No Chat this week (4th-7th Jan) We want your feedback :)

Former Member

:wave:

Happy New Year everyone!

There will be no chat this week - we take a week off three times a year to give space for us to review how things are going and make changes where needed.

That means we'll be talking to all our volunteer chat mods and we'd also like to hear from YOU :d

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Here's a quick recap of what we do at the moment...

Support Chat - 5 nights a week Sun-Thurs (Includes opening round to help everyone feel included and join in at the start. Closing rounds to help everyone unwind and relax after what can be tough sessions)
General Chat - 5 nights a week Sun-Thurs

Womens Only Chat - once a fortnight on Tuesdays
Mens Only Chat - once a fortnight on Tuesdays

Support Circle - a small private support chat requiring sing up in advance - once a month on a Tuesday

Expert chats - Q&A on a topic with an expert - roughly 1/month
Workshops - an interactive session for learning and discussion with an expert - roughly 1 or 2 a month

Easter, Summer and Christmas Quizzes.

All chats run from 8-9.30pm.

So, we'd like to hear your constructive ideas for improving your chat experience, for example:

What do you enjoy about chat?
What works well?
What doesn't work so well?
What would you like to change/see more of?
What topics would you like us to be covering in workshops and expert chats?
Any questions about chat in general?

We'll listen to all your feedback and take it on board. We can't guarantee immediate changes but all of your feedback will be considered as we continue to develop the chat service :yes:

Over to you :thumb:

Former Member

For support chat, I do believe the opening and closing rounds are of benefit- allowing people to settle into chat at the start and wind down at the end. I have noticed that O/C have been shortened approx by 5 minutes and prefer the later (10 minutes for each).

I think support chat could be better improved by better info on the structure of chat for new participants (before the beginning of chat), i.e. So they are aware of O/C rounds. I do believe when chat is busier it's more difficult to be heard and can be quite confusing, but I do know there isn't much that can improve chat in this aspect.

Perhaps a thread (on the boards) or info on thesite with regards to supporting others during chat would be of benefit. To give people tips (should they wish) on how they can support each other during chat.

For women only chat- perhaps occassionally setting a topic of discussion (maybe once every 2-3 months).

For general chat- I've only been a few times and in my opinion, I think sometimes having a topic of discussion/theme for general chat would be cool- so people could look forward to attending a specific chat. I'm not saying all the time but maybe sometimes. Also I think it would be cool to have more quizzes- could be done via general chat. Obviously have your themed quizzes with prizes but what about quizzes just for fun (with no prizes). P.S. I went to the Christmas Quiz and found it very fun- it was a good distraction!

Support Circle is a great idea, I like how everyone has the chance to get support and think setting group rules at the start should continue.

I love workshops and think it's a great way to get everyone involved and we can all learn from each other. Expert chats are good too. Will see if I can think of any suggestions for topics in workshops and expert chats and post them if I do.......

My only question is- could you please provide us with more information as to how chat used to be and what changes have been made in the past? I ask as I've been a member for less than a year and am interested to find out more about how it used to be and what changes have been made as a result of these breaks.

Former Member

apandav wrote: »

My only question is- could you please provide us with more information as to how chat used to be and what changes have been made in the past? I ask as I've been a member for less than a year and am interested to find out more about how it used to be and what changes have been made as a result of these breaks.

Sure - some of the changes we have added in the past have been as follows:

Introducing a new group agreement which you can now see at the beginning of the chat guidelines: http://www.thesite.org/chat/chat-guidelines

Running SC and GC in parallel so that people can choose which chat they would like to attend and also go into GC for distraction if they need a break from support issues. The timings used to overlap but we found everyone would flood into GC after SC finished and this wasn't working.

Running chat on more nights and having GC on every night that SC is on - Tuesdays are the only exception to this at the moment but we do hope to have GC on Tuesdays in the future once we have the team/volunteer capacity.

Developing the support circle format, in particular for those that find the larger busy group difficult and making this a regular feature on the schedule.

Introducing opening and closing rounds happened last year to help structure the sessions and improve the group dynamics.


Thanks for your feedback so far apandav - I like the idea of a clear description of the support chat format for newbies and also tips on supporting others :thumb:

Keep your ideas coming folks :yes:

Former Member

My only problem is with the women's only chat. I love the idea itself but I swear, every single time, someone always kicks off about it for some reason and so much support time is lost. I don't understand what people's problems are with it.

Former Member

I think people need to be reminded that people do not *have* to take part in closing round if they don't want to, being rude to people because they choose not to participate is not okay.

I agree with apandav in the sense that women only chat should be themed from time to time, I believe the mens is occasionally and it would be good for us to have that structure to eliminate the complaining that butterfly has already picked up on.

I also think guidelines and rules need to be reminded constantly and be enforced for everyone, rather than just occasionally because then users get confused as to what is actually allowed if something was okay in one chat, but then not in another if that makes sense?

People need to accept that not everbody will be friends, but that is totally okay as long as they're not being fuckheads towards each other, we're not obliged to talk to anybody, so if we don't want to talk to someone we shouldn't be made to feel bad about it by other users

Former Member

Jo7 wrote: »

Sure - some of the changes we have added in the past have been as follows:

Introducing a new group agreement which you can now see at the beginning of the chat guidelines: http://www.thesite.org/chat/chat-guidelines

Running SC and GC in parallel so that people can choose which chat they would like to attend and also go into GC for distraction if they need a break from support issues. The timings used to overlap but we found everyone would flood into GC after SC finished and this wasn't working.

Running chat on more nights and having GC on every night that SC is on - Tuesdays are the only exception to this at the moment but we do hope to have GC on Tuesdays in the future once we have the team/volunteer capacity.

Developing the support circle format, in particular for those that find the larger busy group difficult and making this a regular feature on the schedule.

Introducing opening and closing rounds happened last year to help structure the sessions and improve the group dynamics.


Thanks for your feedback so far apandav - I like the idea of a clear description of the support chat format for newbies and also tips on supporting others :thumb:

Keep your ideas coming folks :yes:

Thanks for explaining

Former Member

I agree with Butterfly and Hiccup.

I think in any support chat (including gender specific) chat itself shouldn't be discussed as it takes away from people getting support and makes it more difficult to follow the chat. Perhaps this could be incorporated as a rule itself for chat- if people want to give feedback now is the time, outwith they should privately message a moderator.

Former Member

apandav wrote: »

I agree with Butterfly and Hiccup.

I think in any support chat (including gender specific) chat itself shouldn't be discussed as it takes away from people getting support and makes it more difficult to follow the chat. Perhaps this could be incorporated as a rule itself for chat- if people want to give feedback now is the time, outwith they should privately message a moderator.

Indeed - this isn't an outright rule currently but it is something that we do encourage all mods to say - i.e that chat isn't the place to feedback about chat and any comments on the service need to be sent via PM to a staff moderator or people can always use the contact us page.

Thanks, we'll have a think about how we can work on a clearer feedback mechanism inbetween chat breaks

Former Member

Hiccup wrote: »

I think people need to be reminded that people do not *have* to take part in closing round if they don't want to, being rude to people because they choose not to participate is not okay.

I agree with apandav in the sense that women only chat should be themed from time to time, I believe the mens is occasionally and it would be good for us to have that structure to eliminate the complaining that butterfly has already picked up on.

I also think guidelines and rules need to be reminded constantly and be enforced for everyone, rather than just occasionally because then users get confused as to what is actually allowed if something was okay in one chat, but then not in another if that makes sense?

People need to accept that not everbody will be friends, but that is totally okay as long as they're not being fuckheads towards each other, we're not obliged to talk to anybody, so if we don't want to talk to someone we shouldn't be made to feel bad about it by other users

Thanks @Hiccup !

We can certainly have a think about adding in more themes to Womens only chat and perhaps using the opening rounds for that too.

Agree that the guidelines may need more regular reminders - it can help to encourage a feeling of safety and respect at the start of chat - again, these are all things we can think about - changes wont be instant but we'll be working on developing ideas over the next few weeks.

All mods will have slightly different approaches but on the whole we try to make sure there is consistency, certainly in terms of the guidelines so we can have a look at refreshing things with everyone too.

On your final point - this is one of the most key things about being part if any online community - just like in real life there will be personality clashes or people that just don't get along and that's okay - it doesn't make anyone a bad person, it's just part of life. The most important thing is to manage these situations maturely and to just be civil to one another, take breaks, use ignore - whatever works for you

Former Member

I know I'm still quite new so correct me if I'm wrong on anything.

My first point is purely me being picky hehe. Is there any chance that mods names could be in a different colour when they send a message - you know how it is on the user list?? Like some are purple and some a red. Idk I just would like this haha.

I know you've changed chat timing in the past but I just thought it may be useful to have maybe one chat that is not at the usual 8-9:30. I know it's different for everyone but I work late nights a few times a week so will probs miss a lot of the chats in the new year. So maybe there could be like one night where it was earlier or something? Like 6-7:30 or something. Just an idea.

I also think that general conversations in support chat need to be lessened. And by this I just mean like maybe mods could more actively encourage people who are completely off topic with regards to support to go into general chat. If can be really distracting makes it harder to be heard etc.

Don't have anything to say about general because that's always been fine for me.

Wouldn't bother me of you didn't change anything tbh because it's been good to me

Former Member

Hey @Enchanted :wave:

Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback with us! These are all really useful points for us to take on board. I like the idea of a consistent mod colour/font, makes sense!

Former Member

I dont know if this would be possible and i understand that this may cause problems for mods but i think chat should be 30 minutes longer so on from 8pm-10pm and i agree with something said above about themes on the womans chat but other than that chat is great.

Former Member

jpeople111 wrote: »

I dont know if this would be possible and i understand that this may cause problems for mods but i think chat should be 30 minutes longer so on from 8pm-10pm

Chat used to be from 8-10 in the past, but it was changed to the current times for reasons Also, it's a lot of time for mods to dedicate considering they've upped the amount of chats to 5 nights a week of support, and 4 nights of general, so essentially over 1 week that is 13 and a half hours of chat. Even just adding half an hour every night would mean about 18 hours of chat per week which is kind of impractical for mods (they're only volunteers and they'e often got other jobs along side)

Former Member

Yeah and I couldn't imagine chat being longer again. I really like the routine of opening and closing round, and then an hour or so of support chat - it seems like the perfect way to go about it and chat has been much better since this started.

Former Member

butterfly123 wrote: »

Yeah and I couldn't imagine chat being longer again. I really like the routine of opening and closing round, and then an hour or so of support chat - it seems like the perfect way to go about it and chat has been much better since this started.

Although I liked the longer chats and chat times being varied, I do agree with this a lot. I think it works out a lot better this way :yes:

Former Member

Thanks for your continued feedback everyone - it's really helpful!

@jpeople111 - as Hiccup said, chat did used to be 8-10pm, but we shortened it to 8-9:30 as it felt like 2 hours was really just a little too long. You can see the announcement for that here.

If anyone has anything else to add, then please do