October 4: Required member sign up in the new-user flow! (title updated by Krink to help clarify)
Hello Everyone,
We have updated our onboarding flow (the experience new users get when they start from the home page) to require signing up for a member account. We want to try this for the following reasons:
1) Signing up with a member account makes it more likely a person will be notified of replies, return, and continue getting support.
2) Member accounts facilitate participating in the community, and making friends, while also promoting accountability with a consistent account over time.
We will be doing this on a trial basis. This will impact new users only.
If you are a regular user of 7 Cups as a guest, we'd like to hear your feedback on this update. Please share here.
@ Laura, I just joined so I was subjected to make a member account. While after making it and getting used to all the notifications and finding my way around I started liking it, I didn't like it at first. I already have so many accounts with different passwords and stuff, I hate being forced to make an account, especially if I"m just trying it out.
@Kittybear25 - yes thank you for sharing that point of view. I think this is the trickiest part: how to allow people to test the waters without feeling they are committing to something or creating a new acct to manage, etc. Not easy!
would it be possible for listeners to toggle their settings to members-only, so the option to avoid guest trolls is available, while letting people continue some services with the anonymity of guest usage?
@tarotTrepidation @laura I think this a great idea along with what was said about having different aliases for people who need more anonymity.
@tarotTrepidation - listeners already can only take chats with members if that's what they want to do?
I don't have the time or energy to read through all of this thread, so I may be repeating some things here.
As far as protecting listeners from harassment and holding people accountable for perpetrating harassment, it's a great idea. However, I don't think that should come at the cost of making honest guests feel more vulnerable, withdrawn, and guarded - especially when these feelings may become intense enough to totally dissuade some guests from reaching out to us at all.
I agree that to lessen the damage done by serial harassers, it would be better to ban IPs instead. If it's difficult to ban IPs from the entire site, then the block system should at least allow individuals to block IPs from interacting with them in the future (a certain blogging website which I won't name is famous among its users for having terrible coding, and even that site manages to have a block function that works this way).
@MiuMiuImKat It's an idea that would be great in theory but many trolls already know how to get around IP bans...
@Phthalo - exactly. hello VPNs.
@MiuMiuImKat - we have blocking today, but an IP is a blunt instrument. For example, some college dorms are all behind the same IP address.
@Laura
HI Laura I don't like "dampering" on the wonderful thought out changes for 7cups....Im sorry in advance-honest. I ignored this forum thread as I get so many-bad on Rumple. But I woke up this morning and I get many pm on this issue as well as it in the LSR. So I talked with someone and tried it out myself. As I used to use a guest account if I had something really hard to share but I didnt want it connected to my member account. But I am not allowed to use a guest account. I know you said this impacts the new uers but its also impacting others to. Maybe I vote hands down to this change. Some people are not wanting to get involved here, but love this site to just come on and share on anything that is embarrassing or just something very hard for them to share with outside people. I am asking you not change that option here. Let it flow like it was....
Does it really matter knowing each and everyone who has a guests account? Or making sure they recieve more stuff from here?
sorry-
@RumpleSteeleSkin - hey rumple we discussed this a bit in PM but I wanted to share with others some of what I said.
It's true that if you hit Start on the home page now you will be asked to make a member acct before connecting wth a listener.
However, people can go to 7cups.com/member/ and other such pages today while logged out and still be in a guest acct. We won't change that tll we figure out a better solution.
And does it matter to know who the guests are? It sort of does to use since one person with 100 guest accounts is different from a single person with one guest account who has never become a member yet. We'd rather help that one person than waste our time on 99 imaginary guests.
Ok so, I don't usually post in the forums, but I do believe this is extremely important, and I'd like to add me 2 cents.
I am completely 100% against removing guests, and I'll explain why.
- The main reason this is being considered I imagine is due to people trolling and abuse. This will NOT stop the trolling and abuse. If people will use a VPN to get access, this won't stop them. Fake email addresses exist(even ones that can be validated), making new accounts consistantly is actually easier then setting up a VPN. Trolling is a thing of the internet, and, as horrible as it is, it is going to happen.
The only way to combat trolling is moderation, automated systems often hurt the genuine users more then the actual trolls, especially in our case, when our users are often shy and reluctent to use the site, especially for the first time. Annoyimity is such an important thing here.
A good idea to combat this general abuse is to give certain listeners(Say, make a badge for it and an exam or something, or give the ability to mentors) the ability to temp ban members and guests. The temp ban can last for something between 2-4 hours, and should allow to get rid of certain abuse before it spreads.
- A guest here is SO important, As a listener, I've had an insane amount of chats where, it was a guest who was just "trying this out, not sure if it's my thing" or something like "I already don't like this", and I've had such great and wonderful chats from them. The faster, and quicker it is to get into a 1-on-1 chat, the better. We have a response timer to measure that. Removing guest accoutns would be adding another 5-10 minutes to that response time.
- Very vew websites use guests, that's true, but that's because guests are not profitable nor are they useful for statistics. However, the wonderful thing about this website is that we put the member/guest first, we are here to help first and foremost, and that should always be available, with no strings attatched, zero. As a listener and a user of the site, it took me well over a month to move from a guest account, to a member account.
A test won't hurt, but, that's my 2 cents on the thing.
@BlackRose522 I agree with you 
"We are...not talking about caring for others with strings attached. This is not real giving, rather an exchange of goods, a business arrangement. When you care for somebody else, simply care. Let it be what it is. Do not expect to call in a favor later. You might be in a real jam and the person may be in a position to help you, but please do not give to deliberately put yourself in a position to cash in these chips later on. Other people can feel this. They may take what you are offering but they will feel manipulated and disempowered."
from 7 Cups for the Searching Soul
@BlackRose522
I don't support this i don't think it's a great idea
Well...
Im glad to know Im not the only one who is deeply ashamed of things and slightly paranoid. 😎
I fear technology and I fear being known. Yet it never really occurred to me to have an alias or come here as someone else. I think maybe a few times I had signed out and chatted as a guest (back when I still used the chat portion of this site). But I didnt much care for it and it felt wrong to me like I was lying.
But that doesnt mean that I dont support anonymity or whatever it is anyone needs in order to seek support.
Who knows how I was able to get myself to sign up.. was I drunk at the time? Just desperate enough to risk? Mustve been an act of god because Im probably a shy user to some extent believe it or not.
If I had knowledge of how traceable I was I doubt I could have brought myself to sign up. For some reason I guess I just thought ht I was anonymous.
So what becames of people like me that are new to trying 7 cups but are more tech-savvy? Because I cant see them signing up.
I cant even get myself to email 7 cups any longer (was always a challenge) And Ive always accessed 7cups using strict (and absurd) rules of my own making. Those things remain a work in progress.
Anyone who is sufficiently tech savvy can easily create fake e-mail addresses that last for just long enough to be "verified" and then become useless. So I imagine those people will continue to sign up.
You are not traceable by other members or listeners at 7 Cups, by the way. Only 7 Cups staff and staff of certain business partners have any access to your e-mail address.
@themainjane
@RarelyCharlie throwaway email addresses are rejected by 7cups signup and users should always be careful that their username cannot be traced back to other social media accounts and is not the same as their email address.
if you know of any throwaway domains that are currently allowed in the signup process, please report them to krink <3