RESOLVED: Cheers and Taunts now provide Step Differences

[BLLingg]

This morning, I cheered my 55 Active FitFriends. I got back some weird replies. In order of appearance, they included the following:

 
#1) FitFriend Cheer: "cheered you! You're only 150,174 steps behind!"
#2) FitFriend Message: lol..yep that's will be easy to get to 😂
#3) FitFriend Cheer: "cheered you! You're 38,563 steps ahead!
I was getting very confused untll
#4) FitFriend Message: "When did Fitbit add, # of steps ahead, to cheers from others? I haven't gotten any cheers from one ahead of me yet. Is it motivating in your opinion?"

Later on, after several Messages, FitFriend #1 messaged back: "Brunetta, I seriously have no clue what you are talking about. I didn’t say anything to you other than clicking on cheers😳"
After several more Messages, he messaged back: "Hmm! It doesn’t say that on mine. Must be an Android thing then"

Those 150,174 Steps that were, I presume, intended to motivate me did not! Right now, I'm at 165,436 for the past SEVEN DAYS! How motivating is it to be told that you have to do almost as many Steps in presumably a few hours that it took you to get in an entire Week?

Worse yet, among those I cheered is one who is already insecure and if she has Android or uses her PC, she was told that she is only 156,515 Steps behind me.

I am mad. I am embarrassed. I feel guilty of having likely offended some of my FitFriends by appearing to brag. I am disgusted. I am not a braggart. I am neither a Sadist or a Masochist. I have never even intentionally taunted anyone. Until this is fixed, I can no longer cheer anyone. Friend #4 says that he feels ok cheering those who are ahead of him or very close behind him, but I would feel almost as guilty if I cheered only a few of my FitFriends!!!

Moderator edit: format

[wizzywig]

Well said Sandy.

[CarlosCFitbit]

Hey all -- Thanks for your feedback regarding the changes we made to cheers. It's not our intention to encourage, promote or support bullying through the cheering feature functionality. Cheering is meant as a motivational tool to positively encourage others to continue earning steps throughout the day. 

@BruceBu We don't delete posts, rather review and edit any post that violates Community guidelines.@Bosco253 It looks like you edited the post you're referring to from what I can see. 

Again, I appreciate your additional feedback and will pass it along to our team. 

[CherylWB]

Do not like the step differences. Why don't you just let us cheer since
that is the message we want to send. That provides positive support
without offending. If I wanted to display my step differences there are
other places where it can be appropriate.
Do not ADD anything to my cheers, taunts or messages

[Valkyrienz]

I agree that cheering is meant as a motivational tool, to positively encourage people to move more, but adding the step difference on to it has made it more like taunting and therefore has become not motivating at all. I don't use the taunts because I don't like taunting, that's just mean and now I don't use the cheering either, that is very sad. I agree with CherylWB, please leave the step count differences off all three of those tools. You have challenges etc. for those that want to see how far ahead or behind you are with someone, because you joined into a challenge to do just that and that is fine, but once you changed the cheers to be a challenge we did not agree to it... sorry but that is a step backwards in my book(pun intended). Putting a step difference in the cheers is still like a taunt.. not good at all. 😞

[CherylWB]

Carlos, please let us have the old cheers 😀back.  Not all of us use it the way you have changed it.  We have people who have had surgery and cheer them if they make 200 more steps than the day before, or to let our fitbit friends (we do have a community on the fitbit site) and our friends on the challenges, i.e., workweek hustle and weekend warrior, that we are thinking of them.  And on some of the chats on these sites we hear about problems they may be having and the happy face is meant to cheer them up and cheer them on.  Use step differentials on the taunts if you want, but not on the cheers!

[BLLingg]

     Personally, I like the new Cheer. 

     When someone is way ahead of me, I get the encouraging message,  "😃 So & so cheered you! Keep it up!"  When someone is way behind me, I don't mind much being told, "😃 So & so cheered you! You're 50,567 steps ahead!"  It's somewhat embarrassing, but since I'm the only one who sees it, it's not a big deal.  And when we're within 10K Steps of one another, I do find motivation in being told, "😃 So & so cheered you! You're only 5,559 steps behind."

     I don't mind sending those Cheers either.  I don't believe "Keep it up!" would discourage or hurt anyone, no matter how little they are able to step.

[sandycrochet]

I doubt if you had cancer you would feel it encouraging.  You always have the ability let someone know via personal message how far ahead of them you are, you've always had the ability to send them a taunt.  No need to to be nasty when trying to send a cheer.  No, we have no options.  So the 100+ people on my friends list simply aren't cheering anyone anymore.  It's a bad and unneeded change.  There was nothing wrong with the old system where you could cheer someone, send someone a message, or taunt them.  Now, all you can do is taunt them, or send a message.

[CherylWB]

Mine don't say "keep it up" We should have have an option of showing step
differences or just a cheer

[Bosco253]

Well, they're almost starting to get it ... but not quite. When encouraging friends who are recovering from whatever is holding them back, sometimes even "Keep it up!" can seem a bit disingenuous. "Hey, great, Felix! You took 943 steps today - keep it up!" That seems condescending. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the simple cheer, which let people know you were thinking of them, whether they were doing a good job or not. What is so complicated about this that makes it so difficult for Fitbit administration to comprehend? Even the "Keep it up!" is NOT needed. WTH was wrong with the old cheer?

[CherylWB]

Nothing was wrong with the original cheer 🙂. They just don't seem to
understand the simple premise, "If it isn't broke, don't fix it!".

I also object to Fitbit changing & adding to my comment without my
knowledge. I want a smily face which is what I sent, if they want to add
something to it, it needs to be seen by me so I know what I'm sending!

[sandycrochet]

Right you are!

[sandycrochet]

Some are saying they aren't seeing the taunt cheers on their phones.  Is it still the nice old system on the app vs the computer?  I never did all the cheers from the phone as it takes much longer when on the app vs on the phone when you're cheering a 100+ people, but I am wondering and would like clarification.

[Colinm39]

@sandycrochetI have just analyzed my Friends list and this time of the year some slip into the inactive area. I now have to send personal cheers because most of my friends are under the 70,000 steps/week. As I have said in earlier posts this can be seen as bullying in Australia and with more emphasis here on cyber bullying via phone I feel Fitbit could have an issue here..  I have also noted a drop off of friend requests since the introduction of the changes. My Friend requests were normally from posting and helping other Fitbitters, that has definitely dried up..

This is the breakdown for today

71 friends over 70,000

416 friends under 70,000

588 friends inactive.

Of the inactive some are obviously on holidays, others dropped out etc..  I still contact the inactive ones to see if they are OK..

 @CarlosCFitbit I feel the new cheers system can violate Fitbits Community guidelines, especially in the second paragraph.. being considerate and harassment..

I will leave it to others to comment but my feelings are in this post and what was a simple system of sending a cheer, mainly to let someone know I'm thinking of them, has now gone and I now must resort to send a message with the word Cheer etc.

Here is an extract from the Guidelines..

"Be considerate. We all want to share a positive experience in the Fitbit Community Forums. Please be polite and respectful in your interactions with other members. Your opinions are always welcome, but personal insults and harassment ("flaming") in either the Community Forums or through private messaging are not acceptable. In particular, please refrain from posting anything unlawful, obscene, abusive, inflammatory, or otherwise objectionable or injurious to third parties. Please refrain from posting content that would constitute advertising, spam, or any other form of unauthorized solicitation"

[sandycrochet]

Right you are, and thank you for your thoughtful response.

[Bosco253]

@CarlosCFitbit @Colinm39 @sandycrochet & for anyone else who has followed this thread:

Whether or not one agrees with Colin that Fitbit's new practice of including step differentials with cheers violates Fitbit's own harassment policy, it is somewhat incredulous that Fitbit administration can be so obtuse and/or unconcerned as to continually fail to try to grasp what the community has been telling them. Personally, I do not feel that the new system is intentionally harassing, so I won't go as far as Colin does, but Fitbit has continually been, not unresponsive, but inappropriately responsive, to requests from Fitbit community members.

In our own interpersonal interactions, when we offend someone, intentionally or not, it behooves us to be sympathetic to those we have offended and to take appropriate measures to ameliorate matters. Fitbit's response to date has been to make tweaks that they think will appease those who have complained while still maintaining the unwelcomed change. Yet, I assert that Fitbit administration continues to focus on the situation through its own original reasons for making the change, rather than attempting to view things through the eyes of the membership.

I believe Fitbit administration has adopted an extremely myopic way of examining this situation. I do not believe that the fact that this situation remains unresolved is due to any malicious intent but rather that they still just don't "get it" because they are reacting defensively, trying to justify their change, rather than simply saying, "Hey, we tried this new thing, but our customers don't like it, so let's go back to the way things were." That's all we've been asking, guys!

[Colinm39]

@Bosco253 Great post, explains, it all with some more input and feeling.It doesn't affect me but it does when I normally cheer Fitbitters who are having a difficult time, both personally and with their Fitbit goals.

My cultural background could interpret it as borderline sledging, and I mentioned bullying because that's a hot topic in Australia with Mobile phone use. Cyber bullying, harassment etc.. What Fitbit have done depends on the interpretation by the receiving person.  In many cases we don't know the thoughts of the other Fitbitter, just what we have gleaned from the messages and posts.

Here is the definition of sledging in Australia.

Sledging is a term used in cricket to describe the practice whereby some players seek to gain an advantage by insulting or verbally intimidating the opposing player. The purpose is to try to weaken the opponent's concentration, thereby causing him/her to make mistakes or under perform. It can be effective because the batsman stands within hearing range of the bowler and certain close fielders; and vice versa. The insults may be direct or feature in conversations among fielders designed to be overheard.

There is debate in the cricketing world as to whether this constitutes poor 

sportsmanship or good humored banter. Sledging is sometimes interpreted as abuse, and it is acknowledged some comments aimed as sledges do sometimes cross the line into Personal abuse, however, this is not always the case.

[Bosco253]

@Colinm39When I stated that I wouldn't go so far as to deem it intentional harassment, I totally agree with your comment that the recipient's interpretation is very important. I certainly wasn't trying to minimize what you said, or to even find issue with it.

In the US, your sledging is what we would call "trash talking" when it comes to athletic competition. 

Bullying and harassment are rampant in American society and, unfortunately, seem to be growing. Xenophobes became emboldened, no longer feeling as if they needed to mask their prejudice, in no small part due to the example set by our President. We need a revival of civility.

[sandycrochet]

With all the continued posts, why has Adm not even bothered to weight in or respond to this thread?  That alone is adding insult to an already bad situation.  I know of more than a handful of people in need of replacing their Fitbit units, who have decided to purchase something other than Fitbit, indicating this change with cheers as what pushed them over and away from Fitbit.  Having a policy and not honoring it seems like very poor business to my way of thinking.  Add to that the confusion (purposeful?) of having it work one way in the app and another way on the computer.  Do they like people not really knowing what's going on??

This problem is NOT resolved.  No one in my circle of 130 ish friends cheers anyone anymore because of this, likewise no one in my Senior Group of 80 does either for the same reason.   

Bullying in any language or country is bullying, it's wrong, it's hurtful. PLEASE fix the problem.

[Bosco253]

Here it is - a month and a half later - and don't we wish that this was the only problem Fitbit problem with which we had to contend?! 

Just as Fitbit admin seemed either to not "get it" or just not care what users thought about the cheer changes, the latest issues with the inability to access groups is another situation where they display little understanding or concern regarding their customers. Is it incompetence or indifference? I believe that it may go beyond that. I am wondering if they are being intentionally deceitful, perhaps using this approach to hide that they want to jettison Fitbit's social networking aspects and hiding their plan behind conjured technological problems, thus allowing them to drop those aspects of what helped make Fitbit even more dynamic.

[sandycrochet]

Sadly, I wonder too.  I've looked without success at trying to find how to communicate the problems with forums/groups.  I can't even find a place to ask what's going on.  I'm terribly upset.  We had a very tight group of people in the group I moderate.  Many have met face to face.  One of very active members has passed away, and I've not even been able to make a decent post to let the group know.  I've sent PM's, but with the limitation on characters...and sending out PM's to 80 some people.......am truly disgusted!!  Is there a place where this other problem of the groups/fourms is being discussed?