With C$ going commercial I wouldn’t mind paying for the feature of having my negative references erased immediately. Just like what happens when you leave one for Couch$urfing-founder Casey. This is a message I received from a friend:
If you want to play a funny game, try to leave a negative ref to Casey and its gonna be erased right away! Wow! life is great!
Casey must have been getting a lot of them since the recent announcement of selling our data.
I actually left a negative reference for him in the past. And if I remember correctly it stayed until I removed it myself. But then, we lived and worked together for 30+ days
I feel much less negative about Casey now than I did in 2007 though, so I’m not going to leave him a negative reference now.
They can’t really remove references by anyone who has ever met him. So if you really wanna leave him a negative reference that stays, just go and meet him somewhere.
So if someone leaves a negative reference for Casey, it takes the Safety Team minutes to act and remove the reference.
When a couchsurfer (one of possibly many) is raped by her host, it takes several months (as well as intense media scrutiny) for the Safety Team to act.
“They can’t really remove references by anyone who has ever met him.”
Why not?
I saw a couple of neg references from people that acctualy met him and they have been deleted aswell….
Interesting. Can you give some examples?
Note that it’s not necessarily the MDST that’s deleting references. At least back in 2007 any “admin” (later member of leadership team, later strategy team) was able to delete these references.
Maybe the trick is to leave neutral or even positive references with a negative message?
Seems the shitstorm for C$ isn’t tolerated by the company and they finally adept the HC-way of dealing with critics:
Two removed posts in this thread:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=1085&post=9955720
A post about about removed references (and a copy of some):
http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=1085&post=9966743
(If this thread is removed as well, I’ll post a copy here).
BTW: You can’t report today’s message from our visionary leader as commercial spam from your inbox (like all the other messages). That’s probably a coming up feature for a fee;)
Very interesting. I think this censorship is a very silly move.
BTW, there’s also the cent sign, and I think ¢$ looks even more appropriate :]
Ok, someone send me copies from the missing posts: Basically a member is expressing his disgust with the actual developments at C$ and feels somewhat betrayed by Casey. He/she suggests two diffent things:
* Leave a negative reference for Casey
* Join this protest group: http://www.couchsurfing.org/group.html?gid=45507
The first obviously won’t work, the second could, as the group is
still alive, but from the past we know, C$ likes to concentrate critics in one single group were people can bitch and rant but sooner or later sink into oblivion …
A quick draft: http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/651/finallogo3.png/
MDST response:
“What has been flagged here tho is where references have been left not as a result of a personal interaction but as a result of an action taken by CS. Remember that firstly this isn’t 100% Casey’s decision, its the board’s. 2nd, the action of becoming a bcorp was forced from what I understand, and its done. Leaving references, as much as I can understand it being a means by which to express personal feelings about the action, will not change anything. You all have access to email, email him if you want to discuss, he has offered that as a channel to hear more about it and try and get answers to your Qs. Spend the time you would on a ref in writing an email, you might at least then get an answer, you wont with a ref.” (http://www.couchsurfing.org/group_read.html?gid=1668&post=9968052#gpid9968052)
Reference are there to give an opinion on a fellow CS’ers with whom you have interacted WITH REGARD to his actions as a “normal fellow CS’er” – in other words: his actions when posting in groups, organizing or taking part in events, hosting or surfing.
They are NOT for commenting on a CS’er doing a (voluntary or paid-for) “job” for the CS organization!
That’s because reference shall help you make a decision, whether or not you wanna interact with the ref recipient, too (in group discussion, by meeting at events or by surfing with or hosting him).
Just that – nothing else! Otherwise I could leave a ref for my sister about whether or not she’s a good family person. Or perhaps about a colleague about how he is at work…
Also if they wouldn’t have that rule, then it would not be fair, to let CS’ers (who also “as normal CS’ers” wanna use the community like everybody else) do a job for the organization and thus in doing so potentially becoming a target for neg refs.
> CaseyInc. is practically the antithesis of the real roots of HospEx, that is, trust, sincerity, humility, reciprocity, and gratitude.
yey, ‘the antithesis’ and all the ‘evil’ things CaseyInc. did let to 64,384 real-life introductions (51,254 positive, 106 negative) in the last week (http://www.couchsurfing.org/mission_stats.html). Oh so evil! Oh my gosh! Oh so bad that they used the given chance to meet each other and exchange!
Chill out dudes, CS is just a tool like BW, HC, Tripping and Servas are. As long as they give people the chance to interact and meet, as long as they support me the tools to do so – they all bring people together and the global village a step closer. Leave CS if you don’t agree with them, be happy in as many other hospex sites as you like: as long as you and the people you are interacting with are happy, everything is fine for the world/peace/humanity/soul/me.
(oh sorry, meant to post that on a reply to http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2011/08/25/and-so-it-goes-down/comment-page-1/#comment-362679 – reposted there, please delete this post here admin! thanks and sorry!)
Casey currently has 5 Negative referances. Maybe they are just comming in so fast they can’t keep up?
From Ignacio Duran
Chicago, United States
Aug 28 Only met online
Negative
Initially the impression was positive (great concept, CS) , although several attempts at contacting him personally were unsuccessful (a couple of years ago), showing alienation or estrangement from the base. Now I must say that by turning CS into a B-Corporation it is NEGATIVE, it is a BETRAYAL of our original intentions and agreement. I joined and contributed to CS because of its non-profit nature. You have gone back on your word! It is not morally defensible! I am disappointed!
Daniel In
From Daniel In
Granada, Spain
Aug 28 Only met online
Negative
“I don’t like CS becoming a corporation!”
Youssef Umarzouk
From Youssef Umarzouk
Casablanca, Morocco
Aug 28 Only met online
Negative
hey we dont want couchsurfing to be B corporate, no to capitalism
Teresa Ferreira
From Teresa Ferreira
Brasilia, Brazil
Aug 28 Only met online
Negative
Casey,
I want my money back! We trusted you and you are not a nice person.
I don’t want to give money to a corporation!
Mikołaj Brzeziński
From Mikołaj Brzeziński
Warsaw, Poland
Aug 28 Only met online
Negative
I don’t like CS becoming a corporation!
Another reference that most likely will be deleted pretty soon.
From Feri bácsi aka Uncle Franek
Bordeaux, France
Aug 28 Only met online
I do not like the idea of Mr Fenton using his power to delete the negative references he receives, especially those wo do not go against the Terms of Use (I have read one that was completely factual and certainly not offensive). This behavior makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and doubt about the sincerity of someone who should show the example. That is enough for me not to trust him, and I wouldn’t have him in my house. Anyway, why am I writing this if it has to be most probably deleted in a minute or so?
>>Reference are there to give an opinion on a fellow CS’ers with whom you have interacted WITH REGARD to his actions as a “normal fellow CS’er” – in other words: his actions when posting in groups, organizing or taking part in events, hosting or surfing.<<
So you can now give someone a negative reference because you don't like his or her group posts. Wow.
Note that Casey has over a dozen references from people he has never met or interacted with. They are positive and they stick. What a perversion of the reference system.
Short of meeting Casey, which may be easy when you live in one of the locations he plans to go on his upcoming tour, you could leave him a positive reference with not-so-positive content (since neutrals and negatives get deleted).
FYI All in all, at least 70 Negative references were removed from Casey’s profile during this time, as being inappropriate under the reference guidelines. This would have been 1 in 6 or ~16% of all his references and ~25% of the number of positive ones, had they remained.