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.

The Wiki is meant for EVERYONE to edit and not a place where permission is needed. I loved this kind of info and was glad to see more discussion about what needs to be understood by more people and then actually seeing it going somewhere. The Wiki is the end-all destination but it certainly is a step in the right direction.

• Why limit the number of questions at all?
• A leadership circle of 13 people plus 3 paid employees plus tons of volunteers should be able to answer 10times so many questions.
• Some of the answers should have been published anyway (yes, without being asked).
• While the most of the Leadership Circle plays “dead man”, Jim gets paid to spent time for complaining about not having time, blocking people from the wiki and developing the cs-haters conspiracy theory. I guess, simply answering questions would need less time.
• Statistics? wouldn’t be the first time someone lies about numbers at cs (funny enough: Mikky says so). So even if there is a reaction it would be easy to call it a minority issue. (In my opinion some of the questions really are, but that’s not a reason not to answer them.)

It’s not a matter of choosing the right questions or limiting them to a smaller number. Or presenting them from a Survey. Again it’s a matter of the Leadersship Circle’s will to communicate with the users and if they want to make their work transparent (or at least visible).

To me the survey is completely ridiculous.

* 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!

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.

It seems that Jim wants to keep all the power for himself. No longer will he be sharing his Wiki admin rights with us mere CouchSurfing Corporation Customers, no, no, no. He’s a paid member of staff now, he’s special…

It’s a little ironic, I was thinking about unblocking Kasper from the Wiki, but I decided it would be better to try and talk it out with Jim. With hindsight, perhaps that was a mistake. Jim apparently ain’t one for talking.

Jim says that Kasper blanked a bunch of pages, then posted links to another web site. In other words, Kasper moved content from one Wiki to another. Kasper explained that he felt the content was more appropriate on the other Wiki.

In typical CouchSurfing fashion, there was no discussion, no explanation, no consultation, Jim simply blocked Kasper’s account. Gotta love dictatorships huh?!

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