Community Guideline Added: Relationships, Dating & Romantic Connections
Hello All -
A new community guideline will soon be added to our community guideline page! Please see below.
17. Relationships, Dating & Romantic Connections
It may happen that you feel attracted to someone who is attentive, kind and caring. However, as a professional community, we do not encourage or support romantic relationships on 7 Cups. Listeners are trained to maintain professionalism at all times. If you are in a relationship with another user (listener or member), please be advised that you are engaging in behavior that is outside of our community guidelines and we are not able to support that connection in any way. If this relationship comes to our attention, you may be subject to guideline violations related to sexting, off site contact or lacking professionalism. (You can learn more about how we manage sexting situations on 7 Cups here)
Additionally, we have updated the behavior point system to reflect this new guideline. Those highlighted in pink are the new additions.
This update applies to all current and past offsite friendships/relationships. We are not planning to search for people in relationships or off site chat groups. So, if you are currently in one, remove yourself at this time. If it is reported, we may take action as per the updated guidelines above.
If you have any feedback, questions, comments or suggestions, please let me know.
Thank you!
@Laura
I think we need @laura to clarify these questions
@Laura What! I am shocked that after sexing someone could be back in a leadership position after only 3 months! That seems really short a time for something that is a crime in some countries (e.g. a boss sexist an emploee). I know it's not exactly the same, but it seems far too leniant. No wonder I keep getting sexisting type messages when I see how the complains don't even keep them off the site or out of leadership roles for more than 3 months. I am legit crying reading this as someone who has been a victim of it and is still upset about it far after 3 months has passed.
@resourcefulPond1641
thank you for your feedback. I am sorry you are upset. Did you see the point system above? If someone is in a leadership position, we will hold them accoundable like any other user. The goal of this update is to add more clarify. It sounds as if you are referring to a specific situation in your post. I am not able to discuss anything specific here. If you would like to ask a question, feel free to PM me. I will be happy to support you.
@Laura I'm more upset about the fact that someone in a leadership position could receive so few points, where there is a difference of power at play there. I don't think it is anything like the same as two members or listeners having a concenting flirtation (which would be problematic too, but wouldn't have the same power at play). I just think that we should be holding anyone in a leadship position in a far, far higher standard to sexual misconduce so we can have a safe place here for people who are here because they are vunerable. I came to this site because of my C-PTSD and part of being here means I want this place to be safe, and if someone can be in a position of leadership after committing sexting offences after just a slap on the wrist it seems to send out the wrong signals to me. I agree with having some kind of point system, and you are trying to clarify some things which needed to be done, but I'd like people who are in roles of leadership to also be held to a higher standard in order than they can't then abuse that power as easily. Does that make any sense to you?
@Laura I am wondering if this apply only for romantic relationships? For example, can we be friends with other listeners, if we are not making it too personal? And then... where is the boundary of being too personal?
Also... would it count as offsite contact if me and another listener are communicating offsite in sheets and docs, using our official 7cups emails that are created following all the rules that been set on 7cups?
@RaCat @Laura
I agree on this, communicating on email allows anyone to track ones IP address and thus physical location....food for thought!
@PetiteSouris If you send e-mail using a website or app (for example, Gmail) then the website or app hides your IP address. Anyone who receives the mail can only see the website's IP address. There are some mail clients that can send mail directly from your own current IP address, but sending mail that way is very unusual.
Even if your IP address is sent, no one can use it to track you. An IP address does not identify an individual person, or even a device. It's easy to track an IP address to a country or state, and sometimes to the city where the Internet provider's head office is located, but it is not possible to track an IP address to a specific location. (Law enforcement agencies can sometimes do it by obtaining court orders, but even then it is not as easy for them in real life as it sometimes appears on TV.)
Charlie
@Laura So how do you plan on enforcing this on a site that relies on confidentiality? I hope this doesn't mean that the chat sessions will be monitored in any way.
My understanding is that every message in every chat here has always been monitored by computer software, which is designed to look for certain suspicious phrases. I don't imagine there are any plans to enhance this system so that it warns of excessive affection, though.
@Shikamaru42
@RarelyCharlie And if it detects suspicious phrases, what does it do? If it took action on its own it would be bound to produce false positives and, idk, just ban conversations for no obvious reason, which could be extremely dangerous in a setting like this, leaving members who just opened up about their mental issues lost and hurt. If the software reported these cases to the administrators, that would imply that they would then check to see what was going on - which would mean selective monitoring of chats. Not cool.
@RarelyCharlie Or is this monitoring software you're talking about the censor? In that case, confidentiality would not be affected - and even though the censor may actually be making listening harder in some cases, I guess that's another discussion.
@Shikamaru42
they are monitored
@Shikamaru42
They are monitored through the censor. you don't get in trouble just for having a censored message though. The censored messages go to a queue where they are checked by a person to see if it was a legitimate censor or not. This queue is completely confidential. Hope that helps :)
The comuper that monioters our chats isn't always very good. For example, when I wanted support due to a family member having attempted suicide previously and I was upset about it, the chat bot refused to allow me to make any statements about it, because it said I was suicidal, and kept having pop ups refering me to crisis lines. In the end I was unable to talk about the topic at all in any chat. I know this is unrelated, but if the same mechamism is used to try and watch out for romantic or sexisting type of situations, it might end up preventing other people from getting help. I just wanted to being this up, in case it hadn't already been adressed.
@resourcefulPond1641
There won't be anything added to the censor. We already block words like sext in the current censor. I agree that it could use some fine tuning!
@Laura
[Redacted]was intentionally rude toward me and completely ruined my enjoyment and tranquility being the chatroom. i am a new visitor and made a small slip up in sharing my fb name w someone else who wanted to chat outside the room. but [redacted] reaction was completely uncalled for and disrespectful toward me.
Edited by MonBon for sharing usernames
According to the listener community guide training, sharing contact details is "not harmful, just risky." So yes, you made a small slip up, but for anyone to be disrespectful toward you was a worse slip up.
Sadly, I think the new rules we are discussing here will probably encourage more frequent disrespect. If romance must be prevented at all costs, this will one of the costs.
@dpecheur10
@dpecheur10
I'm very sorry someone was disrespectful toward you! We all make mistakes, and i would encourage everyone to be gentle and kind over disrespectful :(
@MonBon thank you very much i appreciate your kind response
halo