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.

• * Caseysurfing.com - Easygoing consumerfriendly network run by a bunchfull of burning men buddies with no strategy for the future at all. As they eat up an amazing amount of donations and the market for virtual social networks collapses with the international cashflow a simple sellout isn’t an option anymore. When the fun is over, I won’t share the hangover.
• * Veitclub.org - The google-ad homebase of a single men gathering people who don’t mind censorship in communication. If the communication system is working at all. Estimated 2 years behind reality. Hard to signup for newbies and without technical improvements a living dead.
• * Senil.org - Surviving from the stoneage of postwar hospitality exchange still not yet at home in the digital age but muddling through anyway.
• * BeBehind.org - Some core volunteers still suffer from restrictive mindsets (courtesy of Veitclub.org), so progress in really opening up the network is small. Restrictions are still restrictions even if the code is GPL. The open source rebuilt of a common hospex-software is probably to slow to really suffer in the decline of big hospexnetworks, but may offer some software for other experiments (still a shitload of work).

Short but nevertheless also cynical theses for the future of hospex:

The hospitality exchange scene is and always was diverse. This won’t change, no, in the future the number of networks will probably rise and the importance of each one for the whole scene will shrink. I see two main future options / possibilities:

• * Hospex as a gadget/plugin in other (commercial) networks like f**kbook, MyShit, soon T-Couch, iHospex, MacSleep, Sleepbucks and others - nothing I’d really care for, but something that would definetly keep some idiots out of things I like. There’s nothing wrong with it, but please leave me alone.
• * Hospexnetworks with very specialized communities like gay boyscouts, polite gamblers, frustrated florists … A disadvantage of this kind of networks is the absence of bigger diffences within them, as there is always a common interest / category. So somehow it’s a bit limiting and cultural exchange simply fails with out differences. A solution could be megasearches between open parts of these networks, profile transfers and easy access. Besides smelling like violating privacy all over the place, it’s all theory right now.

And why this ranting?

I’ve spent and still spend some of my free time to volunteer for hospex networks, but from time to time it’s good to reconsider engagement. Right now it feels like being stucked between something halfdead, that is still working from an user-only point of view, and a luck of ideas/projects to improve/develop things.

So maybe it’s time to look for something useful to do in other areas?

What would you like to see the future of Hospitality Exchange Network ?

Scenerio 1.
CS have a lion’s share,say take 70% market
BW,HC,GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com and others have the rest 30%
CS do what ever they want
members without verifed and donation can’t
a. see the whole group members,(you want to do something else beside couchsurfing eh)
b. have unlimited email
c. have unimited search

Scenrio 2
Casey Fenton act as Frederik Willem de Klerk, give out some his power, and CS become ‘user/volunteers/members-driven’ organisation.
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=6841&post=1596123
and everything is transparent
CS take 45% market share
BW,HC,GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com consolidated take 45% market share
the rest take 10% market share

Scenrio 3
CS take 30% market share
BW,HC consolidated take 30% market share
GF,SERVAS,www.huzhuyou.com consolidated take 30% market share
the rest take 10% market share
http://www.hospitalityguide.net

if you like to see the Scenrio 2, 3 let me know, and tell me how much you need to develope a website like CS,
I WILL
1. TRY MY BEST TO RAISE MONEY FOR YOU.
2. convert some Xinger to Hcer
Xing have 6 million member now, 30% are freelancer, if we can convert 30% Xing freelcaner to Hcer, blah blah….
there should no conflict of interest,
some of 70% biz Xinger will use best offfer
https://www.xing.com/bestoffers/
70% of the 30% freelacne will user their own network, friends, realtives.
3. bring/match elderly/physically-challenged and EMIGRANT, Working holiday visa holder, Students from the Second/Third World to small/medium cities
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=14699

for time being, my suggestions are
1.Set “ net watch” with you friends, if you find someone profile deleted,
please record and repor at
Member’s profile issue(deleted, missing,dead etc) forum
https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showforum;id=244416

2.Compare
Thailand ,
Alaska(Participant list gone, I saw once,but unfortuneately not saved you can find some clue here http://blog.couchsurfing.com/alaska/alaska-csc-talent-show-video)
and SF Boot camp participant list,
and tell us how many Americans and White male there.
http://www.couchsurfing.com/collective.html

No later than Apr 2009, CS will reach it 1 million members
what you would like to see
A .CS 1 million members celebration
I created on Sep 22, 2008
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group.html?gid=14492

B. CS is the only hospex website reach a million member historical with volunteesr(“treat your volunteers as shit”)
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=1720836#post1753030
Casey sell CS
or start treat members differently , see Scenerio 1
Is Casey qualifed to be a House of Representatives that time?
and what Veit will think?
http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/veit

If you like Scenerio 2, 3 happen, let me know
I can be reached at
https://www.xing.com/profile/Jingtao_Wang/N17.8265.29f125

Internet belong to everybody, but no body can control it
the only 2 ways on Internet are
1. justice,transparent
2. if do something wrong, apologize and correct immidiatedly
But, Casey and CS would like to demonstrate the third way like delete members profiles without warning, and dare to delete my wife’s(onlinezhao),
ok, dude, let see what will happen then

this article I am going to send on Oct 31 in
https://www.xing.com/net/couchsurfing/ newsletter
I will be appeciate If you can polish my English and send back to me
stay tuned.

T.G.I.F

couple wang

FYI
History replaying in Couchsurfing.com
https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=14603632;articleid=14603632#14603632

“It has to be made clear that all power eventually resides with Casey, and none other. It has to be made clear that volunteering and donating money are most welcome, but don’t entitle you to any influence, irrespective of one’s importance for the organisation.”
https://www.xing.com/app/forum?op=showarticles;id=14603624

“If you don’t want democracy, you can’t build on volunteers, and you must run the organisation as a business, non-profit or not. You need to have a business plan that says where money is going, and coming from. You have to pay for most labour, and create the necessary revenue by either charging for services, or by using the worth of the community to get commercial sponsors, who expect to profit from members. You may still have some volunteers, or internships, or other low or unpaid labour, but you can’t expect highly qualified work to be done by two people sitting next to each other, where one is paid a market wage, and the other nothing.”
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=328661#post328710

“this group of coordinators would be part of a structure that is organised bottom-up, in a way that the group of coordinators (not leaders!) would be rotating every 1 or 2 years, where no-one can tell others what to do, where there is no such thing as “diplomatic” internal politics (”if you say something I don’t like, I consider that as flaming and you’re out of the group”)
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=1720836#post1753030

“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”
http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/zak0r

Chris also puts forward the question: “what experiences have you had as the Couchsurfing hosting community is shifting from a bunch of freespirited wanderers to everyday people with strict schedules and expectations?” And subsequently he concludes: “It feels like we are being forced out of our own community.”

This might be a very valid point. Couchsurfing, Bewelcome or Hospitality Club for that matter, are these still the networks of travelers supporting fellow-travelers? There are still lots of great hosts and travelers around, but somehow - due to the popularity of the network - it is also becoming more and more a network of people that are just looking for entertainment, other people to ‘party’ and get drunk with. Further to that, it does not necessarily has to be a coincidence either that the news-wire of CS has been full with party-events in the past couple of months.

But then again - on the others hand - CS still provides you a pool of lots of different people, which means you just have to be selective in picking the right host. Or like Sanne says in the same forum, “I guess my conclusion is: it’s not bad that ‘normal’ people are hosting, it’s just different. I think it’s a good thing that couchsurfing is turning into a thing for everyone. And yes, that means that you do have to put some more effort in selecting the right host for you.”

You may wonder why so many talented people volunteer for CS when they could have high paying jobs in the corporate world. The reason is that CS provides benefits they can’t find anywhere else. We live and breath CouchSurfing, and we are all a family.

Although you have to pay your first travel to the “Couchsurfing Base Camp” yourself, CS provides all full-time volunteers and employees “with free housing and meals”. In addition, each full-time staff member “has the opportunity to live abroad for several months of each year at one of our amazing Collective locations while maintaining a home and life in the San Francisco Bay Area”.

If you are the lucky enough to get one of the 14 listed full-time jobs, you will first have to go trough a three month trial period, after which you will be rewarded with “travel tickets, travel expense reimbursements and eventually paid salaries”. However, you will have to consent to your bos(ses) (”supervisors”) and keep yourself to the following social rules, meaning that you shall

- maintain positive references from other surfers or hosts.
- treat your team supervisors and other volunteers with respect.
- follow standards and procedures established by teams you work with.
- follow priorities and objectives established by the team supervisors.
- communicate in a calm and compassionate tone (’thou shalt not flame’).

So what are you waiting for, go and apply for your role! Current (as per 1st of November) “openings” include:

Administrative Assistant; Ambassador Management Coordinator; Database Administrator; Developer, Events Coordinator; Human Resources & Personnel Coordinator; Marketing Coordinator; Member Communications Coordinator & Writer; Safety Systems Coordinator; System Administrator; Gardener / Landscaper; IT Assistant; Trainer, Educator, Coach, or Expert.

Note that there are currently 14 full-time positions available, while there are only 15 people supposed to stay and live in the Couchsurfing Base Camp. At the moment though, according to Matthew, there are already 15 people living there…

No official documentation, except this page:
http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Stealth

When a member get “stealthed” he can’t be found with the CouchSearch but just trough friend links or group links.

If he writes a message, it goes nowehere and it’s never received by its recipient.
Sometimes all his outgoing messages are completely removed.

If someone writes him a message, he doesn’t receive it.

Seems a “nice” way to deactivate an user without deleting it.
Of course the user is not notified at all of the decision taken about him.
It’s always the “polite” American culture, like in facebook, notifying a friend add but not a friend removal.

It doesn’t seem a very transparent feature of CS.
It’s a quite funny feature too, once there were two guys (a guest and a host), both logged in CouchSurfing on two different computers in the host’s house and one was able to find the other’s profile but not vice-versa. :))

Overall, seems that there is not a clear process of who, how and for what should be stealthed.
I doubt it is ruled by “CS safety team” by personal evaluations, prone to prejudices and nepotism.

And, in my opinion, not a good service to the CS community, “hiding” members.

Did anyone know something more about it?

A good day!

littleseed

With hesitation I take on the task of writing a summary with my view on legal and financial issues, because I’d rather do something more pleasant on this public holiday in Germany. I’ll try to be brief, and I won’t bother with lots of links to documents I’ll mention. If you want to see them in the original, and check whether you agree with my assessment, please ask the management to publish them, and not me. They have them all, and most are public information by law.

What does 501(c)(3) mean?

The term 501(c)(3) relates to a clause in US tax law which gives federal tax exemption to certain organisations, both charitable and non-charitable (eg certain types of family trust funds which serve as a tax shelter for private wealth). Having 501(c)(3) status does not automatically mean the organisation is a charity. But if a charity wants federal tax exemption, and especially if it wants the ability to issue tax deductible donation certificates to US tax payers, or if it wants public funds (grants), it needs 501(c)(3) status. That status requires the organisation to file annual reports, including full financial statements on a form called ‘990’, to the US tax authorities (IRS), and to publish those reports and a number of other legal documents (on a web site, or in print, and send a copy on request). The status also imposes a number of rules on how the funds are used. Charity status does not change the private nature of an organisation, but in fact puts its funds under public supervision.

What is Couchsurfing’s legal status?

It was registered under the name “Couchsurfing International Inc” on 02 April 2003 by Casey Fenton, with four hired straw men as fellow incorporators to make up the legally required number, in the form of a Non-Profit corporation in the US state of New Hampshire. He was sole director and officer at least until 28 January 2007. Non-Profit does not automatically equal charity. Primarily it means that the corporation does not distribute any profits as dividends to its owners or share holders. It can, however, make profits and accumulate them, and if one wants money out of it, one has to pay oneself salaries, in addition to expenses. That’s what Casey Fenton started doing in 2005.

Was Couchsurfing a charity from the start?

That remains a little unclear. The original incorporating document, the Articles of Association, dated and signed March 2003, allow “charitable, religious, educational and scientific purposes” or purposes according to 501(c)(3), which is wider than just saying “charitable”.

One concern, however, is that none of those dedications of the corporation’s income or assets are stated with the qualification “irrevocable”. It may therefore be possible in future to change the purpose of the corporation, or indeed change its status from Non-Profit to For-Profit altogether.

Another concern is that Casey Fenton did not register the organisation as charity immediately with the Attorney General, as required by New Hampshire law, thereby avoiding certain filing and reporting duties, similar to those that come with 501(c)(3) status. As a result the organisation succeeded from April 2003 until November 2007 to keep secret from all members such documents that have to be filed with the Attorney General, and are public information by law, especially the corporate bye-laws, and the annual and full financial reports. This breached the law, and an investigation by the Department of Justice in New Hampshire is still pending, which might still result in the organisation and individuals being fined. In other words: Couchsurfing may, or may not, have been designed as a charity from the start, but unfortunately for several years it certainly did not behave like one. The general understanding in the community initially was that it’s Casey Fenton’s private company; he could do with it what he wanted; and it seems that he did for a long time.

How did Couchsurfing finally get on the official list of charities?

Following discussions in the community it seemed clear around September 2007 that Couchsurfing either indeed was a charity, but had breached charity law by not registering, or it was not a charity, in which case soliciting donations might have been fraudulent. As the management remained unresponsive to urgent questions, a complaint was placed before the Attorney General of New Hampshire on 05 November 2007, with a final warning and advice to the management to try and get their act together now.

On 14 November 2007 the Attorney General then received the registration and reports for 2003 to 2006. As a result Couchsurfing was then added to the official list of registered charities in New Hampshire, despite some remaining concerns. This has for instance made it possible for attendees of the Alaska collective to obtain volunteers’ visa or the US, whereas the earlier collective in Thailand still largely relied on volunteers taking the risk of breaking the local law and entering on tourists’ visa.

What are the remaining legal concerns?

At the time of filing on 14 November 2007 Casey Fenton was President (chairing the board of directors) and paid employee at the same time, and there is no indication that the situation has changed since. New Hampshire law expressly forbids that. As a result his employment contract may be nil and void, and the organisation may be entitled to reimbursement for all or part of the salaries paid to him.

From the time of incorporation until at least the middle of 2007 Couchsurfing did not have the legally required minimum of five members on its board of directors, for at least until the end of 2005 Casey Fenton remaining sole director and officer. This may mean that legal decisions and contracts from those years may be invalid, with all sorts of unforeseeable consequences. It may also cast additional doubts on the validity of Casey Fenton’s employment contract, if it was entered into by him as sole director contracting with himself as employee, which may also have violated legal “conflict of interest” rules.

Some of the documents filed on 14 November 2007 (under penalty of perjury) appear to be materially false or backdated, especially the full corporate bye-laws, “conflict of interest policy” documents signed by directors and officers, and the listings of directors for 2003 to 2006. The filed documents may create the wrong impression as if a full, legally composed board of directors had been in office throughout, and may disguise the facts leading to concerns about Casey Fenton’s employment especially. The other current four members of the board of directors have been made aware that they have been listed as serving during years when they were in fact not, and they appear to condone this, which may, if any of the above mentioned constitutes a criminal offence, in itself be a criminal conspiracy in that context.

What is the history of the 501(c)(3) application?

Even before incorporation, from at least 11 February 2003 to at least 15 July 2004, Casey Fenton stated on the web site that Couchsurfing was “a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Company”, when there is no evidence that an application had ever been filed, let alone approved, at that time. The management have never responded to questions about this with an explanation. (Incidentally this also shows that the company’s name was used at least two months before incorporation, which may constitute fraud.)

Amongst all subsequent statements are these: On 27 January 2007 Casey Fenton states: “We are in the process of moving to 501c3 and hope to do so in the next couple months”. On 13 April 2007 he stated: “We are filing for 501c3 status practically tomorrow”.

The management stated on 24 November 2007 that the application was filed. On 28 April 2008 General Manager Matthew Brauer stated he had to “Edit supplemental statements for our 501c3 application”. Today, 03 October 2008, ‘desaparecida’ states in the Brainstorm group: “CouchSurfing has been asked for more information and additional papers … at least twice … This is what I heard in July in an informal talk”.

The above mentioned concerns held on state level may very well adversely affect the result of the application for 501(c)(3) status. Reversely, a failure of the 501(c)(3) application may ultimately affect the organisation’s status in New Hampshire.

Will Couchsurfing always stay a charity?

So far there is no guarantee for that. As already mentioned, the purpose of the corporation, or even its non-profit status could possibly still be changed. The discussion in the community has therefore come forward with the suggestion to introduce the word “irrevocable” into the ‘dedication of assets’ clause in the corporate bye-laws. This would simply require a documented resolution by the board of directors, but unfortunately this has not found any response from the management.

Once the 501(c)(3) status is obtained this may change, but that will depend on the precise nature of the application, and the particular sub-case of 501(c)(3) exemption. It is unfortunate that the management refuse to publish the application, which may lay all doubts to rest, and would enable the community to add their expertise and help. However, the organisation is legally only obliged to publish the application once it has been approved. This means that if the application remains unsuccessful, they will never be legally obliged to publish it, so that it may never become transparent why it was rejected.

If the organisation has applied for genuine charity status according to 501(c)(3), then everything is fine. If it has made use of one of the other options of tax exempt status, that may in theory be given back voluntarily in future, and the organisation could still be changed into a commercial enterprise. However, at that point all tax benefits received so far would have to be repaid. Practically speaking the crucial point after receiving 501(c)(3) status would probably be when they start issuing tax deductible donation certificates to US tax payers; from that time it may well be impractical and too expensive to try and get out of tax exempt status again. This is the reason for some sceptics to fear that the management may not earnestly want the tax exempt status.

What about the financial statements on the web site?

Couchsurfing has published skeleton financial statements on its web site since 2004. Despite promises to have them independently audited, they remain unaudited. No budget forecasts are published, despite Casey Fenton’s statement on 15 June 2007: “we hope to have ready before mid July … our budget forecast for 2008”.

The published statements only show income and expenditure, and omit all assets and liabilities accounts. This raises the concern whether the substantial amounts of accumulated funds have in actual fact been held in corporate bank accounts at all times, or whether irregular personal “loans” have been made, which are expressly forbidden by New Hampshire law. These concerns are aggravated by comparatively low figures for interest income being shown, given the total of funds that should have been in bank accounts over time. It was communicated in May 2008, as an achievement resulting from the General Manager’s presence at the collective in Thailand (sic!), that a higher interest bearing savings account had been set up in the US.

So far the organisation is under no legal obligation to publish financial accounts themselves, although they have to file the information with the charity regulators, and it is public by law (meaning: everybody can ask the Department of Justice in New Hampshire for a copy), so those listings on the web site are voluntary. However, the figures on the web site are incorrect and often don’t match the figures in the official filings. Whilst there are no significant deviations, accountancy is supposed to be an exact science, and any irregularity, however small, is cause for concern.

What information is public by law and how to get it?

Couchsurfing has to file annual reports and full financial statements for the previous calendar year by 15 May of each year. As already mentioned, according to New Hampshire law they have no obligation to publish those themselves, but the information is public by law, and everybody can request a copy from the Department of Justice in New Hampshire. This includes the documents submitted for registration, especially the corporate bye-laws.

Should 501(c)(3) tax exempt be granted, similar reporting duties will apply, and the report to the federal tax authorities can then just be copied to the state agencies. One important difference will be that then the organisation itself will have the duty to publish, and everybody can ask the organisation for a copy. Once the status is given this will, as mentioned above, also include the full initial application.

At the moment Couchsurfing appears to be complying with the legal minimum requirements for disclosure of public information. Publishing skeleton financial statements without being required to may see as if they went above and beyond the minimum requirements, but that is not really the case, as the published figures are wrong. However, in the world of charities, voluntary and non-government organisations it is generally seen as good practice to be forthcoming and cooperative in disclosing information in which there is a justified public interest.

Conclusion

It would be in the interest of building trust and stability in the community if the management changed its policy from doing the minimum required by law to doing the maximum permitted by law. For an organisation with the core purpose of running a web site there really is no excuse for not having all the information on there.

As there seems to be a policy of ignoring discussions in the groups, and insisting on submitting all “questions” through ‘Contact Us Questions’, I will submit a copy of this posting in that way, stating that I would like a response to all issues raised, and I will post here any response I will receive.

And now I need a drink. Sorry for the length. ;-P

The base-camp was already announced in the latest post of the CS Alaska Collective. “Currently, our very talented scout, Pinkfish, who found our dream location in Pai, Thailand, as well as this amazing house in Homer, Alaska, is searching for a living and office space to house fifteen full-time volunteers and staff for the next 12 months in the San Francisco Bay Area, California.”

What a surprise to read though that the Base Camp is already there, while it was clearly communicated on August the 20th that “before we move in, we’ll post the available volunteer roles at Base Camp and at the next Collective that will most likely begin in November. Maybe one of these roles has your name on it!”

- No.

A lot of the stuff BW is based on (money, texts, layout - see above) was taken away from HC and HC volunteers who worked on it for a long time without their permission. We will try to bring this stuff home and reunite the community. Since BW advertises having a “democratic” setup we will happily work together with them using this framework for the best of the community in our reunification efforts. And you can help us! Here’s how Project “Reuniting the Community” works:

Texts and code are copied, not taken away.    And above all, they should be copied if people want to copy them.
Money can’t be taken away from a non-existing organization.
I love the idea of reuniting the Community.

Phase 1: Right now, we are encouraging active HC volunteers to join BeVolunteer as “members”. BV currently has 45 members (see the irony of calling a network run by 45 people “democratic”?), a few of them are absolutely dedicated to HC. You have to jump through a few loops to be accepted by their “Board of directors” as a member, but the fun should be worth it. Basically, you just have to be an “active volunteer”, so just edit around the wiki a bit, join some of the many many discussions in their Forums, or translate a few sentences. Once you are a member, just let us know. We will reimburse you for any “membership fees” you have to pay to BV once the project has succeeded.

There are no membership fees, not even to become a member of the BoD.
Democracy is not a black and white question, but to me it’s a network ran by a single person is the least ideal form (i.e. HC).

Phase 2: We will make sure that HC-friendly people are elected to BV’s “Board of Directors” - the 9 people running the show (kind of interesting model of democracy). They could start making sure that links back to HC are added, and BW as organization stops its aggressive attacks on HC.

People’s profiles (like mine) are deleted for links from HC to BW…

Phase 3: The final step will be to reintegrate BW into HC, a simple “General Assembly” decision will be enough for that. Since both will be based on open-source software then, it won’t be too big of a problem. We might even continue to use their officially registered French NGO as the HC-NGO in France. And all will be good
Sounds like fun? Then help us, or get in touch if you need more info and encouragement!

Great, finally an official organization for Hospitality Club!

See openhospitalityclub.org for a 1 page overview of the issues with HC.

http://www.bewelcome.info

The real background about this “democratic, transparent, legal” (sic) network.

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,

It sounds like the game of army which kids play .

“We are the general’s (LT) you are the soldiers(ambassadors) you need to protect the our turf (the world).”

Ambassadors are CouchSurfing members who have applied for a special role within our community. The role of the Ambassadors is to be of service to CouchSurfing members and to be of service to the global community.

These are individuals to whom you wont n give a second glance . Either they are normal noobs or low down losers who have messed up lives.

So what we have is a game of army .Where the kids form virtual hierarchies LT, Global ambassador,Country ambassadors,United Nations , President of the US of A.

The games is still not old as people still love those virtual badges. Though we see the playground fist fights all the time . The supporters of the generals ie the playground bullies ULF and the new kids on the block trent collins (stating those mark his turf).And the other kids who still want to play the game and some calling out “NO FAIR !”

But this game is taken to another level .Where the kids who play General take away the lunch money of the other kids and have fun with it. The bullies show the other kids they cant get their money back and have to still play ball.

Now the kids playing general need to justify to the other kids why they are eating ice cream with the other kids money.The kids on top have to be smarter than the other kids and think fast. So they come up with “we are holding a collective to make the world a better place for you and me “. The other kids buy the story .

The lunch money is gone!! The local communities are poorer with out those funds which could have set up local center all over the world. But as control of turf is essential to the well-being of the gang this will never happen.

Researchers agree that most gangs share certain characteristics. Although there are exceptions, gangs tend to develop along racial and ethnic lines, and are typically 90 percent male . Gang members often display

their membership through distinctive styles of dress ,symbols –their “colors”–and through specific activities and patterns of behavior. In addition, gangs almost universally show strong loyalty to their neighborhood, but the primary attraction of gangs is their ability to respond to needs that are not otherwise being met gang membership gives youth a sense of belonging and becomes a major source of identity for its members. In turn,gang membership affords youth a sense of power and control, and gang activities become an outlet the control of turf is essential to the well-being of the gang, which often will use pressure tactice to control both its territory and members (NDA).

Patrick Ralph Crossman April 22nd, 2008

I just want to let you know that I have just made a substantial and detailed post in the global ambassador group (which includes the LT) in an effort to start a discussion on the member and volunteer issues we have, and the serious discontent going on within our community and hopefully to determine what we can do to move forward together.

I spoke with Casey for an hour today. Rest assured that steps are being taken in the right direction. I am doing my best. Stay tuned.

Patrick Ralph Crossman April 24th, 2008

Working on it. Trust me We are moving forward one step at a time.

The simple answer: he(Casey Fenton) is very busy with his responsibilities. It’s not about being above communicating with ordinary users. It’s about focusing

Patrick Ralph Crossman on 22 June 2008

Casey actually just emailed me a few days ago to arrange a chat about something in particular. But I don’t know exactly what it is yet. Us connecting is a little difficult because we have to work around a seventeen-hour time difference as well as my 9-5 work schedule and tendency to travel on the weekends! I was at a CS rafting get together in the north this past weekend. That was a blast!

For simplicity purposes, could you please clarify specifically which question you are referring to: “can you answer okijibawa’s question as promised”…?

I really wonder what Patrick was talking to casey about or what his post was in the global ambassadors group.When he does not even know why he posted on that thread !!

I’ll bet some clever bod thought this would stop our mirror blog. Wrong! It’ll take more than a little inconvenience to keep us pirates down. I’m pleased to report, that after a brief outage, the mirror blog is now back in full working order, with full post text.

So if you want to read the blog in your feed reader, subscribe to our feed instead, and get the comments!

We have won the battle, but I suspect this will not be the end of the war. As a Sun Tzu disciple, I have studied the enemy closely. I have anticipated their next seven moves. Fear not, their incompetence will not stand in the way of democracy and freedom. The pirates wil overcome their foolish attempts to quell free speech. Vive la revolucion!

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.

1. * <1 minute: Nothing else is required.
2. * 1-4 minutes: Requires a “don’t panic” email to key volunteers through the emergency response channel notifying what is going on.
3. * 5-29 minutes: Requires at least 12 hours notice to the Tech Team, the Communications Team and the emergency response channel.
4. * 30-59 minutes: Requires at least one week notice to the Leadership Team (LT) & the Communications Team. A 12 hour notice should be given to the Tech Team and emergency response channel.
5. * 60-240 minutes: Require at least one week notice to the LT for approval. Communicate the same as 30-60 mins.
6. * >240 minutes: To be avoided at all cost. Break downtime into 240 minute increments separated by at least 1 week.

]]> http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2008/06/12/couchsurfing-scheduled-downtime-policy/feed/ http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2008/06/10/managing-corporate-sponsorships/ http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2008/06/10/managing-corporate-sponsorships/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 22:03:39 +0000 robino http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/?p=213 Why would CS need someone able “to raise funds of more than $100.000″? Why was Matthew looking for someone with “demonstrated success in negotiating and managing corporate sponsorships” to participate with the collective in Alaska?

The person who got the job, the new Fundraising Guru, wants “to engineer and implement a comprehensive, sustainable fundraising and PR strategy which will enable the CS team to maintain, develop and promote CS, and its services, well into the future, in the most economical and efficient way possible.” Uhm, will CS be sponsored by a travel company soon, or is it just a solo idea that came out of the hood of Matthew? Why would a CS fund-raiser need that specific skill-set?

Regarding finances, check for yourself, the finances of the first quarter of 2008 are available. Salaries are the biggest post on the expenses side. That doesn’t include flights and other costs of Collectives. Less than 10% of the income is used for servers and there was a surplus of almost 60.000 US$.

(note: meals and groceries were bought in Thailand!)

“I take it that back when CS was a more grassroots thing (correct me if i am wrong), all collective volunteers had to find their own way of getting to them. And that all the work was done pro-bono, even those who were working on improving CS on a full-time basis. In such a case, i wouldn’t think it’s fair that there are people on the payroll now, but those who helped cs in the initial startup days don’t get shit for all that they have contributed… “

CS never was very grassroots. PEople (like me) just tried to move it there. Casey has received a 2000 US$ per month salary ever since there was money coming in. It’s always been under control of Casey, and later Casey and his close friends.

I think paying some people is fine. Though, only people who are really needed, e.g. system administration to keep the site up 24/7, and further, let the community decide where their money is used. Whenever there’s a donation, add some checkboxes where you can give options where the money can go after the basics (administrative stuff, server costs, basic legal costs) have been covered (e.g. none, publicity, collectives, salaries for casey’s friends, food and lodging for groupies).

And don’t pay 2000 US$ per month plus expenses plus flights plus food and lodging. During a stay at a Collective it’s extremely easy to not spend more than 300 US$ per month…

Apart from the flights to and away from New Zealand (800 US$) I hitchhiked to the three CouchSrufing collectives I worked at. The laptop I bought to work on CS (1000 US$) broke quickly after I stopped volunteering, because of an extremely ridiculous non-disclosure agreement was “leaked” that does not allow working on any similar project (e.g. Wikitravel or other social networks).

BeWelcome will take time to grow. The BeVolunteer organization is already far ahead of anything else in hospex world in terms of flexibility, transparency and democracy. The software is about to follow. 3500 members is already a large pool of active people to connect with.

And note that BeWelcome now has (alpha stage) functionality where all members can verify members, for free. And it’s ID card or passport verification, not just address verification (which can very easily be falsified).

My idea about couchserfing was that it could be used as a vehicle to do much more than just hospitality exchange for college aged low-budget travelers. With so much money coming in and such a huge community behind it it would be extremely simple to set up much more sharing and society enhancing projects. E.g. a good friend of mine who also attended the New Zealand Collective is setting up groundcrew.us. If it would have been done from the inside of CS it would have been big by now. Though, on the other hand, I’m extremely happy that I didn’t accept Casey’s offer to host Hitchwiki.org with CouchSurfing…

Special congratulations to Thomas Goorden for his election to the BV Board of Directors. I was very gratified to have a voice in this democratic process, and happily voted for Thomas.

Among the accomplishments of the assembly was a new wiki page highlighting the differences between BW/BV and other Hospex networks. It’s worth checking out here.

Making the world a better place?

Yeah!!

They are busy creating A Casey day oops i mean International Couchsurfing Day

This is the brainchild of DJ AJAM from Manchester, United Kingdom

They first planned to hold it on 2nd March which happened to be Caseys birthday.

Promitheus(LT?) from Norwich, United Kingdom

That’s a fun idea!
Hopefully there will be some LT communication soon
stay tuned!

Mattthew Brauer
General Manager

Next year we can all plan ahead more and perhaps try to throw really large events in some big cities, or create a publicity stunt for the press, or who knows what else.

Here’s what I recommend: First, we need to quickly get the word out to the Ambs. . Hopefully they are all reading here, but we should cross post to the other Amb groups (global, country, city, and regional groups). Anyone who’s reading this: please post to whatever group you are in (first check that no one else has already done it).

Please tell the Ambs in these groups to consider throwing an event in their area on June 12th. Or, if they are unable to throw an event themselves, try to find a local member who can do it. Then send out an invitation to the event using this modified version of Derek’s text as an introduction:

Does it make an sense ?

YEah Let’s make a big party !

Reading about the petrock fad

It gives people a few moments of absolutely meaningless pleasure in a troubled world - no small accomplishment.

oh well! Another day of the year with some wierd celebration

February 27 International Polar Bear Day
June 30 Superman’s birthday, Meteor Day
December 27 National Fruitcake Day

Did anyone know that gas prices are up 137$ ?

Global warming?

Save the children?

Peace?

Unfortunately, comments are not allowed on the blog. To be more precise, you must be logged in to comment. But registration of new users is not allowed. So in effect, only those with permission can comment. Let’s hope this will change soon.

However, as a quick alternative, I propose to create a mirror of the blog content, with the same open-comments policy we use here at OpenCS. It’s fairly trivial to set up, and would allow open debate on each post. What do you think? Please provide a +1 or -1 in your comment if you think it’s a good or bad idea.

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!

My idea is to offer people a way to support CouchSurfing financially, while also supporting the ideals of OpenCouchSurfing. That’s the basic premise.

I think it could work as follows. We create one or more funds or trusts. These funds are clearly constituted. They exist to support the work of CouchSurfing, within certain conditions. Rather like the government supports universities in the UK, but the money comes with requirements. The universities must behave in a certain way to be eligible for the cash.

A simple example might be server costs. We could create a fund to pay for CouchSurfing’s server costs. So long as CouchSurfing International Inc submits invoices for these costs, the fund would reimburse the expenses. This is just a simple example.

The underlying concept is to give members a way to financially support CouchSurfing, while still upholding the principles of OpenCouchSurfing.

We could also provide a mechanism for members to display and verify their donations. For example, images which could be inserted into the user’s profile, showing how much that user has donated. This might help to spread the message amongst members. In effect, we would be creating an alternative to the CouchSurfing verification system.

This is very much an idea right now. It needs considerable research and discussion before being implemented. Please share your thoughts at this early stage. Can you see merit in the concept? Would you be willing to donate money through such a framework? All feedback will be appreciated.

This is not a report, this is a “shut the fuck up” list. What this list tells me is: “LOOK! We’ve done A LOT! Leave us alone!” Doogies (a CSCT participant) sums it up best in one of his comments on this site:

You wanted to know everything we did in Thailand so you get a document with more than 500 achievements we accomplished there for couchsurfing.

More than 500 achievements! Wow! Unfortunately, I find it clearly symptomatic of a miserable professional result. I’ve seen this approach before: Whenever a large project failure had to be covered up. Been there, done that myself. It’s a sleight of hand technique: By pointing at a huge, unreadable and almost entirely unverifiable list of statements, they are hoping to hoodwink the CS donation base that all that money is serving a purpose and probably to fool themselves in the process. The person responsible for this style of writing is Mandie, showing us again how incompetent she is at what she does. Hold this report up to the standard of any serious non-profit organization and it just becomes sad. This is not a report, it’s a hastily thrown together list of things people could still remember doing.

There is plenty to learn from the report though. In general, it appears that the largest part of the participants has been busy analyzing and communicating. Also, tech has been very busy, probably the most productive team overall (this has always been the case in CS). If anyone seems to have done anything, it’s clearly the programmers. We’ll see how well it all holds up in the summer.

Things that I noticed right away:

• Jim Stone is a scary control freak, which we already knew from the way he bullied everyone in the CS Wiki. Look at what occupies him:
  • ” A reminder system to let people know they should update any reference that has been identified as violating our terms of use.”
  • “References are no longer completely deleted when removed, just hidden for safety concerns. We also know who deleted it, what the reference said, and when it was deleted.”
  • “Deleted Images: The safety team can easily delete images from accounts that are deemed inappropriate. The member is also emailed to let them know with instructions on what they can do next.”
  • “Refined a tool that more easily identifies real spammers and harmful users and doesn’t temporarily falsely identify members as being spammers as often now.”
  • “Deleted posts: every post that’s been deleted, why it was deleted, who did it, when, and ability to reactivate it with one click.” (I’d love to see this list of “whys” sometime.)
• Rachel is a one-stop CS police force: “Directly handled several member disputes.” She obviously doesn’t need to report to anyone, because obviously every communication is an achievement and a report of Rachel’s activities simply isn’t listed.
• Speaking of communication, Mandie thinks this is an achievement: “Email to ambassadors explaining website downtime.” My god. An email. The “report” is full of nonsense entries like that.

But all that is just fun and games. It clearly wasn’t edited anymore than the average OCS post (this says enough), providing hours of entertainment. Meetings are NOT achievements, neither are writing emails, calling people or “Finding a suitable caterer and arranging for daily delivery of food.” (Obviously nobody felt like cooking in a country with such a low wage scale.) Who cares about the “bi-weekly shopping trip”? Or what about ” Administered half-way point evaluation meeting with House Manger.”? That one was from Matthew Brauer, who has a truly sad list of achievements and still can’t spell his name right. (What the hell is it with using nicknames in an “official” report anyway?)

But what is really interesting is what is missing:

• Where is all this generated material being kept? Things like “plan for Alaska Collective including budget, roles, objective and location”, “desired skills sets for volunteers in team”, “‘Core concepts’ to help uncover and articulate what CouchSurfing is about, not about, what its mission is.”, etc etc. The server team doesn’t mention installing a document repository and the Wiki has been shot down Jim Stone style. So, unless I’m mistaken (no way to verify unless Doogie could come out his tower to enlighten us), all these wonderful documents either don’t exist or are sitting in someones harddrive or mailbox. Either way, that will mean 90% of “work done” will be tossed away again for the next collective, like it has happened 2 times already. Remember the huge “organizational chart” that was created before CSCNZ? Exactly. CS management = the way of the Dodo.
• There is absolutely NO mention of 501c3 status. None. Let me repeat that: the entire 501c3 process is completely absent from this report, even though it was in quite a few announcements. What happened guys? Didn’t you work on it or is it not an achievement? Or maybe, perhaps, it was a miserable failure?
• There is not one mention of drafting contracts and exactly one reference to legal work:
  “Phased out one-on-one verification on the advice of our legal team: verification now only available through credit card or a verified PayPal account.”
  Right, so all those expenses towards the CS lawyer(s), 14,234$ in 2007, have only resulted in another way to increase profits? It appears nobody had a contract or even insurance (only travel insurance is mentioned), since none of that is mentioned. (Search for: “legal”, “contract” and “insurance”.)
• What the hell is going on with Casey Fenton (who also doesn’t need a last name)? Why doesn’t he have his own personal achievements, like his buddies Matthew or Jim? Why is he mentioned in second place of a team twice? My guess is that they are trying to shield Casey from direct comments on his behind-the-scenes style of control. Who are they kidding? Where has the “leadership team” gone? Where are the board meetings? Who is on the board anyway? Of course, it’s also possible Casey couldn’t be bothered to write down his list of “achievements” and/or Mandie didn’t dare to ask him.
• Did you know CS has a new team in charge? Neither did I. This time, it’s simply called “CouchSurfing Management” and guess who’s in it? Matthew, Casey, Jim and Weston (member since April 15th, 2007). Congratulations guys, you have finally managed to create your little Northern American boys club.

What else do you see missing from the report? What do you think is the funniest “achievement”?

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?

I never thought the denominators for the trust value made a lot of sense for the friendship links on CS (especially when translated, I don’t really know how to best translate “I somewhat trust this person” into my mother tongue). Still, there seems to be a definite trend of linearly (in time) decreasing trust on the Quality of Service page. It would be interesting to compare this to values from before and do a deeper analysis. The “average quality” doesn’t seem to be changing significantly on the other hand, maybe slightly going up? Possibly because it’s actually visible to the receiver.

Joe Edelman wrote the QoS code, and wrote to me:

Wow, that *is* interesting!

So the avg trust is calculated among introductions added in the last
week that are reported as due to CS and in-person. So it’s not because
of virtual users, and it’s