Offsite Contact and member relationships
Hey everyone!
I have a little opinion on the above mentioned topic...some will agree with me and many won't but I feel like I should put this out there anywhere.
We all know the rule - no sharing offsite contact, social media etc. I agree with that 100% Why? SAFETY.
As a current moderator I am often told "we are adults", "we should be allowed to decide for ourselves", "my offsite contact is still anon" etc. While those are all valid arguments the following is a hard, true fact: We are human. We have the potential to be led by our emotions. Many of us try to put our trust in others. Now by no means am I saying every single person online can't be trusted. I'm saying that no one's judgement is 100%. We all make mistakes. We often discover that someone we know in real life has deceived us. The same can happen online.
We are a strong community of members, listeners and friends. We have forums and chatrooms where we can enjoy each other's company. It does happen that members get close.That is completely normal, humans all have a need to friendship and close social interaction. It works so well here because many of us can relate to each other. However, this is not a dating site. This is a place of healing and emotional growth. Supporting each other is important and so is caring for each other. That being said we need to establish firm boundaries with others here, again, for our SAFETY and wellbeing.
I respect the rules of this site because I understand why they were put in place. Internet safety has to be a priority for everyone.
Be safe guys, and remember...think before you share ♥ Internet safety isn't just for kids.
The rules of this site permit offsite contact. Otherwise if the members of a family all joined 7 Cups they'd have to break up the family and never speak to each other again!
The rules do not permit sharing contact information on 7 Cups. You can share contact information on other sites or in other ways, but not on 7 Cups. If you see contact information on 7 Cups then you're seeing someone who's breaking the rules. Personally, I don't even click on links here unless I know and trust the website I'm being invited to visit.
I share personal information online. If I didn't my business would go bust, I'd have to sell my house and I wouldn't be able to eat. Think before you advise other people about what you think they should or should not do online.
Giving advice is not part of listeners' role at 7 Cups. To me, it looks like you started off by writing about your opinions, but then you accidentally drifted off into giving advice. I wonder if posting from your member account might have been more in keeping with 7 Cups' traditions.
@Nagisa
@RarelyCharlie " no sharing offsite contact, social media etc" in other words posting social media, phone numbers, email addresses etc in rooms, PMs and forums. Obviously I am not talking about people who already knew each other irl before meeting here. Forgive me for assuming but surely what you share online regarding your business/company is irrelevant here.
I do apologize if it comes across as giving advice, that is not my intention :)
Hope you have a wonderful day!
Hey there @Nagisa ,
Even though there might be a lot of people that will disagree with your opinion on the said topic, I am one of those people that support the idea of not sharing any personal information on 7 cups.
Trusting strangers
I think it not only is great but really important to be able to put trust into others within this community, especially when it comes to members putting trust into their listeners or listeners putting trust into their mentors. It keeps this community on the road of providing help for each other. However, you are totally right about that we aren't in the position to make a perfect judgment about whether the other person is perfectly trustable or not. As you've said, we even face this issue in our lives outside of 7 cups and thus are being deceived by those we might have trusted the most. It is easier though to misuse the trust outside of 7 cups as there aren't those rules and boundaries to protect you anymore.
The safe heaven 7 cups
As you've mentioned it is inevitable that positive connections are built within that community as we are communicating a lot with each other. But I also support your opinion that this is not a website to mainly make friends or anything like that but to support people with the problems they are facing. Creating these boundaries of not sharing any personal information makes this website a safe place to vent about anything you want to and I guess that might be our main goal.
High risks of leaving the safe heaven
Concludingly, I think these rules about not sharing any offsite contact information are incredibly important to keep 7 cups the safe heaven for people seeking emotional support. Leaving this safe heaven will bring high risks with it as other online communities don't have these rules to protect you. Therefore, I think not sharing any offsite contact information is a key part of keeping this place safe and secure.
Sorry for this long wall of text but I felt like I need to spread my opinion, too. If you've made it this far, then I sincerely thank you for reading all of it and I'd highly appreciate a reply if you want to say something about that topic, too :)
@Nagisa Thank you Nagisa for your lovely words. It is very true that we can be misled by our emotions and I love the way you said it. Thank you for being amazing and for your hard work on this thread. I hope your words will help many people understand why it is important to follow the rules in order to stay safe :)
i share my personal stroies with members/guest so they would feel better opening up about their troubles. But no personal contract details. @Nagisa
@Helping2findAway I think most of that share our personal stories. It helps a lot because we can often find someone who can relate or understand <3
That's true. Also it helps the members/guests feel more comfortable expressing their emotions and increase our chances of helping and supporting them :)@Nagisa
#TermsofService
If you don't agree to the terms you don't get to use the service ;)
Thank you for this friendly reminder and a little preview into your spin on it @Nagisa
I really like this post. Thanks for posting it. 
7 cups is not facebook, twitter or any other social media site out there. 7 cups is a place for people to get support. Along the way you will meet some amazing people and you can talk on 7 cups so there is really no need to give out personal info. A relationship between a listener and member should be professional. If you where getting professional help outside of 7 cups, you would not ask that person for their facebook detail and they would not ask you that.
I know this is going to sound a little blunt and I apologies in advance if I upset anyone but 7 cups is a place to give and get support not make friends on the outside world. This also ensure that we remain judgment free, if I don't know you personally then I can't judge you because I don't know you on a personal level.
Have an awesome day everyone! :)
Just wondering if listeners give their first name when chatting or stick to their screen name and what everyone opinion is on that. Also, do you have a picture of yourself on your profile or stick to avatars? Wondering if providing a real pic of yourself in your profile would be able to be searched for online and if anyone has been found outside of 7 cups that way.
@beautifulFlower82 I know that a lot of listeners do give their first name, which is still relatively safe. I don't think last names should be included as that can make it easy to search you on social media. Many use their own picture, and while I believe that is a personal choice, it may be risky as users can use reverse image search. The safest, I suppose, would be to use a picture that is not also posted on your social media. That does not rule out the one in a million chance of you being recognized, but it is a safer bet for sure. Of course if you feel uncomfortable using your own pic, don't use it and if you don't want to reveal your first name you don't have to ♥
@Nagisa I agree, and I enjoy the idea of being anonymous and not traced back to social media. It helps me feel safe and secure in this community where I can help and share my problems with others. Thank you for this great post :D
@Nagisa I really totally share this. In fact I thoguht about it a few times but realised something. In order to be useful as a listener we must protect ourselves emotionally. Being too involved externally is not only dangerous for us but also impacting our quality of listening here at 7cup. Beside that 7cups offers plenty of ways to communicate with each other and stay in touch.
After that perhaps when you speak with the same listeners for years is it relatively safe but I would still stay by the rules.
@Nagisa I think this should be posted everywhere people on 7cups still seem to think that it's ok to do this. IT IS NOT! And seriously hope it gets rectified ASAP don't want anyone to suffer from members/listeners not obeying the rules.
