Seems that Couchsurfing is down: http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/couchsurfing.com
I’m wondering whether we get a update on what happened….
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Kudos to Pickwick for calling out Casey Fenton and his cohorts in the wake of Brian’s resignation letter. It’s the smoking gun that many of us who suspected fraud have waited for. It coincides with another smoking gun revealing climate science fraud, now called “climategate”. Although Casey Fenton is a small fish compared to the corrupt climate scientists who have tried to hijack the noble environmental movement, the hospitality movement is our smaller, but just as noble movement and it’s up to us to protect it from corruption and exploitation, from predators and parasites.
I support Thomas in his assessment of Casey’s attempt at damage control. I found out first-hand that Casey Fenton is not a straight shooter. Like the climate scientists, perhaps the only thing Casey and the others who control CouchSurfing are really good at is self-serving manipulation, propaganda and spin.
I agree with Margaret that CS cannot be changed from within. I just don’t see Casey giving up his power and privilege in the interest of the well-being of the community. As Margaret points out, a declining income stream would be a catalyst for change. It will dry up with the weakening economy and exposure of the fraud. Pressure could also come from an article in a major publication based on the history Robert calls for.
Aside from attempting to clean up the mess in CS, there may be a sufficient critical mass of disillusioned volunteers and members to begin a new chapter outside it. I don’t know the best strategy, but I agree with Kasper that BeWelcome should be reconsidered before attempting more elaborate solutions.
Too bad… http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=2125&post=4446530
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Hey team,
I’m resigning as a CS Amb.
This hasn’t been an easy decision. Firstly, I really like the people on the LT/AST – how can’t I? They dedicate all their time to a project I deeply love. And this project has introduced me to people who have changed the direction of my life for the better and made me a better person.
But I have realized lately that I’m not an ambassador for CouchSurfing.org but rather an ambassador for hospitality, transparency, communication, fairness, radical inclusion and living life. CouchSurfing for me represented a collective of people who believed in that. People who believed in respect and equal rights and honour and integrity. People who wanted to make positive change in the world and have fun at the same time. I didn’t just want to be a member using a service, I wanted to participate on THAT team.
I don’t believe anymore that CouchSurfing is that nor can it ever be that organization that I dreamt it would. The specific incidents are just symptoms. From the mass exodus of the Tech Team in 2007 to the mass exodus of the Global Ambs this year, we have not learnt from our mistakes. And we are all to blame. From the Ambs who basically say “don’t worry be happy” to the Brainstormers who are bitter and twisted, and everyone in between. We have failed.
I suspect that some of you are like me. Hoping to stay on as a CS Amb so that you can change things “from the inside”. However, I realize now that this is all futile. All I’m doing is being a complicit representative to actions that are against my very nature.
For better or worse, CS is the best hospitality exchange we have right now. I will continue to promote the philosophy of hospitality exchange as a member but I can no longer in good conscience, continue representing this organization as an “ambassador”. All I can hope for is something better comes along before it’s too late.
love
Roy
Remember: All our actions either bring more light or more darkness into the world.
“And what is the big deal about CS and its LT?” Two measures, for example. The head of the Ambassadors has two extremely serious negative references for sexual harassment (of former Global Ambassadors) is promoted into the Leadership team.
While someone else’s profile is merely deleted for creating another profile to overcome the issues with the CS group system.
It’s been in the pipeline for a while. In fact, I should have done this in 2006 
Still, now it’s 2009 and I’m happy to hereby announce Couchwiki.org:
“WikiCouch is open to anyone and everyone. It is in keeping with the philosophy of inclusion and open hospitality. We believe in decentralized control, self-moderation and that everyone has something valuable to contribute.”
* Available under the Creative Commons ShareAlike Attribution license.
* Open for editing to anyone. You don’t have to log in – but it’s appreciated if you do – you can also log in with OpenID.
* Independent from the official CouchSurfing organization, but supportive the CouchSurfing community.
* Very soon: a version in French and in other languages if requested by the community.
* We have registered several domains, and there will be a discussion about the domain name where all participants are welcome to join.
* Several nice extensions are installed, and if needed I’ll be happy to install more.
* The costs of running a wiki are very low – to me. No worries about that, I’m happy to take care of the technical and financial aspects of the server.
* In the future we’ll have XML dumps for downloading.
Let me know if there are any issues. And… Enjoy!
The latest high season welcome message on CouchSurfing… I get it about 70% of the time I try to log on… hm… scalability problems? Let`s hope it is easy to solve!
The “Brainstorm” group is famous for being a place to discuss new features and policies on couchsurfing.org . It is now frozen. You can’t post or reply (but it is still readable).
Chronology:
Until the 2006 crash, Brainstorm was a place where the users and the admins could discuss about new features and on how to implement them. Following the crash, all admins stopped replying.
The group keeped the Brainstorming action but a growing ressentment at the silence from the admins lead to many reactionary threads. The ideas matured there never found their way up to the top of the pyramid. The unmoderated group grew more and more filled with aggressivity.
In late 2008, an active moderator was appointed (the founder of the group never actually posted). It sanitized the atmosphere a bit.
Then it goes rather fast. According to the system clock:
3 June 2009 – 3:17 pm, user “Julien” posts a topic about stopping all brainstorming because it was wasted energy, and renaming the group “The revolutionary faction of CouchSurfing”.
3 June 2009 – 4:57 pm, user “Marcus Elder“, the founder of the group, post a topic on what kind of group he meant “Brainstorm” to be.
6 June 2009 – 11:30 am, user “valeri“, the active moderator, resigns from her function
About the same time (but it must have been later), user “Marcus Elder“, the founder of the group, post a topic saying that the group is frozen.
It is now impossible to post or to reply to the Brainstorm group.
Context: this happens one week before the “Vienna calling” event that is meant to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the registration of the domain name “couchsurfing.com”. A thread started by user “Julien” on 4 June 2009 – 6:57 pm was collecting questions from the group that he was going to ask the founders of the website if he got the chance, as he is going to the Vienna calling event.
My personal comment: Something evil this way comes.
To many people’s surprise – especially supporters of the OpenCS campaign – CS appeared on the list of nominees for the Open Web Awards. CS was nominated mostly because of the efforts of Ambassadors. In the end -after a voting round of 4 weeks – CS didn’t win at all though. Out of the three finalists CS ended up… last.
For those who feel disappointed now, don’t worry… there might be another chance coming up soon for a another award. Some people even want to get CS nominated for the Nobel Price of Peace….
I just read midsch’s posting about his helplessness in the hospitality exchange scene… He described the different situations quite good. However, my view on it and the possibilities connected to it are not as dark than his are…
It does not matter if CouchSurfing, HospitalityClub, GlobalFreeLoaders, BeWelcome… hospitality exchange pages have numerous times been described as the most useful sites in the web as they bring people together in real life. Since then numerous new hospitality exchange communities popped up to establish their own community.
But why establish your own community in times of Facebook APIs, Open Social and Drupal? Why not connect all those different communities together? Why not develop a Drupal module (http://www.drupal.org) that
offers all those established communities the possibilities to meet each other in real life?
I started a project on Amazee.com (as I have been around there when I wanted to bring the thing on paper), devoted to the development of a Drupal module for decentralized hospitality sites. Let us continue to learn from each other – here in the web, but also in real life. So why not spent our energy in this way?
If I read the 2008 CouchSurfing Inc finances (citation) correctly, CS Inc is on track for income in excess of $600′000 USD this year. Contributed support for 1 Jan – 31 Mar is listed as $155,616.73.
Web/ Internet/ Host Fees – $ 2,960.59
Telephone & telecommunications – $ 2,208.03
Equip rental & maintenance – $ 13,923.46
Salaries of Professional Staff – $ 19,384.68
Payroll Taxes – $ 1,955.63
Office Expenses/ Supplies – $ 3,195.01
Rent, Parking, and other occupancy – $ 4,777.81
Meals/ Groceries – $ 10,895.37
Total cost of running the site around $19′092.08. Total salary bill (payroll plus taxes) $21′339.63. Total expenses related to “staff” around $40′207.82. A total of more than $10′000 spent on meals / groceries!
The total “staff” cost is more than twice the actual hosting cost. Yet since the organisation has added so many “professional staff” I see little difference in the actual site. Few new features, little increase in stability. Certainly no change in transparency or solving any of the “we’re too busy to publish details” problems.
CouchSurfing might well have an income in excess of half a million dollars this year. Looks like it’s becoming a viable business opportunity.
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