Follow Up to Rooms Closing Announcement
We have received lots of feedback regarding this post announcing the transitioning of several rooms from 24/7 to pop-ups. We appreciate those of you who took the time to provide thoughtful feedback in a respectful way. Some of you have made helpful points that the community management team has taken the time to discuss and consider. As always, nothing is set in stone and we all reserve right to pivot on a plan as needed.
Our goal in the group support rooms (and on 7 Cups as a whole) is to provide support and a safe space to those living with mental health conditions and other disabilities. We make conscious efforts to offer support while also working to ensure that all interactions on 7 Cups are safe and appropriate. This is a balance and one we are continuing to work on every day.
It has become clear that members of the Disability Community need a slower paced room in order to feel comfortable and safe. We want to be accommodating of users living with a variety of conditions and disabilities and have decided to keep the Disability Support Room open 24/7 as a space for those living with disabilities to seek and share support.
With that being said, to keep this space open, we all need to step up as a team and work together. With our new Volunteer Tracking System, we are all able to more closely track activity and engagement. Use this update as an opportunity to show how much you value your teams and communities. Participate in the rooms, host open chats, pop-ups and discussions. The chatrooms are meant to be a place for support. A new user entering the room, should be welcoming and invited to participate. Joining an empty room doesnt feel welcoming or supportive so lets change this.
Moving forward, we expect you to share your feedback and thoughts in a respectful way, even if you disagree. Insulting the community management team or other leaders is not tolerated and is not the way to get your point across. Bullying, using an inappropriate tone and threats are all violations of our Community Guidelines and not helpful to sharing your opinions. Every member of our team joined 7 Cups because we have a passion for mental health and community. We will listen to constructive feedback and we will brainstorm solutions and problem solve with you when controversy arises. But it must be said how genuinely disappointed we are in the abusive language and actions that have been taken this week. That is not what 7 Cups is about. It took away our focus from coming to the decision to keep the disability room open 24/7. This should be a safe place for everyone.
We are open to feedback about the renaming or rebranding of 24/7 rooms and pop-ups to help better reflect their purpose. Our goal is for all rooms to be a place where members can come for support and understand that there is confusion regarding rooms that are support rooms vs. light-hearted chat or community rooms. Please let us know your feedback and ideas with this regarding the LGBTQ+/MOGII and Depression Rooms.
Again, thank you to those of you who providing thoughtful and professional feedback on this update.
@Laura @Jill7Cups @Power @Heather225
Thank you. Sorry you guys where treated poorly.@Kate
@Kate Thanks so much for this awesome update and for hearing out the community! The chatrooms are a vital part of 7Cups especially for the subcomms, so this is fantastic news for the disability support subcomm. :)
This is great news, thank you and I know the #disability community genuinely appreciate this!
@Kate Thank you Kate, for being open to feedback and listening to the community's opinion and needs.
I am very sorry that you or other people had to deal with the aggressive and threatening behaviour. No one is flawless nor perfect, and leaders have it rough. Admin and Ambassadors are the faces of the community and this makes you targets to people's frustrations. Thank you for being firm about this aspect and I hope that this shameful behaviour will disappear with time.
You are awesome. Remember that.
@Kate Said this already but thanks for keeping disability room open, as we can see, it means a lot to the people who use it.
@Kate I'm being cyber-bullied by people in CC. Please help me.
@Regmo Ill look into this. 
@Kate
Thank you for this post !
I agree with you about this week response and I too was rather disappointed to see how many leaders I look up to join in the bad behaviour.
We all learn from our mistakes and perhaps we can express feedback and concerns in a loving way with respect.
I came on 7cups for many reasons I stayed on because I felt heard , loved and respected, I feel we need to keep this.
We need to respect the people in charge and we also need to respect the rules being in place.
As a listener who is growing I look up to my leaders but how can I look up to them if they show bad behaviour ?
That being said , I still love my 7cups family and as families we all have a little drama but one rule should always remain. Love and respect above all 💓
Keep up the good work.
@Kate
Very well said Kate. It is fantastic to see that people get their opinions heard when they express them properly. As a community, decisions need to be made sometimes which won't please everyone, but threats and aggression are never the way forward. Let's all continue with the 7 Cups values of care and respect for everyone.❤️
@Kate I am very grateful for this news and I would like to request some greater clarity about what you are looking for in the room. Let's just be honest and set some goals together. I think you have some way to measure stats and I would appreciate more transparency in regards to how we are measured and how we are doing. What does it mean to be "going into rooms with regular cadence"? In terms of keeping a room "active", how do you define active? Are you wanting at least five people chatting at any given time? Are you wanting a post into the chat at least once every five minutes? Are you concerned about having a greeter there to greet people as they come in 24 hours a day? Or do you want a greeter to greet people at least 12 of the 24 hours? Are you willing to help us create a format where members can volunteer to be greeters during short shifts in order to support the room? Some members in Disability Support have put in long hours sometimes 12 hours a day to be a greeter in an informal way, for example, EnergeticCircle has done this for long periods of time to set a tone for the room. It has helped a lot and we are all grateful for his efforts but I think we need to share the workload. If we have a clear idea of what you are looking for in terms of something measurable, I think we can all work together to be the best possible version of Disability Support.
@Kate
How about monthly updates on how we are doing from the admin's point of view? How are our stats and how can we improve every month? And in the future, if you find our stats to be lacking, would you be willing to give a 30-day warning instead of only days? Kindly consider giving us a chance to improve and a measurable goal to strive for. We will work with you, and together we can make 7 cups an amazing site.
@1Marg1 Marg thanks for this post and for asking so many good questions. Circle does spend alot of time in the room and I know some who, myself included used to also..even if I was alone..unfortunately, due to my medical issues, I just have not been able..what then? I love the way you ask these questions so clearly.
@Justhere2listn Your efforts are deeply appreciated, and I hope you get all the support that you need with your health issues now. I think as a community we can pull together and follow your lead. But as they say, "many hands make light work", the more people who are doing this the easier it is for everyone. We have never had a format to organize members volunteering to do this in shifts and it is a task that room supporters and mods do not do. It falls on members to do this and I think we need some support in organizing it so that we don't have one poor soul doing all the work and long 12 hour days.
@1Marg1 I'm not sure there can ever be a real set way to measure if a room is fully active in a community like this one as we have 100's of people from all over the world and many different time zones so there are definately going to be times where the room is going to be silent or more or less empty. I would hope people are doing self care and sleeping at some point. Not to mention some have real life lives and such. I can say maybe just looking at peak times and going is there a general conversation that happens on a regular basis, 5-8 people or even more. and then over time that number can grow by others seeing that it is a place of calm and welcoming people that are kind and compassionate. and even if you enter and maybe don't have a disability, you can still belong than that is what makes a room great! I have been in the room and I have seen just that. I know it isn't the most crowded but that is okay.
@Kate
Hi, Kate! I have been to the Depression rooms a few times and I noticed how they would talk about everything but depression, such as coping skills, etc. That makes me not want to go in there.
@FaithfulPrune9638
coping skills are relevant to depression