Operation Merge Resources: 7 Cups Project Proposal

@Heather225 I would be interested in helping in any way I can for this. 

@Heather225 

It's such a great idea to have a team dedicated to organization and with how extensive our community has gotten, we really need some structure to make sense of all of this.

I would totally love to be part of this <3 Let me know if I can help in any way

Normally I'd be interested but I happen to be a creative person...creative people are usually messy & tend to be a bit disorganized in the other parts of their lives. I am no exception to that rule.

The only way I can help would be to supply a few more links to resources elsewhere on the interwebs...in short, I could provide more raw material for volunteers to collate/organize/classify/etc. Not all of it would have to do with mental health topics, so whether or not 7Cups can use a lot of what I could give is an open question.

I hope this project goes well, as it can be hard to find information, even for those of us who are aware of certain resources it can be hard to dig them out which means people who don't know are unlikely to stumble over them.

I question though how successful this will be, especially longer term. It seems like this has been tried a few times. We had a wiki for a while with multiple people working on that, but the vision of that became blurry and it started to morph into a disorganized, less functional version of the forums.

I am optimistic that this can work if there's people with good organizational skills, a clear vision and the right tools. If those don't all come together though, I see a high likelihood of repeating past mistakes.

It's not something I feel like I can work on now, but I am happy to add to a resources list once a collection has been started and my PMs are available to adult listeners/forum tags for anyone else if they want to bounce some ideas.

Sounds brilliant Heather - would love to what more on it and interested in contributing 👍

@Heather225

For someone who doesn't want to work on this, I sure do have a lot of opinions on how it can be accomplished! Lol.

I think a "Library" could be as simple as establishing a tab of some sort on the main page that is accessible to anyone on the site. It could be organized by topic. The links could be vetted through a willing "Committee" or "Team" as it were, who would be responsible for checking the currency and relevance of the link. There might be criteria, for example, the crisis line I work for does not accept for-profit organizations, so sadly I can only sneakily refer people to 7 cups because I know how great the groups chats can be. (I'm biased. I actively work in the group chats lol.) 

Alphabetical in the English language seems to work for many here, though I imagine that resources that are country-specific might be carried in their language of origin along with English. There might be other "rules" or "guidelines" for inclusion that the "committee" decides upon, perhaps with the participation of the community, or perhaps just because they are sensible. 

Once this becomes established, it has to be maintained. This is the clincher for many of these ideas. Links come and go. I recall being irritated that when the Suicide Hotline for USA was updated, it was over 9 months (one can give birth in that time period!) until the Crisis Pages were updated with the proper information. Lol. (It's ok, the old number forwarded directly to the new number and I believe still does because that's just sensible.)

The other side to it, is that everyday, people are having bright ideas, and establishing businesses or informational websites to meet particular needs. So, in this way, there is constant evolution.

These are my thoughts for today, and I bid you all a fine day now!

Kindly,

Rose

@Heather225

Hi H! 😊 ❤️ Me again! lol 😊 I guess there is a lot to be said "sleeping on it" for ideas. After sleeping on it all, maybe I found some refinement to add to my original thoughts....mentally walking the path thinking of what would work, what might not, what could show up as potential pit falls in the future. 

Was thinking that a 7 cups listener account could be created @7cupsLibrarian.  This could the mode for communication between the Librarian and the community.

A second account could be @7cupsLibrary which would be there for one directional communication with is stated at the top of the bio "this account does not receive messages" please pm @7cupsLibrarian for 1-1 interaction. One directional communication meaning, resources/links provided on the bio page. This way the "Librarian" won't have multiple accounts to check, potentially miss messages and frustrate others through no fault of their own. This is the account that the Librarian maintains but does not communicate with. 

@7cupsLibrary could potentially have hyper links with our biggest categories....in alphabetical order

7cups Academy Library

7cups Forum Library

7cups Listener Library (subcategory Listener to Listener) (sub category Listener to Member)

7cups Member Library

7cups Rooms Library (subcategory Listener Rooms) (subcategory Member Rooms) 

Once any of the above links are clicked on, takes you to another area where once again, anything pertinent can be found related to that area and always in alphabetical order for muscle memory, quick retrieval, ease of use. 

Breaking it down into the different areas of the site could help to potentially have to scroll through less information to find what it is that the user is looking for and most quickly. 

I have even considered qualities that our Librarian should have in the event this direction is taken. Seeing as how they would be working with everyone across the platform, I think the biggest thing needed would be to display *high expectations and high warmth* as one of our 7 cups core values. This person would have a very pivotal role. 

They should be highly organized, be able to work well with others, be able to seek out additional talent for possible PA roles, recruit, onboard and train down the road. They should have a good understanding of all of the areas on the platform, team leaders, who to go to....who has the information needed. 

This person should be someone that is highly self governed, is able to focus, pace themselves in an effort to see the bigger picture and feel proud of their daily accomplishments on their own. Being able to "eat that elephant one bite at a time". 😊

The obvious need is computer knowledge, technology, how to handle links, etc. or a buddy system with 2 librarians at the beginning stage....one to interact with others, organize and the second to provide help on the technology end (kind of like a job share program?) with the first gaining technology knowledge through the journey in an effort to become more independent (experiential learning). 

Dr. Seuss "Oh the places we'll go". 😊 Again, might not be the best of ideas. Just trying to brainstorm a bit here. If you throw enough stuff against the wall, eventually something is going to stick! Weeeeeeeeeee weeeeeeeeee! 😊 

I have thought of 2 people here on the site that could be able to do this, have all of the qualities needed, just not sure if they are already too busy with their roles. Perhaps we could entice them with cookies 🍪 and lots of hugs should an idea like this get traction? 

*high fives* 😊 and *hugs* ❤️

@Heather225 this is such an interesting project! There are indeed a lot of resources in Cups and maybe it can be a bit overwhelming for new users.

As some people mentioned before it may be good to find a way to let people add resources (maybe through a form as Mahad suggested) 

Count me in 😊!

@Heather225 Also whatever master link of the resource is....whether it is spreadsheet, or something else...can we keep chat link somewhere visible..in the chat tab..i think everyone uses chat mainly...pm or group chat.