Solicit empathy feedback?

And aside from terminating memberships, my hope is that the gatekeeping exercised by group hosts and Members in their choices of whether to connect will suffice for general quality control. Otherwise, the vision is for things to function more like a small group, with individuals using their discretion based on a user's profile, their relationship via buddies, and their experience with a group/host.

The best analogy may be to a dating website (though I'm reluctant to make that analogy because I want it to be clear that empathy.chat is not one). At the end of the day, any dating profile can only tell you so much. You have to decide whether you're willing to try meeting the person (though, as with dating websites, you can ease into it by starting with text-only).

A previous post mentioned a concern about being clear on the purpose.

For me that means being clear on which needs are we seeking to meet thru doing or not doing X. Also, I see this a way to connect with a very creative and compassionate source of knowledge for creating and maintaining the website.

I like the idea of focusing on group hosts to handle quality to reduce needs an administrator to resolve disagreements. I see reducing administration as one way to reduce costs, therefore make the site more accessible to more people.

I like the idea of suspending a group if administrator is gone for x time. This can prevent a group from going astray or without guidance. The individual members can realize they need a new group host or people leave the group and start their own groups.

I have quickly seen for myself how seeing the degrees of contact is way to see who to take a chance with and who not to.

An individual having the ability to block groups and or individuals is very helpful for containing trouble.

Feedback is a sensitive thing. So, I see reasons to keep it private. Another option is limited sharing. A person may share feedback he/she/they receive within a group and or with particular people for a period of time. Also, my idea of multiple choice for empathy working and not working is an attempt to help people share constructive feedback around empathy.

So when I propose making feedback private, I have in mind the primary purpose being contribution toward the learning/growth of the other person. (Though, in doing so, it also helps increase empathy skills in the community as a whole, meeting needs for support and empathy.)

It would also be helpful to be able to look back on the feedback I gave someone when I'm deciding whether I want to have another empathy chat with them later.

One thing we could do is include on a user's profile which of your buddies or fellow group members they have chatted with through the site--and maybe also when, for how long, or other "objective" details like that. Then you could reach out directly to those folks via private message to ask whether they would recommend the user as someone to exchange empathy with. (And the mutual connection you ask could look back at any feedback they gave privately through the site to jog their memory.)

Your idea for "limited sharing" is what sparked this idea for me. It is another form of limited sharing, I guess.