Community Rooms.
Peace be upon you.
I'm grateful to see that Noni hasn't become a prevalent feature on Seven Cups and that the discussions, for the most part, are frequent and going very well. You guys must be working hard too. But the problem is that the support rooms are just not that supportive. There is a lot of pressure to conform to the rooms being kept 'fun' whilst a majority of the rules are being broken and devastatingly bad advice been given at times. If people present their issues they are shunned for bringing down the mood in the room.
The rooms are not a place for giving and receiving support but a place where people socialise and pass time.
It is impossible to keep the rooms supportive.
If I go to another quieter room to offer support what usually happens is the room quickly gets busy and everybody then wants support at the same time which is overwhelming and unsupportive.
As it is clear that you do not want to slow down the amount of people that come to this site, there does need to be a dedicated team to guide the support rooms for a majority of the time for them to be successful, and confident, calm, and well thought out authority.
It's a never ending battle for some members, listeners and moderators to keep these rooms safe and supportive and to try and keep the promise made by Seven Cups, that it's a safe and supportive place, which half true but not wholly.
There either definitely needs to be a dedicated Support Room Team or a reassesment of what it is Seven cups really can offer anyone that what's to join the community.
Because I for one do not feel safe there and I am not speaking only for myself.
I hope you are able to read this post with my intentions clear and are able to progress without becoming down hearted.
The Chat Rooms certainly hav a mind of their own. While moderating to enforce rules is necessary, trying to control the overall conversations brings conflict. Try telling someone- this is a Support Room, and you should stop discussing movies... and you'll just start a fight
Fortunately there are many Rooms. If one isn't meeting expectations, it's prob best to switch to another
@GlenM @ChromeLotus Peace be upon you. Moderators don't ask people to switch conversations as long as the conversations are not inappropriate, the point is when people are coming for support they are shunned and have to rant about it being a Support Room to which they are further shunned and I am hurt for them. Unfortunately some people are anti-authority and will throw down a fight when asked to control their behaviour. Authority is a very important role but unfortunately not everyone respects that. I haven't ever seen a moderator ask anyone to stop talking about mundane topics and have only ever seen moderators say: that they are happy for people to continue chatting as long as no one needs support. I don't know about everyone else, personally I feel very unwelcome in some rooms for being supportive and have moved to other rooms, but then the problem of all the new comers wanting support at once arises, and then they are disappointed with the websites promises and that disappointment gets threw on me. I feel very hurt by the disappointment of others due to no fault of my own, I didn't promise anything and didn't give anyone any expectations.
