Things will get worse until they get better?
I got a message from the all-seeing eye of CS, informing me that the reference that has been there for Kasper for, oh, say, half a year now is suddenly inappropriate. It doesn’t say who deems it inappropriate, but I can take a guess. Here’s what it said:
I met Kasper in the NZ collective where he was one of the most active and valuable volunteers there by far. He helped me get started volunteering myself and we’ve kept in touch ever since. Kasper is an upstanding guy, as honest and fair as they come. He does what he says and is morally head-and-shoulders above the people that are running this site (like Jim Stone). He’s an independent thinker and does what he can to make this world a nicer and more free place to live in, even when that goes against “those in power”. I’m lucky to count him as one of my friends.
Now, I’ll leave you two seconds to think about what made this reference “inappropriate”, possibly, perhaps. Ok, kidding, I marked it already. Interestingly, they never tell you exactly what the problem is, you can only change it and then ask: “Is it ok now, please?”
So, I’ll come forward and say this: Jim Stone, if you have anything to do with this, you have just proved my point. Kasper (and pretty much most people I know) are morally head-and-shoulders above the way you handle your affairs. You abuse you idiotic self-appointed powers whenever you feel threatened and think your title entitles you to act in ways that simply nauseate me. I wish I believed in karma.
Welcome to the Couchsurfing police state.
Hm… sounds quite human to me, shame, it would be nice when it would be different.
I didn’t know. It’s rather funny actually. I wonder how many other references are inappropriately marked as inappropriate. I just checked and my reference for Jim is not marked as such. Whatever…
Humm I heard they was a new algorithm written to check if references which are flagged and then checked by the team. fact or fiction
Posted November 27th, 2007 – 3:56 pm by the rachel from New York, United States on the ambassador public group (the only group they are not scared to post on)
Reference reform is a priority right now & will be handled from now until the end of the Thai Collective.
Reference reform? A priority? This oughta be good!
One of my faves was this one reference left by the NZ Collective: “I’m writing my own reference right now. I like me; I’ll admit.”
Now, not only did the NZC manage itself scores of refs but friends, too. And five vouches is not too shabby, either. That CURRENT City Ambassadorship–for a FORMER collection of volunteers–is well deserved, indeed.
(Don’t get me wrong, I love (I do, really, no sarcasm intended) the idea of having a profile dedicated to such causes–especially in posterity–but I love the idea of some integrity to the referencing/vouching/trusting systems much, much more.)
Oh, and a link to the NZC (for those of us that aren’t its? their? her? his? “friend”):
http://www.couchsurfing.com/profile.html?id=1IMGXTP
Sorry guys, my tendency (only tendency because I don’t have enough insight personally and can “only” trust you) goes to agree with opencouchsurfing.
In this case I completely understand though why the comment was inappropriate; because it was used to say smth negative about a third member, furthermore by telling his name.
In my opinion, when you write a reference about somebody, you write a reference about this person and don’t use it to bash a third person; refs still have the role of providing safety for any hosting site and are not meant as a blog, so a negative opinion about a third person (except of course if the third person was directly involved and did smth bad following eg safety) is simply not meant to be written in a reference.
Otherwise the whole references would become a flame war (Jim could write Casey a ref saying “I like Casey and he is much smarter than Kasper Souren”)- and in my opinion that’s not what they are there for.
I hope you get my point; I think smth negative about Jim should be written in a reference about Jim, but I do agree that it’s not appropriate in a reference about Kasper.
As said, I agree with opencouchsurfing, but I disagree on that topic.
Not everything CS volunteers do are part of a conspiration against opencouchsurfing…
Cheers
Michel83