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Dipping Your Toes Into The Forums

Lyra August 31st, 2015

Edit: This post was originally posted in a listeners only forums and some links may be listener specific, a member version will be coming out soon :) ~MonBon

The forums can be something of a jungle at first, and sometimes amazing resources can be lost or overlooked. I've had this floating around as a doc for a while, which I share in the chatrooms whenever anyone tells me they're afraid of the forums, so hopefully it can be of some use as an actual forum post.

What can I do to get started in the forums?

Welcome 3 new listeners in this forum, providing a little comment about their skills or profile and thank them for joining us

Pick 5 listener reviews at random from the dashboard, and honour them here, perhaps providing a little note of analysis for each one

Respond to a listener question – every day, listeners make use of the forums to ask about things that theyre unsure of, and if you know the answer and have the links at hand, help them out.

Respond to 3 AMAs that no one has asked any questions in (members and listeners)

Respond to one long member post – give an in-depth answer, reflecting on their story and sharing your own insight. This is easier to do if you have personal experience of what theyre talking about, so dont feel the need to write pages upon pages about everything you see. So many members pour their whole life story out for us to see, and it's heartbreaking to see it going to waste.

Welcome 3 new members, and respond kindly to their reasons for joining (if given). New project about it here.

 Adopt a sub support forum you're passionate about (e.g. Anxiety) and welcome 5 new members who introduce themselves here

Respond to 5 posts in ‘Im proud of myself because…

Respond to 5 posts in ‘Milestones and Steps completed

Respond to a ‘How I found 7 Cups post to welcome the new member or listener

Spend a while upvoting – as @Roadie notes here, upvotes are the work of seconds to give, and help people to feel validated and appreciated. If you doubt this, just read the post, and youll see why its important

Points to remember while posting in the forums

Always tag people in, with an @ then their listener or member name – putting anything other than a comma, full stop or a space after a name means that they wont get the tag

@Username -

@Username,

@Username.

@Username!

@ Username

@Username-

(@Username)

@Username (in Heading 2 font) No idea why, it just doesnt tend to tag properly, Heading 3 is your best bet if you want to use a large font

A bit of formatting doesnt hurt – theres no shame in a bit of colour in the welcome threads, it jazzes them up a bit (Hint, copypastesymbol.com, hint)

If you see anything concerning (triggering language, sharing personal details, giving details of chats, advertising, trolling, spamming or a forum post in the wrong place), PM a Forum Mentor with the link, or tag them into the post so they can sort it out. Find the list of forum mentors here (plus theres these seven as well, if youre really desperate).

When working through a page of unresponded-to posts, start with the oldest and work your way down until youve done as many as you can, and then someone else can take over from you. Dont skip entries, as it can make vulnerable people feel ignored – even if the entry is the most mundane or irrelevant thing, its still an entry.

Make use of the ‘New function to see which posts havent been responded to yet

Just be supportive – use your active listening skills to show that you care deeply for members who have the courage to pour out their soul for all to see.

Get on top of your bookmarks game – if you come across a resource and think ‘Wow, this is amazing!, bookmark it and put it in a relevant sub folder in your 7 Cups bookmarks. This will make answering listener questions and sharing resources with members a calm and easy experience (as opposed to a frantic search through the forums trying to remember what that one thread you saw once was called).

If you'd like to know how to put links into your forum posts, check this doc

Ever since the forum switched from a plain text editor to a rich text editor, formatting gets copied across when you copy-paste something in. This can be useful sometimes (for example, links now copy across), but if you want to clear the formatting, copy what you want to paste into editpad, then copy it again and paste it into the forums, where it will be nice, normal, clean text.

Helpful Links:

Forum FAQ (for listeners)

Support Forum FAQ (for members)

How to make a thread

How to act in various areas (courtesy of the amazing @MonBon )

Forum Oath

Join the Forum Team here

The whole subforum that this thread is in

Guide to how the forum is organized

Last Updated: 24th January

26
Lilylistens June 17th, 2016

Bumping this up again. Thanks, @Lyra. This post is pretty great smiley

Love this post @Lara!

Why have I not seen this before! 🙈

Great!

TeenWolf June 17th, 2016

This is very helpful love it :)

Lilylistens June 26th, 2016

*bump*

Lilylistens July 6th, 2016

*bumping again*

Lilylistens July 17th, 2016

*bump* (for new audience)

ArwaS July 25th, 2017

*bumps*

ImpudentIncognito November 9th, 2019

@Lyra How do you edit or delete comments/threads? I've been searching, but still cannot find out how.

3 replies
Anomalia December 12th, 2019

@ImpudentIncognito - sorry for a delayed response! Users are not able to edit their own comments/threads unless they are Forum Supporters. If you need a comment or thread edited, you can reach out to a Forum Mentor / Forum Teen Star / Forum Member Leader and they can help you - feel free to PM to me directly if you need something taken care of

2 replies
ImpudentIncognito December 12th, 2019

@Anomalia Hey no worries.

I was just curious about this function since there are times where I may write something that later turns out to be too personal and would like to delete/edit personal details.

If we cannot edit the post, can we delete it? I have not found the delete function yet. Though I primarily use 7cups on the app rather than the on a desktop, so would I need to be logged into the desktop version for that feature?

Or would deletion also be through the mod team first?

Many thanks, I appreciate the response.

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Asher June 19th, 2020

Great post to learn all about the forum. Wish I saw this earlier when I started.

CalmTurtle72 June 20th, 2020

This is amazing! Thank you