August 3 - Update to the Reviews Feature!

@delightfulDragon87 very true. Sorry my geek me felt like sharing what they know about emoji.

Fun fact: old school emoji users can reach the 15 char limit 3 times faster than fancy emoji users. ^_^ 😁

@delightfulDragon87 technically emojis are characters, at least computers implemented emojis as characters.

@delightfulDragon87

Thank you for the feedback and support! Yes, that is the problem we are trying to solve here. Many members don't give us enough information on what happened inthe chat for us to take action. We really need this feedback so we can encourage listeners to improve and continue on their journey!

@Laura Maybe we could identify the characteristics that define a decent or good Listener. When the member is asked to assign stars plus hopefully at lease 15-characters, you ask them if they are willing to fill out a SHORT questionnaire where they check off on a scale the degree to which they felt the Listener displayed these characters that you have previous (according to the philosophy of the site) defined. Like some others, I value feedback both good and bad.

And as another late-nighter...hooray for the idea of toggling on a night screen

@Laura When will we have dark screen mode? I usually log on late at night and the bright white burns my eyes...literally.

@Cpcoleman1WSU

Same here. A dark screen would be helpful.

@Cpcoleman1WSU I agree with you!

@Cpcoleman1WSU

I second this. As I do some late-night and very early morning shifts, my eyes have become more strained. I'd like to take care of that as I care with 7 Cups.

@Cpcoleman1WSU

I agree completely! It would be great to have a button on the top bar that can toggle between night and day mode. I would love to have a night mode screen so I can work at night with less strain and irritation on my eyes.

@Cpcoleman1WSU

I can pass this feedback along to our product team!!

After noticing Conner's suggestion I made a dark theme for (almost) the whole of 7 Cups.

I also took note of Katherine's idea for a button in the top bar to switch it on and off.

See: Dark theme with contrast settings

@Laura @Cpcoleman1WSU @overtherainbow17 @AnaRavenLullaby @delightfulWriting62

@RarelyCharlie Thank you!!!

@RarelyCharlie

Amazing, thank you ever so much! See, all around helping each other.

Hey @Laura, I absolutely love this update!!!
It makes the ratings much more accurate for listeners! <3

@terrytee

Thank you for the support Terry!

@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!

@Anomalia

I think this is fair feedback.

@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

@CalmingStar

yes, i agree. it doesnt look great on the profiles right now!

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 totally agree

@TortueDesBois

You agree that the management of the site is going down hill? This is hurtful to hear based on one update that was designed to address some important problems with the review system. Im sorry you feel this way.

We will continue to make changes and itterate on the update to reflect the communities feedback.

I look forward to hearing from more members regarding this change.

@Laura I'm pretty unhappy with this change, it's not a secret. This update is not helpful for us at all. It forces us to write reviews that we are not inspired for, or we have to totally forget about giving a rating. It sure frustrates me. I did give a written review in less of 20% of my chats, now I'm forced to write generic reviews if I want the rating being considered. The reviews will less reflect our experiences in chats and being of less good quality. And when seeking for a listener, we will no longer being able to relate on the reviews for knowning if the listener is a good fit for us or not, for the same reason.

and since I can't leave a review such "they clearly are a bad fit for me" since it will cancel my review, i will have to find something that justify the star rating that I gave. It could result into coaching email for them, which is unfair since I would have to justify my 3 stars rating. but then, how? It has to be either positive or fit into one of your categories for coaching.

@TortueDesBois

Out of curiosity, why couldn't you write a listener is not a good fit for you? I feel like anyone could write a review in the box be it positive, negative, or neutral. I think the ability to leave a review expressing your feelings in any spectrum of ranges of good or bad is the whole point of review systems.

@EvelyneRose because of it:
"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."
so saying that a listener is not a good fit, doesnt speak about their kills, and would not be counted (=star rating rejected).

@TortueDesBois

Oh, I see what you mean! I thought you meant that you wouldn't be able to write a neutral review. I understand now, I misread.

@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.

Postscript. It took me quite literally five days to be able to phrase why I don't like this update well enough to actually post; so it isn't an exageration saying that "I have trouble finding the correct way to describe why the listener wasn't pleasing to talk with".

@VerineRose - Thank you for sharing your feedback - I think that's really valuable and you made some excellent points that I appreciate!