Loomio
Mon 4 Apr 2022 9:30PM

Other ways to match users

TH Tim Huegerich Public Seen by 3

(This discussion was moved from the User Guide on how to find an empathy buddy to keep that thread focused on documenting the current functionality of empathy.chat.)

See also: Standardizing "how I like my empathy", Solicit empathy feedback?

J

James Sun 3 Apr 2022 6:44PM

love the built in scheduler idea

other ways of matching people

– match people’s preference for giving and receiving empathy

– search by people’s average score on feedback, above X average

– search by number of empathy sessions person has done

-- Search by number of empathy sessions that had positive rating

MT

Makarios Tabor Mon 4 Apr 2022 2:42AM

These are great ideas. I also really like the idea James proposed of matching by people's preference for giving and receiving empathy - I think that's crucial.

Eventually, when there's a large pool of participants, could you add a search by geography? That may also inspire in-person connections and communities.

TH

Tim Huegerich Mon 4 Apr 2022 4:03PM

Yes, these are all good options to try in future, when there are more people to sort through. The one I'm considering at the moment is whether/how to display something like "number of empathy sessions person has done" as part of a person's profile. My "economist brain" hesitation with doing that is that it is a measure that would be easy to fake/game. A user could schedule several short sessions with a friend (or fake account) in a single day to give the appearance that they are experienced. Some options that come to mind:

  1. Just trust the honor system (silencing my "economist brain" expecting the worst from people) and/or accept the rare occasion of fraud.

  2. Further embrace trust and add a self-reported "approx. hours of empathy experience" field to profiles (understood to include time spent exchanging empathy both on empathy.chat and elsewhere), automatically updating it based on time spent in on-site empathy chats (and showing in parentheses the specific tally of on-site "empathy.chat hours").

  3. Provide more specific information about who the on-site chats have been with (or just how many of the hours are with people you are connected to).

  4. Wait until we have some kind of ratings, so we can use something like "number of empathy sessions that had positive rating" instead.

As I think this through, I'm leaning toward number 2. Maybe we could also solicit "approx. how many different people you've exchanged empathy with" (and list the corresponding empathy.chat count in parentheses) to add further information about breadth of experience?

TH

Poll Created Mon 4 Apr 2022 9:53PM

Add self-reported hours experience and number of empathy buddies Closed Tue 19 Apr 2022 9:01PM

Add self-reported "hours of experience exchanging empathy" and "how many people you've exchanged empathy with" fields to each user's profile, with corresponding on-site tallies alongside calculated automatically.

In parentheses next to each tally, a user's Profile will display the corresponding tally specific to empathy.chat. Also, the self-reported tally will be automatically updated based on subsequent exchanges on empathy.chat. (New chats with close links will not add to the "how many people" tally but other chats will.)

For example, the hours tally could read "Hours experience exchanging empathy: 24 (3 on empathy.chat)" The "3" would be automatically calculated from the user's empathy.chat history, whereas the "24" would be self-reported by the user. If this user later completes another hour of empathy on empathy.chat, the tallies would be updated to "4" and "25", respectively. (The user retains the ability to manually change the 25 to something higher--or lower, if they wish.)

Results

Results Option % of points Voters
Consent 0% 0  
Objection 0% 0  
Undecided 0% 1 TH

0 of 1 people have participated (0%)

J

James Wed 6 Apr 2022 3:11AM

interesting question, What does length of time mean on site and or doing chat and or video ? What does number of empathy chats by video and or voice only mean ? Does it say something about quality of empathy ? I feel unsure, undecided at this moment.

TH

Tim Huegerich Wed 6 Apr 2022 3:04PM

I was thinking of defining time on site in a chat as how long both people are present in an empathy.chat chat (whether video, audio, or text-only), maxing out at the time specified in the request (e.g. 25 min for a 10 & 10). Such a measure wouldn't reliably indicate quality. But I can think of two reasons it would be a useful signal of quality: people tend to learn from experience, and if they don't then they will have a harder time gaining more experience because their partners will not want to chat with them again.

J

James Sun 17 Apr 2022 9:20PM

Yes, length of time doing empathy can be a general positive indicator. If you aren't effective, unlikely you will be able to build up hours. It has a neutral aspect. The program can count the minutes. I like having the additional box for the person to say what he/she/they believes total # of minutes for doing empathy. Because, the person could do empathy outside the group, which impacts quality. Or, person might disagree with program's calculation of how much time on site and can say that.