(IMPORTANT) Unable to Support Free mindedly!!!!
Hello everyone,
Ive been a listener here since 2017 and I've been facing some issues with supporting members here free mindedly. Some of the time the chats are being inappropriate and members end up blocking for no certain reasons.
This has been on my listener bio since a long while now "BLOCKING IS NOT A JOKE, I'M A LISTENER NOT A THERAPIST. I HIGHLY BELIEVE IN TRYING. I'D SIMPLY TELL YOU IF I COULDN'T HELP BUT IM STILL THERE FOR YOU"
I was kinda tired with getting blocked for no reason , and since blocking and reporting is a combo like we have to give a valid reason to block someone people end up giving false reasons just to block us or intentionally doing this to harm our accounts. This fear kept me away from helping people as expected from my listener account like I was scared what If they give a invalid reason for the blocking even when I didn't do anything. General Request is a very scary and hard experience. Sometimes our accounts get suspended before even letting us a chance to speak for ourselves. I think this is wrong we should let us a chance to speak for ourselves and justification before even taking an action on our account.
Most of the times I forget to take screenshots of the chats and sometimes members quickly block us before even doing anything.
This should be considered in the system that before taking any action to a listener account they should let them say something. Otherwise it's so hard to volunteer to support people free mindedly.
A lot of people are facing these issues and we want a change for a good cause.
@CallMeNaman2002
At one point in time, I completely stopped taking general requests out of this same fear. Till date, I'm almost always in the same fear of getting blocked by a member for absolutely no reason. At instances, I've come across that listeners have been blocked by members for simply reminding the members about the guidelines of our community when they were being inappropriate in the chat. So that is extremely discouraging to all the amazing listeners around. The listeners of our community try to do everything to ensure the safety of the members, but our safety as listeners too shouldn't be neglected. Our listeners have so much to offer but unfortunately, this fear of getting reported falsely by a member stops them from doing their best. I completely agree with you, we must be given the chance to explain before getting suspended. This can change things for the better. Thanks for bringing this up.
@CallMeNaman2002 I partly agree.
Personally, I think it's important for members' safety that they can block any conversation any time they want. Blocking a conversation with me does not cause me any actual harm. Many members have blocked conversations with me, and I have never been harmed by it.
However, suspending an account is a completely different thing! I agree that suspending an account must be taken very seriously. There should be strong safeguards to protect listeners from intentional harm. At present the process is not transparent enough to ensure that those safeguards are always in place, and that they are effective.
Screenshots were always a very bad idea. They breach confidentiality and they are easily faked. They would not be necessary if 7 Cups could integrate its technology platform with the community in a better way. Unfortunately there is no sign of that happening. As long as 7 Cups refuses to provide the technology to replace screenshots, we are stuck with screenshots.
Charlie
@CallMeNaman2002
Here is my experience as someone that has been on here since 2015. Back then you didn't even need an account, you could log in as a guest. And I had way better experiences than now!
The new feature that limits requests per day sounds good, but in practice it isn't. When I was a member I had listeners just stop responding completely, take forever to say something or show no interest in the conversation to provide a flow or support. So imagine you're feeling horrible, you want to talk and you hear about this place. You finally get a listener, only for them to abandon you or judge you. I've been judged a lot by listeners here that ruined my member experience as a whole.
As for the other part, I believe every listener needs to complete a mock chat in order to become a listener. We can't control people's intentions but at least that makes it more reliable to know who this site lets listen to vulnerable people.
A few months ago I got falsely reported after blocking a member that continously tried to attack and insult me. I did not get any email, and I filled out the form and sent an email which told me to just wait. I had to reach out to an admin personally and "beg" them to look into it. I got the reasoning of my suspension after my account was restored.
Ever since then I have completely lost the motivation to take chats and put in the effort like I used to. It feels like I'm just lining up to be someone's punching bag and I can't defend myself or else my account gets in trouble. I don't take my free time for that.
So maybe a warning, or an email stating for how long I am suspended would be nice. But at this point I feel like I'm just walking on eggshells and rather not take any new chats. Especially from general requests.
@Aylexis I agree.
It seems to me that both banning guest accounts and limiting requests per day were badly thought out experiments. As soon as it became clear that they didn't help, they should have been discontinued, but now we seem to be stuck with them.
Yes, I agree that better training for listeners, including a mock chat, would help. We have far too many new listeners, and most of them soon leave. If we had fewer new listeners with better training and support, more of them might stay. Perhaps the aim is to be able to boast of a million listeners, and we are only halfway there, so it might be another seven years before we can start to get listener training and retention right.
And yes, general requests are a minefield. Personally, I still take general requests when I can, because that's really why I joined in the first place, but I'm always aware of the risk.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
Anyone can pass the listener training and anyone can become a listener. I would rather wait 10 minutes and get a quality one than a listener that will just abandon, judge me or barely say anything.
I don't think this is going to change anytime soon. And since the pandemic it has never been this bad. I can't really do anything about the site but I can do something about myself and leave.
@CallMeNaman2002
I feel you 💙
It's ruining our rating. The rating doesn't define us yet I want to finish those trainings on Training Page and the last 2 certificates need 5 to get them, along with 300.000 cheers in total to finish (if I remember it correctly).
So I'm not taking new member chat until I finish them lol. And it will be a looong time before I get that 300.000 lmao
So, my option now is collecting the cheers by hosting. Is there any other options out there?
One that gets us as much as hosting or more is preferable yet not taking too much time that I don't have 😄 and definitely not new member chat which I feel very risky
Call me ambitious nerd, I don't mind at all 😁 those are my guilty pleasure
