No longer fixing bugs with the Feed
Hi everyone! Ece from the 7 Cups Product team here with a tough announcement to make. Here goes:
As of this week, we will no longer be fixing bugs with the feed.
This was a tough decision & not one we made lightly so I want to share with you the full reasoning that went into it:
1) The feed is hard for us to fix: The code that powers the feed is now some of the oldest on our site, which means the engineering effort it would take to fix the update bugs, hashtag bugs & other feed inconsistencies being reported is really high
2) It is hard for us to keep fixed: Because it's so old, the feed content actually lives on totally different servers than the rest of the site. Some of the bugs are due to this separate server set-up & it takes ongoing maintenance & additional time to keep them from regressing
3) It is expensive: That separate server set up is more expensive than all the rest of our servers. There have been months where server costs for the feed are as high as 1/3rd of our total server cost for the entire product!
4) Most people arent using it: Over the past 6 months, less than 2.5% of active users on the site have engaged with their feed (posting, following, hearting, etc). Even if we look at only engaged Members & Listeners, that number is still just 10%.
We're a small team with limited resources & in considering all of this we came to the conclusion that we just can not afford the engineering time it would take to fix the feed when it does not benefit > 90% of our engaged Members & Listeners.
Next steps:
We know some of you really like & regularly use the feed and it's frustrating to be hit with the no updates bug or have hashtags not work. We want to take this opportunity to gather feedback from you directly as we think about how to proceed in the future.
Comment below with your thoughts:
- If you use the feed, what do you value about it? How would you complete the sentence "The feed lets me.....?"
- If you don't use the feed, why not? What about this feature didnt work for you?
Thanks so much for your understanding & your feedback!
My main reason for using the 7cups website is the feed and growth path.
The Growth Path gives me a purpose, something to achieve each day even when I feel like I can do nothing else. However, as the activities on it haven't been updated in a long time (and many are feed-related) it's become stale and I no longer feel encouraged to do it (also especially as my 400+ day streak was reset by mistake). So now on bad days, I don't even have one tiny thing I feel like I can achieve.
I loved the feed because it was full of positivity - I could go there and see so many great messages full of encouragement, simple advice and there was rarely anything triggering there. Plus people always responded to feed messages, even just getting a heart from someone meant I felt heard. I've tried the forums and chat rooms but I either get triggered or feel ignored.
Without the feed and growth path being updated, I shall probably be leaving this site as I see no reason to stay. It's a shame as I've made friends here (through the feed) so I shall feel lonely again.
@LittleLotte I feel the same way. I want you to stay :(
@Magendie Thank you. I guess I'll stick around but I probably won't be as active anymore. I used to post regular things on the feed.
@LittleLotte The feed still works although some functions are down. It does sound like something will be going up in place of the feed eventually.
I think we can get some similar things going on in the forum as well. Can you give some examples of the types of feed posts that you like?
@AffyAvo The feed isn't working for me at all. I can only see my own posts and no-one elses. And I'm getting no responses to my posts so I'm guessing people can't see my posts either.
@AffyAvo The feed posts that I liked were the ones with positive messages (quotes, affirmations etc.) and those that offered little helpful tips. There was also a lot of very useful links shared on the feed - interesting and helpful articles.
I suspect all these things are already in the forums but on the feed it was in bite-sized chunks and very easy to find/scroll through (especially with the helpful hashtags).
@LittleLotte This thread might be one you're interestecd in subscribing too, it's been quite active - https://www.7cups.com/forum/PositivityGratitude_170/UpliftingQuotesImagesandVideos_1167/UpliftingquotesInspiringThoughts_402/1/
You could also join this subcommunity in general if you haven't - https://www.7cups.com/home/gratitude/
I know I am and I suspect the forum team in general (tagging @Mel and @Anomalia ) is willing to help people find forum threads similar to what they like in the feed, or else get them started. I do understand it's not the same as the feed due to whose posts you will see. Some of the check in threads might give some of the sense with the regulars.
If growth path steps can no longer be connected to the feed, I would hope that we can have a thread they go to automatically if the box is ticked to share them - 1 thread for each of the current hashtags. @7Cupscommunity
@AffyAvo
Thank you for the feedback! In the meantime, the growth path steps should still be connecting to the feed. We will look into the idea of rerouting the growth path to the forums as we develop our feed replacement.
@AffyAvo Thanks!
@AffyAvo - Excellent idea about ultimately linking the growth path to forum threads if it stops working in the feed, and I wholeheartedly agree that I would love to help people find things in the forums that are similar to what they are missing in the feed 
@LittleLotte - It's a muuuuch higher priority for us to update the growth path and we are working on the infrastructure side of that already. We also want to preserve what people love about the feed and will look for some way to offer a similar service but without the technical baggage of the current approach.
@Ece7Cups
I absolutely love the feed.
Feed lets me communicate my thoughts in the easiest form. It's encouraging, motivating and uplifting.
I want feed support. Over the years, 7 cups has done a lot to improve many of its aspects.
I think we need to figure out how we can engage more people in feed and then work on how to upgrade/update/improve its service.
I've looked at my feed a couple of times. (The first while I was simply exploring the site; the second time I went looking for it and had some trouble finding it.) I don't actually use it at the moment. It seems a lot like Twitter and Facebook, which I also have almost-unused accounts at.
I have a blog on another site, started in 2002, that has a lot of my life wrapped up in it. Because it doesn't have 7Cups' privacy rules, I can post anything I'm comfortable sharing, and I can follow and have dialogs with people some of whom I know in real life, on a wide range of topics. Blogging feels more natural and useful to me than a feed would be.