Group Support Room Updates
In a continued effort to increase safety and ensure that each Group Support Room is adequately moderated, we will be making some changes to some of the rooms.
As of this Friday, January 4th, at 12:00 pm ET, the following changes will be made:
- Depression Support (adult room) will be closed and become a pop-up room to be used for scheduled discussions and sessions.
- Depression Chat will remain open 24/7 and will be available for anyone needing support for depression.
- LGBTQ+/MOGII Support (adult room) will be closed and become a pop-up room to be used for scheduled discussions and sessions.
- LGBTQ+/MOGII Community will remain open 24/7 and will be available for anyone needing support for LGBTQ+/MOGII issues
- Family Support will be closed and become a pop-up room to be used for scheduled discussions and sessions.
- Disability Support will be closed and become a pop-up room to be used for scheduled discussions and sessions.
Please let me know if you have any questions about these upcoming changes.
Those who know me know I am as mild-mannered as they come. But not keeping Disability Support open 24.7 is stupidity itself. This community has been threatened by the site multiple times over the past few years. I know, I've been there. Last time around we were assured by @Lara through @justhere2listen that the room was SAFE from closing. And no, claiming that the room is not closing because it will be a pop up room is not a valid argument, it's at most a frivolous attempt at useless compromise. It's deceitful. We have no use for a pop up room when the community comes from all over the world. And when for many of us, the only link to the outside world when disability hits the hardest is a little chatroom.
We mostly monitor ourselves, support each other the way no other room does. We have survived worse crisis. Will the room survive another? We'll see if the powers that be remember to KEEP THEIR PROMISES to the members who have stayed loyal to this site for many years. If not, shame on you, yes, shame on you.
To fellow members, I am sorry they are doing this to us. We all deserve better.
@Avocado6486 the assurances were from Heather when she was member support admin but I am not sure she is still her OR if the Promise ..and YES IT WAS A WRITEN PROMISE FROM ADMIN ..the disability support room was safe from Ever being closed by this site Again(paraphraze)..but..if she is no longer here I am not sure this site administration will keep the promise she gave me in a pm to SHARE WITH THE ROOM, thank you for the shout out Avo..I hope they really rethink this YET AGAIN.
@Justhere2listn
heather is no longer a community manager. However, all community managers have been acknowledging posts here and taking in feedback, so they are listening.
They wont change disssion anyway no matter what we say
@D3an
i beg to differ
@HopefulSprings
You can sign these petitions:
https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupModZone_168/KatesCave_1395/KeepLGBTQMOGIISupportRoomopen247_189385/?notifyID=221195362
https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupModZone_168/KatesCave_1395/Keepdisabilityrooma247room_189381/?notifyID=221196558
And participate in these challenges:
https://www.7cups.com/forum/LGBTQMOGIISupportCommunity_58/GettoknowusIcebreakersFun_220/HelpSavetheLGBTQMOGIISupportRoomandParticipateinthisChallenge_189395/1/#1866534
https://www.7cups.com/forum/DisabilitiesSupportCommunity_47/FunIcebreakersandGeneralAMAs_227/HelpSavetheDisabilityRoomandParticipateinthischallenge_189393/
@ItsDev Thank you for sharing this!
@ItsDev
Hi Dev,
Could you help with recruiting some volunteer mods and such to help with the rooms as well? As noted below, its much more than keeping a roo open! It takes quite a lot of bandwidth to manage and oversee each room! So each petition should be accompanied by a full list of the volunteers who will be hellping, what roles they will play, what the timeline will be for them the get trained and onboarded, how we will measure the success of each room...etc.
Thanks!!!
Hiya @Laura
Thank you for your response and yes, that is a fantastic idea. I will certainly do my best to help out where possible as I know how important having enough mods to cover the rooms can be.
Thanks.
@Laura if I did not have to reapply for everything and restart from begining (room support, forum supporter, group mod, forum mentor, community mentor, and community mentor leader), fill all the applications forms again and waiting for replies, I would reapply for community mentor leader role and work toward plans for making it good like it was used to, and even popup room, having the room open more regulary every time we have mods available for supervise the room and keep it open while the room is moderated. but pass through all those applications forms again is a lot of useless trouble for me.
@HopefulSprings
Hello - if you could present your feedback as problem/ solutions that would be ideal. An image that knocks the hard work of our incredibly dedicated and hard working community staff doesnt drive the conversation forward.
So a full list of the problems you see with some suggested solutions, keeping in mind all items mentioned by myself below would be great!
@Laura
if you read my other posts here you will see I did give some better solutions that closing the rooms. Read them and reply to them.
My best one is close the community ones instead. Open those during discussions. Close thinking space.
Fade out CCM if the issue is lack of global mods.
Implement an on site emergency report , make it work with the mute button.
So many other steps before closing.
Also I thought the room closures was due to safety now its due to lack of activity? But if thats the case the majority of those rooms are very active. So is it safety or are you looking for a certain number?
@HopefulSprings We are open minded to renaming or rebranding the rooms that will remain 24/7. Which I mentioned here.
As I have mentioned many times, we too want an onsite mod emergency form and will continue to work toward that in the future. I agree that it would be extremely helpful to mod safety.
Changing rooms from 24/7 to pop-ups is not something we decide lightly and both safety and engagement are factors in this decision.
@Kate
okay. I hear this isnt easy. Just give me a few days to calm and I will understand. It tends to take me a few days to separate my emotions from the logic. Just give me time to adjust. And please give disability a place. I feel hurt for them
@HopefulSprings
I agree people with disabilities need a safe place to talk.
@selfconfidentTangerine1778
Yeah, because guess what? Nobody wants to hear about our diseases, or how so-and-so has cancer, or MS, or is in a wheelchair, in most other rooms. It brings people down often and we don't like that feeling. This is a place we can complain about how much pain we are in, not for the entire SITE to see in a forum, as some physical issues are not things we want to announce to the WHOLE world...we also don't want to have to start over and explain our issue all over again each time in another room to new people where there are 40 people yelling, not know where to find each other unless we go spelunking in the maze that can be 7cups, and as someone else mentioned, sometimes people lurk to see if anyone pops up and then like 6 people start talking. Thinking Space is always empty, and that room you're allowed to talk about racist rants and politics. Are you closing *that * room? And I rarely go into CCC because it's often so mean in there and impossible to ask for/get support, and I've seen mods get called in, and literally scared away, give up and just leave the room in chaos! It is the only place that deals with physical ailments, which, lets be honest, most other rooms don't want us Debbie Downers in there all the time re-explaining what we already know about each other. We welcome EVERYONE, unlike some rooms you are not closing. We are mature adults, no one bothers us and we don't bother them. If that were the case, I'd see a reason to disperse us and make us find new homes. If the kids and bullies want to go argue with each other, let them go on some other site. Isnt CC in a little more dire need of help and resources than poor disability, or family rooms? Disability is a niche room for a topic that no other room deals with. And we only have this ONE room. Isn't providing support - which rarely happens in rooms like CC, and I've noticed AS went a bit down the toilet too, and one of the TWO depression rooms - what 7cups is supposed to be about? Not keeping open places where the bullies can frolic and not infiltrate the "nice" rooms? I get it, that's why you are keeping it open, so they don't spill over into the rooms that are doing just fine, like our disability room. But closing ours is only going to make us go into the other rooms and a whole new kind of problem will start. People slander others for far less than what some of us deal with on a daily basis. I'm sure there would be a whole list of people, including me, who would do whatever we had to to keep it open. But this is just sprung on us. And we can relate to each other. I can talk to people in their about my physical pain and they GET it more than people who are healthy physically.
Please, tell us what to do to keep this open, and all these passionate people will do it! Just give us more time! We feel like scattering mice when someone came in with a broom and took away our precious cheese. Perhaps you didn't realize how important and helpful this place was to so many people. Just tell us what we need to do, and we will do it!
@KittyCat15 - And also...having it open only for discussions doesn't help us at all. We don't want to sit there and answer weekly on "how does having a disability make you feel" and stuff like that. We just want to talk and share on our own terms as we always have.
I'm telling you, this room saved me, in a way that going somewhere else and saying, "I have a disease" and having people say "oh, so sorry, are you going to be okay?" would have. Please dont take it away.
BUMP
i honestly dont like the fact that this post is now not on the home screen after sign in.
wonders if the post is trying to be hidden? or just hidden away to not bring attention.
but anyways.
BUMP
Dear Everyone,
I have read your posts and hear your feedback. I am very sorry that you are upset we are moving towards closing some rooms. I can understand your frustration and I do empathize. In the cases mentioned, we are not taking away community building spaces from each community, we are changing how those community rooms functions.
Ex. The Disbaility room is not going anywhere, we are simply updating how it is used. If you want to open the room, you can! If you want to meet with your friends for an open chat, great!! You can!!!! Its all up to you to make it happen!!
The reason we have decided to take this step is based on engagement and volunteerism. It does not feel very good to enter a room looking for support and find it totally empty. That is not the point of our chatrooms. Our chatrooms are meant to be active spaces for support. When a room is dead, it does not contribute to this mission in the best way possible. In fact, the members who go in there looking for help are left hanging.
Additionally, if you want these rooms open.... Make it happen, use your rooms, show up, Host your discussions, pop-in, chat with your peers.... These rooms are build by you, for you. The community team cannot take this one alone, we need to work together. The rooms we are moving to pop-up are because they were consistently empty, volunteers and community members werent stepping up to help out and we did not want to have chatrooms that were unmoderated.
If you want your rooms open, make it happen. The community team is here to help facilitate a positive community experience. We have set up systems for volunteers to get plugged in and help out. If you are able, pls help out. The community team cannot take this on alone.
@Laura
is there a way to keep disability and lgbtq permanently opened? I have an L account with mod privilege I can commit to being there at least once a week. Maybe more.
@Laura The reasoning of Kate's post doesn't match what you're saying here.
So if we do move the room to a popup and members want it opened, how do we go about doing that?
I'm also disappointed with lack of communication on this. With the updates to subcommunities and meetings this never came up. I have repeatedly asked about getting the SC maturity level information, that has not been shared with me. I have also repeatedly given feedback that the number of posts within a room do not give a great metric of the supportiveness in the room - when hurtful comments come out, people spam, etc. the number of posts in a room actually go up. As others have mentioned too, disability support is different due to the nature of people we support. It's not unusual when the room gets busier for some to actually leave because they have reached the threshold of what a healthy space looks like for them.
I have also brought up suggestions regarding bringing people onto the site who would benefit from the disability subcommunity. This is something that I have done over years. We know the Q&A section is being used to bring in outside traffic - I have been asking for a very long time for that to be fixed within the disability and the chronic pain categories and have offered to help with that (ie from 3 years ago - https://www.7cups.com/forum/KitchenTable_133/Feedback_37/DisabilityChronicPainandChronicIllnessaredifferentthings_34707/ ). Nothing has progressed that way in years. It's frustrating when as I listener I am prompted to answer questions about trauma when that's not what I have picked and rarely get a question related to disabilities, plus there's a lack of disability Q&As in the subcommunity and they tend to get drowned out by the trauma ones. The same goes for outreach, after repeatedly asking about ways to reach out to different communities outside of 7cups I haven't seen any of those things happening.
I also have trouble with the statement that the room is consistently empty. I can't comment about the last few weeks due to holiday, but outside of that there are specific times when I can go into the room and expect to see particular people.
@Laura I am not really using the rooms anymore so I don't know if this is true or not but I will believe what I am presented here as I have no reason to doubt you.
Honestly, this sounds like something that would have been perfect to start a post with and outline a problem that we have an a possible solution and I am sure many people would have got ideas to share and try out and even the communities would have come together to try and see what they can do.
Something that they cannot really do when you present something like this less than two days before "deadline" and give the reasoning even later. I mean, it would be probably useful to postpone the go-live date of these changes and give the mentioned rooms and communities a chance on their own to try to see and solve these problems.
I mean, it feels like a lot of the backlash has come from how this was presented and how some people feel like they are totally powerless and vulnarable with decisions like this beind only presented. - and correct me here if I am wrong and there was an open discussion about this beforehand and I have just missed it.
So, I guess, TL;DR, now that we have got the reason is there maybe a way to post-pone these changes to a time reasonable so these communities try to sort this problem out?
@Laura Thank you for taking the time to read peoples feedback. 
@Laura This isnt a solution. It should not be the responsibility or burden of the suffering people to work to keep their room open. The room should be provided without question. These people have more difficult lives than 70% of people here and for sure more difficult lives than the paid admins or volunteer mods. You remove the room because apparently people feel bad (who? obviously not the people who actually use disability + family rooms, so why should opinions of non-users matter?) when they see quiet rooms. Now users of disability + family rooms have nowhere to go, nothing better, now its worse for them because they dont have a quiet room but now no room at all.
This trend of "this isnt as good as it could be, so we will remove it, but we dont have any alternative, so instead of a mediocre thing, you now have nothing at all" is disgusting. "There are too few people by our arbitrary standards as non-affected outsiders" becomes "now these few users cant access support or friendship because it made us feel sad to see few people, so now we see no one." You tell people "too late, you should have improved your rooms" but you never gave a warning of this, time to prepare or published your arbitrary standards that you cant expect people to automatically know. And as before, it isnt the responsibility for the suffering people to improve their room for your standards. Their community and self determination comes first and is more important than your standards as an outsider. You said that people can open the room, but this is for members or just mods? Why cant members decide when their room is open? Why do they need to ask permission from a higher power to be able to speak with their friends and get support? Just because you feel too bad to see an empty room or feel like the room isnt "safe" due to less number of mods, but you dont care enough to make the situation better and listen to the affected communities (regular members of disability + family rooms). Instead you damn these people and make their lives more difficult so that your emotions arent hurt when you see them.
You literally make yourself more work to remove things from people who need it. There was no lack of mods in disability + family rooms because members were already civil and kind. There wasnt too few people because regulars were fine with their small communities. You say that it makes you sad to see empty rooms but you ignore the regulars who took time to post in here to defend their safer spaces and communities. You are paid to create a website for struggling people to find support and companionship on their own terms (not yours) and mods volunteer to help struggling people in worse situations. This is your job and your responibility. And now you figuratively kick struggling people on the streets with no alternatives due to arbitrary statistics (number of rooms, number of mods, number of regulars) that do not represent the reality of the rooms, workloads and communities that use the rooms.
One last thing - a member of our team has received some hurtful messages as a result of this post. Those of you who are upset, please do not take this out on one individual. The room is moving to open/ close bc we all have stopped participating enough to make it 24/7. If you want a room open, thats awesome! we are here to support you all having the rooms open when you want/ need!
But please, share you feedback in a professional, respectful way. Our team is working hard to manage the the ever growing needs of our community. Anyone who threatens or harasses staff will be subject to consequences outlined in our community guidelines
@Laura
no one should be threatened. I agree. We are all mature adults. I hope!
@Laura just going to point out phrasing you just used.. "The room is moving to open/ close bc we all have stopped participating enough to make it 24/7". to me that sounds like a choice and not a need. you say you have all stopped participating enough. so that is the mods being burnt out to participate??? sure how it sounds to me. so mods are getting burnt out/ leaving or being forced out. then leaving cups with fewer mods to modderate, then rooms get closed because there are not enough mods for all the rooms.
to me that sounds like some messed up organization by the higher ups of their volunteer mods.
long ago ive lost hope for this site, due to the corruptedness of volunteer mods.
p.s.: the point of rooms being changed to pop up rooms IS being missed by the higher ups. the point of the room not being AVAILABLE at any given time is the point. if a room turns into a pop up room which was originally a permanant room, then there becomes only "windows" of time that the room is to be open. that IS not inclusive to a global site that claims to offer support. this change of rooms that are claiming to "not be closing, just turning into a pop up room" is being closed in some respects. and you higher ups dont realized that its really is PREVENTING support and NOT "creating a safer environment".
you all have been saying that the mod numbers are down. but what makes you think that few mods can EFFECTIVELY modderate larger groups PROPERLY! truth is youll probably be putting MORE pressure on your existing mods to over work (WHEN THEY ARE VOLUNTEERS ALREADY!) because they will have to mod higher volume rooms (IF the members continue to remain on the site after the change).
which brings up another point. think of regulars that have come here for years, build their support systems, wether its L's or other M's. you are PUTTING them into a position to find another room. perhaps those have chose that room for a reason as it has a crowd that is appretiated. now youll be forcing those groups to either choose to migrate to a new room that has previously been passed on for the room that was chosen by them. but again being forced to then choose another room... OR.. you might end up just driving a mass amount of people (who might already be extremely frustrated with this site) to choose to just leave the site as some will not settle in other rooms as well as the one that had been chosen in the past.
but.. you only might see your points of why you want the change. but.. again, had you instead posted a mass notice about lack of mods, then with possible actions nessissary to address such issue, perhaps this BRILLIANT GROUP OF US on here could have offered alternat options than just hasteily making decisions YOU think is best, WITH YOUR INTERESTS IN MIND, not ours.
Fallen420angel
@Kate
This is absoutely appaling!
Instead of spreading support you're basically taking away the support people desperatly need by closing rooms like LGBTQ+,Disability, and Family and using them just for group discussions! It's horrible, it really is. People need those rooms as a 24/7 support chat and a safe place and you're just going to take that away from them, horrible and appalling. I really hope you reconsider and leave those rooms a 24/7 support chat, if not then a lot of people are going to lose respect for this site.
can people please stop throwing blame and jumping to assumptions about why things are being done. It's just a change- you either like it or you don't but that doesn't mean people had bad intentions when they made the change. Everyone here works hard to make the site safe and to make it the best it can be. Sometimes you might not like decisions but it doesn't mean you are allowed to be mean to people. Instead, express your opinion calmly and politiely. Go along with the flow and then take appropriate steps to change it if you don't like it. Attacking people only makes the vibes on a support site negative. It makes me sad when i see so many people jumping to conclusions, attacking people for differences of opinion and making hurtful accusations that people have bad intentions
@summertimeSamness Doesnt matter about intentions, it matters about the effect on the members who need these spaces + communities.
@plibonavivo2
People can still express their feelings about likes or dislikes with respect and kindness. I never said member opinions don't matter I said don't make assumptions about people just because they post a rule change
I am a regular of the LGBTQ+ support room. Having read some of the comments already made here I agree with what has already been said, but would like to add one more thing to consider. The LGBTQ+ rooms are used by a broad demographic of fantastic people who sometimes require support across a range of issues, from sexual orientation to gender identity and so much more. However due to the very nature of some of those issues they can occasionally come into inevitable conflict. For example, someone who is seeking relationship support and perhaps talking about a preferred gender of a partner (a common LGB topic), may inadvertently be quite triggering for someone who is struggling with gender dysphoria. The way many of our members currently deal with this conflict does not require a moderator, as they are able to quite comfortably 'step away' and spend time in the community room until the topic moves on in the support room and they can re-engage with the main group conversation.
By forcing everyone into one room together, this removes that self driven method of maintaining maximum support in the rooms. It requires no moderator input. Without this strategy of maintaining the peace, members may well be forced into conflict or feel sufficently uncomfortable in the rooms that they feel they no longer have a safe place to engage in a group chat on this site.
I understand that more moderators are required to help 'keep the peace', but closing the LGBTQ+ support room may just further exacerbate the issue.
A potential solution: specfic-chatroom only member account moderators. Allow a select few long standing members of these subcommunities to be trusted to maintain their own safe places.
How these accounts are chosen could be based on a number of factors, such as whether the member holds their own moderator listener account, their mute/warning history, their active times and willingness to take on the role, etc.
It may not be realistic, but this would separate the requirement for any moderators to also be required to constantly offer other members of support, meaning they may be more likely to still be able to provide chatroom safety without sacrificing their own mental reserves as much. It would also widen your pool of recruits to be new moderators.
Perhaps to remove any confusion these member account moderators may have a different name e.g. mediator?
--
This is likely not the most elegant solution to the issues the site is currently facing, but if the admins were to come into the support chatrooms and brainstorm with the subcommunities present; we might just be able to come up with a novel solution which works out best for everyone.
@placidTiger1340 appreciate your thoughtfulness about potential solutions. You made lots of interesting points and looked at this in a constructive way. Keep brainstorming ideas.
I do feel the need to say, that there is a right way, and a wrong way to express your opinions. Its ok to disagree and present reasons as to why, as many have done. What isnt ok is personally attacking someone. Please show kindness and compassion towards one another, hate and fire never got anyone anywhere good. Remember there is someone at the other end of your keyboard. 
@MrJacob
thank you for this jacob!
@EvelyneRose It's important to remeber we are talking to other people with feelings. And we need to choose our words wisely.
- J
@MrJacob
most definitely!
i know that we all have a different story and reasons for certains things and many of which other people are never going to be able to understand since we all have not lived the same lives but we are all most certainly not here to argue about who has the worst case for themselves. all we can do is be support for each other and listen to try to empathize and sympathize with each other as much as possible. the more we talk, the more we can do that