Yes, true! We have listened to your comments on the ? Mark that was in the new verification iconography. We agree that it is not the best way to represent a persons image or character, so we are removing it Monday. We ‘reload’ the site with all the weeks updates every Monday, so you will notice the change then.

It’s hard to assess in how far the CouchSurfing Board is meeting these requirements, apart from 4 (recommended) and 15 (essential): all 5 members of the board have American citizenship, are living in California, are in their thirties, there is one female member and 3 out of 5 are receiving a salary.

Most of the other points don’t seem to be available for public scrutiny (at this point it’s even unclear to me if there are any bylaws).  It would be nice if there were a bit more clarity about this charity.

With hesitation I take on the task of writing a summary with my view on legal and financial issues, because I’d rather do something more pleasant on this public holiday in Germany. I’ll try to be brief, and I won’t bother with lots of links to documents I’ll mention. If you want to see them in the original, and check whether you agree with my assessment, please ask the management to publish them, and not me. They have them all, and most are public information by law.

What does 501(c)(3) mean?

The term 501(c)(3) relates to a clause in US tax law which gives federal tax exemption to certain organisations, both charitable and non-charitable (eg certain types of family trust funds which serve as a tax shelter for private wealth). Having 501(c)(3) status does not automatically mean the organisation is a charity. But if a charity wants federal tax exemption, and especially if it wants the ability to issue tax deductible donation certificates to US tax payers, or if it wants public funds (grants), it needs 501(c)(3) status. That status requires the organisation to file annual reports, including full financial statements on a form called ‘990’, to the US tax authorities (IRS), and to publish those reports and a number of other legal documents (on a web site, or in print, and send a copy on request). The status also imposes a number of rules on how the funds are used. Charity status does not change the private nature of an organisation, but in fact puts its funds under public supervision.

What is Couchsurfing’s legal status?

It was registered under the name “Couchsurfing International Inc” on 02 April 2003 by Casey Fenton, with four hired straw men as fellow incorporators to make up the legally required number, in the form of a Non-Profit corporation in the US state of New Hampshire. He was sole director and officer at least until 28 January 2007. Non-Profit does not automatically equal charity. Primarily it means that the corporation does not distribute any profits as dividends to its owners or share holders. It can, however, make profits and accumulate them, and if one wants money out of it, one has to pay oneself salaries, in addition to expenses. That’s what Casey Fenton started doing in 2005.

Was Couchsurfing a charity from the start?

That remains a little unclear. The original incorporating document, the Articles of Association, dated and signed March 2003, allow “charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes” or purposes according to 501(c)(3), which is wider than just saying “charitable”.

One concern, however, is that none of those dedications of the corporation’s income or assets are stated with the qualification “irrevocable”. It may therefore be possible in future to change the purpose of the corporation, or indeed change its status from Non-Profit to For-Profit altogether.

Another concern is that Casey Fenton did not register the organisation as charity immediately with the Attorney General, as required by New Hampshire law, thereby avoiding certain filing and reporting duties, similar to those that come with 501(c)(3) status. As a result the organisation succeeded from April 2003 until November 2007 to keep secret from all members such documents that have to be filed with the Attorney General, and are public information by law, especially the corporate bye-laws, and the annual and full financial reports. This breached the law, and an investigation by the Department of Justice in New Hampshire is still pending, which might still result in the organisation and individuals being fined. In other words: Couchsurfing may, or may not, have been designed as a charity from the start, but unfortunately for several years it certainly did not behave like one. The general understanding in the community initially was that it’s Casey Fenton’s private company; he could do with it what he wanted; and it seems that he did for a long time.

How did Couchsurfing finally get on the official list of charities?

Following discussions in the community it seemed clear around September 2007 that Couchsurfing either indeed was a charity, but had breached charity law by not registering, or it was not a charity, in which case soliciting donations might have been fraudulent. As the management remained unresponsive to urgent questions, a complaint was placed before the Attorney General of New Hampshire on 05 November 2007, with a final warning and advice to the management to try and get their act together now.

On 14 November 2007 the Attorney General then received the registration and reports for 2003 to 2006. As a result Couchsurfing was then added to the official list of registered charities in New Hampshire, despite some remaining concerns. This has for instance made it possible for attendees of the Alaska collective to obtain volunteers’ visa or the US, whereas the earlier collective in Thailand still largely relied on volunteers taking the risk of breaking the local law and entering on tourists’ visa.

What are the remaining legal concerns?

At the time of filing on 14 November 2007 Casey Fenton was President (chairing the board of directors) and paid employee at the same time, and there is no indication that the situation has changed since. New Hampshire law expressly forbids that. As a result his employment contract may be nil and void, and the organisation may be entitled to reimbursement for all or part of the salaries paid to him.

From the time of incorporation until at least the middle of 2007 Couchsurfing did not have the legally required minimum of five members on its board of directors, for at least until the end of 2005 Casey Fenton remaining sole director and officer. This may mean that legal decisions and contracts from those years may be invalid, with all sorts of unforeseeable consequences. It may also cast additional doubts on the validity of Casey Fenton’s employment contract, if it was entered into by him as sole director contracting with himself as employee, which may also have violated legal “conflict of interest” rules.

Some of the documents filed on 14 November 2007 (under penalty of perjury) appear to be materially false or backdated, especially the full corporate bye-laws, “conflict of interest policy” documents signed by directors and officers, and the listings of directors for 2003 to 2006. The filed documents may create the wrong impression as if a full, legally composed board of directors had been in office throughout, and may disguise the facts leading to concerns about Casey Fenton’s employment especially. The other current four members of the board of directors have been made aware that they have been listed as serving during years when they were in fact not, and they appear to condone this, which may, if any of the above mentioned constitutes a criminal offence, in itself be a criminal conspiracy in that context.

What is the history of the 501(c)(3) application?

Even before incorporation, from at least 11 February 2003 to at least 15 July 2004, Casey Fenton stated on the web site that Couchsurfing was “a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Company”, when there is no evidence that an application had ever been filed, let alone approved, at that time. The management have never responded to questions about this with an explanation. (Incidentally this also shows that the company’s name was used at least two months before incorporation, which may constitute fraud.)

Amongst all subsequent statements are these: On 27 January 2007 Casey Fenton states: “We are in the process of moving to 501c3 and hope to do so in the next couple months”. On 13 April 2007 he stated: “We are filing for 501c3 status practically tomorrow”.

The management stated on 24 November 2007 that the application was filed. On 28 April 2008 General Manager Matthew Brauer stated he had to “Edit supplemental statements for our 501c3 application”. Today, 03 October 2008, ‘desaparecida’ states in the Brainstorm group: “CouchSurfing has been asked for more information and additional papers … at least twice … This is what I heard in July in an informal talk”.

The above mentioned concerns held on state level may very well adversely affect the result of the application for 501(c)(3) status. Reversely, a failure of the 501(c)(3) application may ultimately affect the organisation’s status in New Hampshire.

Will Couchsurfing always stay a charity?

So far there is no guarantee for that. As already mentioned, the purpose of the corporation, or even its non-profit status could possibly still be changed. The discussion in the community has therefore come forward with the suggestion to introduce the word “irrevocable” into the ‘dedication of assets’ clause in the corporate bye-laws. This would simply require a documented resolution by the board of directors, but unfortunately this has not found any response from the management.

Once the 501(c)(3) status is obtained this may change, but that will depend on the precise nature of the application, and the particular sub-case of 501(c)(3) exemption. It is unfortunate that the management refuse to publish the application, which may lay all doubts to rest, and would enable the community to add their expertise and help. However, the organisation is legally only obliged to publish the application once it has been approved. This means that if the application remains unsuccessful, they will never be legally obliged to publish it, so that it may never become transparent why it was rejected.

If the organisation has applied for genuine charity status according to 501(c)(3), then everything is fine. If it has made use of one of the other options of tax exempt status, that may in theory be given back voluntarily in future, and the organisation could still be changed into a commercial enterprise. However, at that point all tax benefits received so far would have to be repaid. Practically speaking the crucial point after receiving 501(c)(3) status would probably be when they start issuing tax deductible donation certificates to US tax payers; from that time it may well be impractical and too expensive to try and get out of tax exempt status again. This is the reason for some sceptics to fear that the management may not earnestly want the tax exempt status.

What about the financial statements on the web site?

Couchsurfing has published skeleton financial statements on its web site since 2004. Despite promises to have them independently audited, they remain unaudited. No budget forecasts are published, despite Casey Fenton’s statement on 15 June 2007: “we hope to have ready before mid July … our budget forecast for 2008”.

The published statements only show income and expenditure, and omit all assets and liabilities accounts. This raises the concern whether the substantial amounts of accumulated funds have in actual fact been held in corporate bank accounts at all times, or whether irregular personal “loans” have been made, which are expressly forbidden by New Hampshire law. These concerns are aggravated by comparatively low figures for interest income being shown, given the total of funds that should have been in bank accounts over time. It was communicated in May 2008, as an achievement resulting from the General Manager’s presence at the collective in Thailand (sic!), that a higher interest bearing savings account had been set up in the US.

So far the organisation is under no legal obligation to publish financial accounts themselves, although they have to file the information with the charity regulators, and it is public by law (meaning: everybody can ask the Department of Justice in New Hampshire for a copy), so those listings on the web site are voluntary. However, the figures on the web site are incorrect and often don’t match the figures in the official filings. Whilst there are no significant deviations, accountancy is supposed to be an exact science, and any irregularity, however small, is cause for concern.

What information is public by law and how to get it?

Couchsurfing has to file annual reports and full financial statements for the previous calendar year by 15 May of each year. As already mentioned, according to New Hampshire law they have no obligation to publish those themselves, but the information is public by law, and everybody can request a copy from the Department of Justice in New Hampshire. This includes the documents submitted for registration, especially the corporate bye-laws.

Should 501(c)(3) tax exempt be granted, similar reporting duties will apply, and the report to the federal tax authorities can then just be copied to the state agencies. One important difference will be that then the organisation itself will have the duty to publish, and everybody can ask the organisation for a copy. Once the status is given this will, as mentioned above, also include the full initial application.

At the moment Couchsurfing appears to be complying with the legal minimum requirements for disclosure of public information. Publishing skeleton financial statements without being required to may see as if they went above and beyond the minimum requirements, but that is not really the case, as the published figures are wrong. However, in the world of charities, voluntary and non-government organisations it is generally seen as good practice to be forthcoming and cooperative in disclosing information in which there is a justified public interest.

Conclusion

It would be in the interest of building trust and stability in the community if the management changed its policy from doing the minimum required by law to doing the maximum permitted by law. For an organisation with the core purpose of running a web site there really is no excuse for not having all the information on there.

As there seems to be a policy of ignoring discussions in the groups, and insisting on submitting all “questions” through ‘Contact Us Questions’, I will submit a copy of this posting in that way, stating that I would like a response to all issues raised, and I will post here any response I will receive.

And now I need a drink. Sorry for the length. ;-P

A lot of the stuff BW is based on (money, texts, layout – see above) was taken away from HC and HC volunteers who worked on it for a long time without their permission. We will try to bring this stuff home and reunite the community. Since BW advertises having a “democratic” setup we will happily work together with them using this framework for the best of the community in our reunification efforts. And you can help us! Here’s how Project “Reuniting the Community” works:

Texts and code are copied, not taken away.    And above all, they should be copied if people want to copy them.
Money can’t be taken away from a non-existing organization.
I love the idea of reuniting the Community.

Phase 1: Right now, we are encouraging active HC volunteers to join BeVolunteer as “members”. BV currently has 45 members (see the irony of calling a network run by 45 people “democratic”?), a few of them are absolutely dedicated to HC. You have to jump through a few loops to be accepted by their “Board of directors” as a member, but the fun should be worth it. Basically, you just have to be an “active volunteer”, so just edit around the wiki a bit, join some of the many many discussions in their Forums, or translate a few sentences. Once you are a member, just let us know. We will reimburse you for any “membership fees” you have to pay to BV once the project has succeeded.

There are no membership fees, not even to become a member of the BoD.
Democracy is not a black and white question, but to me it’s a network ran by a single person is the least ideal form (i.e. HC).

Phase 2: We will make sure that HC-friendly people are elected to BV’s “Board of Directors” – the 9 people running the show (kind of interesting model of democracy). They could start making sure that links back to HC are added, and BW as organization stops its aggressive attacks on HC.

People’s profiles (like mine) are deleted for links from HC to BW…

Phase 3: The final step will be to reintegrate BW into HC, a simple “General Assembly” decision will be enough for that. Since both will be based on open-source software then, it won’t be too big of a problem. We might even continue to use their officially registered French NGO as the HC-NGO in France. And all will be good
Sounds like fun? Then help us, or get in touch if you need more info and encouragement!

Great, finally an official organization for Hospitality Club!

See openhospitalityclub.org for a 1 page overview of the issues with HC.

Regarding finances, check for yourself, the finances of the first quarter of 2008 are available. Salaries are the biggest post on the expenses side. That doesn’t include flights and other costs of Collectives. Less than 10% of the income is used for servers and there was a surplus of almost 60.000 US$.

(note: meals and groceries were bought in Thailand!)

“I take it that back when CS was a more grassroots thing (correct me if i am wrong), all collective volunteers had to find their own way of getting to them. And that all the work was done pro-bono, even those who were working on improving CS on a full-time basis. In such a case, i wouldn’t think it’s fair that there are people on the payroll now, but those who helped cs in the initial startup days don’t get shit for all that they have contributed… “

CS never was very grassroots. PEople (like me) just tried to move it there. Casey has received a 2000 US$ per month salary ever since there was money coming in. It’s always been under control of Casey, and later Casey and his close friends.

I think paying some people is fine. Though, only people who are really needed, e.g. system administration to keep the site up 24/7, and further, let the community decide where their money is used. Whenever there’s a donation, add some checkboxes where you can give options where the money can go after the basics (administrative stuff, server costs, basic legal costs) have been covered (e.g. none, publicity, collectives, salaries for casey’s friends, food and lodging for groupies).

And don’t pay 2000 US$ per month plus expenses plus flights plus food and lodging. During a stay at a Collective it’s extremely easy to not spend more than 300 US$ per month…

Apart from the flights to and away from New Zealand (800 US$) I hitchhiked to the three CouchSrufing collectives I worked at. The laptop I bought to work on CS (1000 US$) broke quickly after I stopped volunteering, because of an extremely ridiculous non-disclosure agreement was “leaked” that does not allow working on any similar project (e.g. Wikitravel or other social networks).

BeWelcome will take time to grow. The BeVolunteer organization is already far ahead of anything else in hospex world in terms of flexibility, transparency and democracy. The software is about to follow. 3500 members is already a large pool of active people to connect with.

And note that BeWelcome now has (alpha stage) functionality where all members can verify members, for free. And it’s ID card or passport verification, not just address verification (which can very easily be falsified).

My idea about couchserfing was that it could be used as a vehicle to do much more than just hospitality exchange for college aged low-budget travelers. With so much money coming in and such a huge community behind it it would be extremely simple to set up much more sharing and society enhancing projects. E.g. a good friend of mine who also attended the New Zealand Collective is setting up groundcrew.us. If it would have been done from the inside of CS it would have been big by now. Though, on the other hand, I’m extremely happy that I didn’t accept Casey’s offer to host Hitchwiki.org with CouchSurfing…

I never thought the denominators for the trust value made a lot of sense for the friendship links on CS (especially when translated, I don’t really know how to best translate “I somewhat trust this person” into my mother tongue). Still, there seems to be a definite trend of linearly (in time) decreasing trust on the Quality of Service page. It would be interesting to compare this to values from before and do a deeper analysis. The “average quality” doesn’t seem to be changing significantly on the other hand, maybe slightly going up? Possibly because it’s actually visible to the receiver.

Joe Edelman wrote the QoS code, and wrote to me:

Wow, that *is* interesting!

So the avg trust is calculated among introductions added in the last
week that are reported as due to CS and in-person. So it’s not because
of virtual users, and it’s not because CS is accelerating and includes
less pre-existing friends.

The only confounding factor I can think of, is that it doesn’t take the
“date you met this person” field into account — a lot of people don’t
fill it out, or don’t fill it out correctly. So it includes
introductions that are finally being reported from the past, as well as
those that actually occurred that week.

We could be seeing an ever-greater percentage of weirdos from the past.
You know, those random people that blew through a collective, and much
later are friending everyone. And the people they are friending hardly
remember them and so don’t trust them. This would be a result of social
graph “fill-in”, perhaps as a kind of recoil from expansion last summer.

Or, perhaps it’s an accurate result, and as CS grows, people that meet
find they have less in common, since CS includes more demographics.

In that case, it could be interpretted as a *positive* result: perhaps
the ideal would be to take people who DON’T trust each other INITIALLY,
and give them POSITIVE EXPERIENCES such that later they DO trust each
other, or they start to trust other people from a new demographic MORE.

Let’s just hope this trend does not continue. If it would, the average trust would be zero by the end of 2010.

In the meanwhile, some active work can be done on designing and implementing a trust system from scratch on BeWelcome.

The data:

year   week introductions users  quality  trust

2008    16         6625   3890    1.526   0.370

2008    15        14238   7345    1.506   0.377

2008    14        14818   7591    1.490   0.379

2008    13        16520   8201    1.527   0.388

2008    12        13895   6952    1.500   0.387

2008    11        12252   6291    1.479   0.379

2008    10        12303   6490    1.493   0.392

2008    09        12796   6482    1.480   0.382

2008    08        11336   5875    1.483   0.376

2008    07        12484   6408    1.486   0.391

2008    06        11778   6215    1.469   0.409

2008    05        11201   5945    1.453   0.406

2008    04        10570   5998    1.479   0.415

2008    03        10757   5983    1.489   0.410

2008    02         9560   4872    1.503   0.410

2008    01        13972   6425    1.484   0.417

2007    52         7749   4279    1.476   0.414

2007    51         9332   5118    1.467   0.421

2007    50        10975   5500    1.480   0.422

2007    49        10309   5632    1.454   0.415

2007    48        10664   5500    1.454   0.413

2007    47        10335   5734    1.487   0.425

2007    46        10835   5762    1.492   0.429

I think it’s good there are discussions in languages other than English.  Especially in France, where the existence of an official organization related (or not?) to CouchSurfing. I asked some questions about the ACSF (Association Couch Surfing France) in the same group.

i have been hired to work for CS but then [i] have to decide before March 8 if I move to Alaska with the group for this Summer…

Hospitality Club: termination of your membership

Hello grappig,

you seriously abused our rules as outlined on http://rules.hospitalityclub.org, therefore we had to terminate your membership to protect other members and our network.

Greetings,

the Hospitality Club Abuse Team

–
The Hospitality Club
… bringing people together!

http://www.hospitalityclub.org

Rock on Veit!

Sent Januaary 28th 2007:

from Casey Fenton <Casey@kaseyventon.com> to Promitheus <subwaywall@yafuuuu.com>, cc Joe Edelman <joe.edelman@khmail.com>, Aldo <aldootje@yafuuuuuhooo.com>, Daniel Hoffer <dmh@dkwdkgoefqffer.com>, Kasper Souren <kasper.souren@gmail.com>, csc-nz@googlegroups.com, cs-dev-public@googlegroups.com, Duke <dukecancun@ktotemail.com>, whatley88@ktktkgmale.com, date Jan 28, 2007 3:06 AM subject Re: Board of Directors, real decision making process

hide details 1/28/07

Reply

Simply said, as of now, I am the only member on the board. When we move
to 501c3 there will be several members. We are in the process of moving
to 501c3 and hope to do so in the next couple months. It is a
complicated process that must be done exactly right otherwise the IRS
will reject us.
- Hide quoted text -

Promitheus wrote:
> May i suggest that this discussion is moving to our group?
>
> I don’t see the reason to keep it here
>
>
>
> */Joe Edelman /* wrote:
>
> I think it would be a good idea to have some spending guidelines and a
> small group of people that make financial decisions instead of just
> one.
>
> I will keep talking to Casey about this idea. I’ve put some sample
> spending guidelines (edit away!) on the wiki:
>
> http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Spending_guidelines
>
> –Joe
>
> On 1/28/07, Promitheus wrote:
> > I just don’t know …
> > for the Board seems that Dan knows what he is talking about …
> >
> > about the decision making process … i think we don’t have
> something
> > established!
> >
> >
> > Daniel Hoffer wrote:
> > So far as I know only founders are board members.
> >
> > I don’t know Matt Whatley. So I doubt he is on the board. Who is he?
> >
> > Good question about the decision making process.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > At 7:38 PM +1300 1/27/07, Kasper Souren wrote:
> > >I have some important questions:
> > >
> > >a) Who is currently on the Board of Directors of the official
> > >organization that is CouchSurfing? I thought it was the “founders”
> > >(i.e. Casey, Leo, Dan, Seb), but apparently Matt Whatley is in the
> > >Board as well. Who else joined? And, are the original members
> still in
> > >the Board?
> > >
> > >b) There have been a lot of questions about the decision making
> > >process. But most of those have been dealing with what I would
> > >consider minor issues. Real issues, such as regarding CouchSurfing
> > >finances and legal situation are much more important. So, who is
> > >deciding on those issues?
> > >
> > >Kasper
> >
> >
> > –
> >
> ______________________________________________________________________
> > d a n i e l h o f f e r ( 4 1 5 ) 9 9 0 – H O F F
> >
> > “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a
> > man.” — Samuel Johnson
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > Looking for earth-friendly autos?
> > Browse Top Cars by “Green Rating” at Yahoo! Autos’ Green Center.
> >
> >
>
>
> –
> J.E. — 413.695.6578 — http://nxhx.org
>
>
> ————————————————————————
> The fish are biting.
> Get more visitors

> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=49679/*http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php?o=US2140&cmp=Yahoo&ctv=Q107Tagline&s=Y&s2=EM&b=50>

> on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.

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–
Casey
—————————-
mailto:Casey@KaseyVenton.com

“I think it was Matrixpoint who said that Casey really insists that he is not the true leader of CS…”

Actually, I don’t know that he ever said this. On the contrary, since I first appeared at the Montreal Collective, and during the following year as a volunteer, I found it very difficult to determine the organizational structure of CS and Casey’s role in it.

Everyone knew that the organizational structure was being revamped as part of CS 2.0, but the only public information I could find was an organizational diagram on the website that showed a central box labeled “Admins and Founders” or the like, months after I left Montreal. I was disturbed to see this for two reasons: 1. the complete lack of detail of the internal structure of this box, and 2. it’s central position, which was in conflict with the agreed upon decentralized organizational structure suggested by the tree model (see the logo of this website) that was created during the Montreal Collective.

There was no particular mention anywhere that Casey was the supreme, unaccountable head of CS. He was only included among the list of 4 founders prominently featured on the website. There were no by-laws to be found. The only information available about the Admins was a brief statement that they were volunteers who helped with important administrative duties involved in running the website. No information about how they got their positions or whether there was a term of office, etc. No information about performance reviews, etc.

As someone who had begun volunteering full-time with the intention of working freely on behalf of the hospitality community for years to come, I sought clarification as to who I was actually working for. I made it clear that my intent was to work for the Community, not for Casey and the Admins unless they were in some way accountable to the Community. Why in the world would I (or anyone) work full time so that Casey and his hand-picked buddies could live it up in exotic locations, unless the Community who provided the support for that had some say in it?

I got no meaningful response to two lengthy requests for information from the Admins beginning in December, 2006. That’s when I started reconsidering my commitment to CS and paying attention to such matters as the NDA (another whole story in itself).

It wasn’t until the following year (in the spring I think) that Casey finally revealed to the developers that he was the sole member of the Board of Directors. (According to Pickwick, Casey’s told a different story to NH government officials).

So, you see, Casey’s style was very indirect. CS 2.0 was supposed to be about members participating in the operation and evolution of CS, and the emphasis was **decentralized** participation. It was “The CouchSurfing Project”, not “Couchsurfing International, Inc., Casey Fenton CEO and sole member of the Board of Directors”. “Do-ocracy” was promoted by at least one of the Admins, and another Admin was generating most of the communication which included a call for member involvement.” No where was it mentioned that these Admins derived all their power from Casey and that he quietly controlled everything with absolute authority. He rarely took a public stand one way or the other, but rather allowed people to form impressions, whether they agreed with his personal agenda or not, that he did nothing to correct.

An example of his indirect style was when he made Chris Burley the new Tech Team leader near the end of the New Zealand Collective. Chris obviously was functioning as Casey’s tool, being used by Casey to shake up the development team (probably due to issues with Joe and Kasper). Chris had very little familiarity with the code or with ongoing initiatives. He only had Casey’s authority backing him up and used it to rule with an iron fist, announcing that no “personal ideologies” would be tolerated and all developer-initiated projects would be put on indefinite hold. (Developers were clearly now to be thought of as order-following employees, but without the pay, not co-participants in a project to make the world a better place.) Casey remained quietly in the background while Chris took most of the heat for Casey’s “house-cleaning”. Chris quietly dropped off the radar by the end of last summer, as if his usefulness as a tool had expired.

What was most disturbing to me about this incident was that not long before this Casey had finally talked with me on the phone (after a 3 month wait) for a few hours and we seemed to have reached a meeting of minds. I explained to him that I would begin no new projects until the NDA was fixed (as he had promised some nine months before). I told him that it was outrageous as it stood. He said nothing in response. But he actually invited me to participate in the formulation of the organizational structure that was in its final stages. I said, yes, I would very much like to be involved. The result of this call was that I felt Casey had heard my concerns and that I now was getting some respect as a full-time volunteer (of more than half a year).

So I was very shocked that Casey appointed Chris, without even consulting me or any of the Tech Team about it, especially since he had the opportunity to discuss it with me on the phone and had given me the impression that he wanted me to be in the loop when it came to organizational issues.

I was even more shocked when I sent him an email saying that although Chris might be a good choice based on his past general contributions (this was before his new personality as a “leader” emerged) but that he didn’t have enough technical knowledge to lead the team, and a least another co-leader who did was needed. Casey never responded to my email.

I was even more shocked when the new organizational structure was announced (completely done in secret), and that what little apparent accountability it seemed to include amounted to nothing.

I was ultimately shocked when the proposed NDA came out (after a year) that was supposed to be the “fixed” version, but it was 10 times worse than the original. It had the feel of the Patriot Act to me. I was utterly uppalled by the mindset that produced it, and by the way this whole drawn-out fiasco was conducted by Casey and his appointed elite.

I certainly felt the trust I had put in Casey as a result of the phone call completely betrayed, and I took the NDA as an indirect message to me that I was no longer wanted as a developer, since I had publicly announced I would no longer begin any new projects if the NDA wasn’t sufficiently fixed.

I would have much preferred that Casey had told me this directly, as I would have preferred that he shake-up the Tech Team himself instead of having a henchman do his dirty work for him.

This is Casey’s style: indirect, manipulative, pulling strings from behind the scenes, while giving a casual, no-worries, laid-back, often non-committal impression in public: a fun guy to party with.

In case any one is wondering whether Casey might have been justified in “cleaning house”, I can say that the 4 core developers made a huge contribution to CS, much more so than Casey, at least in the technical area, for most of the year following the Montreal Collective. (I suspect it was our very success that scared Casey, and threatened his absolute control.) Speaking for myself, the greatest problems I encountered as a volunteer developer were all caused either directly or indirectly by Casey or the Admins due to their arbitrary assertions of power without understanding the situation, extremely poor communication, and poor judgment. Working with the Community, on the other hand, was delightful and I still have those good memories.

John

• Everything you post publicly on the internet will be read by many people. This can be scary, but it’s better to realize this every time you post something. (I don’t even do this myself.)

“I’m sure that if the people behind openCS would visit us for only 1 day they would be so amazed by the work we are doing right now they would  close down their site. I know I would.”

• Dude, I spent months and months at Collectives. I know how it works and I won’t close down the site. It seems that even people who knew about our critique still become volunteers for CS, and then later quit for the same reasons “we” all quit. This also means that many people don’t even become volunteers for CS because of this site and their effort and time is not wasted on CS.

And I’m sure more points will pop up in the comments…

• Casey might not be the most educated IT guru, but he’s definitely a guru and at this point he’s probably the only person capable of keeping the CouchSurfing website up and running.
• The entire CS “Leadership Team” and Board of Directors consists of Casey’s friends. They would be quite clueless if Casey suddenly disappeared.
• Casey is great. He might not have made the right decisions and I cannot agree with his attitude in many ways, but I am sure that I will feel happy if I will be able to give him a genuine hug again, maybe in 2009.

Still, even legally there is a problem with Casey in a paid position while being a member of the Board. And it would be totally useful if Casey’s ideas about transparency and volunteer participation would change a little bit. Though, also without it, with an estimated half a million US dollars coming in during year 2008 it’s unlikely that the ship will go down any time soon. And I am sincerely happy about that.

I have left the couchsurfing system administration team. The main (and almost only) reason is communication, and the bad, or even non-existent version of it.

I am not surprised and not particularly happy with this news. CouchSurfing keeps on growing and growing and it’s not healthy to depend on a stream of new and unexpecting volunteers who are not experienced with the specifics of the technical and social side of the CouchSurfing website and organization with an ever growing number of members.

Diederik, I’m looking forward to finally meet you. If not in Antwerpen this weekend surely somewhere in the Randstad very soon.

Hint: don’t use MyISAM tables for mission-critical data. And try to get some MySQL support engineers working on it. Oh but wait, one year ago there actually was a MySQL support engineer that joined the Collective with money out of his own pocket and was working for CouchSurfing in his own spare time.

Now, since I am still blocked from the wiki that I founded, can someone please add the following text to http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Stranded_Travelers

==Trento meeting 11th and 12th January==

Call +39 33 47 18 30 42 (Kasper).

Thanks.

Kasper: “major source of income”

Is that income needed? Surely a much smaller stream of new members, recruited in a better way, could raise the moderate amounts necessary to pay server costs, paper clips and a few postage stamps.

Current spending is mostly for
A) salaries, and I think we had much better quality work from the volunteers “no longer retained”;
B) the exodus to Thailand, and I have yet to see any actual WORK mentioned that was done there in the 31 days of December (other than picking the place for January).

So the money seems to benefit those who make the decisions. Thankfully we are a charity now and published accounts have to be more accurate and more detailed than hitherto. Which reminds me that there are still areas of concern regarding the charitable status:

1. The financial statements online are still not identical with the ones filed with the US tax authorities and the New Hampshire charities regulators.

2. Casey may have perjured himself by stating falsely to the Attorney General that from 2003 to 2006 the company had several directors besides himself. The major reason for that could be that the truth may affect the legality of his own employment.

a) New Hampshire law requires a minimum of five directors, so with Casey as sole director the company had no legally composed Board of Directors. For that reason alone contracts entered into during that time may be invalid, including the employment contract he made with himself.

b) Casey as sole director signed his own employment contract on the dotted lines of both sides of the contract. There could not be a more blatant violation of all ‘conflict of interest’ principles, and for that reason alone this contract may be invalid.

c) New Hampshire law does not allow the chairman/president of a charity to be an employee at the same time. So when Casey as chairman/president signed his own employment contract he violated that law, and for this reason alone the contract may be invalid.

d) If Casey’s employment contract is invalid, he will have received his salaries without legal grounds, and may have to pay ~$70,000 back to the company. (That, and the other ~$70,000 of accumulated profits in the bank should keep CouchSurfing going for a good many years to come, as a volunteer based charity, without ill prepared world trips for the management.)

At the New Hampshire Department of Justice the case has been queued for review by an investigator in early 2008. My advice to the new Board of Directors is: sort it out before they start asking questions.

To sum up: I don’t think money is a valid argument to continue this unhealthy growth pattern.

On 14th November 2007 you eventually filed Annual Reports for the years 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 with the Attorney General of New Hampshire, where under penalties of perjury you falsely stated the composition of the Board of Directors in 2004, 2005 and 2006 to be: Casey Fenton, Daniel M Hoffer, Leonardo Silveira, Sebastien G LeTuan.

My advice is to file a correction immediately. An investigation for perjury in connection with filed Annual Reports may have unfortunate consequences for the application for federal tax exempt status according to section 501(c)(3) IRS code.

2. New Hampshire statute also says in RSA 292:6-a that “No employee of a charitable nonprofit corporation shall hold the position of chairperson or presiding officer of the board” [3]. This means, Casey, that you need to resign either your chairmanship of the board, or your employment.

My advice is to do it immediately. An unlawful composition of the board or unlawful tenure of the board’s chairman can have unfortunate consequences for the validity of board decisions or signatures on documents, like for instance the application for federal tax exempt status according to section 501(c)(3) IRS Code.

[1] www.sos.nh.gov/imaging/9649082.pdf
[2] groups.google.com/group/cs-dev-public/msg/c8d070ae5333e5f4?
[3] www.gencourt.state.nh.us/rsa/html/XXVII/292/292-6-a.htm

When Casey wrote to everybody about the application for federal tax exempt status according to Section 501(c)(3) IRS Code, he omitted to mention something:

On 14th November 2007 he filed an application to register Couchsurfing International, Inc. as charity in New Hampshire, including the Articles of Incorporation, Corporate Bye-Laws, and Annual Reports for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, with financial statements. The information in those documents is public by law. If enough members write to ask for a copy, it may well turn out to be easiest for the management to finally make it public on the web site. Until all members can read it in detail, and make up their own minds, here are some highlights and comments:

1. It is now clear that for four years running Casey has violated New Hampshire law by not complying with registration, reporting and disclosure duties, and has exposed the organisation to the risk of being prosecuted and fined.

2. Even as of today no Certificate of Registration has yet been issued by the State of New Hampshire, and the application for registration as charity is still pending. There still are areas of concern about which I have been in communication with the Directorate of Charitable Trusts in the New Hampshire Department of Justice.

3. For example: Casey is still a paid employee and presides over the Board of Directors, whereas according to New Hampshire statute RSA 292:6-a “No employee of a charitable nonprofit corporation shall hold the position of chairperson or presiding officer of the board”.

4. For example: Statements about members of the Board of Directors over the course of time are untrue and inconsistent. Even in his application to the Attorney General Casey tries to create the impression as if the corporation had always had the five directors which New Hampshire statute RSA 292:6- requires as minimum figure. The truth is that in the 2005 Non Profit Report, which Casey filed with the Secretary of State of New Hampshire on 24th December 2005, he lists himself as sole director and officer, and still stated this to be the case publicly on 28th January 2007. Two more members were then appointed later in 2007, and listed in the online Policy FAQ. This information was removed from the web site after I mentioned the legal requirement of a minimum of five directors in the groups.

5. It seems that members of the Board of Directors currently are:
Casey Larkin Fenton
Daniel M. Hoffer
Sebastien G. LeTuan
Rachel Dicerbo
Joseph Matthew Brauer
I fail to see what could be so secret about this information that the previous list of directors was completely removed from the web site, and not simply updated by adding the fresh appointments.

6. The company finally has proper corporate bye-laws. The Board of Directors now decide by majority vote, so that Casey can be overruled. So far there was an informal ‘consensus model’ which effectively meant that Casey had a veto.

7. The bye-laws state in Article III Section 2: “Casey Fenton shall serve as a permanent member of the Board of Directors until such time as he voluntarily withdraws or is removed by majority vote of the Board of Directors for just cause.”

8. The corporation now had to adopt a Conflict of Interest Policy which restricts certain insider deals.

9. Instead of using Form 990 (for charities), in 2004, 2005 and 2006 the annual tax returns were filed on Form 1120 (Corporation Income Tax Return), which would be consistent with a non-profit corporation which is NOT a charity. Form 990 is by law “Open to Public Inspection”, Form 1120 is not. The annual tax returns for 2004, 2005 and 2006 now had to be re-filed on the proper form.

10. Matthew T. Whatley is designated as Chief Financial Officer. He is the man Casey thanked profusely for being a “key force” with the 501(c)(3) application, omitting that Matt Whatley is entitled to charge $225/hour for legal services and $125/hour for preparing tax returns. above). Matt Whatley is the man who describes himself as having “elite ninja tax skills” www.taxninja.com/ and who, for his fee, seems to have “mistakenly filed form 1120 instead of 990” because he ‘didn’t know’ better. He is the man who claims to be the corporation’s lawyer, but apparently ‘didn’t know’ what New Hampshire law required. He is the man who is said to have drafted the controversial revisions of the Volunteer/Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which have driven numerous key volunteers away.

11. The financial statements to the Attorney General were notarised on 31. October 2007. They are NOT identical with the financial statements on the web site. Whilst there is no large discrepancy in the sums total, hardly any individual figure in the official version matches the published one. Firstly this shows that the book keeping so far seems to have been a farce. Secondly it is hard to understand why the statements on the web site have now remained uncorrected for more than five weeks.

Despite some remaining areas of concern, which will hopefully be clarified soon, I believe great progress has been made overall. The organisation has now come under a certain degree of public supervision which should ensure that the right thing will be done more in future. It is a pity that Casey and his friends still seem to behave like reluctant witnesses, where everything has to be dragged out of them, and they only admit to facts that have already been proven against them. It’s not smart, and it looks suspicious.

Now would be a good time for them to publish all relevant information on the web site.

It’s so beyond anything that it’s very funny, and merely deserves to be laughed at.

The burning question is just: Who will be asked to sign this monstrous document?

A charity needs to be non-profit, but not every non-profit organisation is automatically a charity.

A Non-Profit Corporation can’t pay the owner a dividend. He has to pay himself (or others) a salary instead, which he does ($88,150.22 since 2005, for salaries, payroll taxes, and temporary help). The rest of the money needs to be piled up on the company’s books: there’s an ‘emergency fund’ of $30,000 and accumulated ‘net income’ of $40,135.89 from 2004 to date. Other than that, a Non-Profit Corporation, which is NOT a charity, can do whatever it wants with its money like any other privately owned company. This includes the possibility of one day dissolving the company, or changing its status to For-Profit, and cashing in.

A CHARITABLE non-profit corporation will have a clause in its corporate bye-laws where corporate assets are dedicated to charitable purposes. It receives tax privileges, and in exchange comes under public supervision and is subject to reporting and disclosure duties. It will be much more difficult for individuals to profit, and if done right, even impossible.

The confusion is understandable because colloquially the terms ‘charity’ and ‘non-profit’ are sometimes used as if synonym. The problem here is that this misunderstanding might be intentionally exploited. Ultimately the proof whether an organisation is or isn’t a charity lies in the public register of charities, both on State and Federal level, neither of which contains an entry for this company.

So the logical conclusion is that either it is NOT a charity and claims that it is are false, or it IS a charity, in which case it has not complied with registration, reporting and disclosure duties. In either case, as a NON-charity, or as a NON-REGISTERED (unrecognised) charity, any charitable solicitations, for money or volunteers’ time, might be illegal.

Who is currently on the CouchSurfing payroll? (updated)
Casey Fenton, starting midway through 2005.  Jim Stone and Mattthew Brauer starting in the summer of 2007.  Their roles are Volunteer Coordinator and General Manger, respectively.  Casey has now taken on the role of CIO and Tech Team Coordinator.  No one else is on the payroll.  A new developer may be contracted full-time in November or December of 2007.

From the general manager,  10/04/07 5:51 am, in the private Ambassador group:

I’m the General Manager and one of CouchSurfing’s four paid employees.  I’ve started maintaining a blog, and I invite you to read it if you’re interested in learning more about what I do and what the Leadership Team does.  I hope this will allow you to be more informed and better connected.

I’ll spare you the link to the blog…

My original intentions for the CS Guide were to make it into an alternative of Wikitravel, not a lower-quality spin-off. But if this is the direction chosen for the CS Guide I suggest using a Creative Commons ShareAlike Attribution license for the entire wiki (or at least for the Guide) instead waiting for legal action.

When we met matrixpoint last week in Boston, he mentioned that he doesn’t like to be reminded of the red couch every time he’s visiting the OpenCouchSurfing website. First we jokingly thought, maybe of adding some black. But amylin decided that transparent silverish looks better, and I fully trust her in these matters.

I hope no one will seriously object to changing the color of the couch.

Ulf: “brought up only to be able to point out (once more) to how that mean, mean LT has not come up with them!!!”

How do you know? I brought this up because innocent volunteers were made to violate Thai law and risk jail, and I decided to do what I could to stop it.

Ulf: “I wonder why those authors would not first of all contact the organizers, tell them about those concerns”

How do you know they didn’t?

Ulf: “an appropriate amount of time to answer (2 weeks)”

It doesn’t take two weeks to answer “are you aware that a business visa and work permit are required?” In two minutes you can say either: “Yes, and we’ll brief all applicants fully”, or: “No, good gracious, thanks for telling us, we’ll check immediately, any more help you can give?”

Ulf: “that mean, mean LT”

Some who’ve met the people came here with pain, disappointment, and feeling their trust betrayed. I’m not one of them. I don’t know anybody.

From an outside view I think something happened I’ve seen many times, as consultant, and as participant, in new political parties, family businesses, charities:

The founder generation leaves a second generation power vacuum, by appointing mediocrity, so that their own power isn’t challenged, and their own glory doesn’t pale against real professional competence. I don’t think they are mean. I think they are overwhelmed by their responsibilities.

Because they don’t have what it takes to do this job they don’t react professionally, but try to lie when caught blundering. And when caught lying, they feel with their backs to the wall and try to bully. The inappropriateness of those acts backfired, so the strategy now is to be silent or evasive. It’s neither wicked nor original. It’s human nature. It comes from making inept appointments, in an inept organisational structure.

Since a management style has been established that sidelines criticism by applying naked power unchecked, change will only occur if and when there is a sense of real crisis. I would have preferred it to be an internal crisis, brought on by a ‘rebellion’ here, about censorship or communication, rather than something that puts volunteers in a Thai jail, or leaves surfers stranded all over the globe should the site go down (again).

But I no longer hope for the ‘internal crisis’ option. Non-communication from above, most noticeably from Casey (the only voice that counts), and the resulting tedious repetitiveness of criticism, has left people with nothing else to talk about than each other, and that seems to have worked regrettably well. All are at each other’s throats, and blaming each other for it too. The issues fade.

It’s like the man shouting: “Move, Liz! Car coming!” and she replies: “Not in this tone, Henry!”

Copied with Pickwick’s permission

• CouchFinder: “Choose any location on the glob, specify a within-range and click search. This handy tool will show you all couches within your chosen area.”
• Joined Members: “A little tool that, provided any CS group-id, will list the last recently signed up members in chronological order”.

I wonder how far this approach can be taken though…

Now I’m trying to get the profile export tool somewhere in a public space, so that it can be added.

503 Service Unavailable

No server is available to handle this request.

I hope this will be quickly resolved. Still, funny how this technical issue coincides with CS’s dodgy legal status.

An addition, after some complaints about this blog post, which is, I contend, a bit silly on its own…

The dodgy legal status of CS is related to the financial situation. A 501(c)(3) status means paying less tax, and complete transparency (if a politician in San Francisco can make his Quicken books public, in real-time, why not CS?).

And it’s clear how finances and server issues are related. The time and money Casey spent on partying with Jim on his birthday (and renting a limo) would have been better invested in server hardware and maintenance.

It’s getting heart breaking in here. And cold. Icy cold. All the ‘open source’ and ‘charity’ debate left me disagreeing, but unhurt. This Thai project does me in.
www.couchsurfing.com/collective_thailand_application.html

First the cold, demanding, uppity language itself. Then what looks like a “suck ‘em dry & spit ‘em out” attitude of present and future ‘Volunteer Coordination’. Then the cynicism luring generous, well meaning people to commit crimes and risk jail for lying to immigration police in a post 9/11 world.
www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=401914#pos…

Shame on you. Shame on those who do it. Shame on those who sit close by and watch in silent complicity. It’s time to hold Casey & Friends accountable, if not to members, then at least to the law.

The Royal Thai Government have received a formal query about the immigration requirements for the project. They know you are coming, so you better cut out the criminal part of your plan.

The charity question needs a decision. Casey opened his mouth in 2003, and he now either sings, or shuts it again. No more smoke screens. Run the show how you think you must, but run it well, and stop lying. A thoroughly documented formal query about possible Unlawful Charitable Solicitations will be placed before the Attorney General of New Hampshire “practically tomorrow”. My advice: hurry and be there first, with a genuine charity.

Another Hyperboard was opened by “Mentor” with whom I’ve been in touch through email and chat, without knowing his or her identity. Mentor had also set up thecouchsurfingbuilding2.hyperboards.com, which was a huge collection of messages, and random information, with funny and sometimes harsh comments. In the beginning I think it was kind of silly, but I gradually started to appreciate the board. So I wasn’t happy when I saw it was closed a while ago.

Now Mentor is back with a new board: opencouchsurfing.hyperboards.com!

October 2nd Addition

Apparently the opencouchsurfing hyperboard, which is not accessible anymore now, was not started by Mentor of thecouchsurfingbuilding2 hyperboard. Also, as you can read in the comments on this posts, Mentor never took part in the public discussions that are OpenCS. Let’s discuss it on the mailinglist first if you think a public OpenCS forum is a good idea,

So, what is the current status? Why hasn’t there been an annual report of 2006? As of this day, is there more variation in the official positions of CouchSurfing International Inc.? We were informed that Dan and Seb are members of the board now, but before January 2007, when Casey announced that he was the only member of the Board, many people thought that all 4 Founders were on the Board. Or not? We can’t know, since…

More burning questions:

• Why did CS  (or rather Casey) pretend to be a 501(c)(3)?
• Are there bylaws? And if so, what do they look like?
• How can we get more insight in the situation? Is it possible to get informed about organization at US government instances, e.g. the IRS, or the N.H. Dept. of Revenue Administration?
• And why is there not more public information?

With the nauseating smell of deception all around, it’s probably about time for Casey Fenton to start thinking about disclosing some more of “the facts”.
Disclaimer: Do not believe everything you read here. But do check out the links.

If you’re active in the CS groups you probably found out that it’s not allowed anymore to discuss politics and policy in the Brainstorm groups. Threads are moved to the newly formed Politics and Policy group. Since groups are ordered by number of members, it is not so prominent yet, but with 39 or 42 members (39 on the group page, the number 42 can be deduced from Casey’s profile; and I hope this is just a normal bug) in its short period of existence it is a sign that couchsurfers do care about the politics of this organization. You can help by joining the Politics and Policy group, so that it will be a bit more prominent (hint: you can set it to “No Communication”, if you don’t want to be on it at all times, that’s how I set all my groups, and that’s how I found out that someone kicked me out of Brainstorm and then joined me again).

If you haven’t already, please fill out this survey about the questions that will be offered to the Leadership Team. And although I would have posed them in a different way, I think the most important questions are:

• Are there any full bye-laws of the corporation, further than the Articles of Agreement, or a draft thereof, and if yes, will you post it?
• Are you willing to adopt a clause in the corporate bye-laws that irrevocably dedicates all assets to charitable purposes?
• Is there any draft of the 501(c)(3) application (Form IRS-1023), and if yes, will you post it?
  

But of course, just pick your own favorites. You can choose 20!

CS is “accepting applications for a small number of specific positions, including a full-time House Manger whose airfare to Thailand will be paid by CouchSurfing.”

I hope the Leadership Team is aware of the very strict laws in Thailand.

I’m sure that anyone who supports OpenCouchSurfing will support the Bill of Rights for Users of the Social Web:

We publicly assert that all users of the social web are entitled to certain fundamental rights, specifically:

• Ownership of their own personal information, including:
  • their own profile data
  • the list of people they are connected to
  • the activity stream of content they create;
• Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others; and
• Freedom to grant persistent access to their personal information to trusted external sites.

Sites supporting these rights shall:

• Allow their users to syndicate their own profile data, their friends list, and the data that’s shared with them via the service, using a persistent URL or API token and open data formats;
• Allow their users to syndicate their own stream of activity outside the site;
• Allow their users to link from their profile pages to external identifiers in a public way; and
• Allow their users to discover who else they know is also on their site, using the same external identifiers made available for lookup within the service.

Authored by Joseph Smarr, Marc Canter, Robert Scoble, and Michael Arrington, September 4, 2007

Looking from the rapid spread of this bill of rights, I dare to say, that we’re not alone, by far not alone.

Apparently there is a way for Casey to sell out, as long as the bylaws are not sorted out properly. Of course, these are currently far away from public scrutiny.

As Callum wrote:

I think the key question for Casey / LT therefore is about the company byelaws. How was the company incorporated and are there any provisions for changing the company status? Without that information, I am of the opinion that if 501(c)(3) status is ever achieved, Casey could voluntarily remove that status, pay the relevant tax, and then sell CouchSurfing.

~ Oscar Wilde on CouchSurfing

After Jay Wellingdon Couch invented the couch in the year 1895 people have come up with many uses for this remarkable device. Couchsurfing is one of these: the act of taking a couch and jumping off a big cliff, usually they run after the visionary couch lemming. This is called “the mission”. For this reason Couchsurfers are not known for their old age. They usually tend to flock with other would-be couchsurfers in small congregations. Bigger congregations are also known to take place sometimes, which can have detrimental effects on the couch populations in some areas, especially in places where there is sea and lots of couches to steal. Anyone critical of the mission is usually thrown of the cliff anyway.

Some people just can’t get enough

There is even an organization and a website dedicated to this act of surfing couches, but most people on this website only watch other people surf with their couch. This is usually called interspecial understanding, though only few people really understand the deeper act of understanding other species.

Because not everyone owns a house next to the sea it is also allowed to burn yourself on other people’s couches. Couchsurfers frown upon financial transaction and judge each other on the “size” of their “couch”. Because of this, it is not a dating site.

Some couchsurfers are only just fakers and prefer Burning stuff. The Leadership Team of the organization are known for their yearly gathering at this festival. Sometimes they also practice the act of burning dog. During these events they often honour Host, the Greek god of hostility. The relationship between the visionary couch lemming and the leadership team is not quite clear, as the existence of them belongs more to realm of mythology – besides these, rare sightings of popes and cardinals carrying yellow flags and chanting hymns of the long-lost holy couch have been reported.

“Participate in creating a better burn, one couch at a time” – quote by visionary couch lemming, circa 2007 (unknown origin)

Tom Cruise showing Oprah how to properly use a couch.

In 2007 a splinter group of unhappy couch surfers, led by Tom Cruise, started OpenCouchSurfing, a terrorist organization entering people’s homes to slice open couches and hide themselves for unexpecting old ladies. They made the news in many places, especially in Nelson, a picturesque little town also known as the Florida of New Zealand, where many old ladies where found dead – with their couches slit wide open. The crazed couch surfers become especially violent when they hear the phrases “No worries” and “You rock!” – or the now infamous “Big hugs” – a phrase bringing along a series of gory massacres across the globe after its introduction to couchsurfer lingo.

Other related notorious organizations are Hostility Club, BeHorny and CrashAtMines (aka CrashAMime), all of which serve the noble mission of hostility ie the act of worshiping Host.

From Uncyclopedia, available under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike NonCommercial license

* D did interesting_user to D (20070816070640)
* P did interesting_user to I (20070816070517)
* G did interesting_user to G (20070816070453)
* S did interesting_user to E (20070816070117)
* c did interesting_user to c (20070816070104)
* B did password reset to B (20070816065925)
* M did interesting_user to T (20070816065628)
* M did interesting_user to L (20070816065410)
* T did interesting_user to COUCHSURFING SYSTEM (20070816065307)

(Note that people find themselves very interesting.)

The CouchSurfing volunteer coordinator (2000 US$/month), who should be able to fix this in 10 minutes, respond on August 15th:

Basically, I’d need to do what you should have done and go post it myself in the bug tracker. That’s not really efficient for anyone. Also, since only one other person has bothered on discussing this it’s not likely to be changed. I’d suggest to wait and see if anyone else supports this idea and go from there. I don’t personally see a problem with it, myself.

I’m sure that the CS VC doesn’t see a problem, since he can read the messages of all CouchSurfers, so he’s not very used to people fathoming their privacy. But I’m sure his attitude will lead to herds of new volunteers posting stuff in the bug tracker, or removing spam on the CouchSurfing wiki. Yay for efficiency for anyone!

I’m really excited. I have been somewhat disappointed about certain policies in the past (?). But I appreciated the frankness of Veit and other HC people. I never felt to volunteer for HC before. However, opening up the source could also open up a lot of possibilities. To solidify the legal framework of HC, to create stronger links and share code between the different networks. Of course there are many more implications, but let’s see and wait how it turns out. I always wanted to help out many different initiatives, so in the meanwhile I already offered my help on the HC forum.

• An open Rideshare database.
• A Rideshare site API for all the participating car sharing sites and
• A Rideshare RSS API for all sorts of websites.

We decided to put it at the Crash at Mine wiki, because it’s open, available under a free license and, well, Morgan is a laid back Ozzie. In the future we’ll probably have to move it elsewhere though, somehow Crash at Mine doesn’t seem appropriate for a rideshare system

That’s probably true. Did you do this for everyone that is not very active (or simply inactive) on this Wiki or only people associated with OpenCouchSurfing.org? As an aside, I have to say I’m a bit shocked to see you consider it your right to make that decision all by yourself without any type of communication. Maybe you don’t see the problem with such arbitrary actions, but I surely do. –Tgoorden 12:48, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

Yes, the conflict of interest regarding your active affiliation with an anti-CS website was taken into consideration but was not the full reason as I stated already. Thanks for your opinion. –RedCouchGuy 13:35, 7 August 2007 (EDT)

I still think that the CouchSurfing Leadership Team knows the difference between the concepts open and anti.  But it worries me that they mix them up so easily. I think that everyone involved in OpenCS is doing this because they love CouchSurfing as a community. (Its members, the activity of meeting, hosting and staying with them.) I am involved in OpenCS because I cannot accept a Leadership that bullies its (former and current) volunteers around like this, not as a (former) volunteer, nor as a member.

No interest in organisation politics?

It was said that the ordinary CouchSurfing or Hospitality Club member doesn’t care about the legal structure of the organisation behind.

I agree that most members will choose a hospex site mainly based on the chances to find a host etc. However, as soon as volunteering or donations are involved, at least some people will start thinking. For me this was the point where I started to become interested in the legal structure of couchsurfing and hospitalityclub. Later a talk with some CS people mentioned BeWelcome, and I felt pushed to read more about it and find information from external sources (opencouchsurfing, at first).

From Jim Stone ^{Aug 4}

Extremely Negative

I once thought Kasper was able to separate friendship from business and keep things professional. I was wrong. Friends don’t routinely bash each other personally in public and scream “you’re a f*cking asshole!” in public forums. I should have known better, but Kasper will do whatever it takes to push his twisted agenda. He’ll demand special treatment and then cry when he doesn’t get his way. Beware – this man will stab you in the back after he borrows the knife from you. In his own words ( http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=3886&post=304127 ): “I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve. But I’m not stopping.”

Thanks Jim. How do you seperate friendship and business now that you get 2000 US$ a month to coordinate volunteers?

06:32 (Block log) (diff; hist) . . RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) (blocked “User:Guaka” with an expiry time of 1 week: blanking 20+ pages and replacing them with links to another website – spam

Way to go, old pal. That’s coordinating your volunteers, and a great step forwards on the way to the Culture of Appreciation!

The biggest difference between a group of 50 and a group of 43,000 is that a small group needs to value each individual much more highly.

Note that there are probably 50.000 active surfers, but at most, only a couple of hundred people who can be called more or less active volunteers (and most of them are less active). Unfortunately, individuals outside of the Leadership Circle have never been valued very highly within the CS organization…

If you walk into a non-profit agency to volunteer, there’s somebody there to say hello. They get you oriented, and they check in with you about how things are going. If it’s a successful, active program, then other volunteers are there too; they talk to you, and help you out. There’s always a sense that your participation is important, and appreciated. If you’re not getting paid for being there, then they need to give you something, and usually what you get is pride, satisfaction and appreciation.

…and sometimes it’s humiliation, alienation and frustration instead.

But, well, I’m happy to announce that I will be getting paid to work on researching Trust Metrics at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler in Trento, Italy. And even though I haven’t even started officially yet, I already feel proud. But I already started, of course, I can’t resist the temptation of setting up a new wiki about a fascinating topic. Ironically, the job is a direct result of the appreciation for my work at CouchSurfing.

Adesso, io vado imparare anche l’italiano!

Kasper

So, you might have heard about Mr Whatley because of his amazing NDA writing skills. I just found out on the social business network that he’s actually been CouchSurfing’s Chief Financial Officer since April 2006. Note that this must have been updated fairly recently, with “over 200,000 members and growing strong”. Note that there is no mention of a Chief Financial Officer on CouchSurfing.com.

Matthew T. Whatley, Esq.

Owner, The Law Offices of Matthew T. Whatley

Current

• Chief Financial Officer at Couchsurfing International, Inc.
• Owner at The Law Offices of Matthew T. Whatley (Sole Proprietorship)
• Owner at Ninja Tax Services (Sole Proprietorship)

Education

• Mahawithayalai Mahidol

• Golden Gate University, School of Law

• Carnegie Mellon University

 

• Keio Gijuku Daigaku

Connections

41 connections

Industry

Law Practice

Websites

• My Company
• My Blog

Public Profile

http://www.linkedin.com/in/whatley

Summary

I am an entrepreneur at heart and love helping others found and grow their own small businesses. I am interested in taking on new clients and founding relationships with other attorneys. I primarily serve the Arts and Small Business communities. I would say the majority of my clients go to Burning Man every year.

Specialties:

Personal and Small Business Income Tax Preparation and Minimization, Business Planning, International Business Contracts, Sarbanes-Oxley Auditing, Offshore Asset Protection, Personal Injury Law

Experience

Chief Financial Officer

Couchsurfing International, Inc.

(Non-Profit; 11-50 employees; Non-Profit Organization Management industry)

April 2006 – Present (1 year 3 months)

www.couchsurfing.com
Profile Name: Matt
With over 200,000 members and growing strong, Couchsurfing allows people to host or be hosted in over 100 different countries throughout the globe thus sponsoring cultural exchange and creating a world wide community of travelers.
I manage the finances.

…

Unfortunately it took 6 months before I actually was given access to the BeVolunteer wiki and the non-public part of the forum. But considering the hundreds of people who never ever heard back from CouchSurfing after indicating their offer for help right after the CS Crash 1.0, half a year is not that bad for a brand new organization!

On the wiki I saw that 13 out of 14 people had voted to release the software under the GNU General Public License (one undecided). In the forum I saw that people were having meaningful discussions and that everyone is open to ideas. I saw that about half the Board of Directors of the official organization had been replaced by new people. I noticed that releasing more information is mostly hindered by trivial issues – finding and removing personal information on a wiki takes time. The source code is not (yet) as feature rich as CS, but it’s built on a decent framework, and it looks amazingly clean – in comparison.

BeWelcome does not yet have a super nice running system, but everything is in its right place, or Coming Relatively Soon: free software, a fairly representative official power structure, open data, and transparency.

P.S. the founders of OpenCouchSurfing were aware of BW, but remained sceptical. The main goal of OCS is still a more free and open CouchSurfing, but at present volunteering for the newly born BW seems a much more efficient way to achieve a free and open hospitality exchange network.