Archive for the 'Uncategorized' Category

Drupal Communities meet Real Life

Published
by
adia
on November 10, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 11 Comments

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?

http://www.amazee.com/drupal-communities-meet-real-life

CS Inc $600k revenue in 2008?

Published
by
Callum
on October 30, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 18 Comments

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.

Disinformation by the middle man?

Published
by
jerme
on July 3, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 11 Comments
Trent Collins writes in the brainstorm group link
Hi Guys,
The tech team migrated the messages off of the main server in the last few days to lighten the load further and so that glitch may have been part of that migration. I’ve just got back online after a few days holiday so missed it myself and I’m just catching up on the latest of the tech team. If I hear anything else then I’ll let you know.
Trent Collins from Montreal, Canada
So Mr Collins “heard” that a message migration gives the message reading at 24 million?
Can any one confirm message migration causes this error?
The main guy who caused the problem is sitting silent. It looks like no one have the decency to own up for a simple mistake .”If” it was not a mistake can some mailserver experts show us some links to this happening elsewhere.
Will Mr Collins let us know also wrong information ? Why does Mr Collins feel he has the credibility to be a spokesman for couchsurfing?
Just reminds me of Karl Rove

Priorities of the communication team

Published
by
jerme
on July 2, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 18 Comments

What is important spin or real communication ? You decide link

MANDIE M

We have had some unexpected time pressures on communications team this week, which involves the tech team news release and

a press release being launched about CouchSurfing surpassing 1 million positive experiences, which are currently taking priority.

This safety news item is then the next priority.

BlueHat - If Microsoft can change. Can …. ?

Published
by
jerme
on June 30, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 4 Comments

I was just reading about BlueHat and snyder

The Blue Hat program, which opened communications between Microsoft developers and outside security researchers. Previously, Microsoft was loath to share technical information with those outside of its Redmond, Wash., headquarters.

BlueHat is an internal Microsoft event, where Microsoft employees and executives learn from top security researchers from across the world, and use the knowledge they gain to improve the security of Microsoft products.

This reminded me of a lot of similarities between the two entities.

Both M$ and C$ are not open source

Both are paranoid about who reads their badly written code.

But… If M$ can make a changes for the better can … ?

And we are not just talking about code here.But everything about security,safety networks all over the world.

And to end with an off topic quote

“The strength of Mozilla is absolutely the community (of tens of thousands of volunteers). We have to make sure they know they’re being heard,” says Snyder,

Alaska mirror blog is live

Published
by
Callum
on June 16, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 36 Comments

As per my proposal I’ve installed a blog which syndicates content from the Alaska collective blog but allows comments.

www.OpenCouchSurfing.org/alaska

I’ve installed the WP-SpamFree plugin for WordPress and set very loose spam restrictions. Only posts with 4 or more links should be held for moderation. Otherwise, all comments that meet the WP-SpamFree criteria should appear instantly. If you do have any problems posting a comment feel free to contact me directly.

Here’s to freedom..

Update: Logins are now linked, so if you’re logged into this blog, you’ll also be logged into the Alaska blog.

Communications deception or concealment

Published
by
jerme
on May 31, 2008
in Collective, General Info, Uncategorized and couchsurfing
. 9 Comments

MANDIE M May 24th, 2008 - 5:17 am on this thread

The blog is on its way.
This is my second day at the Collective and
I have to admit that I dropped the ball on getting the blog set up before my arrival.

MANDIE M posts again on May 28th, 2008 - 1:52 am but makes no mention of the blog.

Walter Heck 28th, 2008 - 3:11 pm The blog is here: blog.couchsurfing.com

Taking a look at the blog shows the thread
Welcome to the Collective! May 25th, 2008

Now was this a intentional or was Mandie concealing the blog till she got an ‘official’ response from her boss ?

Mandie reminds me of Dana Perino the current White House Press Secretary for President George W. Bush [1]

Also reminds me of the White House Press policy

“No one charged with keeping the press and the public informed about the workings of the government should have to play such frustrating games,” McClellan writes.

But “it was clear,” he writes, that the president’s definition of necessary would “keep the press secretary on a pretty short leash.” This included being barred from key internal decision-making discussions,

“The more filtered information is, the less accurate it’s likely to be,” said Hess, a presidential scholar at the Brookings Institution.

“The more typical press secretary spends a good deal of his or her time trying to find out what’s going on,” he said. “They’re up against a lot of people who are busy and who don’t really trust the press. … You’ve got to be pretty insistent.”

The stalled couchsurfing zone project?

Published
by
jerme
on May 29, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

MOCK–TURTLE (Permalink)

Finally: there was a post on the OpenCouchSurfing blog about CS Zones in the Collective report. OCS said they were giving the “real” facts about CS Zones - they actually got their facts completely wrong (in my opinion, anyway ;) ).

The facts
The groups CS Zone Managers on couchsurfing
The wiki page
The people who contributed to the wiki
Do you see any other hidden facts on couchsurfing?

MOCK–TURTLE May 10th, 2008 (Permalink)

I did quite a bit of work with Cam and Laura behind the scenes - you’ll get to see this soon, we just want to bring it to a point where we feel we’ve done what we can, then we’ll want your input

This way almost 1 Month ago. Now the alaska collective has started and there is no sign of the report from the thailand collective on the cs zone work done in thailand in the last 6 months .

Things have also changed in the alaska collective.

desaparecida

–> according to www.couchsurfing.com/collective_alaska_roles.html cameron and laura are responsible for collective & house management, not for events & outreach, as there is no events & outreach team at this collective?
MANDIE M

You are right, there is no official Events & Outreach team at this Collective - the team is now operating remotely. But Cameron is still heading it up - its just that this Collective he will be focused on co-Collective management. Laura is also still part of the remote Events & Outreach team, however this Collective was successful in getting the House Manager position so that will be her focus

I really hope soon is sooner than 10 years!

Reason people go through Couchsurfing? Sexuality and Spam

Published
by
harg
on May 3, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 14 Comments

Snezana (Zhana) Vrangalova says she had the approval of a “CS administrators.” to spam? all the groups on couchsurfing with her survey on couchsurfing, safety, and sexuality. Does the approval of one person make it right ?

Also do you consider this spam ?

is an inappropriate attempt to use email, or another networked communications facility by sending the same message to numerous people who didn’t ask for it.

www.nrw.qld.gov.au/about/policy/documents/2976/definitions.html

Some of the questions from the survey

Q Have you ever had sex with a guest you didn’t know before? This includes, but is NOT limited to intercourse, and can refer to oral sex, anal sex, mutual masturbation, and other sexual behaviors.

Q If you answered “Yes” to the above questions, with how many different guests have you had sexual encounters with?

Q If you had more than one sexual experience with a guest while hosting, please describe up to two of the most memorable ones (using the same prompts as above).

Q In your past experiences, how often have you expected/hoped that a guest would have sex with you during their stay?

Q In your past experiences, how often have you felt that your guest was expecting/hoping to have sex with you?

Snezana Vrangalova grad, whose research delves into the world of casual relationships, explained that while a person uses a website for the sole purpose of finding sex, many other people that are on the website are looking for the same.

The main reason people go through these websites is simply for pleasure. Women much more often engage in casual sex with the intention that it will lead to a relationship. Men do it to increase or maintain their status in their peer group.”

http://cornellsun.com/node/27866

How straight are straight people exactly? ppt file

Wow !! Couchsurfing with the hope to have sex? Humm guess cultural exchange was just the smoke screen?

CS quarterly questionnaire?

Published
by
bentivogli
on April 28, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 20 Comments

Just to satisfy my curiosity; did any of the regular readers/posters of OCS receive this mysterious ‘quarterly questionnaire‘ about CS QoS? Not trying to prove a conspiracy (yet, lol), but since no information about this is given on CS, it would be interesting to reconstruct the user pool it was sent to.