A Change in Group Support Chat Room: Proposal
Hello Community!
As you all know we are opening selected rooms on rotation 24/7 every day. We are receiving feedback from members that rooms are quieter lately.
We also noticed the engagement for the rotation based rooms are low. As well as the quiet rooms are getting used for community guidelines violations like spamming the room, sharing offsites, etc.
When we initiated the rotational 24/7 rooms, the condition to keep them open was to ensure that the community was getting support and following the community guidelines. But, it seems it is not happening so and that is an unhealthy and non-therapeutic environment for our members who reach out in the chat rooms to connect and seek support.
Taking into account the overall feedback from the community, here is a proposal to consider: We are thinking about closing the rotational rooms.
The topic rooms can be opened by the room supporters and chat room moderators of the specific sub-community. It will be their responsibility to open the topic-specific support room and support the community members.
Instead of all rotational based rooms, we could open a General Support Room for both adults and teens as an additional room to provide support. As the name suggests, it is General Support, it will cover all topics to support.
That would mean, there will be the following rooms:
- Regular 24/7 rooms for adults: Support Room 24/7, Member Community Room, Sharing Circle, and General Support
- Topic rooms for adults 24/7: Disability & LGBTQ+
- Regular 24/7 rooms for teens: Support Room 24/7, Teen Community Room, and General Support
Our goal is to provide a supportive and therapeutic environment for each member of the community. But, to ensure it is happening, we need your collaboration and support.
How you could collaborate to support?
- Please follow the chatroom and community guidelines. These guidelines are to ensure healthy interactions and protect individual and community interests.
- Greet and welcome each member joining in and make them feel like they are visiting a friend's house. A little support goes a long way.
- Please ensure to maintain chat room boundaries i.e. use the room based on its defined purpose. For example Member Community Room is for lighthearted chats while the support room is for providing support.
Consequences of being unsupportive and breaking the rules:
- We are functioning on zero tolerance towards unsupportive behavior, i.e. community moderators could issue an instant mute if they find anyone disrupting the chat room environment. Please read more here!
- All chatroom violations by any user will be processed as per the Behavioral Rating System.
Please consider the proposal and share your feedback and thoughts. It is our community and it is our responsibility to keep it supportive for everyone.
What’s in your mind? Share with us by joining in the Sharing Circle Room! We are here to hear and support you!!
If you are unable to enter the group support chat rooms, please check this post to learn what you all need to unlock the chat rooms.
Recent news on Sharing Circle and Steps Towards Healthy Habits
@ASilentObserver
As proposed above, "The topic rooms can be opened by the room supporters and chat room moderators of the specific sub-community. It will be their responsibility to open the topic-specific support room and support the community members." Does the new propoal mean that...
1) Room Supporters and Community Centered mods will be allowed to act as doorkeepers for the topic rooms they support?
2) A mod will not have to be present when topic rooms are open?
3) Topic rooms will be allowed to remain open as long as a member of the group support team is present?
On a related topic, if room supporters will be able to open topic rooms, will there be a change in the way mods can be requested to come to topic specific rooms if needed? As I understand, only commods and global mods can interact in each member room. Will and how will community centered mods be notified if there is a need?
@PeaceLoveandPaws Great questions!
1) Room Supporters and Community Centered mods will be allowed to act as doorkeepers for the topic rooms they support?
They will not be able to open/close rooms but can request to open and close the room from those who are doorkeepers and continue to provide support.
2) A mod will not have to be present when topic rooms are open?
If mods are available, it would be good they stay in their topic room and ensure moderation. But even if mod is unavailable, room supporters can get the room open and support the community. And, if need moderation back up, they can fill emergency form.
3) Topic rooms will be allowed to remain open as long as a member of the group support team is present?
Yes, it is the responsibility of the team member to get the room open and close it when they are leaving.
On a related topic, if room supporters will be able to open topic rooms, will there be a change in the way mods can be requested to come to topic specific rooms if needed? As I understand, only commods and global mods can interact in each member room. Will and how will community centered mods be notified if there is a need?
We are opening Emergency Form access for all global mods so they can help us whenever we needed a mod back up in the chatroom.
@ASilentObserver
Thank you for this update 
This point: "Yes, it is the responsibility of the team member to get the room open and close it when they are leaving", is very important. A little feedback on it: as I am not a doorkeeper nor a global mod, I have experienced some difficulties in having a room opened or closed. A few times, filling the form and contacting the mod who was supposed to be on shift didn't work. It took me nearly half an hour last time to find someone to close the PD room once the guided discussion was over. It's a long time... time that I don't necessarily have...
Possible solution: It would be important to have community mods notify the community of any last minute change in the schifts schedule.
@ASilentObserver What's the concern with giving the doorkeeper badge to everyone with a group chat related leader badge? It seems like doing so would remove a barrier to getting a room open and closed based on availabilities, I'm not sure what the downside to doing so would be.
A little off topic, but could help with the issue if not handing out doorkeep badges to all room based leaders - can the ComMods change their status when online? I understand not necessarily using the online status to avoid coming up as being available to chat when someone is browsing listners for that purpose. What about using busy status for their shifts?
Agree with @AffyAvo!
Great suggestion, the busy status
@ASilentObserver
I have another question/concern about consistency and quality. I am happy that every leader on each topic team can open the rooms they support. How can we work to ensure consistency for members if the rooms can be opened and closed at random times? With the rotation schedule, members know to expect to see Student Support, for example, every Saturday. It think it is important for members to know when to expect topic rooms to open. Have there been any thoughts regarding consistency in opening rooms? How can we manage that on a team level and on a community level?
In terms of quality, each group supporter has different levels of experience and strengths in particular areas, which adds to the richness of the community. What plans are there in place to provide extra support and training to those who are new to group support or new to a topic room to ensure the highest quality experience for members?
@PeaceLoveandPaws very good point. I know with 35+ they know it's Wednesday and they can go there. When we open the room for discussions or open chat they come in halfway through because they didn't realise and were in another room. Know they have a day helps them come together.
Sorry if I'm not fully understanding but how will that affect the topic chats in the long run? Will they even be opened now besides discussions? How will people be able to actively talk in them if nobody is on to open them? I've been told by someone they use to have the chats open 24/7, regardless of the day. Why is that no longer allowed even though we have community mods around the clock?
@OliviaWilson5 Good question Olivia. We have community mods available around the clock but they have limitations too to mod the number of rooms simultaneously.
Room Supporters or Chatroom Moderators of specific subcommunity will be able to open the room to continue to provide support to the community members.
@ASilentObserver
But that doesn't guarantee a block of time for members to be able to interact or get support in said room if their time zone is a bit off and nobody is able to request to open it, have it opened, and stay in it? With the older system it rotated daily.
@OliviaWilson5 some rooms didn't need 24 hr physical moderation but were still well moderated and the room mods were easily contacted if there was a problem and not in the room at that specific time.
@ASilentObserver
i'm just wondering how often the chats will be open. will it just be totally randomized? and what if the rooms don't open on the right time zone for the person.
i do agree that some rooms are quiet though, its really up to 7 cups and i trust them to make the best choice.i could see either decision being okay but i hope all the ppl who depend on those rooms come and speak out their opinion
@MrMarino Thank you for your thoughts Marino. We are proposing this in order to provide effective support to our community members. Rooms could be open as per availability of the room supporters and chatroom moderators of the specific community.
@ASilentObserver
- what is difference between support room and general support?
- will RS and mods be allowed to open their own rooms or will they needed help for it? will they have to put banner all the time they are in (and able to use the banner in this room, right now mods can but not RS)?
- to ensure the rooms can be open a minimum of time in the month, as well as ensure activity of those with RS / mod roles, will the quotas change for their specific room rather global so they continue to keep rooms closed and doing their quotas in the 24/7 rooms?
@TortueDesBois Great question Bois. General Support was created earlier to support users with general needs because we didn't have such rooms earlier. We only had topic specific rooms.
RS and Mods are allowed to open the room but will need help with opening the room as they are not doorkeepers yet. If they can set banner, it is good to do that, so they can log their supporting hours in it. If not, we may create a sheet to keep a track so we can inform the community how often a room is opening to provide support.
For now quota is not changing but if all like to do so, we can think about it. We do not want it overwhelm our room supporters and chatroom moderators with monthly requirement increase but we are seeking their proactive help to provide support in respective topic rooms.
@ASilentObserver I'm not talking about increase quotas, but having them done in their specific room.
if the quota is 50 messages sent in room, then it has to remain the same, but the 50 messages should be sent in the specific room they are supposed support, and not "in any other room except this one". to ensure a minimum of activity on those rooms, or encourage them to choose rooms that they are actually active in. why apply for a room if you never go in there but spend all your time in a different room?
@ASilentObserver i know the history of the general support room, im asking what will be the difference between support room and general support room?
@TortueDesBois no difference Bois. It will act as another support room considering how in community meetings and random checkins, members mentioned that support room at times crowded and not able to get the best support and suggested for another support room. So it will act as second one.
@ASilentObserver so it will be used the same way as the rotating rooms, will just transfer the same problem from rotating rooms to the second support room. hmm....
@TortueDesBois yes Bois
This is just a suggestion, but I think would be appreciated by many. Could 35+ be a 24/7 room? There are many people who feel moat comfortable chatting with that particular group. I think m it would be very beneficial to keep it open. Please Consider.
Hotaru419
@Hotaru419 35+ Room could be open by room supporters and chatroom moderators of 35+ Subcom, Hotaru. And, members can also become room supporters for the specific rooms. 
I think this will be a potential good change, I have noticed that the pop up rooms that stay open one day for 24/7 typically aren’t used for the topic at all. However when I open a room for discussion on a day it’s not open, it becomes the room it’s topic is for and becomes more busy than just randomly being open. However being an RS I don’t have the ability to open/close the rooms, sometimes it can be challenging to find a mod to close or even open the room. So perhaps a better way is needed, if that’s possible? Maybe a sign up sheet would be good, where we can mark what day/time we want the room open and for how long we want it opened for, to perhaps eliminate the hassle to find a mod to do so.
However, that being said. Sometimes MCR and 24/7 get overly crowded, a lot of times the support room becomes a toxic environment - I have heard this many times and witnessed it for myself. So by closing rooms I’m worried this will become worse, as there won’t be many options of rooms open for people to talk.
@blitheEmbrace27 That's a good idea Bli. Thank you for bringing it up. I understand that and that is why offering another 24/7 room to meet the needs.
@blitheEmbrace27 al the community mods can open or close their room, their schedule is published in the forums and they answer quickly the pms.
@TortueDesBois I'm aware that they can open the rooms but they aren't always available. I do have their schedule as well. They are busy. They mod the adult and teen side and spend time in sharing circle and other discussions. I don't feel right about always bugging them in pms to open and close rooms for me.
My comment was only a suggestion anyways. I'm happy to be part of this amazing community no matter what changes are or are not made. ☺️
@TortueDesBois unfortunately, this is not my experience. Last-minute changes in shifts are not made known, so it happens to pm a community mod thinking they are working, when they are not. The form also doesn't seem to work well.
I wish Room Supporters would have the option to open or close THE SPECIFIC ROOM they are assigned to work with.
For example, it would be useful if I could open and close the Personality Disorders Room myself without needing a doorkeeper.
@StarlitSky4762 That would likely spark moderation issues
@emotionalMap4252 May I ask why?
@StarlitSky4762
Gotta say is interesting thought.
@StarlitSky4762 Because there isn't any order, nor is there moderation. It's something that would go downhill fast.
@StarlitSky4762 star I do wish this as well! Would be so much easier if room supporters could open and close the rooms. But I also understand why we are not allowed to and respect it.
@ASilentObserver
Hello Obs ! That is so understandable and we understand that. The idea you are starting is a great initiative and that's totally capable of appreciation. I would like to ask there is no such General Support 24 * 7 room that opens everyday, from when this room is going to become permanent ? Thanks for making this and that's amazing !
Suryansh
Be the change that you wish to see in the world.
@SuryanshSingh it's a proposal that they first consult the community to get thoughts and feedback before to take final decision. it will probably being announced later after they received the feedback.
@TortueDesBois @ASilentObserver
That's indeed great! I would say I ageee with Obs, and the community, I think making a General Support Room that would be 24*7 for everything apart, Support Room 24*7 and Teen Community Room 24*7. These three rooms would be great. For Listeners, we could have separate Listeners room as LSR or TL. Thanks 💙
Suryansh
So does this mean np more rooms open once a week for 24 hours? Cause a lot of people are gonna be upset
lot of room supporters and mods did help only when their room was already open, so on rotating room day. with this change, they will no longer help the room be active because they will not open the room.