Love and Peace to all.
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
Humm, the horse doesn’t feel dead.
Just came home from a CS event with round about 25 people from all around the world, have 3 couchsurfers (Cannada, Venezuela and Australia) on my 2 couches and just amazing 48 hours behind me. (Ok, they could have been from BW, Servas or whatever aswell – but they are CouchSurfers)
But when I take a look at the CouchSurfingCommunity – eh, it looks dead.
Wrong horse buddy!
But i’m sure you knew that at the ministry of truth. Right?
But while your here tell me something, if you know.
For all the good things that go on in the community, what exactly has CSI done in the last 4 years to help the community and where has the money gone. Surly not just on talent for the web site? You recon CS.com is a modern 2 million bucks website?
What benefit is CSI to the community, basically, other than keeping that poor excuse for a website? The reality is that CSI is in fact a liability to the community, a leach on it, a destructive force, threatening, abusive and violent.
I’d be surprised, Mr Doe, if you are able to reply with such positive spin as your first attempt. You either choose to ignore whats going on or you don’t know.
Try the truth for a change, If your human enough.
John.
I feel I should clarify, in case you are actually a random member, who has found this site, but is still ignorant of the facts. I won’t go in to the facts and instead invite you to browse the other posts on this site from the last half decade, you will also do well from groups on CS such as brainstorming – original and redefined, which cover a longer period.
I do want to stress that I am no stranger to CS. I have experienced more meets, than I can remember, with 3, 4 and 5, times that number. My truck is not with an unvibrant community, far from it. My truck is with the greedy, arrogant, rude, destructive, immature, unprofessional, fraudulent, thieving organisation that has done fuck all for years and still deceives the community into believing that it is a small poor charity and needs more money. Robbing the poor in donations to.the rich. Not to mention the mile after mile of lies that have come from them. It a disgrace!
If you are aware of the.history and post as you did, then you are exactly the sort of people I’m talking about, who know CSI is an abusive organisation in numerous ways, but choose to ignore it, even though it has and continues to cause great suffering for many of the most valuable community members. That’s quite sick really mate!
You are far from alone though, sadly. I have good friends who do the same. This for me is the real problem here. Yes, CSI can do what they like to an extent, but when CS changes people for the worst, this is.when I personally need to take stock of my association with the org and its members alike.
It hurts to take this position, because I also know how good, involvement in the community is. It has not been easy or quick for me to arrive at this point. It is a paradoxical choice of the positivity of the community or the negativity of the corporation. For a long time the positivity, love and closeness of the community out weighed the virtually evil behaviour of CSI. Discovering that many CSers are either ignorant, often willfully, cowards or simply lazy, even when close friends are suffering, is too much.
In my mind, making a better world, involves; raising awareness, educating, informing, communicating, being good to one another. This is normal amongst the community, but seemingly only a last resort for CSI. As well as not exhibiting any of these trates itself, it objects to anyone who does, in regard to CSI; structure, policy, legal status, financials, actions or even its absent charitable projects(well excluding the free flights and beach villas, to give a few hard up Americans a break from the toil of living on a meager wage).
The force that drives the fear is retaliation from CSI, who censor and delete members, without notice, due process or appeal. This influence I do not want in or to affect the positive community or even individuals. Making people frightened, in order for them to do what you want is abhorrent. If you are prepared to allow this in your community, then this is want brings me to the opinion that CS in reality makes the world a darker place and too many members(aka other human beings) into obedient fools.
LnP
Hello Tim,
I am relatively new to CS and I use CS and CS groups a lot, and i feel the CS network/lifestyle is one of the best things that internet brought to my life. It gave me a house, friends and a job in a city where i had no friends and didn’t know the language. For that i’ll be grateful forever, and i think my you understand my enthusiasm because hundred if not thousands of people shared it with you in the past.
Still, it’s obvious after using for a while the website that a lot could be done, that there is a huge waste of human resources (just think of all the threads just left to die because of the lack of a goddamn basic search function) and it’s very sad to realize how extremely difficult it is to understand what is the place to just request any kind of change, or to read what’s going on in the CS headquarters/community, site developement, if there’s any ongoing debate and where is it happening etc etc.
Obviously, being new I don’t know the story of the CS internal debates, opposition to current management, the movement around openCS/CScommunity, its projects, its developement and where are things now.
So you try to make your research, and after wasting time reading endless threads in hidden groups without any real conclusion (and i know it’s extremely difficult to do it in any other way, don’t get me wrong); endless stories about some guy who resigned, then the reaction, and then more endless posts about the reaction to the reaction; after finding on wikipedia a link to a blog about “criticizing everything” (allthatiswrong… doesn’t seem that constructive) with a great, thorough article, you keep reading reading reading but still feel frustrated cause you don’t have any idea about what is going on, if this criticism is having any effect, or if it’s just talk between people with long couchsurfing experience. How do i say “hey people, i want a different CS as well!” ? Where do i read the actions taken against this crappy way of mismanaging money and work?
Well anyway, after a while you end up on this website and what you find? A homepage talking about what you decided in Aug 07 (!!!); a petition that doesn’t work; a google group with posts from 2 years ago; and you saying that the horse is dead, inviting people to find another network, but still here and there criticizing little things like the travel button. I don’t understand this (and i don’t want to criticize you, who i’m sure did your best to improve this amazing community ruled by so narrowly-minded individuals), but I think you still have the responsibility to leave this opposition movement in a decent state.
If i was casey fenton, i would just open this blog from time to time and jerk off, cause any new user like me will get the idea that the opposition to how Cs is managed is composed by just a few resigned long-time users with no more strength left to organize theirselves, and that you let it all go long time ago.
Saying “find new networks” it’s a big defeat. I don’t want to leave CS, i want a better CS, and i’m sad there’s no place to interact with people that have knowledge of how things are. Why is there no group on facebook to express desire for a different way of couchsurfing? Why nobody is ever posting anything on the subject on the Berlin group, probably the second largest in the world?
I mean. I can understand you don’t want to fight windmills anymore…. But you should at least dignify all your past efforts. From the posts made after this one, it’s clear that you still care about and use CS. But still, the whole thing looks dead – just a collection of criticisms, no alternatives, no gatherings, and it’s just a public admission that couchsurfing will be always like this.