August 3 - Update to the Reviews Feature!
Hi Crew!
We first announced this update here. Please review this thread for more information on this update!
Here are the big changes:
1) No more categories for star reviews! The pop-up will look like this:
2) As many of you know, we have a flagging team that helps parse through all of the reviews. Only reviews & star ratings that are flagged by the team as being helpful indicators as to what happened int he chat will be counted. This means - if the star rating is a duplicate, or the flag is marked as unhelpul/ doesnt tell us anything about the listeners abilities, the star rating will not count. This will help a great deal in making the reviews accurate!!
3) You can only leave a review for your listener once every 48 hours!
4) You are required to accompany your review with 15 characters of text!
Big thank you to everyone who has already given feedback!! We are excited about this update, we haven't made any chances to the reviews in over 4 years - its ABOUT TIME!!
The updated review tool will go live today!! please let us know what you think! You can share feedback in this thread or in this form.
@Laura - I love the efforts to improve accuracy here and minimizing duplicates will be enormously helpful. That said, I am concerned about not including star ratings that aren't accompanied by text - often a member may have a bad experience but not be comfortable submitting a written rating and their experience is equally valid and should be considered.
I do understand wanting to minimize the potential for inaccurate reviews / duplicates, but couldn't we also do this by not allowing multiple star ratings from the same user (e.g., if you submit a new review with a different star rating it updates your previous one, but still only counts once towards the listener's overall star rating calculation)?
@Anomalia exactly, i don't always feel inspired for write a text review. I guess I will often spam for getting the number of characters needed. hmmm....
@Anomalia I like the idea with the replacing!
@Laura This is SO cool!
I really like the new idea of doing this! I think it will be more simple and easier on our members. One thing we might want to change is how it looks on the profile now. It seems very barren on desktop on the left side now, but that's just my opinion. Maybe we could move the rating and change the size of it so members can see it easier. <3
A cool update. :D
One concern. The centering on the profile. It looks off :o
Sorry but as a 7Cups Community Listener, this has definitely got to be one of the much worse ideas I feel that 7Cups has come up with.
It actually boggles the mind as to why 7Cups would think that this is a good idea, and just makes me want to pull my funding from 7Cups straight away, especially after recent events.
This update just really depressed me, and as a Listener already I feel like signing off again and just not coming back on the website for a good long time. I have only just started listening to people again after having a self-care break and to be honest, I don't know why I even bothered coming back.
.
The management of this site is going downhill so fast, and it is actually really starting to frustrate me and stress me out even being a member, let alone a Listener now.
I'm usually a pretty positive person, but this has just really got to me and made me want to leave as a Listener. It just feels like there is no support now, no structure, no organisation and no motivation to be here.
.
The rating system before was a fair, honest system that worked because it made members think about why they were rating highly or poorly.
It gave 7Cups members the opportunity to have their say, without putting them under pressure to put these exact thoughts in writing, especially if a chat didn't particularly go the way that they - or the listener - had planned it.
Also because members aren't always capable of putting their thoughts into writing, or struggle mentally to understand how to rate people, and don't wish to ask their listener or other members for help.
Which will then stress the members out even more because they won't feel capable of completing simple tasks, and then feel that it's completely pointless even being a part of the site on top of all the other reasons why most members are already leaving and looking for alternatives.
.
The old star rating helped 7Cups members to help us 7Cups Listeners, and it is called Feedback for a reason. The old rating system was also capable of giving other Listeners and Mods a subtle heads up if their was a problem, or a Listener needed to improve on something in particular. It was also particularly useful for Listeners who shared their Community Listener profiles online or on their work CVs
This new system requires no thought process whatsoever, is confusing, irrelevant, poorly designed and impractical as f.
There will soon be an onslought of 1-star raters everytime a 7Cups troll or particularly difficult member does not get their own way, or does not understand how to rate Listeners. Guaranteed.
The star rating system is not mandatory for a member or guest who has reached out for help. I am quite happy to help people and not receive a star rating if they are not physically capable of rating me, feel uncomfortable doing so, or for whatever other reason don't want to rate me.
The star rating system is there for those who are capable, and often members have a huge range of different problems that they come at me with, despite my profile saying I am only able to help certain people and have certain discussions.
This new system is far too open to abuse, and I can see many other Listeners wanting to leave when they are accused of being unprofessional and unhelpful because they have a 2 or 3 star rating, because of how many members aren't capable of rating properly, or who do not wish to co-operate.
But at the same time there will be no way for them to show what's happened, and defend themselves... :/
And yes I did read the whole post, but I generally tend to know how things like this go, hence the reason why I have ignored most of it.
@EllieTheCloud
since ratings are now tied to reviews. Our flag team can make sure the troll ones dont show. Ratings wont show right away
@EllieTheCloud, I agree whole-heartedly.
@EllieTheCloud I feel and think similar more and more lately, specially since I also found the new rating system a bad idea but also cause I feel listeners should somehow be checked stricter as I keep making more and more bad experiences from my member account
@EllieTheCloud Thank you for the feedback. I do want to professionally disagree with this statement "The management of this site is going downhill so fast" This is hurtful and unkind. We have taken great efforts to ensure the fairness of the reviews. I understand you do not like the update, I am not here to change your mind. But this update was made after looking at years of data, understanding how members use the rating system, and what is the most helpful way for us to give feedback to our listeners. All changes exist within a broader context and are made very carefully.
To clarify - here are the problems we were trying to solve with this update -
1) continued trolling of star reviews. We were able to determine that star ratings are not a good way to determine the quality of the chat. And we were able to determine that star reviews are the most common way an angry member would attempt hurt their listener. So we wanted to create a star rating system that set our listeners up for success.
2) text reviews provide the best feedback for listeners. We can be deliberate and smart in how this feedback is given. And having a member give us this feedback via text is one way to do that.
All this aside, I am here to review the feedback from the update. I am open to making changes and learning together. I did notice that this thread is mostly full of listners. I am anxious to hear form members about their experience with this update!
@Laura
This update was to aide the listeners in receiving a more just rating, so I would assume that you would have liked to hear what they had to say over the members here, but as you wish...
I find that this update has been discouraging me from reviewing listeners, especially those who were helpful and deserving of a high rating. I'm rather passionate about this site and I've been a member (and a listener) here for years: so when I come across a listener that I find is doing more harm than helping, I have more than enough energy to write a paragraph about what they've said, in the hope that something will be done about it, that being said, those whom I would honestly give two or three stars; I have trouble finding the correct way to describe why the listener wasn't pleasing to talk with, and I feel like it's unfair that my rating isn't going to be counted if the terminology that I've picked doesn't meet your rating reviewing team's expectations for telling them about the listeners abilities. Now, even if I give a listeners five stars I have to justify myself, most of the time the listener should be glad if I remember to rate them when the chat is going well, I now have to think up something to say that is more than 15 characters too so that the rating will even go through. What would I say? Was a good chat, enjoyed talking with so and so: well that meets the required amount of characters I guess, doesn't really tell you anything about the listener's abilities. Do I still need to tell you about the listener's abilities if it's a good chat? I honestly wouldn't expect so. If it's what I expected and the reviewers take into consideration the good ratings more than the bad ratings, as in the bad ratings need to be justified more than the good ones, then everyone here is going to have pretty good ratings. Great! Right? That was the intentions of the update. No? Well, now I guess you've pleased some listeners, but since I'm on my member account and you wanted the member's opinions, I'll give you mine on that. I'm now going to be connected with people who have four, maybe even five stars, and here and there, despite their rating, they're going to be a horror to speak with. Before when this did happen, as it does once in a blue moon, it annoys me, almost because I feel like I was deceived by the rating, and that the ratings are inaccurate, but I can also imagine someone who is new here and speak to a few five star listeners and give up on the site altogether because "the best" aren't even helpful.
Also, I dislike that the categories have been taken away, most of the time when I'm speaking with a listener I'm doing other things, so I really couldn't care less about response time, but I'm someone who values professionalism in the people that I talk with. As there aren't categories anymore, the person who had five stars in professionalism and one in response time has three now, right? If I were browsing listeners I probably wouldn't even consider this person, because there are always people with five stars available. (This is more the listener me speaking, but I feel that makes the ratings even more of an unjust portrayal of the listener, more than the occasional someone giving a bad rating.) In addition to that, when I'm rating someone and they were the sweetest persons I've met here, but they weren't helpful in the least, I feel guilty giving them three stars, when in reality they deserved the five in empathy and one in helpfulness. Their true quality as a listener isn't reflected well, because they wouldn't be just a mediocre listener, they would be an empathetic listener that can support you emotionally more than they can understand your reality. If anything the site should have more catagories and I've thought that for a long time now: someone's quality can't just be measured so easily in one category, especially since they are going to be judged on so much more than "did they listen", because a listener's role is slightly more complicated than that. I feel very strongly about this and I haven't even made enough of an argument to make justice of how strongly I feel, but I can't think of anything further to say on the subject, except that there is so much more about this update that I find irritating, I'm just having trouble finding the correct words to explain that displease.
I've been loyal to this site for a long time and log on almost every day, this site has changed the course of my life, it really is sad, but I'm sorry to say that if updates of this quality continue to be put in place, I don't think I have the patience to continue using both my member and listener accounts.
@Laura
I really like this idea but I think it would be better for the members who haven't reviewed/giving ratings the listeners yet, should be notified via email or 7cups like us listeners aren't getting paid. I really think it would be better if we did get a notification system with both the members and the listeners regarding the feedback been given. Even notifying the listeners that we got a rating like that seriously would motivate me to listen more and more!
@Irishcat
So better managing of the expectations to the member? What can a member expect from a listener?? I think that is smart!
@Laura i think thats a great idea there are constantly new members and with a site like this which is so unique and different new member expectations about what this site is for and a better understanding about the limitations of their chat experience i think even before a chat a popup of some kind like a new member orientation of sorts to explain to members what this site is for and reasonable expectations would help a lot i recently had a member get very very upset with me because i declined to talk down an actively suicidal friend of hers who was wanting to talk to a listener on 7cups instead i gave her the suicide hotline number and suicide.org site and said id love to talk to her friend later when shes not having an emergency but she wanst happy at all with that or me or 7cups no matter how much i tried to nicely and simply explain in different ways that i wasnt trained as a crisis counselor and listeners here are non emergency and wasnt confortable in my ability to talk to someone who was that serious about suicide she spent a lot of effort and time trying to debate it with me and talk me into it so especially when time is important it should be made clear from the start reasonable expectations and limitations and just find a way to get everyone on the same page somehow would lead to less confusion for new members coming here with all sorts of different expectations it seems from trying to engage in sexting with listeners ( i know a lot of listeners would love for new members to be made aware right away that this is not a site for that ) to thinking this is a suicide crisis text line to everything in between i think most are genuinely confused what this site is for and what they should expect . Doing this would help with unfair ratings and just help make both new members and listeners happier sorry such a long post 
@jennysunrise8 and for guests also a popup explaining what this site is and is not and an introduction/orientation
@jennysunrise8
Yes! That's so important. It's not clear what a 'trained listener' is or what the expectations are before joining the site; just that it's free 24/7 emotional support.
@Laura hey! There are some positives to this update but I think it will lead to far less reviews being made overall. Majority of reviews are just star ratings and not written for many reasons - reasons notwithstanding, I think this suggests that majority of people don't want to type a review. SO if they cannot leave a star rating without a written review, I am sure most won't give any feedback.
Do others agree?
@Laura As some might already know I was a big fan of the categories but i love that there is a minimum character limit and that reviews or only count if they say something acurate about the chat. Tho I hope this will be realized in the same way no matter if it is a good or bad one.