Sub-Community Leadership Track Announcement - Pulling It All Together
Hi Team -
Its clear that we need to more clearly define the Sub-community leadership track as distinct from the other tracks. In the past it has lived within the community track, but today, the SC track claims its independence. To ensure this track is inclusive to all age groups - teen & adult - we will refer to it as advocate (not mentor or star - a new word to encompass all age groups).
What is the sub-community mentor leadership track:
A track dedicated to building supportive sub-communities for members. This track supports all the leaders and volunteers in a given Subcommunity to ensure continuity of experience and clear communication. This track combines the knowledge of the forums and group support with a deep love for community building.
We talk a lot about self-care on 7 cups. And that will always be the case, especially with our leadership teams. Many of the roles outlined below are a combination of roles (ex. You are both a forum mentor & a group mod). The idea here is that instead of focusing on being a group mod or a forum mod in many areas of the site, youd pick a sub-community and learn both the forum roles and the group support roles SPECIFICALLY FOR THAT SUBCOMMUNITY.
The idea is focus on up to three Sub-communities on 7 cups but be able to build community in these spaces representing both forum and group support.
Jr SubCommunity Mentor -
Privileges: Forum Supporter + Group Mod
This individual is trained as both a group mod and forum supporter and they have all of the corresponding privileges. Once they have gone through both trainings, they will unlock the ability to be listed in their SC with this title.
In this role, a Jr Community Mentor should be:
-----> A friendly face in both the forums and group rooms
-----> Knowledgeable about the SC topic and be passionate to build a supportive environment for the members and fellow leaders/ listeners in this subcommunity
-----> Welcoming to all new members
-----> Coordinating and supporting the daily check-in threads
-----> Willing to learn and work as a team with the other leaders in the subcommunity
-----> Adding new welcoming monthly cohort threads
SubCommunity Mentor -
Privileges: Forum Mentor + Group Mod
This individual is trained as both a group mod and forum mentor and they have all of the corresponding privileges. Once they have gone through both group mod & forum mentor/ teen forum star trainings, they will unlock the ability to be listed in their SC with this title.
In this role, a Community Mentor should be:
-----> A friendly face in both the forums and group rooms
-----> Knowledgeable about the SC topic and be passionate to build a supportive environment for the members and fellow leaders/ listeners in this subcommunity
-----> Coordinating and supporting the daily check-in threads
-----> Willing to learn and work as a team with the other leaders in the subcommunity
-----> Adding new forum conversations / topics
-----> Work closely with the community Advocate leader to execute special events, resolve conflicts and ensure a safe experience for all members
Sub Community Advocate Leader - (read the original post about this role here)
A Subcommunity Advocate Leader shall coordinate and oversee the daily operations of the entire sub-community, ensuring that forums, group support and feed teams within their SC collaborate and work together for the betterment of the sub-community. They will work to ensure their community continues to be a place of support, kindness and activity. This will be a project based role, where your project is to take ownership of your sub-community, coordinate with other leaders, participate in group activities and be a reliable friendly face! This individual is a positive and uplifting force - always supporting new leaders and helping to teach skills to volunteers. You will work closely with the Jr SC Advocate & Community Advocate to ensure a positive atmosphere and ongoing participation.
Role Duties:
-----> Know all of the other leaders on your team! Make sure they are doing well, support them, be someone they can always go to with questions and ideas! You are the team cheerleader !
-----> Proactively reach out to your leaders to check in once per month/ Help the leaders on your team by setting goals
-----> Organize and lead subcommunity team meetings
-----> Make sure the leadership list is up to date
-----> Host special events in your sub-community! Should be at least one special event every 3 months (working with the jr advocate and advocates to host this)
-----> Be a friendly face in your community
-----> Post to the forums regularly - if your community has a check-in section - checking in regularly is a great way to show you are a friendly face
-----> Participate in group support - be a friendly face
-----> Fill in! We all know that volunteers sometimes have personal issues pop up! You will be responsible for pinch hitting & filling in to ensure regularly scheduled programming continues
-----> Able to take role on for 4+ months (if and when you leave the role, you will be responsible for training a new person to take over).
-----> Attends Advocate leader meetings and reports on the health of their SC to the community management team directly
Please see this drawing to see what the structure will look like within each SC -
While writing this post someone asked how conflict will be resolved within a given SC.
Group support - Conflict resolution within a groups support team will remain the same. As the first line of support, please always contact your group support team leader. If you are unable to resolve the group support conflict, you can connect with a community manager.
Forum - Conflict resolution within your subcommunity forum should include the forum mentors within your subcom. Please reach out to the forum mentor in your subcommunity to ask for suggestions, ideas and best practices on how to manage conflict.
I know this will continue to evolve and change. Please review and leave your feedback! :)
@Laura the casting vote form isnt allowing access to cast the vote as sent out in Sub Com Leaders email
@Rain45 I to am having issues with the voteing to.
@Laura
Wow, this is awesome and it looks really cool, i cant wait to see it in action.
Thank you
@Laura
I would like to try for the Jr SubCommunity Advocate
@pamharley003 - Fantastic! As one of the leaders on the forum team, I'd love to see you apply to become a forum supporter if there is a community you are passionate about and active in the forums for :)
@Anomalia
I would like to be in the Bipolar and Depression if there available.
My premise:
Personally I have to say I think change is great. So I agree that change is inevitable.
But my major concern is this:
All the changes are made heavily almost exclusively in the subcommunities. We have lots and loads of different titles, roles, positions, once there was only group mods, and now there's feed, forums, chatrooms, support team, support leader, community leader, chatroom specific moderator, jr, advocate...something something, etc etc........There is just sooooooooo much right now and it seems like the majority of the listeners are involved in all these, all dedicated to the subcommunites ONLY.
What I like to see:
Focus on improving the QUALITY aspect of 7 Cups as well. Let me give you some examples.
I've heard from listeners now it takes more than 2 months to simply get the verified listener badge.
And now it takes months for anyone to grade their active listening test, and when they ask the mentors about it, they were given the reply, "sorry I'm busy".
While you have feeds, forums, chatrooms, support team, support leader, community leader, chatroom specific moderator, jr, advocate...something something, for the subcommunities, it seems you only have ONE or TWO(? I don't know the actual numbers) person grading anything relating to quality.
I don't understand why the QUALITY aspect of 7 Cups is sooooo underdeveloped, understaffed, and very much overlook.
My suggestion:
Please make some changes in the quality aspect of 7 Cups.
Instead of just 1 or 2 people grading ALL the tests, verifying, and just a very very tiny minority of people dedicated to quality,
why can't you expand the quality team of 7 Cups like you did with the subcommunities?
I am positive that you will find lots and lots of people willing to dedicate their efforts to these.
My reasoning:
As a member my main concern is receiving quality listening and quality support.
I don't really care whether it was support from a mentor, from a jr. advocate, from a CML...or...(Insert another fancily-named title here)......etc etc, if their quality is not up to standards, to me it's zero support.
My taggings(Tagging all the below person so that someone will se my post since this thread might be buried now):
@Laura @Eccho @Emily619 @LunaHecate @AiluraBlaze @agreeableKite4304 @RaCat @terrytee @OpsTops @Zizy @PhoenixAsh @lxmx @sweetLily41 @Anomalia @Rain45 @AffyAvo @Reececup1986 @Kate @Jenna @PassionatePeyton @Akshita0612 @Alexa43 @AnActiveListenerHere @BeautifulMermaid @BurningEmber @compassion4you14 @DancingStrawberry34 @DandyDaisy @eviesweet @Fiercelyalive @JessicaMae @JustLikeMellie @LilaGrace @TheListener7867 @tinugeorge @selfloveshelbs @Strauberryjam @SunFern @SweetMango91 @SympatheticPrune2001 @YourFriendforever
Extra taggings:
@soulsings @Polarcat @KristenHR @Amelia @Bookworm4 @ASilentObserver @Power14 @Itsmichelle @Peter
@justanothersoult
Sorry, but I read this over so many times and I am so lost. If the VL Badge team needs help mentoring then im all in to help. As for all other ares I would be happy to leand a hand to help in some way, if im able to.
@justanothersoult
I agree with you completely! We have a strong VL team for verifying, but I'm not sure how the grading process works for active listening tests. While I am a Teen Quality Star, I am only a quality coach and not a grader for any active listening test. I do agree that the sub-communities are becoming a bit carried away, and, unfortunately, deriving too much away from the overall mission of this site. Do you think it'd be better if we didn't have so many roles in the sub-communities, but rather just a few - such as one or two overall forum roles (rather than forum mentor, forum supporter, forum member leader, etc.), one or two group support roles, and one feed role to fulfill the three main aspects of the site - forum, feed, and group support?
@Emily619
I think for me expanding the subcommunities itself is totally acceptable.
On some level it's a great thing, because it means that more and more people are taking up more leadership roles here on 7 Cups.
I just think that the resources should be somewhat equally devided among the different areas of 7 Cups.
So while 7 Cups is expanding the subocmmunities, there should be some effort put into expanding other areas.
So I guess my main concern is, while there are more and more roles given, how do we monitor the quality aspect of it?
I understand that there's a training process for some subcommunities, but only some thou, not all. But what happens after the training, is there anyway to monitor their qualities of the listeners with the leadership roles after this?
For me at the moment I think the only dedication to quality listening on 7 Cups is the Verified Listener's team and the Active Listenings, but these have been here and have been untouched, and have never been modified/expand/improved on, I think since the beginning of 7 Cups maybe(Correct me if I'm wrong). So for example, many of the people on the grading team that was suppose to give feedbacks, are not even active on 7 cups anymore, yet their names are still there and has been written there for ages, basically untouched!
It all boils down to this: No matter what leadership role you are taking on, be it a mentor, or a junior advocate, the main core value of any listener here on 7 Cups is their active listening skills. And I just think that for listeners taking up more leadership roles, they should be excellent, should be exceling in terms of active listening skills, yet there is zero expanding of the quality team on 7 Cups despite expanding the subcommunities to such enormous results. So how do 7 Cups monitor the qualities? Do we as members, just put our faith in the listeners, simply because they have a new title attached to their names? O.o
Sorry I'm not that good with words, but I hope that people can understand what I am trying to convery here.
Additional taggings:
@Hope, @benevolentDaisy52 @maddieforthesoul @TeresaGreninja91 @electricEagle82 @AnushaKayastha
@AlluraRae @dsmvi @fictionfreak09 @1AlwaysThere1 @KatSubjective @SarahSG88 @comfortableHorizon21 @competentCloud51 @shiningAngel90 @Leenient @Amberrb @contentedapple95 @healingSmiles88 @LovelyEagle51 @SaimaK @ francesca333 @DaveMcGrath @Azurentz @LiamsFunky @Pumpkin74 @OptimisticEars65 @DelicateFriend79 @GoodPoint @royalHeart61 @SteadfastStatue @AiluraBlaze @Jiyabreeze @ASilentObserver @RhapsodyonSilence @onedirection1213 @jennmichelle126 @playfulHero86 @CalmOceanJoy @gloriousSunrise61 @caringShoulder14 @NancySv1 @snowFire24 @Simmikj @brilliantPeace1123
@justanothersoult Verified listeners didn't even exisit when I first joined, and I wasn't here from the beginning. So that's something that was put in place to help with the quality!
I agree, quality needs work. I think the subcommunities can help one find a listener that's good for them, it's easier to get a feel for them when seeing them active in a community instead of connect to someone randomly or just basing it on a profile.
When it comes to the quality of so many new listeners, I wish I had some good solutions to suggest. It's extremely common for new listeners to respond with ok, hmmm, yes, etc. and not much more. I know that the basic training covers more than responses that a computer program could give. I don't know why that's so common with listeners.
@AffyAvo
Personally, I just think that 1st of all, at least recruit more people into doing the current quality work.
I mean seriously, I think anyone and everyone will agree that having just one or two person working on grading a simple active listening test on a website as huge as 7 Cups is just unacceptable. And I don't know why the leaders of the quality team themselves don't reach out to ask for more listeners to join in, or at least recruit more people, and instead they do everything on their own. I mean seriously on a huge website like 7 Cups you can't find any other people who's qualified to grade others?
I know it's something that takes time, but it just seems to me they don't even bother with having more people on the team in the first place, let alone coming up with ideas on how to improve.
Nowadays I always see posts like "Update: New subcommuniti.......Help wanted: Community.......etc etc",
yet I never see any thing like "Wanted: ALs grading", "Survey: Ideas to improve quality", "Mentors needed: Quality mentor recruitment....", not much of these at all.
And I just wanna say, I too find listeners who are only capable of responding in "I'm sorry/Yes../Uhm.../Okay.." very disturbing.
...Please it's time to do something about it, and people/listeners/leaders of the quality team of 7 Cups should be leading this change!
...Members have been complaining about quality for a very very long time now and it's time to start brainstorming for solutions!
...We don't just need more leaders, we need more quality leaders.
I really wish my posts can inspire at least SOME of the leaders to start doing something!...Please don't just tell me you do have this and that, problem is the effort is seriously low and unchanged/unexpanded/untouched for years now!
Taggings:
@Anomalia @soulsings @Jenna @polarcat @Laura @Kate @EvelyneRose @Jake @starryKoala69 @EverGreenLives @MonBon @Pat @fluffyUnicorns84 @Pali @PoliteOcean @Power @Mark5 @vivelespatates @RideaRainbow @YayyySphere @asthebeesays @Probius @PolarLight @MelAllyouneedislove @Jack @Isaac @Alex @Amy @Anggi @ArwaS @wonderfulPumpkin71 @wushycushy @peacefulSoul8 @pray4theheartless @professionalPerspective60 @tazcares@gonzo6 @holly29 @kindSoul10 @ladylazarus1971 @musicalMagic @niamh333@bunnypants @coolvibes @cristiana33 @dancingStrawberry34@YourFriendforever @beYOUtywithin @blitheSun94@RumpleSteeleSkin @SilentSerenityy @SunFern @SupportiveMonkey46 @WendyBird15 @YayyySphere @brilliantTurtle89 @CalmSunset @CaringBrit @Chocoholic247 @DancingAlong @Diandra @GlenM @Halogen @Harquinn909 @Heather @Helping2findAway @MissZ @Ila @InvaderStitch @IreKat @ItsPreeti @KimsonTheSteveFundYPOC @KrinkTheMellowUnicorn @LaraGregorio @Lyra @Mark5 @Matty21 @MelAllyouneedislove @MissZ @MistyMagic
@justanothersoult I agree it's a problem we have to solve. We have trainings called listener discussions. It would be a first step to advertise them more prominently. Maybe an automatic message or a pop-up like the reminder for self-care break?
@Kate
@justanothersoult
Well done on the excellent points you raise. I agree, a new title, a new badge, these dont improve quality one iota.
Do a member poll, ask them one thing theyd improve, I bet 90% would opt for a better listening experience. I know from time spent on my member account that finding a good listener is a lottery. That doesnt mean they dont exist, and in high numbers. But there are also an abundance of listeners who frankly have no idea when it comes to being supportive and compassionate towards those they listen to.
I really hope someone in charge picks up on your posts and doesnt just respond with platitudes, but actually sets out to put in place meaningful changes.
@justanothersoult
I'm sorry, I'm having a really hard time following this thread at the moment. I will try to take a look at it later, but I wanted to ask you this question first: Is there a reason you are tagging a bunch of seemingly random people at random times? If there is something specific you want to ask someone, it is fine to tag them, but it's not okay to tag a bunch of people unless you have something specifically to say to each one of those people.
@justanothersoult
So, I have read through the thread a little more thoroughly, but I am still confused. The quality mentor team is led by @soulsings and they are constantly recruiting new quality mentors. On the member side, you will never see alerts requesting assistance with recruiting new quality mentors or requesting help with grading. Also, as @PolarCat mentioned below, most of these projects are not even behind.
If this is not what you are talking about, please reply with a specific question, and I will have to request that you do not mass tag, Tag people you have specific questions for.
@AffyAvo
I'm fairly certain this is false regarding verified listeners. The VL program has been around since at least the early part of 2014, but it is true that it's changed forms several times since then
@purpleHeart16 Sorry if I was wrong on that, will have to go back and check out how it started sometime!
@AffyAvo
no worries, i just wanted to let you know 
@justanothersoult
Sadly, I have to agree with this post. At least 75% of my members compain about their expierence with listeners. Now I KNOW there are good listeners out there as I have met many of them but they seem to be either busy with leadership roles or not able to take as many chats as needed.
I know we have mentors, but what if these listeners don't realize their issues or if they are just having a bad day due to their mental health conditions and act out rather than get off line? This is a very difficult situation ss we are listeners and not therpaists, but I think there should be some sort of elimination process.
Perhaps holding a membership for a specific amount of time (3 months) and complete active listening 1 and some more training before being allowed to take live chats?
7 cups has a tough job sorting this out but I hope they can. I think a lot of damage is being done behind the scenes and people are no longer reporting since they can just make a new listener account.
@Pumpkin74
Thank you for speaking out, I'm really grateful.
@Pumpkin74
I just wanted to point out that the community pushes back against us for trying to implement 3 month requirements for anything. To become a forum mentor, you used to have to be in the forums for 3 months, but this received such backlash that we finally reduced it to one month.
I commend you for trying to come up with a solution! I just wanted to let you know that this particular solution will probably not make any headway.
@justanothersoult Hi there. I agree that wait times are too long, but with volunteers evaluating scoring forms and the changing compositions of teams, delays are sometimes encountered. We do need more volunteers to do grading and processing badges quicker.
But if a listener has not heard by the date they took the Mock Chat is reached on this post: https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerProjectsampTeams_148/VerifiedListenersProjectVLProjectQualityProject_685/VerifiedListenerUpdatesVerifiedListenerProject_25663/ So that date is February 20th which is about a month, but the person who evaluates and issues badges is on self care break. So maybe we need a backup person who can do that too.
As a member of the Verifying Team that also trains team members, I also stress throughout training and afterwards the importance of doing mock chats promptly. Right now we have 3 adults and 4 teens waiting for team members to answer their requests. and all but one of those are only 24 hours old.
We are expanding our project agents to help keep the backlog down. I appreciate you pointing out this situation .
@soulsings
Just out of interest, how would someone apply for the project agent position that youre expanding?
@DeborahUK First I would read the post by Rose https://www.7cups.com/forum/ListenerProjectsampTeams_148/ProjectAgent_1327/ProjectAgentRoleandApplicationProcess_109208/
and also PM a team leader.
@soulsings
Thank you for clarifying, I really appreciate it!
I just hope that more and more listeners can join your team so that more people are dedicated to this. Is the project agent a role only for listeners, or also for members? I think @DeborahUK is interested as well.
@justanothersoult
It is a listener position. To answer @DeborahUK 's question, there is a project agent application form if you would like me to find it for you
Yes please @MonBon
@DeborahUK
From January of this year, so about as up to date as things get around here haha
@MonBon
Super, many thanks :)
@justanothersoult
Hey! Thanks for speaking up - I know it takes a lot of courage and I commend you on this.
I agree that 7 Cups Quality should be the first and utmost concern of everyone here, as for a vast majority of us, quality and support is why we're here. With that said, I also have some responses to your concerns:
I am the Community Mentor Leader for the Listener Learning & Journey subcommunity. This subcommunity is not viewable or joinable by members, yet it is a very important subcommunity as it is the main subcommunity that supports listener quality. So while I do agree that Quality is becoming a bit more overseen lately, I do have a team of people who's job is to maintain listener quality through LL&J. We have forum discussions and group support discussions through LL&J quite frequently regarding different quality topics. We are also consistently creating guides and forum posts and resources for listeners to improve their quality and have their questions answered. We do a lot of great work as advocates for listener quality, and while I agree with you in the sense that it might feel like quality is in the backseat right now in a member's point of view, I want you to know that it is happening and it is a priority!
Also, just to clarify a bit on the SC leadership names - a lot of the leadership names that you see on Subcommunity leaderboards (such as Jr. Community Mentor, Community Mentor, etc) are simply role titles that combine more than one role. For example, Jr. Community Mentors are those individuals who are group mods and forum supporters, and because we want to ensure that everyone has the appropriate abilities, we've created titles that ensure that this goal is accomplished. So new roles aren't necessarily being created per se, it's just that we're combining current roles to ensure that credit and abilities are given where it is due. If you are ever overwhelmed and/or confused with who does what in a specific subcommunity, feel free to reach out to the Community Mentor Leader for that respective SC - they'll be more than happy to answer your questions and clarify things a bit.
Once again, thanks for reaching out, and feel free to let me know if any of the above was confusing or if you have any questions. Hope this helped clarify things a bit!
@Alex
Hey Alex, thank you for letting me know there's a subcom LL&J that's dedicated to quality.
While I think that's really good and needed, just wanna point out my other concern.
I don't know if you have a member account, and whether or not if you have personally connected to a listener on 7 Cups before in need of emotional support yourself. If you did I think you will realised that maybe around 99%(I don't have any actual data, this data is extrapolated from my personal experience of connecting with a listener when I am in need of support) of the listeners don't even know what the word "subcommunities" mean, they are most often times, not even involved in the chatrooms and in the subcoms. So I'm not really sure how a subcom based quality control is gonna help monitor the qualities of listeners that doesn't even know how the forums work in the first place, which is I have to say, a majority of the listeners, and not a minority, please keep this in mind. Most of them are only involved in 1 on 1 chats.
I just want to add that, I've read some really great ideas before, such as anonymous evaluations for listeners, I've heard that the connect to listeners anonymously and check for their quality. I thought that this was a great idea, until I realise that most of the listeners I've encountered with had never been anonymously evaluated before. I don't why this great idea fell through and no one seems to bother with me anymore, even the quality team. I just suppose one of the reasons is that maybe there's just not enough people doing it, and please correct if I am wrong. Are all, or if any at all, listeners nowadays go through this anonymous evaluation anymore?
Again, personally I think there are many great listeners on 7 Cups, many people who are dedicated to leadership roles. I think it's time that 7 Cups start forming an army of listeners dedicatd to quality listening.
I just want to emphasize this:
Most members are still complaining about the quality of listeners as their main concern, and instead of tackling the main problem, we are diverting all our brilliant, very active listeners towards something not dedicated into solving the main problem, I think for listeners you guys don't feel anything, because to listeners it's like, Oh yay, I get a new badge woohoo!
While I'm not against 7 Cups rewarding listeners and granting them leadership roles, in fact I think it's necessary, my main concern is that in my head as a member, what I'm thinking is, oh great another subcom update, so what's it to me?
I just wanna say if you still don't know what I am talking about, please just swich over to your member accounts now, click on the "connect now" button, and see for yourself. I'm not making any of this up.
@justanothersoult
Again, what great points you make. The one thing I would disagree with is that listeners are only interested in badges. Maybe some are, but for myself, and the listeners Ive spoken with about badges, its no incentive whatsoever. In fact I couldnt tell you what the majority of badges mean!
You sound like youve had a lot of frustrating experiences in the GR queue. I share that sense of frustration. But stick with it, because sometimes youll unearth a gem. However, that doesnt undermine your point about listener quality needing far more resources. Many well intentioned listeners could be great with just a little guidance - for instance, dont talk about you, but listen to me. Sadly that guidance isnt there. Yes, there are mentors, but that takes direct action on the part of the listener to seek that guidance. I agree with you, whats needed is far more in the way of anonymous evaluation, followed up by guidance and support. Thank you for raising this seemingly overlooked point.
@soulsings - you responded to this post. As an ambassador, is this something youre able to advocate on behalf of?
@justanothersoult
Anonymous evaluations project is on hold at the moment. The set up we had for notifying those who were evaluated was very complicated and non-sustainable as it requires us to have a community manager send out the emails one by one. It was incredibly time consuming in that myself and a previous CM would sit there for several hours a couple times a month processing them. At this time I am unusre where that project is going, but it is on my list of things to discuss on my next meeting with a CM.
We also never made it known, publically, who was evaluated as part of the Anonymous Evaluations project.
@PolarCat
That strikes me as curious that the outcomes of evaluations were never made known to the listeners selected. How would this improve quality if people arent given feedback as part of this exercise?
@DeborahUK
It was made known to the listener. Whether that listener shared it with others is up to them. We never published lists of those who were evaluated.
@PolarCat
Ah, I see. Sorry, I just misunderstood what you meant. That makes far more sense!
Thanks for the clarification.
@PolarCat That's really disappointing to hear!
I don't know how much getting the testing marked really helps with listener quality, other than being able to find listeners who are verified more readily. Maybe a slight improvement if listeners improve from the feedback they get on the tests. I do agree though, they should still be marked in a timely fashion, I just don't pay much attention to the listener's side, although I can get over there.
The anonymous evalutions is a bigger quality tool IMO. It gives direct feedback and many listeners aren't on their best behaviour. This is really something I think that should be expanded. I wonder if it's possible for this to be used with real chats and not just test chats? Train members on how to do these evaluations. It might not be possible for members who are trained to evaluate every chat using the criteria but it's something I think I could do for a majority of chats, especially if I took a bit of a break between the chat and coming back to do the evaluation later. Would love to hear from some professionals on the ethical nature of this.
@AffyAvo
Ohhhhhhhhhh I very much like the idea of doing something from the member's side!
It definitely seem like something plausible since it's directly from the members themselves rather than an evaluation!!!
Thou I'm not sure how the logistics will work thou. It seems that maybe there's also the issue of members abusing these types of responses as well and might lead to unfairness to the listener's side? I think the point of listeners evaluating listeners is that there will be a more objective view of the process cause in terms of members we will definitely review it subjectively.
But it's nice to brainstorm haha
@justanothersoult
Leaving a review is a member leaving an evaluation of a listener which the flag review team takes and sends a system generated email to the listener and directs them to the quality coaching program.
@AffyAvo It isn't a matter of not having people trained to conduct mock chats. We had quite an extensive team of people. The issue was the process for sending the feedback. People felt it was better coming from a CM, but it is time consuming.
@justanothersoult
Here are the current waits on the projects you note as being two months behind.
VL is 31 days. This is due to one leader on break due to unforseen circumstances. And myself on semi-break (something I cleared with Laura months before - I moved. And I say semi-break because I kept my account online to deal with pressing issues rather than deactivate as planned) at the same time. I am doing my best to process these, but real life comes first. Typically, the most we have gone behind since this project relaunched in 2016 was up to three weeks. It has never been two months.
Active listening:
AL1 is 4 days behind
AL2 is one month behind
AL3 is 3 days behind
AL4 is 4 days behind
@justanothersoult
I'm sorry to be blunt, but what on earth are you talking about? I really liked where this started out: there is too much focus on subcommunities, and I agree! But, we have an entire quality team. Quality Mentors is one of the tracks with the most people. There is not 1-2 people grading everything, and we aren't behind on most of these things. Also, I feel like you are taking this thread way off track. This thread is about questions regarding the subcommunity advocate role. If you don't want your post to be buried, you should create your own thread in the proper place instead of randomly tagging people. I would be more than willing to help you create a new thread in the Feedback section
@MonBon
What I got from @justanothersoult posts was that quality initiatives dont seem to target where theyre needed. From my understanding, all initiatives such as verified listeners, mentoring, and training are things listeners have to actively seek out. The only initiative that actually approached listeners was the anonymous evaluations, and now it seems theyve been stopped. And even when they were in place they didnt actually provide any feedback or guidance. In that respect soul is raising some very valid points. And it seems to me they are relevant to this thread, because whats being asked, amongst all the hype of new project titles, is what about quality? Surely that should be the building block, with the various named roles as the decoration on top.
@DeborahUK
Read the post I made initially about it. I stated that the listeners were notified by a CM via email while myself and the CM processed the evaluations. It was time consuming and took several hours each time we did it.
The second part of my post stated that it was never shared publically as to not shame a listener for not doing well.
I hope that clears up the confusion.
@PolarCat
Yes, as above - just a misunderstanding on my part. Sorry about that.
So couldnt this process be simplified? I remember having a mock chat with a mentor when I first started, and I was given immediate feedback. Even for the verified listener I think I was given a bit of feedback straight away, though I then had to wait for the official outcome. In a work situation, if Im observing somebodys practice, I give immediate feedback. Why cant it be that straightforward?
@DeborahUK
They did this various ways over the years and it seems people often felt "duped" or expressed upset over the process directly to the person evaluating. We had better results with the exact chat and evaluator being anonymous and the email coming from a CM, but that was very time consuing as they had to be done individually and the form letter we used had to be tailored to each person.
I am planning to bring up this project the next meeting chance I get, but I am still on break at this time. Just popping on to manage projects and check all my post tags (this was one I was tagged on).
@PolarCat
Thank you for replying to my posts! I appreciate you citing the correct times as I have previusly cited from my previous posts, I only heard the numbers from listeners so thank you for clarifying!
I was sooo excited when I saw that you will be bringing this topics up in the near future!
I totally understand that the process takes time and is very time consuming. And I would also agree that it sounds like perhaps back at the time there weren't that many people helping out so perhaps it just fell through.
My point being that, again, I think we have a number of great and awesome listeners here, otherwise we won't be able to expand the communities to such lengths, so it must mean we have more people to help out now. So again my point is that, if you try to recruit people now, perhaps there will be more people who are willing to be on the team to help you with your efforts, as opposed to before when you are understaffed, I hope my words are making sense to you? I just wanna thank you for not giving up and for continue to try instead, thanks!
@DeborahUK
I see, yes I think I understand better now.
@MonBon
It's okay to be blunt because as you can see from my posts I am blunt myself.
And to answer your questions I tag you because I wanted some feedbacks from a mentor as yourself regarding the current situation with the community expansion versus the quality aspect of it. If you feel like you are not the apprioriate person to answer this I would suggest maybe asking advice from a forum mentor to edit my posts and to remove your tag as I am unable to do so unfortunately as a member.
So this is the solution I offer you regarding me tagging you. There is nothing more I can do as I cannot turn back the time to untag you, so continously screaming at me about me tagging in the first place will not solve anything, so please feel free to remove the tag of your name if you feel like you can't help or provide any solution to the matter I am raising.
The second thing I need to let you know is that of course I won't know the exact delay in dates. This information is not known to us members, and if I would have know the exact dates then that means I am on the team, and you have to know of course the delays I cite will differ from the actuals one. The dates I cite as from "What I heard from listeners", quoting myself as I have stated. But even so, do you believe a delay in one month is acceptable? So what I am on about is the unacceptable delays. If you haven't got this yet.
While you're telling us there is a whole team behind it, how come when one person is on break or on a semi-break the whole process gets delayed? Where are the other suppose teammates? Forgive for being blunt but your arguments don't add up.
And the reason I posted in this thread is because there's a whole discussion on whether or not we're having soooo many new subcommunities updates now, as previous members have brought up. So I am continuing the discussion from there, with my points being I like the changes, just not the direction we are taking, please read above posts to see what I mean.
And while I appreciate you addressing all the flaws of the points I brought up, please also address the legitimate issues I have brought up as well, otherwise I will perceive this as you just trying to silence me and my opinions. And as I said before if you feel like you can't address the legitimate issues I have brought up, feel free to untag yourself and move on from this thread. You always have the option to opt out, I am not forcing you to reply or do anything.
@justanothersoult
I will answer why two people on break delays it, because the information submitted in the mock chats is ONLY visible to the two ambassadors on the project to protect the privacy of the listeners who are evaluated. Ambassadors have signed non-disclosure agreements and are trusted to not share what they see there regarding the results. Typically two of us are not on break at the same time and I am doing the best I can to reply to my tags, all PMs within 24 hours while on break, and try to keep the badges coming out. We do have a large team of verifiers as well as a growing team of trainers and team members who manage the dashboard.
@MonBon
I'm not aware that you have the obligation to reply to every tags in the forum,
however, I am aware that, as a listener you should be using your active listening skills at all times when replying to a member. However, I don't feel like you are trying to understand what I am saying at all.
I, in turn, am going to ask you, to please act professional as a listener, and use your active listening skills when replying back to me.
@justanothersoul
Am I the only one whos seeing the irony here?
A member is skeptical about the quality of listeners in leadership roles,
and then the forum ambassador is not even bother with using active listening when replying.
Just goes to show if even the ambassador cant do it right, I doubt any of the other listeners can.
@independentNorth7826
i apologize but i dont really see what you are talking about. they expressed confusion and requested clarification, and also pointed out that mass tagging and derailing threads are activities that are frowned upon, and also provided suggestions that it is okay to tag people if you have specific questions and they were willing to help them create their own thread in the proper location. i think they were a little rude with one of their comments, but they preemptively apologized for that comment. i also dont see them "yelling" anywhere.
if im just not looking at the right things im really sorry 
@independentNorth7826 I hear your frustration, but please don't make this a personal attack towards anyone. Ambassadors are human just like everyone else. And there's a difference between a punctual mistake, and consistently bad behaviour. Everyone deserves a second chance, particularly when they're usually flawless and exemplary.
This was a possible example of the first. 7 Cups's main issue is the latter.
Maybe we can learn to motivate each other and to let go of things sometimes.
VL was fine and quick.
But I am struggling to get the AL tests done as the results come out late.
@Jiyabreeze I checked all four Active Listening modules and you have only submitted AL1 at this time. Did you submit others by chance?
*GRABS POPCORN NOW*
Hey Laura, I can very well fit into position, and I assure that I'll be a good community leader, but then, I've to let go one of my part-time job. Please let me know if there is any compensation involved in this work.
@Therebounder
All of the listener and member position opportunities are on a volunteer basis. 7 cups occassionally has operations positions open, but i think @twisha has more information regarding that. Hope that helps!