Interestingly, I haven’t see any spam from the nonsense accounts. They might be used in case a privilege escalation security issue is found in WordPress, so best to remove / block them I think. If anyone has any trouble registering, please post a comment here (you can do that without registering) and myself or another admin will create an account for you.

If you want to revert the changes I have made or have any other feedback, please let me know.

Daniel Hoffer announces he will not let annoying advertising

AirBNB.com does the same thing, but seven years earlier version and solidarity. CouchSurfing connects travelers seeking shelter in the world, even in Antarctica, with people willing to cede free. The site was created in San Francisco by Casey Fenton in 2003. Since then he has collected three million Internet users in 230 countries and borrowed couches and beds in 60,000 cities.

Around the World in 30 sofas

Private investors have pumped 5.5 million euros in the company

CouchSurfing is also a symbol of Internet collaborative Wikipedia-style: a non-profit or volunteer to write code to translate the content, is in 31 languages, which also receives donations. In 2009, for example, got $ 1.1 million (780,000 euros).

We no longer accept. CouchSurfing has changed its legal status “nonprofit” to business. It has also achieved $ 7.6 million (5.4 million) from private investors. Including Pierre Omidyar, eBay creative philanthropist, and Matt Cohler, Facebook and LinkedIn ex.

The changes have led to recriminations between the community of CouchSurfers, 28 years on average, they have managed to spend the night over his face in a strange house 3.6 million times in this time. They fear the free couch to go to hell, but rather that the database service is sold to third parties.

Daniel Hoffer, CEO of the company since January, denied in a telephone interview that the site will change their “social mission”. The problem, he argues, is that the Government of New Hampshire have been denied the status of “temporary” NGOs. “What we have asked from the beginning, since 2003.” The legal battle with including appeals, has taken seven years. “We lost. The U.S. government has tightened the conditions for non-profit company, they seek money as” jokes Hoffer.

The situation, he says, has left them broke. “Not only have we paid big bucks for lawyers, also a million dollars to the State of New Hampshire, and so we come to for funding.”

It also supports the manager of 33 years, “it is difficult to find engineers to work with us because we do not pay well.” The Bachelor of Business Administration believes that it can properly run the site “to volunteer, because people work two hours a week and no more may be required.”

His goal now is to “improve service”. For example, an “application for mobile phone,” AirBNB like that puts travelers in touch with home in apartments and private homes, and has achieved some eighty million euros of funding having grown 800% in 2010 .

Hoffer CouchSurfing does not give figures, the index 1700 Alexa ranks as the most visited Internet. “We have a lot of traffic and a lot of expenses on servers and bandwidth,” he says.

If the first step is to improve the supply, the second is “to grow. A road that will lead to the goal: go public.” As no investor money without releasing the vacuum to a return on investment, before advertising on the page added.

It will not be today or tomorrow. “We are still discussing what business model adopted for CouchSurfing. We do not want annoying ads and in any case, you must please the community. In addition, most services will remain free so that people can continue traveling around the world” , defends Hoffer.

¿Split the money among the volunteers who have written code, which have translated the site into other languages ​​or between landlords? “We are three million people in 230 countries. It would be difficult to share the money among all, if we did. The reality, however, is that we are not profitable.”

The $ 7.6 million (5.5 million) obtained from serve investors, he says, to hire the best engineers, “so that eventually the money will be returned to the community in the form of improvements.” Hoffer believes that when people understand the way the site will include undertaking “and accept”.

The site no longer accepts donations, volunteers and partners continue to be welcome. “Our social mission has not changed, although we now have company,” Hoffer insists, adding: “Part of the money paid as taxes on New Hampshire will be for a charitable initiative. Each project is eligible for $ 30,000 (21,000 euros).” It is the cultural exchange fund CouchSurfing.

Far from it, I actually think CS is going forward in many ways for the first time in a long time and it’s not moving slowly. CSI has had an upgrade. Not one that any of us like, but i think for the vast majority of CSers who are fairly or really shallow it is a great thing. CS can become even cooler, with them and throw off the nomadic, dumpster diving traveller types, that bring it down or are just too deep or conscious, for them. CS is now a primetime show, it has some serious people involved, who know what they are doing and look like they are giving good advice. The only problem is is the direction that advice is taking them in. From what I see, they are headed for the mainstream and the boys are going to make money. Isn’t that what everyone said they would do, although New Hampshire law and even the bylaws of the incorporated company stated, that they couldn’t. Well they have and we now know how much we can rely on those laws.

A public owned entity has been transformed into a private owned entity,which is IMO was an illegal move, upon which shares have been issued and distributed between private individuals, in complete secrecy. I would say at a minimum the VC investors have taken 10%, valuing CSI at, US$76M. Where dose this value come from? The only assets CSI have is the concept in a functioning form with history, the code and the database. I doubt the code is worth anything near this, the history and brand recognition have worth as dose the database. You have been sold out. The only decisions you have to take is; are you going to appeal or take any other legal action, which i would support or not and are you going to continue to involve yourself in Casey’s get rich scheme?

It’s still a great ‘network/community of people’. People are people and i like most of em. You don’t even need an working account, its just a community of people who like to get of the couch and go somewhere, do something, meet someone, see something, eat something, learn something, hear something and dance. I don’t see CSers as an extension of CS, I see CS as an extension of CSers.

If the people in brainstorming who know the deal and give a shit, really want to put a dent in CSI they would turn their backs on cs and cs forums. Maintaining a post, nailed to the mast about why the ship is abandoned and where you can now be found BeWelcome.org.

BW still has some minor bugs, which were working on. Yes members are joining everyday, yes there is more hosting everyday, yes it needs a kick up the rear, yes you guys are needed to give it that kick and for more of us developers to pipe up and offer to contribute. http://lists.bewelcome.org/mailman/listinfo/bw-dev-discussion Either to a thorougher debugging session of the current in-house code(PHP, JS, HTML, CSS) or the rebuilding the whole site on the Drupal framework(Drupal, PHP, JS, HTML, CSS). BW is great because it works without leaders, but that is also its weakness, because many people don’t have the time or are unable to do the planning of the project, defining objectives, making sure the objectives have been met. Were working on that. If you really want to show that you are serious about non profit, openness, accountability, etc, etc, you will spend less time on a site that has proven that it is none of these things and now that it is a private limited liability corporation, never will be and more time on a site that is already all of those things beWelcome.org.

If your happy with having no option but to get used for your hosting and guesting needs, then keep on feeding CS your energies, so that Casey can become a bigger millionaire, than he now already is, even with just a 10% share or 5% or even 2.5%. Its your call!

I actually think these investors may be in it more for the social benefit than the money, but they will make money, lots of it. I think it will actually be good for CSI to have someone who knows what they are doing and can teach them how to do it. Even better for cs i don’t think they(the holy family), will learn and will get pushed aside as the ‘best thing for the corporations mission’, to get more members and so more share value, a bigger ego and longer holidays. Growing CS is all the investors need to do to make money! The original invested US$7.6M is probably already worth US$8M, so a estimated US$400k profit in a matter of weeks, not bad! The best thing they could do would be to ask for no money from the members, 10¢US verification, make everything else free or cheap, have great code cool features, even funding offline events, even implementing a fairly good safety policy and even host insurance. Member insurance i’m sure wouldn’t be a bad side line. You got to think outside the box a little to see the full picture on this one. But one things for sure, CS ain’t going to be anything like what you knew it to be. Casey has been taken off the drugs and wheeled out on the PR team, giving everyone ‘insperation’, god help them!. Yea man, I s.., I see, I see, a couch. Cool! I see someone spamming many people in a cold place. I see someone making promises they will never keep. I see a group of people who for half a decade won’t communicate with a community who are donating hundreds of thousands of dollars to them. I see a community with gold fever, ‘I say there’s gold in them there couches!’.

Each and every one of us is responsible for the future. We collectively decide what happens, we co-create a large percentage of the reality around us. Both through our words, but also and importantly through our actions. Decide today right now what future you want and act upon it. Are you going to see to it that at least one non-profit hospex site functions well and correctly, that the developers know what the community wants and make suitable plans to achieve objectives and acts upon them, that the project has sufficient developers to meet its needs, rallying round to find them, if needed. We have the technology, we have the resources, we have the mental acuity and i think after the years of making noise about it, we have a duty to get this done.

“In my opinion the only way out is a Faebook/Google Sofa application with a fair business model that will be eventually bought one day by a big company.” I wasn’t so far off the mark, only just a few weeks back

You know how you deal with trolls? Well you can do the same with websites and shitty organisations.

Focus you love and insperation on BW and not your hate and frustration on CS!

A group of brainstormers were recently spotted taking a dip in the hot-tub. Really this is my idea of people still trying to effect anything on CS. Give it up guys, put up a trust foreclosure notice on the group, pack up and leave. There is only one game that i see being played now and thats ‘grab some shares if you can’. Thats a game that ‘most’ you are even further behind on.

LnP

Last month, the home of a San Francisco host named EJ was tragically vandalized by a guest. The damage was so bad that her life was turned upside down.

According to Wikipedia, in June 2011, a user who had rented her house for a week came back to find it trashed and missing a great amount of money and valuables. And Airbnb’s policy of not letting users know until the last minute who they’re renting to was criticized as a contributor to the incident. The company recently responded to it with a blog-post and newsletter.

With regards to EJ, we let her down, and for that we are very sorry. We should have responded faster, communicated more sensitively, and taken more decisive action to make sure she felt safe and secure. But we weren’t prepared for the crisis and we dropped the ball.

Changes will also be made on their website in terms of trust-levels.

Our updated user profiles chronicle their public history on Airbnb, giving you more insight than ever about a potential host or guest. Along with standard social information, you’ll also see if a user has verified their phone number, connected to their Facebook account, and whether the majority of their reviews are positive or negative. And as always, you can read their reviews and references.

I’m planning to switch the site over to twentyeleven, the latest WordPress default theme. It supports mobile devices and has all sorts of accessibility stuff built in, so I think it’ll serve us to move over. Please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments here. If anyone strongly objects in the next 48 hours, I’ll consult the mailing list before taking any action.

Isn’t this what has already been done or at least had a good stab at?: BeWelcome, Tripping. So everything has been done.

I don’t think the issue is that cs.org is shit and CSI is incompetent, its that the bulk of the hospex community only really use cs.org. People like popular and in hospex it is better to use a network that has more people on it. I’m at the end of a 3 week trip round Taiwan, i had to sign up on CS again, because both BW and T only have one member here, CS has 6000+. The BW member hadn’t loged in for two years and didn’t reply and i don;t think i contacted the tripping member. The CS account was deleted BTW, some how they worked out it was me. Leaving two members with positive references from a deleted account. One who i was their first guest and the other who i was their second guest, both very happy to know and host me. That pissed be off for a while, but when surrounded by so many beautiful, wonderful people, with a medium sweet hot milk tea, ordered in perfect international sign language, with lots of laughing and bowing and shear delight, WTF is CS to me anyway?

Great question. As i’ve said many times, to me CS is the community, with a big side order of Cow Shit International. We all know that. We all also know that Casey ain’t gona let anyone play with his toys. It has also been said many times, go get some of your own toys. And we have, BW, T and even Servas. So the solution is already there. The only problem is, is that people aren’t coming across from CS. Maybe it the designs, but i think its simpler than that. Sheeple(sheep like people. follow the herd).

I thought that could be got round by creating something from within. But the community is like any large or small group of surfers. To move a group, even across the street, you need to get part of the group to start moving, and the other notice and move to be with the others, if the lead members move too fast, they’ll generally find themselves having to wait or even go back for the others.

I think that we need to think about how we can get more drift going from CS to the others, maybe we just moved too fast. We can’t do much online on CS.O, but offline i think has a lot of potential, through traveling interaction and local meets there is lots of scope to attract more members across. I think that it probably comes down to a marketing pitch, essentially. That how most people think these days: Why should I? Whats in it for me? So if were serious about hospex, we should be able to offer advantage and sing it from the roof tops. If we want to shift the hospex focus more on to the alternatives, then we need to offer some big carrots. Tripping had a nice one with its competition for the round the world tickets, but is just empty promotion really. I know the person who won it and how they won it and that makes me even more cynical to the idea of this form of promotion. The carrots need to be in advantage of moving, feature and function benefits, safety, help, discounts even, but not a one off firework show.

There are a huge range of additional directions that a global, mobile and talented hospex community can go in, which can add value in many ways. Like not just assuming that someone only wants to stay for 2 nights and move on. I was toying with the idea of staying here in Taiwan for 3, 6, 12 months or more, why limit a hospex site to short term. I feel like a host to all visitors to london and feel like a guest where ever i go. Flat sharing, home swaps, home and pet sitting, camping. Shower surfing, would have been great a few days ago when i was host’s sofa was on the terrace above his bar, with only a cold tap to wash with. Structured language exchange. Suitcase hosting. Someone has been hosting my case for three weeks while i cut loose with just a rucksack. All these things could probably be arranged through CS messaging, but if they were thought about and catered for and promoted they, with other carrots, could be able to start the drift away from CS, as well as, attracting fresh hospex members .

I would have liked to have expanded on some of these points more, but i have a flight to catch in 7 hours and won’t have internet in the sky, sadly. Some of you, most of you are probably grateful for this fact. But i hope this stimulates some productive discussions and even action, to make some big improvements in a tolerant, open, expressive, positive, hospitable community.

Love and Peace from Taipai to one and all that comes from it.

This was not the primary reason i and many others, signed up to cs, but it was an indicator to me and many others as to the atmosphere of the site, network and organisation. I think that it was right to remove this mission, as CSI consistently made the world a much worse place, for many of its members. It has also failed to multiply any of its members efforts to make the world a better place and actively prevented many from doing so. Even doing anything to make CS a better place, let alone anything in the real world, has proved to be beyond the abilities of casey fenton, dan hoffer, jim stone and mat bauer.

Making the world a better place for me is what i live for, its how i was brought up, in my culture, religion, family and community. Its natural or at least intelligent, to want to do so, it is how our species have got as far ahead as they have. We naturally look out for others, attending to the old, the young and disadvantaged. I see it everywhere i go. It is natural for our species!

If CS can make the world a better place, it will be that it has brought together like minded people, who actively care about their fellow humans and other species and the world we all share.

For me personally, the triviality of the politics of CS and to an extent the general hospex scene is pathetic, juvenile and a blockage to achieving anything productive. I was twice deleted for trying to achieve positive and productive initiatives, wasted countless hours, days, weeks even on the general mess that CSI has created for itself, as well as donating 25 bucks, to a ‘charitable’ cause and i’m not the only one that has done the same, with no result.

Ok this is a complicated thread and i’ll try and steer it closer to the centre. OK. Most of the, comments from people who are aware of the reality of CS are angry and negative, which in my view is a natural reaction, when you have been cheated, lied to, abused, defrauded, etc. BUT. Big but here. But, these negative emotions and states are fundamentally non-productive on the whole and do nothing towards the aspirations of the writer, the community or the greater world. If they prompted or forced change then they would be positive, but this is not often the case in CS, the reverse is often true, in that they have made the shy leadership hide even more and be even less unproductive.

Since my first deletion, i have had a lot of space away from that anger and negativity, which really made my world a better place. I allowed a global amb, who knew me personally, to initiate a process to get my account back. I won’t go into this story, because its looong and negative. But during this time i had a lot of time to think. The result of this thinking and having my account restored, with additional lifetime, censorship and restricted movement and association terms(designed to make a person angry imo), was to setup a site where the community could talk, associate and organise community projects, in a positive space.

www.couchsurfingcommunity.org has been up for around 8 months. I put a 3 month personal limit on the amount of time i would actively spend on the site. This project, i would say currently, has failed. The reasons are numerous and varied, but the most common ones are, lack of interest in CS ‘anymore’, fear of negative reprisals, personal dislike of me, because of lack of understanding of my style of dealing with problems and most common of all, amongst the masses is, ignorance, disbelief or simple apathy ‘I’m alright Jack’. I don’t want to dwell on negative things and really the failure of CSC was very positive for me, as i discovered that given a clear opportunity to do more in one year than CSI has done in total and make CS many times better, that few people had the courage to stand up an be counted and even fewer to actually do anything when they did join. This made the situation very clear and i learnt a great deal from it and from the whole CS experience in general.

I don’t see this as a specific CS problem, it is far more general than that. Which is why this thread is here. The problems in CS are a mini version of problems in the wider world. Most people in this world don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. This is at the heart of most of the problems around the world and at the root of what leads many people to to say and do negative things as a reaction. This is quite natural in most modern societies, because it is how we are brought up(educated/conditioned), but it is unnatural to the human animal, by default.

If the people, who pay more than just lip service to the idea of making a better world, actively made it better or at least have the desire to do so, collaborating in an organised way to multiply the results, conversations like this would not be needed.

Now this is the interesting part, well for me anyway, because its complicated.

First off. Creating anything where one party forces/coerces another to do something, that they would not normally do, by whatever means, is bad. I am a big believer autonomy and where persuasion is needed, in carrot, not stick or tricks. Further in my mind any sustained group that gather around a philosophy, is a cult. This is a very big part of why I chose not to put up a big vision on CSC, which is one of its biggest criticisms. The other big part was because, i didn’t want to impose my thoughts onto our community. The hope was that collective community conversation would mould the site however we choose. I was ready, able and willing to provide resources that would reduce the system based problems and facilitate a successful project.

So whats the answer to that? The philosophy of no philosophy? That dose not work either, because it requires people to think for themselves, doomed. The answer in my mind is to have a minimal non intrusive base set of terms and rights and use technology, to resolve system based problems. Rules are needed when the system can’t deal with an event. In my mind rules are the symptom of poor/lazy system design. So the aim would be to create a site that is generally designed to protect members, giving them the freedoms of real world interaction as well as methods for self defence protection.

This is simpleish on a single small site, but when looking at a more complex situation, such as the wider hospex community or even the make the world a better place community, there are many details that will never come together under a single project. This for me is part of the beauty of the world. It is too detailed to ever fit everything into one mould

What is needed imo, is a loose organisation that acts as a conduit between disparate organisations, communities and individuals, that allow them to communicate, function and achieve objectives together, whilst maintaining their autonomy.

I have a couple of domains that i have registered to build one or more networks, when i have the time and money, hopefully later in the year. These sites are more general than CS or even CSC, but not as wide ranging as i would want, because being too general/simple, requires a lot of work, to then be attractive to numbers of people large enough to create a functioning community. A more general network would aim to attract a smaller number of diverse players/networks/groups. I have seen the need for such a network for many years in the charity/npo space. In my mind the best way to create such a network is to start from grass roots, create something of value that will naturally attract like minded organisations/communities/individuals.

Making the world a better place sounds like hard work to many people and immediately cop out. ‘Shit man, you mean, i have to actually do something, na, i’ll pass thanks. Let me know when you have a plan where i don’t actually have to get of the sofa’. I’ll leave it to another text to break down the folly of this thinking, maybe even a whole book, but the rewards of this type of project will always be immeasurably bigger than the positive effort used to achieve them.

To get a project going would require a base set of professional individuals, who can bring design, technical, legal and financial skills and knowledge. One of each is enough to start, although the more the better. Location, age, colour, sex and sexuality, nationality, religion and size are irrelevant. Knowledge and a little intelligence is all that is required. Doing it properly from the start, with a clean slate, is for me, the key to the success of such a or any, project.

If any of you reading this has a beating heart and a determination to make this while world a better place, for everyone or even if just for yourself, your children, then i implore you to email me timloal@gmail.com

I have a lot of time, energy and resources to work on such a project, if any of you also have the courage to act and not just get angry. I am not about getting angry or about being passive. Another way is possible. Though the change first needs to happen within you.

LnP

Tim

…the paradox is that they’re often more authoritarian, even autocratic, than the most tightly controlled for-profit firms. The volunteer model makes them almost feudal in structure: an enormous mass of unpaid serfs, kept in line by a small group of paid manager-nobles, in turn serving at the pleasure of the kingly founder, whose authority is more or less absolute. After all, when you create a dominant website but eschew the vast wealth that could come with it, conventional checks on your power no longer apply. You have no shareholders or paying customers to mollify. Competitors don’t bother challenging you, since how can they beat a market leader when that leader is unbound by market forces?

…Assange, similarly, has said that he alone makes the final call about what WikiLeaks will post. To this list of digital sovereigns we might someday add two young barons: CouchSurfing’s Casey Fenton and 4chan’s Christopher Poole.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/02/st_essay_assange/

Guys, Girls, pets and stuffed animals, I think we can leave the holy family to win. WTF they have won, escapes me(money maybe(Ohh goddie(Fools))), but i know personally that whilst the battle has already been won countless times, the cult like, closed minds of the ‘organisation’ would only be opened by a FBI assault team, in the desert, on a lonely farm somewhere. Namisain. The amount of time and energy that has been wasted on trying to get them to stop being such babies, could have moved a small mountain or educated a kingdom.

Seriously, i’m tired of trying to make couch surfing better and i see a world that can be made much better, in many ways, easily. Dose any one want to get back to making the world a better place? Or how about even just making your life a better place?

Towards the end of last year, is stopped helping others and focused on helping myself. I started this year with a mission to make 2011 a good year. In january i had the opportunity of a good job in Thailand and then a telecoms consulting contract in southern Africa. I was in need of good work and a holiday. By not, just sitting around bitching and getting of the sofa and doing something, i’m now writing this by the sound of the pool hoover, bobbing around, in front of me and the pool bar staff asking if i’m unjani.

As well as getting the good work, money and holiday that i needed, it has been beautiful to learn the social basics of an African language, understand how, through language and culture they view the world differently and also how they view the world the same. It is also interesting to see the issues here that are different and the same. Learning a new language, meeting new people, making new friends, doing good business, helping a developing people with what i do best engineering technological and business strategies and solutions, has made me feel so alive, i want to feel like this all the time!

In two weeks, i have done more for more people, that i have done in two years within couchsurfing. Within 2 days we built CouchSurfingCommunity.org, within 2 hours i built the first proxy, well it was actually about 30 minutes, but i like the 2 theme), in two seconds we can decide to make meaningful actions, collectivly. I see that the CouchSurfingCommunity.org hasn’t done much, through lack of support, which is a surprise. If the cs org is so fucked up and is supported by a community who wouldn’t give a dam if the first development team had been murdered, then i don’t see what there is left to be interested in on this network any more? It dose nothing other that contain members, like an old bucket. It is the members that create the community and make it alive!

I say we get out of cs on mass, keep your account but set it to coffee only, use BW, Tripping and Servas, support the alternatives.

The horse is dead guys!!!!!! (<< an thats from someone who normally never uses exclamation marks)

Love and Peace

Notably, like so many other parts of the site, that list is a sprawling mess and it’s difficult if not impossible to determine who’s actually on the paid staff, versus who’s just in some kind of administrative group.

In my opinion, they’ve deliberately obscured this kind of detail. They don’t really want people to realize that the “inner clique” is actually getting paid, and in some/all cases, handsomely.  They want everyone to believe, that volunteering your valuable time and effort, will always be unpaid.

I mean, I clicked on one of the expand-o-icons, and got this:

http://www.couchsurfing.org/organization.html?close_org_tree=13955#6639
 
 
Here’s the only real chart/graphic, that clicking on any expander produces:

http://www.couchsurfing.org/images/org1.2.gif
 
 
So still, there are no names, and no indication of who’s actually being paid.

This is not an accidental oversight, this is exactly how Casey Fenton rolls – giving the “appearance” of honesty and transparency, but in reality, acting as secretively and selfishly as possible to benefit himself, while very carefully hiding his games.

He’s a master at it, really.  Some might even describe people like him as a “sociopath,” because his fundamental M.O. in life, seems to be “using” people. You can tell, he actually enjoys suckering people with warm and glowing lies.

Couchsurfing, as previously discussed, displays many characteristics of a corrupt cult, with the “leaders” obviously maintaining a careful eye toward “hiding” information that would hold them accountable.

I also think I noticed that the last published budget, if it’s even complete or accurate, is from 2008. Why?  Because something more current would reveal just how much money they’re raking in today, and who exactly is receiving it.

Since several years ago, when people began to catch on to these games, Casey,Inc. has done nothing to make things right, and done everything to keep digging their heels in, to keep hiding facts and information, and to keep exploiting their users.

Not surprising really; we’d be asking a dog to change his spots, and couchsurfing has pretty obviously always been, and was created for, expanding and then exploiting a user-base, for personal profit. The undeniable examples are practically limitless. Some of the “spreading love and friendship” propaganda was starting to smell canned and fishy to me, some time ago.  What do I mean “has always been” ?

For one example, as long as four years ago, maybe three, Casey added some site code that linked everyone’s listed favorite books, music, and movies, to an Amazon link to purchase each item.  Which, would then automatically generate a commission for Casey, for every purchase completed.  When Casey was “called” on this, he flat-out denied any knowledge of the Amazon links, and even tried to pretend he didn’t know how that “feature” was instituted on CS, as if it just happened by accident or by magic.  In short, the snake lied through his teeth!

A web-anchored hospex communication tool is still a noble project idea, and if Casey,Inc. hadn’t done it, someone else would’ve.  And actually, has. It’s simply history unfolding for us, with respect to how the interweb is impacting so many things in our lives. For better or worse and I believe, mostly for better and often massively.

The fundamental problem with CS is, and has always been, that for one thing, to this day the d*mned tool is unstable and unreliable for often critical communication needs, and for another thing, they’ve reached a point on a graph where the money coming in daily is an enormous sum (which was always the goal), and instead of using that money to improve the tool, it’s pretty clearly going toward making the CaseyFentonClique, rich.

Which is not a reason why I would want to, or do, support the org, though I do use the tool. Ain’t givin’ that con-man one thin dime, though!

So, I also use the alternatives, like BeWelcome, and also gladly give money to those guys, because their entire way of behaving is proper and honest, it would seem.

I would bet cash-money that at some point, CS will implode, either from the chronic infection that it harbors, or from some new scandal.  So, I suggest to anyone reading this, be sure to create a profile on the top alt’s, like BeWelcome, use those tools in addition to CS, and actually put your words of support, and money, toward any org but CS.

Yeah, I buy stuff on Amazon, but I also always use a shopping tool to check on alternatives.  And with CS there’s no “price comparison” to make – all the hospex tools are free.

The whole “verified” scheme, is a scam.  We all know this now.  But I will get out my wallet for a tool like BeWelcome because they (might) publicize their income and expenses, and just humbly ask for donations.  Without any kind of spin, like CS’s “getting verified will get you more couches” BS, just a simple request for help in keeping the computers running, and to hire some necessary, talented staff.

What most web-based tools with large user-bases do actually need to spend money on, is… keeping the tool itself in excellent working order, upgrading things in a careful, planned way only when it’s really a genuine improvement, and never allowing a repair to remain unresolved, or a for a break-down to occur in the first place.

What is not needed, is an inner-clique of ten people, sucking up 90% of $200K a month, to enrich themselves and to buy plane tickets, MDMA-tabs, and hotel stays (for themselves.) Or vacation houses or cars.  Or whatever else you buy with a constant, tall stream of cash coming in every single day.

CS is supposed to help couchsurfers, first, foremost, and primarily.  Not help/enrich the founders, primarily.  Casey,Inc. doesn’t present the business in a business way, he’s chosen to sell it as some kind of feel-good, purely volunteer way. Which again, is no accident – that kind of lure will catch more fish, because people (are led to believe) they’re supporting something other than Casey’s bank account, or his stockpile of Valtrex.

If you want to run a hospex tool as a for-profit business, then do so, and be completely honest in that intention.  However, hospex is by design not-for-profit, so this would seem to always present a fundamental conflict or mis-match.

Regardless, I’m still hosting and surfing (Casey be d*mned) and enjoying it!  See ya on the road…
 
 

There is a concept that twirls in my mind since some months: the SUSTAINABILITY of CS and other hospitality exchange communities.

I thought about that again because I saw some profiles stating that they are hosting people because they like to do an anarchist action, against hotels and capitalistic economy/consumerism.

I generally agree, in my point of view food should come from Nature (that doesn’t know what to do with those papers we call “money”) and not from the supermarket, shelter and Home when we are not in out town should theoretically come from networks of friends and not from business activities who provide this for money.
The same for medical services, care, massage, friendly advice,  … all these things strictly connected with the life of a Human are, in my opinion, much better if they come without involvement of dirty money.

But, money is one thing, SUSTAINABILITY is another.

So far hotels and hostels were a economical model that worked well for centuries, not just because there is money involved, but also because there is something in exchange, and this makes it sustainable.

I tell you how: the exchange (in this case services/money) makes a market between offers and request and the presence of a market guarantees that no one of the parts involved got taken advantage of.

The same we can’t unfortunately say in CS and in the other hospex communities!
Did you ever feel “used” as a host?
Did you ever see that if you host too much you don’t have time for your own life?

Yes, sustainability is mostly a problem when hosting.
As a guest, you can travel for several years passing from one city to another, from one host to another, without ever using ho(s)tels at all, without any big problem.
Try to do the same as a host, to have guests every single day!

We can’t deny that the guest is the party in the host-guest relationship who gets more immediate benefit. I am not just talking of free accommodation but also of a more generic concept as everything is actioned by the guest, the request, the dates…
The host (mostly) can just accept or deny. If he accepts, he promises to provide accommodation, infos, care, shelter, Home…. to the guest, when the guest needed it.

There are of course lots of intrinsic costs in having guests, let’s say:
- more cleaning of the house, floors, kitchen and bathroom especially
- cleaning of bedsheets, etc..
- more consumption of electricity, water, gas etc..
- tea, coffee, food to offer..
- personal time and attention
- changing of plans sometimes to adapt to the guest’s schedule (late or early arrivals, ..)
- expenses to go out (bars, food, clubs, transport) while you wouldn’t have stayed home if you didn’t have guests
- time to reply to emails and requests, time to get to know more potential guests on IM, …
- cost of phone calls and text messages to keep in touch with the guest
- risk of problems with guests who take things with them, don’t give back keys, leave a mess, …

(Guest would have also some costs in terms of time and money, but they are directly connected with his travel, that’s the reason why he is there and he is meeting up the host, instead for the host they are connected to the guest’s travel!)

If you think well, on the host part there are really many costs in terms of money and time.
And of course of personal freedom!
What if when I am out with my guest I meet a guy/girl that I would like to take back home, especially if I don’t have a separate room for guests?
What if I change my plans during the day but I don’t have spare keys for the guest (or I don’t want to give him/her)?

People are active as hosts because they have the opportunity to meet cool people.
Mmmh… that doesn’t convince me!
Actually this “benefit” is of both parties, host and guest, isn’t it?

There are situations in life when something is valuable or not just because of the market, the exchange between offer and request. (I don’t think we should support these artifacts…)

Like the cultures where guys always pay when they invite out a girl for dinner.
Shouldn’t be the pleasure to go out together mutual?
Or people who pay for sex… should we tell them that it’s normal to do that for free, just for mutual pleasure?

Anyhow, going back to hospex, the benefit to meet a new cool person should be mutual, so why the host has to sustain more costs in terms of time and money?

I think that a normal person with a full life, work/study, friends, boy/girlfriend/husband/wife, doing some sports and hobbies, maybe volunteering, … can’t find time for hosting people.
Of course, the same person, when traveling, is free from work and many of these things of his normal life, so he has way more time to dedicate to talk with his CS host, meetup with him and his friends, … so he would be a terrific guest but a bad host!

Now I understand why the most active CS in my area says “don’t worry, I have a lot of free time, nobody waits me at home, just 3 cats…”

That’s why CS hosts are more single than in a couple.
That’s why the cool people I know very rarely would have guests.

And what, hosts are losers and guests are cool dudes traveling the world spicing up the life of those poor losers? ) Is this how things work, on a large scale?

And what about those members who joined CS just before a big trip, mostly to save money in accommodation, they payed without problem the verification because it was a little money compared to all the money potentially saved in hotels, they never hosted anyone when at home and they are not planning to host people when back home, despite how great was their experience as guest, usually they arrive to the host place empty handed, they care just of the free couch and maybe other free benefits, they behave very politely till the last night of their stay and after they show their real being, of course they don’t even think for a moment to become friends with their host and to keep in touch… Are these members SUSTAINABLE for the community?

That’s where I think come those ideas of points, karmas, etc… things to see if you are a good member that gives benefit to the worldwide community or just a member who is taking advantage of the community for your own benefit.

Nowadays is cool to talk about externalization of costs. It’s when you don’t pay for all the costs that incurs in your life, your activity, your production, but there is someone else that pays for that, usually not being asked to. It refers usually to industries, the client buys the products for so cheap that all the costs for quality prime materials, the energies consumes, the fair salaries, the correct disposal of wastes, are evidently not included in the price but all the society tips in for us to have a cheap industrial product (see www.storyofstuff.com).
In this model, don’t you think that being guest is somehow externalizing the cost of living?

Somebody else is going to pay our bills, we don’t have to think about it.
It’s like living all life at parent’s place, never being an independent self sustaining individual.

Have you ever saw those travelers who are traveling since years without stop and they even dare to tell you, who are working to make this society works, that they are living on 200 $ a month or less?
Of course, because they are externalizing the costs, they are using water, energy, food, resources, space, … that they are not paying for.

Yes, living permanently CouchSurfing is cheaper that living at your own home!

And what I really don’t like is that now there is people who plan travels just counting the transfer costs, souvenirs and eating out/bars but they don’t take into account accommodation.

The effect of CouchSurfing and other hospex community on these people is very bad, it gives them a fake feeling of confidence in finding a couch everywhere, but maybe getting in unpleasant situations because they don’t have second options, as they don’t even have money for a hostel (see here for more details: http://allthatiswrong.wordpress.com/2010/01/24/a-criticism-of-couchsurfing-and-review-of-alternatives/#csspirit)

How can I explain to some students who are doing their best to pay the rent and share bills, that they have to host someone for few days who will use the place and the utilities but won’t contribute?
Oh yes, it will be few days, just few days, not a big deal…. a pity that after there can/will be an other guest and so on…

If it sustainable, it is sustainable is a small or big scale. If it’s not, it’s not.

I heard also of some other kind of agreements for accommodation, that sound a bit more fair to me.

One is called COOKSURFING, I come with food at your place, I cook for you, you let me stay overnight. Sounds more fair for me, even if usually the host feels offering something too and maybe ends up spending more money because of the guests.

An other is the old good AU PAIR. You come and help me some hours a day with the home/babies, you have some hours free to visit the city or whatever you like, I offer you food and accommodation and sometimes some pocket money.

But there is more. Have you ever heard of those hostels where you can stay some days longer if you work in cleaning and making beds?

Also in the CouchSurfing world there were some hosts (especially in Japan) who asked some few bucks every day to contribute to the bills and/or the rent. Very controversial topic, but I can’t honestly say that’s all wrong.

Now it’s time for you guys’ to say your opinions! I am really interested!

A good day!

littleseed

I am writing to ask for the restoration of my profile which has been deleted due, I think, to a misunderstanding.

My name is Fiona Graham and I host both woofers and couchserfers. I think my profile has been deleted because CS administrators thought I was asking couchsurfers to work in exchange of housing, which I am not.

In fact, couchsurfers are not asked to work but are given the option to do some woofing if they choose to stay for several months…

I have had about 100 couchsurfers in 2 years and have lost all their references. Several couchsurfers are supposed to come in the coming weeks but are unable to contact me. I insist on the fact that the couchsurfers who are only staying a few days do not provide any work in exchange.

If you could deal with this urgent mater as soon as possible, it would be great.

Thank you for your understanding.

Kind regards,

Fiona Graham

I’m wondering whether we get a update on what happened….

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.

===

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.

While someone else’s profile is merely deleted for creating another profile to overcome the issues with the CS group system.

“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!

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.

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….

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

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.

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

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.

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,

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.

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.”

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!

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?

Interesting… a more obvious attempt to cover one’s *ss would be hard to conceive.

Since my personal biggest frustration with CS is the communication, I guess that would be as good a place to start as any. A good question format for this purpose may be to give statements and ask people to rate whether or not they agree with them; anyone is welcome to contribute statements (would be nice if you could keep them somewhat serious, lol), or give me other feedback regarding this idea.

‘Prejudice and Discrimination will always be with us.’
Hospitality Exchange Travel Networks a respond to this?

“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their skin
but by the content of their character.”
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

After a short introduction to Hospitality Exchange Networks, prejudice and discrimination and their relationship to each other, this essay will examine two widely known psychological theories that can be relevant in the reduction of prejudice. At the end, the relevance to Hospitality Exchange Networks will be evaluated.

Read the whole essay on HospEx Ne>>t Wiki.

.

.

.

Interesting Further Reading

• Classics in the History of Psychology — Sherif et al. (1954/1961)
  http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Sherif/
• Elliott, J. (1970). The eye of the storm. [Videotape.] Mount Kisco, NY: Center for Humanities.
• Understanding Prejudice
  http://www.understandingprejudice.org
• The Jigsaw Classroom: A Cooperative Learning Technique
  http://www.jigsaw.org

had 60 friends/ equal numb of referances

2 vouches

verified user

just by personal baseless complaints of few fools!?????

I log into CS several times a day, or at least I try to do so to keep up to speed with my surf requests, but lately the system seems to be failing even more than usual. Was wondering; is disclosing uptime and downtime something the CS ‘management’ has to decide on, or is there another service/website/individual/organisation keeping track of that?

Is travelling the new colonialism? Isn’t “travelling” just a luxury concept, restricted to the small percentage of the world population that own the large percentage of the world wealth?

Is it morally justifiable at all to travel for fun, especially to fly, in the face of global warming?

Do we have a duty to “offset” the emissions caused by our travelling, by making a corresponding donation? Or is it cynical to establish a “right to pollute” for those who can afford an offset payment?

When we encounter poverty and suffering where we go, does that give us responsibilities?

Do we change the places we go to? For better, for worse? Can this mean it would be better not to go? At least not to certain places, or in certain ways?

Isn’t hospitality networking ultimately just a way of extending the privileges of those already better off, by making their money go even further? Is the world really going to be “better” because of millions of white, male, heterosexual, not gainfully employed, under 25s, middle class, with higher education, from North America or Europe, visiting the rest of the globe, without spending much money there? Isn’t it really just an exclusive golf club type thing?

Why are 80% of signed up Couchsurfing users from North America or Europe? Why are so many active Couchsurfing users in the rest of the world expatriates from North America or Europe?

What would be necessary to make hospitality networking equally interesting to people from other continents? What are the cross cultural borders that prevent people from other cultures to become equally involved? Can it be that people from other cultures don’t like to talk about themselves that much in their profiles? Can the positive and negative feedback options be contrary to what they are used to? Can the dominance of traditional colonial nations and races just be scary?

What does travelling to the 1st or 2nd world mean for people from the 3rd world (and what about these numbers)? What does it mean to go to a rich place where the legal minimum hourly wage is what you make in a day or week?

I’ll stop here, and open the field for others, to come up with answers, or more questions. In the middle of all political controversy about how to run a show like Couchsurfing, I would really love to have an open debate about the underlying concept of travelling as such. Just one more question:

Is Opencouchsurfing usership possibly even less diverse than Couchsurfing?

;-]

Recently I stumbled over a CS profile where the box “How I Participate in CS2″ was filled with:

I help the project by directing everyone I meet to www.bewelcome.org

Sorry for wasting your time.

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

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> on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.

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

• 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…

That title works to grab everyones attention. Hello there lazy bums in Thailand, celebrating ineptitude under the sun!

I was thinking how all the work of the motivated volunteers full of ideals and good intention can be saved. The title was my only answer. One thing i have learned is that people dont really change, i dont expect Casey or the majority of his buddies to be different, despite all the visionary leadership.

Why do I point out that people don’t change? Because I am convinced that they would have to change if Couchsurfing is supposed to progress. Couchsurfing as a website and Organization has grown beyond the size that is governable with the attitude and management employed by Casey and his appointed BurningManBeer Buddies. We are dealing with an Organization that is crooked and mismanaged from the Top. Casey might be a nice guy, he might be a good coder, he might even have that MC1R sexyness to get all the good bitches in the pack, but he is about as good as a manager as Paris Hilton is an expert on Quantum Mechanics.

From the Top down, it was all about happiness and fun, NEVER about accountability and results. Casey initially, when first launching cs.com public, already made a claim on how cs is a 501c3 non profit. He either made a false claim, which would make him a liar and crooked person, possibly a felon, since he collected the donations, or an amazingly inept manager. You don’t run an Organization without knowing its legal status, dot! I tend to go with a third option though. He is a hopeless dreamer, who wants to make a 501c3 and heal the world, but gets ahead of reality way too much. This pattern was followed in the whole CS team and Spirit of Organization. Sure, it would be great to have a good manager, but lets settle for someone who COULD be a good manager, such as TTT, but who actually sucks ass since he settles for having a manager title, rather than doing the job, just like Casey and 501c3. On CS, the culture of Vaporware needs to go. The people will not change, so unless they go, Cs will never proceed beyond the Fratboys who would LOVE to be cool, but end up being drunk failures.

They ALL lack the self confidence to critically reflect upon their managerial skills or the apparent lack of. The root of all this is of course, Casey. He appointed Managers who lack the wit and gut to debate with a dissenting community. A dissenting community that actually argues constructively and is kind enough to share all the solutions.

CS, thanks to the pressure built up by Pickwick, is about to arrive in the cloud of Accountability that is the real world. I hereby Claim that there will be no milestone accomplishment at the Thai Collective, which will make it nothing more than an expensive party for Casey and his equally inept cronies.

You run an Organization and fail to deliver, you go. If Couchsurfing.com is all about buying Caseys’ Burning Man crew 4 Months of sponsored Holidays on the beach along with pussy that would not be available to this elusive group of mediocre men, then Couchsurfing.com is indeed a brilliant success for aforementioned visionary leader and his associates. It would of course make it a racket and scam, morally at least, regardless of how it would be judged by a legal professional.

If Couchsurfing is not a racket and scam but instead an organization with genuinely good intentions, then it is a failure on all accounts. Absolute top-performing professionals in their respective field get alienated or sacked by a management that has possibly not even learned how to spell (project) management. The Couchsurfing Management in its current incarnation is a direct result of Casey Fentons inability to accept superior skill from employees and volunteers. The current management has a track record of rejecting highly skilled employees and outside advice, lacks skill and self confidence along with the inability to accomplish anything themselves.

You guys all need to go. I am glad CS is in the Real World SOON, legally speaking. Casey and friends, you guys talk all the talk, all the time. I have yet to see anyone walk the walk. I invite you to prove me wrong, but you and me, we both know, you fail.

p.s. i invite everyone to personally attack me on my position, preferably somewhere in real life

p.p.s please, since i am so full of shit, be so kind and make a list of all the accomplished managerial successes of the current leadership team, since thats all that it takes to turn my whole posting into a pile of shit. hint: most mangers work 45-50h a week and deliver results correlating to this

Scan of CS corporate records; articles of incorporation; amended bylaws; conflict of interest policy; additional documents

Disclaimer: as far as I was able to determine, publishing copies of these documents does not require consent of the New Hampshire Secretary of State. This post will be removed immediately upon first request, should publication on this website not be in full accordance with legislation.

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.

1. The company that owns CouchSurfing.com, CouchSurfing International inc., is privately owned and has Casey Fenton as is its sole owner and director. He holds all power over the company and, consequently, the website. This means that, when push comes to shove,
   1. He cannot be held accountable for how donations are spent
   2. He can sell CouchSurfing.com to whomever and walk away with the dough whenever he gets tired of it
   3. CS users have no of influence whatsoever on anything CS-related
2. Although incorporated as a not-for-profit, CouchSurfing International inc. is not a charitable organisation. Not-for-profit status only means that the company cannot pay dividend to its owners (i.e. Casey); the company and its assets still are his, and his alone. Casey can do with it whatever he wants, whenever he wants it
   1. In addition, not-for-profit status does give not any kind of guarantee that company assets are not utilised for personal enrichment. For instance, as its sole owner/director, Casey can give out loans to himself or others at zero-interest rates, and use that money privately to make a profit
   2. Such potential abuse of company assets is even easier because CouchSurfing International inc. does not appear genuinely interested in obtaining a “501c3″ tax exemption. Non-profit organisations can easily apply for this designation with the IRS, but it requires compliance with strict disclosure and reporting duties, plus having a board of directors, and Casey doesn’t like that much openness. Therefore, part of user donations is waisted on avoidable tax-paying
   3. Most importantly, CouchSurfing International inc. does not have a clause in its bylaws that irrevocably dedicates company assets to a charitable cause. This means that Casey can always revoke the company’s not-for-profit designation and cash in, by volition but also by necessity (for instance, when he or the company ever get sued for damages)
3. In clause 5.1 of the Terms of Use, CouchSurfing International inc. claims a virtually unbounded and irrevocable right to use whatever material you decide to upload to its servers for its own purposes, without limiting these in any way. This opens up the road to selling user data, including your contact and site usage details, to third parties. At the same time, CouchSurfing International inc. does not have a published policy detailing how they keep your personal information safe
4. There are no published protocols how the company deals with users committing crimes (violence, abuse, theft…) that involve other users; instead, these appear to be dealt with in an ad hoc fashion. In addition, it is extremely difficult to find who’s responsible for what when it comes to safety. By being so negligent, CouchSurfing International inc. puts the users of CS at risk
5. On the whole, CouchSurfing.com scores very poorly on transparency. There are hardly any protocols about anything; there is no full list of people on the payroll of CouchSurfing International inc., information is scattered across countless forums and scores of mailgroups, etc. The current management seems to take no interest whatsoever in even starting to improve this situation
6. Apart from being fraudfully sollicited (i.e., under the pretext that CS is a charity / non-profit), aspiring volunteers are asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement in which they cede all rights on the material they develop to CouchSurfing International inc.
7. All known employees of CouchSurfing International inc. (i.e., Casey Fenton, Matthew Brauer, Jim Stone and Weston Hankins, all of whom are members of the Leadership Team) are male caucasian US citizens.
8. The verification procedure is a blatant scheme for increasing donations. It does not offer any kind of added security, and could be carried out at a fraction of the current fee
9. What little financial information is available gives cause for suspicion. There are interesting discrepancies between assets and interest gained, and attempts to get this clarified are met with deafening silence
10. Casey and the other employees of CouchSurfing International inc., as well as the influential volunteers in CouchSurfing.com simply do not respond to any kind of question or criticism at all, while still hammering on CS being a community-thing

1. What that you ever did for CouchSurfing.com entitles you to take this kind of action?
2. What is your interest in harming CouchSurfing.com?

To me these reactions indicate that the community at large does not recognise a crucial difference between civil litigation and criminal prosecution. The former is a legal procedure between two parties, each with their private interests; the latter is between ‘the people’ and whoever harms the public interest.

That’s right, the public interest, and CS users would do good to realise that they are the public here. Just some points for consideration:

• If you decide to donate a (substantial) amount of money to CouchSurfing because you think it is a charity, only to find out it isn’t because the IRS fines you for illicit tax deductions, your interest is being harmed.
• If you decide to donate valuable time as a volunteer to CouchSurfing because you think it is a charity, only to find out you’ve made a fool of yourself because you put free slaving on your resume, your interest is being harmed.
• If Casey decides to sell your user data to a third party for a neat sum, and this party turns out to be a spammer, your interest is being harmed.
• If you decide to donate code and programming effort to CouchSurfing because you’re an idealist and you believe in its cause, only to find out that Casey sells CouchSurfing International inc. to a large commercial player that turns CS into a paid service, your interest is being harmed.

To return to the responses I started with, it will be clear that the potential harm to the public interest is all the moral entitlement Pickwick needs for his actions. Second, they aren’t even his actions to begin with, let alone they could serve a private interest; if the New Hampshire DA sees sufficient reason to prosecute, they are the public’s actions.

It’s finally time to let go of all my remaining ties to volunteering in CouchSurfing, a few words about the why, if you will…

It wasn’t a bad year (1) In fact, it was a very good year. How often do you get a chance to see the world, settle down a bit in places, work for the things you believe in and meet the people you’ve been craving to meet all your life?

I’m still coming to terms with my feelings of this year, and CS more specifically. There’s a strong component of unjust treatment, and many questions which are to date not answered. I could probably write a book about all this but this will have to wait until a later date (you might want to check here in the near future though (2)

There’s definitely some anger: after all, I started doing CS work after already been burned once in a volunteering setting (3) and for this reason really did not want or need a second similar experience. However, I got one. What makes me angry is not the “wasted time” itself, it’s more the fact that had I known the fundamental attitudes (4, 5) of the leadership a year ago, I would probably not have started volunteering to such an extent – my anger is more directed towards concealing these attitudes (with lack of real communication there was no way of telling what the admins were thinking) rather than having them in the first place – for at least it would have offered an opportunity for me to choose if these were the kinds of people I’d like to work with (or as it seems, for). This by now almost feels like purposeful deception to lure in willing volunteers (6).

There’s also sadness: thinking of what might have been, the possibilities for creating real difference, all in vain. And not because people, the community didn’t want it, they were ready to take CS to the next level, to decentralize (7) along with the mission crafted up after the big crash of 2006 (7, 8 ) to create a better world, one couch at a time. No, it was the attitudes of the leaders, lack of any real communication by them, lack of meaningful, respectful dialogue with the community or even volunteers who are actively striving to make things better that stopped (sometimes even reversed) (9) the momentum of the community to decentralize itself. I also feel sad that this potential of the community was never recognized by those in power and that corporate structures, top-down management and weeding out all possibility to self-organize were seen as the only way to go forward – where’s the space for diversity, more bohemian attitudes towards life and independent thinking that are very present in the spirit of this community?

But there’s (always?) a silver lining: if it wasn’t through CS, it would have probably taken me years longer to find the people I connected and hope to continue working with (some, though by means not all of them here: 10,11) to create a better world, one whatever (Line of code? Guest bed? Idea? Freedom?) at a time!

I’d like to thank all the great people I have worked with and met on my 21st century version of the”Grand Tour” (11). Regardless of my issues with the leaders at the moment, I believe the rest of you are still good people and deserve far more credit and appreciation than what you’re given now.

Finally, just a fair warning from someone who cares about all of you: please keep your eyes open before jumping in the deep end with CS or if you’re there already, and don’t stop asking the questions (13) in case there’s something worrying you…

Goodbye, and happy surfing,
Anu

1. http://anujossain.blogspot.com
2. http://www.opencouchsurfing.com/author/anu/
3. http://anujossain.blogspot.com/2007/09/dj-vu.html
4. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=329495#post332871
5. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=329495#post331893
6. http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2007/08/22/follow-the-money/
7. http://www.couchsurfing.com/recovery_page.htm
8. http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2007/08/23/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-cs-20/
9. http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Idea_to_feature:_lessons_learned (original)
http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/wiki/Idea_to_feature:_lessons_learned (backup)
10. http://www.bevolunteer.org
11. http://www.crashatmine.org
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
13. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=379068