August 11: Follow Feature

Hello!

Its follow feature week! This is a very exciting day!! As a reminder, please review this feature announcement for more information.

We are excited to announce that this feature will be launched tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11 (hopefully in the morning or early afternoon, subscribe to this thread for updates).

Please carefully review the information provided below so you can fully understand how the feature works and what to expect upon launch!

1. Privacy & Public Feeds

As a support network, we have worked long and hard to build and maintain a supportive culture at 7 Cups. Maintaining this positivity is central to the 7 Cups mission. As we developed this feature, we thought long and hard about how to maintain our compassionate and safe culture. The goal of this feature is to increase and provide support in a new ways and allow for creative expression.

In order for our community to maintain our unique culture, we need to be able to moderate posts and remove items quickly that do not make a positive contribution to the 7 Cups community or violate our Terms of Service and community guidelines. are not conducive to thoughtful community building. One consequence of this is that we will not be able to offer a private (hidden) feed option at this time. During testing it was pointed out to us that the initial design for a private feed would enable someone to violate the posting guidelines (possibly repeatedly) as long as none of their followers report their posts. Such posts would continue to be hosted on our site in a hidden way and could continue to be shared amongst the community. Therefore, in order to ensure safety, quality posting and that our moderation tools are used to their fullest capacity, we will launch the feature without the ability to keep a feed private (hidden) but with an option to have control over who follows your posts (sees your posts in their own feed of people they are following).

-----> So, what does this mean?

We will provide two options for your follower settings: open or closed:

Open: (This is the default,) Anyone may follow you. You will be able to view your followers on your manage followers page. You may remove them from your list. If they persist or you feel threatened, you can always block someone from following you ever again. Note on the blocking button - if you block someone, you will be blocking them as part of this feature, not in 1-1 chats (that blocking button works separately).

Closed: (For a closed account: Go to your settings page and mark your feed as closed, just make sure to press the green save button.) A closed account will provide you: the ability to approve or deny your followers and manage your followers list. When someone makes a request to follow you, it will appear on your manage followers screen for your approval. If this option does not provide you the privacy you are looking for, you can opt out of the feature, simply by not posting to your feed or reposting other content.

2. Posting guidelines:

Please do not post images or content that are: graphic, abusive, include nudity or exposure of body parts, sexually explicit, indicate self-harm, imposing a religion or view, advice giving, include hate speech, include your personal information, contact information or social media handles.

These guidelines will be visible to every user when they go to their feed to make a post.

3. Managing followers:

-----> You will be able to see who is following you on your manage followers screen (located on your feed tab)

-----> Manage followers gives you the ability to follow people back or remove them from your follower list.

-----> You can also block followers here if you need to. (1-1 chats blocking works separately.)

4. What kind of items can I post to my feed?

That is up to you! We want to encourage you to be creative! Share your uplifting posters, poems, short stories, quotes..etc. Anything uplifting, compassionate and kind is perfect!

Moderation: everyone will have the ability to flag posts that violate the community guidelines.

If you see a post that violates these posting guidelines, please review the posting guidelines (listed above). If the post in question violates one of these, please flag the post. Depending on the severity of the item posted, after a certain number of flags the post will be automatically deleted.

5. Location!

A feed button will be added to your dashboard panel. When clicked, you will be brought to the manage followers section & posting station. All of your posts will be sent out from this tab. Announcements and alerts will also appear on your Feed screen.

Your public profile has been redesigned to include your own feed of posts. Your listener stats and information will be seated along side your feed content.

6. Official 7 Cups Feed!

We are excited to announce that there will be an official 7 Cups feed! This feed will be created and currated by the 7 Cups team for the entire community to enjoy!

7. We'd love your feedback. Please submit anything you see here. As this is a social feature, it may help to experiment with the feature with a friend.