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
I believe that for a Mental Healh site that we need the Anixety Room open because most people here are dealing with anxiety and panic attacks..
24/7 Rooms
1. Anxiety
2. Disability
3. LGBTQ
4 Sharing Circles but maybe not 24/7 sessions back to back due to lack of members and also Mods being able to Mod . I do know there is an emergency mod form but it is not always that quick and easy.
5.Member Community Room- for people to hang out in.
6. 35+ because of the many who are over 35 +
I believe these are the best rooms to have open 24/7 and then have the others as pop ups ..
Just my input .. Room Supporters ask all the time how can they do room supporting when rooms are not open. This I think would help so much.
I am up for anything will adjust as before 
Tye
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 why anxiety cant be discussed in support room? why people over 35 cant use other rooms? why those rooms specifically instead others? why anxiety and not depression? and why not healthy living?
i seek support on topics i am not even allowed (healthy living, such exercice and weight lose, not allowed on support room because it trigger people with eating disorder). i dont think topics normally discussed in anxiety or 35+ are so triggering for other people that cant be discussed in general support rooms. so i am confuse.
@TortueDesBois Hello,
Great Questions thanks for asking...
When people go looking for sites they are most normally dealing with Anxiety, Panic, Depression ,PTSD ,Phobias. etc... so the one key word is Anxiety so it makes sense to have a Room that is called Anxiety Support and this room worked well when opened and still does. This is my reason for wanting Anxiety Support open..
35+ Because of the stigmatism of being over a certain age.As someone who is over 50 myself I am asked on here often "Why are you Here at your age ?" People assume that after a certain age you should be fine and not dealing with Mental health .. 35+ was one of the most used rooms also and used wisely and so needed.
Compassion Corner closed and then Depression support was then used and abused by the ones leaving compassion corner .Depression support room was not used as much for what it was needed for so I would love to see Anxiety and Depression linked togther as one room because most people I know and studies show that when someone is dealing with Anxiety and Panic and Phobias they are also dealing Depression .. So linking them together amd maybe renaming them would be a good idea- Anxiety & Depression Support. ?
It is trie in any room here you can discuss any topic but in some rooms like Member community it gets clogged up and many reaching out for help get missed and the members do need a hang out room to chat in about all topics ( within the site guidelines of course following the rules).
My suggestions are only that suggestions and yes based on what I seen myself when the rooms were all opened before the change .. also yes what I do see now and as a Global Mod I am called out to rooms .. I also get pm's about the rooms and how toxic some can be and people not feeling supporteed..
I am sure the site will decide what is best for the members and whatever they decide then we all will adjust and work with the 7ucps community as a team !
The rooms that are liked the most from when I open them are Loneliness, Positivity and Free Hugs ... they are always full when I open them.. Yesterday I had 40 People in the Free Hugs room..
Loneliness is one of the biggest topics brought up in Pms in 1-1 chats , as we see now in this world and even before the pandemic many many people deal with being alone or feeling alone... I would love to see this room opened 24/7 also but I am doubting they would consider this one but ya never know..
Positivity Room -People love it they wanna have some place they can go and feel some positivity not always easy to feel positive but people want to feel it and get out of the same state of mind of always talking about how bad they feel, they wanna feel better and having some positive open chats or game days etc... just like free hugs makes people feel better even if only for 1 hr..
Okay I am going on and on so very sorry but just my take on things .. I am sure once again that the site , Obs will make sure to listen to the community and do what is best for it..
Take care and thanks for commenting on my post ..
Tye
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 why talk about anxiety it only makes it worse, it's like patching while making other wounds. 35+ gave a sense of belonging which was better in my opinion. Yes the room was empty at times but often in the evening at European times people were there to chat.
Have you consider that a more casual chat about life improves the bond with people and makes it easier to get anxiety support? After 5 years I still enjoy meeting up with people I've known for that long here. Last Wednesday I couldn't believe my eyes I was so happy to see 5 people I used to chat with here.
7cups can't and should not be only about diagnoses. I live in a place that's from an organization helping me get back in society and that is the right approach.
I remember being in bad shape but you wouldn't contact people for me "because that is not what this site is for". Buuhhh sorry but it's going that way and it's wrong.
@DutchMike Hey Mike, Of course I have shared up above we wanna have rooms open for people . If you read up above the member community room and all the rooms I have shared need to be opened.
People look for places to go too for help with their Anxiety , Panic , Phobias etc,,, They come for help and wanna learn how to overcome these things .This site is here loaded with help for mental health and so people wanna learn coping skills and ways to better manage their anxiety and panic attacks and how to over come phobias so they can get back out living life not feel isolated and alone. Anxiety and Depression are the two biggest things people deal with so we wanna have places for them also.
I love all the rooms and would love to have every single one opend up
35+ is so needed I totally agree 100%
Peace and Love , Tye
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 Thank you for your posts Tyed!! Id like to add that for me, 35+ was a safe place for me to be around other members who actually remember the 70s and 80s..Also, (for me, and maybe others,) it gets VERY awkward when someone says they were BORN in 1994.. the year the internet started getting more prevalent (AOL etc.). and we older members started started using the internet more often. Seriously. its like yall want me to talk about menopause, hotflashes and irrregular periods in a room with 18 year olds talking about anime.
@Figgy50 True it can be very hard as someone who is older myself in my 50s I do get mde fun of allot !!! But I do take it with a grain of salt and laugh it off .. But is it funny all the time no not at all and I do not get on my member account much at all but when I do yes it is very hard to relate too people way younger.. I do believe there is a real need for a group chatroom to be opened up for 35+ so people can be in there and chat about things and not be made fun of.. Sadly not all rooms are Inclusive for older ages .. I so hope this is looked at and thought about and I am hoping and praying 35+ and Anxiety support does come back but I have no say so just only my input and what i have seen that works.
Take care Figgy hugssssssssssssssss Tye
@Figgy50 BTW i'm just using 18 and anime as an extreme example.. Since theres no specific age group for anime fans.. but if someone was chatting about anime and then someone else comes in (who feels like they have no other room to go to for their specific needs) and says ooh im having hotflashes and irregular periods.. yeah that would seem kind of awkward, wouldnt it?
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 35+ should be a permanent room and anxiety support should be a pop up room. Because we don't want to deal with negative labels unless we have to.
Say there's 5 people feeling anxious and somehow they can appeal for a anxiety support room for an hour. If there's one or two person they can chat with a listener.
Just avoid people seeing their diagnosis. Idk it's just wrong. Actually, drop the anxiety room altogether. That's my take. Do what's right.
@TortueDesBois 35+ can't use the other rooms because younger people have no idea what they are talking about. I keep getting reports how they are insulted and bullied when they try. Having their own room once a week, at least, means they can talk about things and know the other members understand what they are saying or have experienced it themselves. I've also known a lot leave because they no longer feel they are getting the support they need on 7cups because of the way they are treated in Support & Community rooms.
@Tyedyedbutterfly65 totally support your suggestion
If you're on the subject of pop up rooms I have a question. Whatever happened to ths Bipolar Room?!?! It used to be great for open chat ans mostly for all the wonderful discussions. You learned a lot in that room and it has totally vanished
@Hotaru419 Is it not still a room? This is the most recent list I'm aware of - https://www.7cups.com/forum/GroupSupport_168/ObsDesk_2008/GroupSupportUpdatesPartII_214359/
It hasn't been updated with any of the new rooms like Sharing Circle, but I didn't think any rooms were deleted.
@AffyAvo. It says it's there. But the tell me why I haven't seen it pop up, or on the calendar in MONTHS. Something is not adding up.
@Hotaru419 I think it's just because no one is opening lately. The same is true of trauma support.
As I read through this I noticed a lot of different concerns from the opening of rooms, closing of rooms, moderation, age and topic specific rooms and a brief mention of those wanting to ruin the experience for all on 7 cups.
I was wondering, which may be a long strech here, but what if the 7 cups then further divided the different sides. I saw many posts regarding age, and how some age groups are not in tune with others. But, I also understand that if dividing the adult side further what would be the divisions? What would the topics be like? Who would mod it? That I can't say, as much as everyone has alluded to it's up to 7 cups as to how to approach that.
There is already a Teen Side of 7 cups for teens to discuss what may be going on in their day to day lives. There is also an Adult Side for 7 cups in which once a member turns 18, the are able to join the Adult side. What if then the adult side gets further divided?
1) Adults (Approx 18-24)- While everyone learns and studies at diffrerent periods of their life, this could be a community focused on thriving and getting through college, making or losing friends, relationship topics, study habits, study strategies, healthy mind and body. maybe even one regarding conflicts in and around college campuses to include bullying, race, religion and identity. Armed forces topics abou joining and deployment.
2) Adults 2 (25-32) - Again everyone studies and learns differently. Also careers or occupations start to really determine a persons direction or sometimes non-direction in life. These shold focus on Post-college topics that could include Career topics, startups, building a working resume, building positive working relations, dealing with difficult co-workers, switching jobs, updating skills, relationships and conflicts sometimes encountered in work places to include bullying, race, relgion, identity and follow up Armed forces deployment (issues faced while over seas or when coming back from being over seas).
3) Adults 3 (33-40) - This can sometimes a turbulent time for some folks, depending on what the outcomes of their 18-32 experience was like. Did they continue to develop educationally? Have they started or are continuing to build their family? What is the strucutre like? What issues are they facing? Do they need some help with structuring and organizing rules, boundaries and consequences for misbehavior within their family structure?
4) Adults 4 (41-50) - As time goes on, the family develops, the young learners become independent, and start to learn how to stand their own and stress about pre-college. Their caregivers may wonder what the best routes or avenues there are to help them become independent. They want them to strive for excellence, but maybe their own strategies are not working. The also have concerns about their own well-being and to achieve the best in themselves.
5) Adults 5 (50+) - The family continues to develop and may go through ups and downs. Both in their personal lives and sometimes not seeing eye-to-eye with family members at times. So many things may occur, that a sense of understanding and clarity need to be brought in and talked about to make thing seem less chaotic.
In addition, and this could be a stretch once again, the following area could be added:
6) Collaborative Minds- This section of 7 cups would be primarly used for all age groups (under the supervision of many members of the 7 cups team) to help one another with questions. The format would not be open as in the other sections or member rooms. This would be similar to Sharing Circle, but heavily moderated. One Person, at a time, in a que. Helpful tips or kind remarks may be sent to an inbox or a place where they can check it. Likewise, negative remarks would be sent to the appropriate source for review, and follow up with all those involved in negativity for further clarification on the matter. Every aspect would be heavily monitored and constantly audited to appropriate it's use and relevance, including it's members, listeners, moderators and admins
Sorry for the long post. :) Also as a side note, as I don't know the minds of everyone on 7 cups, this is just a rough visualization of what the areas could include. Only those who come on 7 cups know what topic areas they need most, and thusly should be moderated to ensure proper help is given or recieved.
@ValleyofLight492
that actually sounds like a super creative great idea to me, my only hope is i don't want people to feel segregated/divided from it. some people dont fancy being separated by age but i really do get the point of the idea, i just wonder what others would think of it.
@MrMarino
I agree. Like I mentioned at the bottom of my post, I don't know the minds of everyone on 7 cups. Everyone may not mind having different rooms for different age groups instead. Also, if it sounded like I was trying to segregate people, that was not my intention at all. I just want everyone to find the support for thier individual needs. :)
@ValleyofLight492
Oh no fam, you didnt sound like you were giving that message at all, not at all. Im just curious how everyone would take it. I think it's a really awesome, creative idea though that could benefit a lot of people
@ValleyofLight492
I really, really like this idea, though maybe not entirely separating all the adult sections, but having group rooms or forum sections for separate age groups, and I also really like the idea of a collaborative space, as being part of subcommunity teams, I'm unable to communicate with my teen team members since I'm not an adult-teen listener, so having a moderate and safe space to collaborate on ideas or projects or even with questions that may span across both sides would be great.
@LuLuRings
Hey Lulu! Thank you! :) My intention, was not to cause a lot of seperation, but felt like different groups may need thier own space if they have concerns that they may want to talk to fellow members about At the same time, 7 cups is about togetherness, so a balance would need to be found as well.
I havent read all the comments here, so apologies if this has been covered.
I do feel like allowing teens and adults in one extra room will cause a few issues that dont currently exist. Mainly it would be the fact that if some adult comes in discussing sexual or other inappropriate things, the teens will have seen it before the Mods are called or get a chance to delete it. I know the current set of Mods are absolutely fantastic at keeping the site safe, but no one really would have control over what someone suddenly says that the teens are subjected to.
I do like the idea of topic specific rooms being opened up by supporters or Mods though, maybe a form to request opening a room (which could be put in guidelines) can also help members to request these rooms when they are needed.
@GeekGoddess I don't think the admin team has any plans to allow the under 18 and the 18+ people into one room, with the exception of adult listeners who have teen side access. We haven't even been able to do it for things like meetings.
@GeekGoddess teens and adults will always have their rooms separed from each other. But they have rooms with the same names.
....unless 'General Support Room for both adults and teens' means two different ones for adults and teens separately?
@GeekGoddess yes, rooms have the same names, but are separed, adults have their own rooms and listeners, teens also their own rooms and listeners (but also the adults listeners approved to talk to teens of course). sorry the wording brought you confusion.
@GeekGoddess yes it did sound like they were going to have one room for both but I think they meant one extra room on each side of the site.
I am sad to hear that rotational rooms are closing because they are not attended and that they are used for violations. I instead propose that there are activities in rotational rooms such is sharing circle in sharing circle room. I propose that someone with knowledge of the topic would be in rotational room and be able to answer to questions of members for example, that there would be topic related sharing circles, etc. Many options are there. But let's not close them. :(
@ASilentObserver
I don't think it's a good idea to close 35+ because clearly people need it from what I hear, they need a space to talk about challenges in their age. What about setting a time frame and see how it goes, let's say leave it open for another month and check participation and how it works inside, if there are any complaints. I think this would be fair to the 35+ community.
@amiablePeace77. YES!!! Let them SEE how much it's needed. How well we behave and everything else positive. Give us a chance!!!
@ASilentObserver
As a Mod I see certain rules violated when we explain why it needs to be in a certain room We get treated badly. I would be glad to see 35+ opened 24/7 but I would like to see more of CM's coming in there also to help a regular mod.