Not content with blocking Kasper from the Wiki for a week, Jim Stone has now made the block indefinite. Furthermore, he has removed sysop (admin) rights from myself, Phauly, Tgoorden, and Calum (not me, another one!).
It seems that Jim wants to keep all the power for himself. No longer will he be sharing his Wiki admin rights with us mere CouchSurfing Corporation Customers, no, no, no. He’s a paid member of staff now, he’s special… 
It’s a little ironic, I was thinking about unblocking Kasper from the Wiki, but I decided it would be better to try and talk it out with Jim. With hindsight, perhaps that was a mistake. Jim apparently ain’t one for talking.
I’ve never really looked into all of this very deeply, but it’s pretty shocking now that I do. The fact that they have a Wiki that is copyrighted demonstrates how willing they are to use willing volunteers and fuck them over afterward.
If it keeps growing like this, it will soon become just another way for travelers to spend money. It’s undermining the whole idea behind hospitality and helping one another.
Do you think it might be beyond saving? Why couldn’t we just start our own network? Is it because it would be hard to pull a userbase away from CS? I think there has to be some way we could do it.
The wiki should be based on Creative Commons, but maybe they never heard of it.
Anyway, its fully understandable Jim has changed some of the Admin/
Only paid Employees should have such access and they need to pay anyone who is an Admin.
Understand CS is a business,. its not a democracy.
http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=892&post=307392
“I am observing the breakdown in communication and decisions that are being made in rather… different than democratic way here.”
KALIMONA
The post is about how Anu was treated.
from http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=892&post=307392
“The structure of the site is simply not democratic, but I cannot say if this is good or bad for the community… however, I noticed that many member perceived it (or hoped for it) to be so. I do not know what to think of these developments, but they are reasons why I have refrained from any voluntary involvement so far (except using the site for hosting, surfing, discussions, making contact).” M_GERLINDE
It turns out that the removal of Anu’s ambassador status was an error. Somebody was testing something and accidentally demoted Anu and themselves. It has now been resolved. I believe Anu has been mistreated in other ways though.
@Zac: You might be interested in BeWelcome or Crash at Mine. BeWelcome is a bit further developed and is legally developed as a democratic organisation. Crash at Mine is much more in it’s infancy but the code is GPL already and easy to get hold of.
The CS user base is enormous, and active. I don’t think it’s feasible or even desirable to lure (all) people away. It’s enough if those who care about freedom and transparency start using BeWelcome. Many active Hospitality Club and CouchSurfing volunteers have already taken this path. Those who want to stay, well, I think it’s good if they stay volunteering for either CS or HC – just to keep the ones that I want to work with (people that care about free licenses, transparency and meritocracy/democracy) away from CS/HC.
Jim, I keep on being amazed by your volunteer coordination[0]:
# 22:49, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:RAH RAH from sysop to (none)
# 22:47, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:PabloBD from sysop to (none)
# 22:44, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Duke from sysop to sysop, bureaucrat
# 22:44, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Bontour from sysop to (none)
# 22:44, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:JoeEdelman from bureaucrat, sysop to (none)
# 22:43, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Gardner from sysop to (none)
# 22:39, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:MatrixPoint from sysop to (none)
# 22:38, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Keithwanders from sysop to (none)
# 22:38, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:July from sysop to (none)
# 22:37, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:Hungrysteve from bureaucrat, sysop to (none)
# 22:37, 24 August 2007 RedCouchGuy (Talk | contribs) changed group membership for User:EricWootton from sysop to (none)
I especially think it’s very wise to promote User:Duke, who has a very impressive list of contributions[1] to the wiki. In fact, he only changed one single byte[2]. But, I guess you forgot someone, Jim[3][4].
[0] http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Special:Log/rights
[1] http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Contributions&target=Duke
[2] http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/wiki/index.php?title=Answers_to_some_common_Contact_Us_Questions&diff=prev&oldid=1968
[3] http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/wiki/index.php?title=Special:Listusers&limit=500&offset=500
[4] http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/User:Metal.lunchbox
I’m constantly amazed by how the actions of the leadership team only further keep enlightening us who is respected in the organization: upgrading wiki access for people who have not shown much, if any wiki skills and enthusiasm at all, and demoting people who became sysops in the first place because they were active and knowledgeable enough.
Well, I guess it’ll be just as fine to start paying someone to be a Wiki volunteer soon enough and block everyone else from editing at all
I know this is a really late reply but I saw a link to my CS wiki user page on here and thought I should ask. Do you mean that he forgot to remove me as sysop? Probably because I don’t ever actually post on this group, so that makes me a sneaky pirate, oops so much for flying under the radar by not posting.