For your convenience I put it a copy of the new CouchSurfing NDA on the OpenCS wiki.
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?
Author Archive for Kasper Souren
Page 3 of 6
Pickwick about the difference between a non-profit organization and a charity:
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.
I’m getting more and more confused. From the Policy FAQ:
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…
“For an good example check out the guide for Birmingham.” (sic!) Jim is still happily keeping up with the volunteer coordination (for 2000 US$/month). Unfortunately, doing this, he is encouraging volunteers to break copyright law. The text at the article on the CouchSurfing wiki about Birmingham looks a bit too similar to the article at Wikitravel.
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.
There are more important things in the world than CouchSurfing (or even OpenCouchSurfing).
I’m sure you won’t blame me for adding support to the peaceful revolution in Burma.
Pickwick about Ulf’s remarks to the formal query about the immigration requirements and CS management, in Brainstorm:
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
In Brainstorm Christian announced a page with links to external tools for CouchSurfing members:
- 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.
I just got back from my travels, so I want to change the couch status on my CouchSurfing profile. Unfortunately I’m getting a lot of…
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.
I might have used other words, and I definitely don’t have the skill to do (or bluff?) this sort of stuff, but I’m not unhappy to see that Pickwick is seriously kicking some butt:
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.
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