into the queue. ends up wasting my time, waiting for a listener and then finally getting pulled out of line for the opposite of support.