Protect the Community from Rumors Spread
Hello Community,
Today I want to talk about rumors and its consequences.
Rumour is a piece of information or a story that is in circulation but its truth is uncertain.
When you share or pass a story or info about anyone or anything that may not be true, you are acting similar to a bully. When you circulate such information or story in the community, you are making the person or group of people named in it uncomfortable and stressed. Also, you are making the community environment stressful and toxic.
Rumors circulated at a faster rate because you may believe the person shared it as genuine and reliable. But you may not know if the information you have is true or twisted. There is always another side of the story which you might be missing. And in absence of it assuming what you have is true would not be of any help to you or community.
If you receive a piece of information or story, please keep it to yourself. Because in the process of sharing it, it gets filtered, modified, and altered and makes it look genuine because it comes from you but by the time it loses its authenticity.
Oftentimes, rumors, and triangulation leads to unwanted harassment, which comes in the way of our communitys growth and quality.
If you come across such news, please keep it to yourself. Break the chain of circulation. Also, give a gentle reminder to the person who shared with you that they also stop the spread of it.
Your efforts to spread awareness and break the circulation of such stories will make the community, its members, and leaders safe and comfortable.
If you find such activities going on, please report them and the person who circulated them. It is everyones responsibility to keep the community safe. You can PM any community managers (Heather225, Hope, ASilentObserver) for support and reporting protocols. Our latest safety update contained protocol for reporting in regards to the member to member and listener report forms.
Consequences of spreading or triangulating such rumors and stories: Your account can be suspended for triangulation and rumors spreadng.
We do not tolerate such activities because our mission is to provide support rather than bullying and causing discomfort to anyone.
Please ensure to follow the community guidelines and not involve in any rules broken. They all are in the general and safety interests of our users and the community.
This.
@ASilentObserver
This is great, thanks!
@ASilentObserver 7 Cups can be doing much more to help with this. There has been a huge lack of transparancy with things. I have been bringing up issues with the ratings system for over a year. Some volunteers have been helpful in helping with trying to figure it out, but no one on the admin side of things has even bothered to explain to me exactly what the issue is. I see multiple low ratings not going through.
We (7 cups as a whole, the forum team) had discussed things like tags, moving of forum threads, etc. and keeping access for people. Shortly after Anomalia stepped down I kept getting ntofications on a thread I had posted to before - I cannot access anymore as it was moved to the listener side. Today I ahve a (I assumed site-wide) notifcation I cannot access as it's the teen-only zone.
Based on multiple posts in the forums it seems there has been a change regarding the criteria for a member to select a listener to chat with. There hasn't been any information as to what this criteria is. There are some of us trying to help out members but we don't know how to answer their questions.
I feel like 7cups has taken a huge backwards step in terms of how issues and changes are handled and this is contributing to why rumours go about.
@AffyAvo I agree. In many ways 7 Cups encourages rumours by ensuring that facts are as difficult as possible to check.
People often discuss possibilities when the future is uncertain. Later, with hindsight, some of those possibilities might turn out not to have been true. I feel it's very wrong to conflate this with bullying.
7 Cups exists to support people by allowing them to feel heard, valued and understood, not to shut people down by telling them they must not share information.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie @AffyAvo
You both make good points.
When I go to the gym, I work out, then my muscles can hurt or become sore. I know that is just my body's way of indicating that what I did was "new" or stressed muscles that I'm not used to working out. I don't run away from the gym in panic, simply because my muscles hurt. There are steps that I must take to quell the pain post-workout.
I'm not at all suggesting that triangulation, rumor spreading, or bullying is ok.
I am saying that there are "intelligent methods" (business-based and time-tested aka proven ways) to combat those issues other than telling people to, "don't engage in it, just be quiet, still say nice things to people ONLY, and report others if you see anything different."
I think that it's a false statement, misleading, and inappropriate to suggest that 7 Cups is only a place for positive conversations, being nice 100% of the time, and never a bad or negative word found on the site anywhere. Not only is that unrealistic, but it's exhausting for a limited community team that is dispersed globally to manage let alone address.
We're people. (stating the obvious, but I have a point)
Let's not lose sight of why this website or service exists. We're providing a mission, a service, a place for troubled people to go to - internationally, with cultural differences, sexual differences, mental disorders, psychological disorders, and so on. It's a site chock full of people who have issues, of a wide variety. Things are not going to be rosy all the time and it's an imperfect goal to aim to attain, because it's impossible. Therefore, you have a community team spinning its wheels trying to stay ahead of that curve, there is only one result - burnout. Many of them have already left. Let's not sugarcoat anything here.
Let's recognize that community standards are one thing, and must be respected by all who visit here. That's right, I said respect, as in everyone who signs up for an account must adhere to a level of mutual respect while on 7 Cups. However, that does not mean that difficult issues are just ignored, brushed under a proverbial rug, or hidden (not spoken about) because they are deemed negative, bad, or inconvenient.
Life is full of negative, bad, and inconvenient things, which we all can overcome as a team with the proper guidance from our leadership at 7 Cups.
Let's focus on restructuring our methods for dealing with gossip, triangulation, and rumor mills in a professional manner. Let's address what those core issues are versus trying to play whack-a-mole working to find solutions for banning people or removing people from the website or service. If there is an issue, perhaps it requires addressing, not simply penalizing people who speak up. I've seen a number of posts lately that really trouble me to the core about 7 Cups, tied to honesty, fear of coming forward, and feelings of being ignored, belittled, or sidelined.
This is where real leadership steps in and addresses what I've said in a complete, honest, transparent, and professional way. That is how you gain respect as a leader, that is how issues with the site improve, and while we're not perfect - we do not try to be, but certainly we build out a culture around the word respect versus --- fake placating, fake nice, and fake gratitude campaigns and above all the impossible mission of 100% nice 100% of the time. Let's remain realistic.
@ASilentObserver Thanks for the important post and resources!
Here is a pretty simple example:
I asked about the 7CupsCommunity account. No one who knows for certain has answered my question.
In general in this thread it seems like the volunteers are being asked to step up to answer questions (leadership team) and there are multiple people trying. They aren't actually being given the information to answer all of the questions though and those who are employed aren't doing it. This type of beheviour leads to frustration and burnout IMO.
@AffyAvo
Hello Affy! I created the thread in an effort to support newbies with getting information from listeners and volunteer leaders who have previously helped and are knowledgeable (which is why volunteers were tagged) it wasn't with the intent to add pressure. I appreciate your support in Newbie Hub. You or any volunteer leader is under no obligation to do additional work.
Thank you!
@Tazzie I don't mind doing it, nor do many others I would say. The problem is we're being told that we were acting like bullies because we're answering based on the information we had, and were purposely being left in the dark.
The admin team needs to figure this out - either they want volunteers answering questions and will support us so that we can or they don't want us to. Don't label our help as spreading rumours & bullying type behaviour because we haven't been informed to give the right info.
@ASilentObserver Absolutely true. Agree with you on this! :)
@ASilentObserver
The internet itself is rumour spreading by a factor of one thousand. I'm glad to see it posted it here. I was taught about the harm of rumour spreading in secondary school, and my instructors put us through an exercise to demonstrate that. A group of 12 or so of us were put into a room by ourselves, and we were each called out one-by-one to receive a story. I was the last to get the info, and by that time it had been reduce to a single word: petrol station. The full story was given to us afterwards, but it was to demonstrate how information can be lost and twisted over time. Memory is a fallible thing, and we unconsciously change the information receive from others - as the information giver did before us. This needs to be addressed pervasively across social media and the internet, though I hardly would have an idea on how that could be accomplished.