10/24/18: Guest Accounts Update
Hello Community!
Throughout the past year, we have taken measures to improve the safety of 7 Cups by requiring email verification for any member or listener to participate in the forums or in the group support rooms.
In an effort to continue to make 7 Cups as safe as possible, we would like to discuss the removal of guest accounts from the site. We have many guests using the site in hurtful and unsupportive ways and moving forward we would like everyone to verify their emails in order to participate in any area of 7 Cups.
We need to tighten this last piece of the puzzle up to ensure the safety of our listeners and members in 1-1 chats. The timeline for this update is TBA. But we wanted to share this update with you now to give you the chance to share feedback.
Thank you!
@Laura @jill7cups @Power @Heather225
Thank you for the change it was really a must
I echo many of the thoughts in this thread. I feel we can't totally erase guest accounts, due to people potentially wanting anonymity when member accounts are known. But evidently we've got many 'troll' users coming in on them.
My thing would be to increase training against these troll users- have a button to report them, and have a team dedicated to quickly removing guest account access, and then tracking IPs from these. The team would have to obviously see the situation to prevent misuse. I know this is A LOT to do, but I can't think of any other way to remove troll accounts efficiently. They're going to come here one way or another.
@Lucy
I can agree.
Thanks for the initiative and for putting it out for comment.
The objective is laudable I think. When someone trolls, it can be awful, and as someone else pointed out, they can end up giving you stinking review, with all the consequences.
But I wonder if there is another way to limit the ability to use guest accounts, without forcing email confirmation. As someone has said, trolls can get around the email issue, and there would be an automatic assumption that now without guests, there would be less trolls. So perhaps worse for the trolled listener. And many people will simply not use us if they need to give an email address. I know 7 cups won't use it, but they don't.
Cookies maybe ? limit the ability to generate multiple guest accounts in a defined period of time ?
Again in summary, the motivation is 100% correct, just wondering if it can be achieved without the corresponding loss of genuine guests.
I am ok with the removal of guests accounts as long as 7 cups remains free. Please keep it accessible.
@needsabreak38 We hear you and will continue to provide free support for members.
@Kate please hear me and provide anonymous support for everyone as well
@IntrovertedDreamer73409 i think we always get anonymous support , yeah from member account also we get anonymous support ! Everything is anonymous here ❤ , not sure what are you trying to say ❤
@Potentialwell
Its never truly anonymous if you
@IntrovertedDreamer73409 There's nothing on the internet that can't be traced to the average user, guest account or no.
@ThisIs543
Okay. I'll rephrase my statement.
The level of anonymity given by a guest account on the sure is much higher than that given by a member account.7cups keeps little data about guest accounts (as of now)
If I'm spilling all my life's secrets to someone who is not legally bonded to keep my secrets a secret, I'd like to know that I have shared nothing that can be used by the average person to find my identity.
(And by the way, paranoia about your identity bring revealed can make many people above-average users. )
Not everyone's schedul this technical.
@Kate
Thank you for the updates and for your focus on what the community thinks! I won't echo much of what has been said, but I agree the most strongly with @peppermintlove @MonBon and @Lucy.
I think it's important to eliminate the possibility of people abusing the site and I would agree that part of the reason why people are inclined to be hurtful is because they're anonymous; however, I don't think eradicating guest accounts completely will solve the issue because there are some people who come on as guests to get support anonymously and that's part of the display of 7Cups' mission when you first go to the site - free, anonymous text - and you can't really be anonymous if you have a member account because people may remember your account and associate it with your story.
I think both the idea of having a limit before you sign up (though this may be a concern given the incognito mode and such) and the idea of tracking IPs are good ones (though in the case of the latter, might require a lot of human effort) and would like to propose another - what if we had a system where in the first 30 messages, if the guest has sent most of the messages - say, 25 - they get asked to create a member account? I think if they send too many messages it can be seen as spamming and it could be that they're sending hurtful messages - mostly, when I've encountered hurtful guests, they use lots of messages and resort to something that could be considered spamming.
This turned out way longer than I intended - kudos to you if you made it all the way through XD
@Imogene
Where are my kudos :O
@MonBon
Sorry - I really really wanted to use that GIF XD Here are your kudos!
@Imogene
Routinely tracking IPs is a serious breach of anonymity.
Please don't do that unless the concerned guest/member/listener is known to be a rogue.
@IntrovertedDreamer73409
Thats a valid concern - if this goes through perhaps it should be left as a last resort?
@Imogene
Of course. If facing a genuine troll, i feel that we would have to resort to it quite early.
But yeah I can agree.
@IntrovertedDreamer73409
Yes, but also important to remember that only the community managers will be able to see this confidential info
@Emily619
Anonymity is not about me trusting the community managers with my information. It is about no one from the admin team having access to my information (unless I am known to be a Savage/troll who disturbs the temperament of the site)
@Imogene I feel like another way to deal with this issue could be to make everyone create an account, and associate it to th I.P. so that they can't continue to make new accounts, however provide the option to join a chat as annonymous, so that the member can still feel comfortable remiaing annonymous in chats if they'd like, however we could still track them through their account?
Not sure if this would work but, i thought i'd put it out there
@uqhkenzi
Routine IP tracking is a beach of privacy. Please don't do this unless faced with a known troll.
@IntrovertedDreamer73409 If the terms of service are updated to include it, then it is perfectly acceptable. Unfortunatel due to the number of toxic people accessing 7cups, there is really no other option. You mentioned in another comment that tracking should not be used unless the person is known to be a troll, however if they continue to join as a guest they are given a new "account" each time and thus without tracking IP's there is really no way to single out those who are continually reurning and causing issues.
@uqhkenzi
It's less about the legality of their "anonymous" claim (they can put anything in their terms and conditions and we will have to accept them in order to use the site.)
It's more about anonymity being a very important aspect of 7cups that should never be compromised, no matter what.
@IntrovertedDreamer73409 the users would still be annonymous, as they could have an alias to chat if they felt uncomfortable using an account that may be identifiable. The I.P's could be routed through an automated program and tracked so that individuals would be held accountable for multiple reports/ behavioral issues while appearing annonymous in chats. This way no one would ever see or know I.P.'s or any personal information on an idividual, the system could simply filter out harmful I.P's. Just since i've started this reply i've gotten a message from a toxic individual that i have blocked on several guest accounts previouly, however because they're annonymous, nothing further can be ddone besides blocking the account each time, which takes time away from my interactions with those who genuinely need assistance.
@Imogene
I get where you're coming from and I totally appreciate that you've put a lot of thought in this. But...one thing does concern me. 7Cups is supposed to be a site for anonymous guest users as well. I encounter hurtful guests on a daily basis, but...I don't think that routing for their IP addresses is the way to go. If they're hurtful, we always have the option to block them.
But looking for their IP addresses and practically pressuring them to create a member account...in my opinion, it violates the very principle 7Cups is supposed to stand for: privacy through anonymity. Member accounts require email addresses and IP addresses are pretty much the locations of the member.
Instead of tracking them, we always have the option to block them for good and that'll be the end of story for that.
Before becoming a listener, I was once a guest at 7Cups and I wasn't in a good place back then. But if this site required me to become a member, I probably would've left and moved on. I would've definitely been a little apprehensive about spilling my secrets to a total stranger, especially if that stranger has the option to find out exactly who I am.
This is just my opinion because I'm thinking from that guest's point of view. It's easy for us as listeners, but for guests, it's not.
@Sunset316
Seconded.
@Sunset316
I appreciate your thoughts and from the guest's point of view - especially if they're not doing anything wrong - I completely agree with you.
However, there's the issue of people coming back - that's the reason why I would say I would support the idea of tracking IP addresses but as a last resort. I've seen many cases where guests come back on - this is really easy to do especially considering the incognito modes we have access to becuase you can simply open a new tab and come on as a different guest account. In that case, blocking really won't work, unless you're willing to block guests every time they come on - and it's hard to know whether that's the same guest, so blocking doesn't work in that sense either.
Tracing IP addresses, when put it your way, does sound extremely horrifying. I support you in saying that we as listeners and as members of the community should not have access to individual members' IP addresses. Even so, I think it should be made accessible to community managers and if we discover people who are hurting us by coming out repeatedly as guests, we should have the chance to block their IP address from reaching the site.
@Imogene
That's the thing. I'm saying why not block them?
If they're hurting us, we can block them just like that. Eventually, the same guest user will stop coming.
What will we do with IP addresses anyway? If 7Cups does this, I think I'll personally be extremely horrified. A stranger will be spilling secrets to us and we should preserve their anonymity at any cost. I think it's completely unfair to them.
Also, on this site, I've met some of the rudest listeners as well. Obviously guest users will not be able to track their IP addresses. So what gives us the right to track theirs? If we accidentally hurt them (unintentionally, of course), God forbid, will they be able to track our IP addresses? Will they get the same choice? If we're going to track their IP addresses, they should be known beforehand. Tracking IP addresses, no matter how much of a last resort it may seem to be, is quite invasive and a total breach to our own privacy. So, before they come to us, it should either be broadcasted that we'll be tracking their address (if something goes wrong) OR they should be allowed to track our IP addresses as well.
@Kate
I like your idea. but 7cups is a supportive place for mental health support.
Do you think member verification through email is safe? Asking someone's email is not breach privacy ? What will you do if somhow members and listeners email address data leaked by hackers?
Are we safe to provide email address?
When someone come here for help he/she needs support first . What if the member get verification email late and he/she needs to wait for support untill verification is done. I really dont think 7cups decision is right in that case.
If you really want to stop trolling then there is many ways to stop them. and I am agree with @KindSoul10
@Kate
Thank you Kate for the information.
I see both sides, but as a person who came here as a guest, I really hate signing up for services. I do, however, understand many sites go the way of you have to sign up to use them, even if it is free. Not sure verifying emails would help exactly, if only because people can make fake ones. But, I disagree that it'd be a privacy issue. A lot of sites have you verify your email address by sending you an email and you enter the code or whatever. That information would be on file anyway whether we implemented email verification or not.
@EvelyneRose we aren't discussing email verification anymore. We are going to terminate guest accounts.
Hi, I can report that Compassion Corner has signifcantly less trolling issues now that this update has been introduced.
Just prior to this update, it was awful. The trolling accounts outnumbered the genuine accounts and people didn't want to stay in there because it was getting out of control.
Since the update, there is still issues with trolling but it is still much, much more tame than it was before. Half because people aren't as anonymous so they keep the comments cutting close to the bone but still reasonable, and not complete and outright mayhem like it was before.
I do understand everyones concerns, unfortunately I think on balance, the negative impact from the trolling issue outnumbers the unfortunate negative impact on losing anonymity for genuine nice users. Which sucks because it should always about protecting the vulnerable but I think in this case, this update protects more vulnerable people than not having the update does. I can only go on what I have felt from Compassion Corner though to be honest, but yeah at least for in that particular room, it has improved it to the point of it actually being a functional room now.
I have been asking for help for over a year on some specific issues and no-one has ever managed to help me properly and follow through before because of this loophole in the system making trolls invulnerable and infinite, not just draining members time but draining moderators energy as well having to constantly deal with them and the apathy it unfortunately creates. So I guess I speak from that kind of perspective, where the update has been useful -- However I do understand a members need for privacy as well so I can see the point here too, if there was another way that these things could be dealt with then it would be less necessary.
But I know at least 4 trolls that have been long-term residents here for years that realistically have more than 100 accounts each, and despite every single mod and admin intervention over and over again over those years, the issue remained and basically unable to be dealt with. I've seen huge swathes of older DCR and CCC and DS1 and DS2 users quit, and they all say the same thing; That it was because of this issue that they quit using the site (the same anonymous account making trolls causing daily trouble that couldn't be banned, and targetting people). So the site has lost lots of members to this issue. Think, the entire DS1 / DS2 / DCR group a year or two ago, basically vanished now. I just need to bring these things up, as someone who has been here years and seen all this happening and been part of it as its happening, and expose it so that people don't forget and important information isn't lost to the drifting the sands of time of history. For balanced judgement.
Thanks,
RedMeeko
@RedMeeko
Oh hold on... I sincerely apologise, I thought this was a different thread!
To be honest all of that input ^^^^ was regarding the first initial member verification update.
Since then I haven't really encountered any guests trolling, or any guests at all really (are guests labelled as guest2334 or can they make their own names?). Also keep in mind I mostly attend one particular group room and also that I'm usually on in UK hours aka GMT, so pretty different from the usual timescales the Americans are signed online. So I'd be seeing a different atmosphere to what you guys experience.
So... In my limited input here I would have to say that, I did feel positive effects from the first update aka requiring member verification, but I haven't seen enough guest accounts trolling to promote taking away guest accounts. Sorry, for any confusion.
Also, seconding Avo's idea down there and I feel like shes done the right thing by explaining herself so well, even including timelines and links! At the right place and the right time too. Thank you
Thanks
Red Meeko
@RedMeeko @Kate @Laura
Hey Meeko,
Despite this being posted to the wrong thread, this is still such an important issue that needs to be addressed. Many members are leaving because this site has become unsafe in terms of trolling and because only so much can be done by mods / admin on a site like this. Ive thought about leaving permanently too. It really bothers me that people have left - that they feel they can't come to a site that is supposed to offer safety, support, and healing. It bothers me too that there isn't much moderators can do. There has been a lot of talk about differentiating trolls from people who just lash out because they need help, but in my mind they are the same if they intentionally hurt others. That said, not everyone on a guest account comes in with the intention to hurt and the decision to eliminate guest accounts may backfire in horrible ways. We may very well end up with a DS situation all over again. I hope this makes some sort of sense. Thank you for bringing light to such an important issue of members leaving due to the unsafe nature this site can sometimes display :)
Best,
Lex
@Kate i really wish it didnt have to come to this. I understand that it is going to make the site safer, but i'd really love if the admins considered trying to find an alternative to getting rid of the guest accounts entirely. I know that it has gotten to the point where most people use them for harm instead of good, but perhaps if some changes to them are made we could restore them back to their intended purpose. Please consider this carefully while moving forward.
