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Ulf Kleinings emails telling people to quit couchsurfing !!

Published by on 03 March 2008 at 12:51 in Censorship, couchsurfing, cult and Culture of Appreciation. 84 Comments Tags: , , .

This is the letter Ulf sent a lot of people with the veiled threats to leave couchsurfing .

In a recent post he writes:

I had actually even tried to “talk” to them in personal CS mails – but that went so utterly wrong that after the replies I got from them I simply knew that I could not talk to them. …That was not what I had become after the pirate’s “raid”. And since they made it clear that they intended to keep up their fights in this very group.

You decide if the content of the email was about “talking”

Any chance to stop our waltz now???

Ok…

 

I really didn’t wanna write this mail. Because I’m almost sure that you don’t want to read this from me anyways (or at least not any more…).
But I might do you wrong on this and perhaps you’d actually like to know what my “anti-campaign” is motivated by – or where I am coming from.

So this is AN OFFER in case you’re actually interested.

If you are not – just don’t read it.
I will not go public (in the groups or elsewhere) ranting about how you not used that try of mine for a dialogue and to clear up each others positions here.

In other words: don’t feel obliged to even read any further but just completely ignore this if you’re already too pissed off by me or what I’ve posted recently – I will not use that against you in any way!

I also must warn you that it will be quite sharply accusing and even a bit angry at times.

And I realize of course that in every management and/or communication seminar in this world you’ll always be told that such a rough tone is probably not the best
way to start a dialog.

Well – then this first step will have to wait just a tiny little bit longer.

For this is not gonna be a psychologically well and cleverly phrased luring you into anything

but instead I will simply be honest and blunt about what I think about your campaign! And since a lot of that angers me personally big time – this here (logically!) has to be a bit angry at times.

So here’s what increasingly annoyed me to the point where I needed to “shoot back” – to have some kind of outlet for my own anger…

It all starts with your (alleged and/or true) motivation(s) that you name for what’s driving you…

Some of you – namely Kasper and Anu – are very honest about how personal anger and disappointments (caused by what you view as betrayals) have been one big
motivation for you:

I do honestly not simply brush this away!
To tell you the truth – I actually have much more sympathy for such motivations than for what the others allege is driving them!

And yet while I do believe you that you feel this way -that

doesn’t necessarily mean that such feelings (and thus your motivations for your campaigning) are really based on actual events but only on what YOU REMEMBER has happened. Only that doesn’t necessarily have to be the facts…

AND by that I do NOT want to say that Kasper and Anu are lying. They might just be remembering things differently than others do.

And the fact that there is more than one person remembering events in the past
exactly the same does not prove anything! It’s in fact usually the quite the opposite! Here’s what usually happens:

one person remembers an event strongly but unfortunately also (at least in parts) wrong. Another person doesn’t remember it that well any more and thus (unconsciously) just follows the first one’s memories, adopts them as his own and thus re-strengthens the
first one in his conviction that things have happened the way he says they have.

There have even been experiments about that in which 2 groups of people were to witness a certain event and then the members of group A had to testify separately what they had seen whereas the members of group B were given time to discuss what they then testified
together. And – guess what! – group B’s one common testimony is usually further away from the truth than some single testimonies from some group A members.

And the other (even more important) difference is that most of group A members (even those whose testimonies were really close to the truth) don’t say they are 100% sure they remember everything correctly – whereas almost all of group B’s member say they are!!!

And that is why I don’t even believe you when you say

you have very good reasons for your fury because Casey and the others betrayed you. I mean, for example, even Kasper once told me that Casey had perhaps never
explicitly guaranteed him that CS will go open-source -

but he says that Casey has (to Kasper’s conviction: intentionally!) let him go on believing that this would happen.

But others have told me that Kasper believed what he wanted to believe and that Casey might have been a tad too diplomatic at this point but has in fact never held out the prospect of making the CS code open-source any time soon.

Which is – of course – just one example. In essence I just mean to say that simply because some of you remember things in a way that shows them as events anyone would feel betrayed or disappointed or annoyed by this doesn’t mean that these things have actually happened this way!

The other motivation(s) anger me even more!

First of all I must admit that I don’t quite believe you (any more – see below) -
but even if I did then this wouldn’t change anything.
Or at least not for the better.

I’m talking of course about those of you who claim that your motivations have nothing to do with personal grudges or anger – let alone hatred – in any way but are purely altruistic.

For you simply want to protect other members from being exploited and sucked out or
in any other way mistreated (betrayed of their donation money or whatever) by the LT.

Your repeated tries to picture yourself as the guiding shepherds who only wanna warn all us blinded sheep about the dangers those bad wolves mean to us.

And – of course – what infuriates me so much about that attitude is (as always) this very overbearingly patronizing.

I doesn’t make a difference if members suggest more and more bans and regulations or TTT
thinks about new censorship tools – or you keep on warning us and “fighting for us” against what endangers us!

All these approaches only show how some members think that
a) the other members need that protection and
b) need it from them! If that is not atad arrogant – then what is?
I on the other hand do of course believe that we “others” are mature and smart enough to care for ourselves.

We don’t need that help – no matter how well you mean it. Actually that constant well-meaning is what sickens me most!

We don’t need to be protected from guys who offer in CS groups to serve a gang of female members for a dinner with nothing but their ties on.

Nor to be protected from being led astray by a

CS members who ask for a little amount to crash his (super equipped) place.

Nor to be protected from posters who may be a bit offensive at times – or
off-topic.

And likewise we can see for ourselves when “our leaders” betray us and when they waste our donated money
AND

what consequences we have to draw from this!

We don’t need you for this and certainly not your ongoing rantings and postings- and now even stronger methods to “open our eyes”. We can care for ourselves – don’t you get this???

But as I’ve said above I even doubt that warning us is really still your main goal. From all you published lately one can’t help but conclude that you’re in fact up to ruin the LT’s reputation – no matter what the costs!

You are not protecting anyone anymore but only desperately trying to rally as many as possible against the people who you now very obviously hate so much!

And this is why the “issues fade”!

I’ve stated in the past where
I disagree with you on the actual issues (e.g. democracy) – and where
I’m on your side (e.g. censorship).
If that could make you feel better I’d have no problems repeating where I
agree with you (even publicly – even if that means that I’m then publicly criticizing the LT!!!).

But my recent posts “against you” were not only NOT really against you personally (of course!) but actually not even against your issues or concerns or points of
criticism either -

but only about your “way” of forcing them on “everybody”.

I do not doubt that you’re convinced (or should I say: still successfully fooling yourself into believing)that your causes are noble.

But how can you – after such a long time – still pretend you’re doing all this
in the name of,
let’s just say: “many” others, when you never get any support from them?
Only 90 people taking that survey!
Even if you don’t view this as 90 out of 325,000
but go with Donna and say 90 out of 1,000 -that’s still less than 1 %!!!

And how many people do post and read on OCS?

And don’t try to fool yourself or anybody else by telling that it’s just (still) too
few people who even know about that little website of yours -
you’ve banged your drums loud and long enough;-)

And if you (eventually) do accept the fact that you are apparently not speaking for the silent masses – then you simply change your chain of arguments by saying that even “only 90 members” have rights and should get some respect and (especially when at least some of them
have volunteered quite a remarkable bit of time and efforts to CS…) some appreciation, too…

But then how can you simply keep ignoring the point that I’ve constantly been trying to make: that giving to those 90 what they want (the financial reports, the answers to all your questions) takes time

which then can not be spent on whatever those other 324.910 members would perhaps prefer to get from the same people who’ll have to take the time to please you 20 or 90 members?

What makes you think that your wishes are more important or of higher value or for what reason ever to be prioritized.

Who is to decide that anyways?
I don’t know what the LT or tech team or other current powers base their decisions on -

but one thing seems very clear to me:

I’d personally rather spend my time on volunteering for something which (I’d believe) as
many surfers as possible will benefit from than on something that (I’d believe) only 90 people are really interested in.

And would even consider that a wise and selfless decision.

Actually what I myself would probably do is spending my volunteering time on what

I’d like to do best – and that would certainly not be to give in to any claims made by the same 20 (or 90 or whatever) people who’s thrown so much mud at me.

Which gets me to the next point – the one that infuriates me most:

your constant and most of the time very unfounded and simply false presumptions,
insinuations and accusations.

And how you use any cheap rhetoric trick to turn whatever you can find into something that’s allegedly supporting your points
- when of course a closer look almost always reveals that it is in fact not!

This email as well as all my recent counter-posts were and are – as I said above -
motivated mainly by my anger about this.

What an irony- you do your thing out of anger about the LT and
I do mine out of anger about you guys! (And you can’t really complain about this when you claim that same right for you!!!)

But reading some of the most recent posts (especially in Anu’s goodbye thread) it looks like you now won’t stop at nothing anymore.

You declare everyone who’s not with you (i.e. basically everybody…) silent
accomplice of a criminal band who uses “your money” to commit crimes!!!

You try set the Thai authorities at us/them/the CSC.

Legal actions against CS are taken in New Hampshire!

And please – spare me the bullshit (and save some dignity for yourself) by not even trying to claim that this is not against CS but only against CS’s LT and
thus even for the benefit of CS for it’s the LT who means the real thread for CS.

You know as well as I do that if taking them down will eventually mean taking CS down.

At least for the time being…
Sure, that would prove your points – for in a democratic and transparent community the downfall of the leaders does not mean the community’s downfall,
too…

But to provoke CS’s end only to prove that you were right – how incredibly sick is that?
And how could you then still pretend that you only wanted to help CS as a community???

This is as retarded as – let’s say – shooting soldiers before they go to Iraq to prevent them from being shot there!

And if it wasn’t you who sent the formal query to the Royal Thai Government and who placed the thoroughly documented formal query about possible Unlawful Charitable Solicitations before the Attorney General of New Hampshire – then why does it sound like you’re all too eager to see what this will lead to?

Ok. That’s why I’m so furious about your campaign and so angrily trying to oppose you!
But now I’d like to take a look on how you think this will go on.

Here’s your current situation as I see it:
You can’t get what you want from the LT
since you cannot force them to give in to you.

You could keep on trying to irritate them so long and so much until they eventually decide to give in to you to stop all that fuss you’re making.

But so far that hasn’t been successful at all – at the contrary:

you claim more communication from the LT – but your constant ranting and mudslinging has only stopped them from even reading the posts in certain groups any more.

That might not be professional but it’s surely very understandable to me!

I think I would do likewise!!

And so instead of getting the LT to respond to any of your matters (how could they if they don’t even read it anymore!!!) -

you’ve actually set more and more”regular” members against you, who were often
initially even with you on some issues (and would still – apart from all the fights over policies and
politics -

like to get to know you in person to have a beer or two or just a good time in any other way…).

So now you have the LT against you (even on very personal levels),

hardly anyone any more behind you and all this in a online community who’s future, as
you are so sure, is so heavily threatened and where donated money is wasted on crap and the security of the members’ data so endangered…

SO WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE???
I know, I know… If your standard reply to that is still (after all I’ve written up to hear) that awkward questions and criticism must not be so easily be to be silenced – then there’s obviously nothing to stop your incredibly unrealistic vanity!

I mean:
Why do you guys think it’s up to you to change CS? Seriously:
Why do you even care at all whether CS is a community where such things are suppressed? Where there is now transparency, no democracy and no criticism tolerated,
… Why does all that concern you?
You can’t stop that – and that’s mainly because practically nobody agrees with you on hardly any of those accusations and concerns and views (any more) -
and thus nobody supports you in this but is only increasingly annoyed by your furious rantings.
And if that all is the case (and how can you still disagree that it is?!?) -

then why don’t you leave that doomed community with it’s rotten leadership and
it’s blindly following members behind? If it’s (in your opinion) that bad – why not spending your expertise and precious time and all for a hospitality exchange network which (in your opinion) is worth it?
Do you really feel all your efforts and motives are appreciated here?

Certainly not by the “powers” but obviously neither by the members – except for the same very, very few people again and again!
Is it perhaps just the money you donated?
I’m sure we could give you that money back!
If it’s the time you spent at the CSC’s -
we could figure out how much you got for that in return (accommodation, food, …) and
then -
should we agree that your work was more worth than that -
could perhaps even pay you some money for your work there…

And then you can go somewhere else and make all the things you’ve learned here (in such a hard way!)count.
By that I mean: make sure that none of those many, many mistakes that (in your opinion) have happened and are still happening on CS will be repeated there.

Think of all the advantages you’d have!

You can plan for a community of several hundreds of thousands of members right from the start.
You can think about all the features and ways of communications and extras and
security issues and possible if not probable future server problems and ways to generate funds

but also at the same time financial reports regularly and how to install some kind of democracy and transparency ALL FROM THE START – before even the 1st member will have joined!

You’ve been part of so many things on CS and (as you’ve posted more than enough) have witnessed so many things that went wrong (in your opinion) -

so you can avoid them on your hospitality network right from the start.

And you’ve met each other!

Technical gurus, law experts, visionary minds, devoted day-by-day
workers! All in that little group of 20 (or 90 or so)!!!

And then -
when you’ve finished all the programming in a few months then you’ll post heavily about that on CS. And -
NO! – they won’t stop you from this!!!
And then if your own network turns out to be really so much better -

since it’s without any of what you’ve criticized about CS – then surely all the CS members
will change over to your network in no time! Granted -by that time that will be a few hundreds of thousands profiles who’d have to be transferred then, with a few hundreds of thousands of friend links and all.
But behind that are a few hundreds of thousands people who can do the job – one profile per person.

And those people then will not even have to be convinced of the general idea of hospitality exchange networks anymore!

And there you’d have achieved your goal! Free all those poor CS’ers from their mean leaders – not by getting rid of the leaders or by changing their old community

but by giving them a new one where everything will be so much better.

Mainly because it’ll be without them dreadful leaders!

Why do you still invest time in posting in the CS groups or your OCS site -

instead of putting all your time and efforts in coding that Casey free vision???

Btw: Should you ever come to Cologne then the first beers are on me;-)
(Only wanna make sure that I’m good friends with the leaders of that new community, too, right from the start;-D)

Maat et jot! / Take care!

Ulf

Is travelling noble? Or: “The Emperor’s New Clothes”

Published by on 27 February 2008 at 22:49 in Uncategorized. 23 Comments

There’s a school of thought, today as in the past, that sees travelling as noble: The more you travel, the better you are as a person. It broadens the mind. It gives you an understanding of other cultures, enhances your emotional, intellectual, and social skills. It’s good for you, and for others, if you travel. Is this true? I would like to suggest a debate. I have many questions, even more doubts, and almost no answers.

Is travelling the new colonialism? Isn’t “travelling” just a luxury concept, restricted to the small percentage of the world population that own the large percentage of the world wealth?

Is it morally justifiable at all to travel for fun, especially to fly, in the face of global warming?

Do we have a duty to “offset” the emissions caused by our travelling, by making a corresponding donation? Or is it cynical to establish a “right to pollute” for those who can afford an offset payment?

When we encounter poverty and suffering where we go, does that give us responsibilities?

Do we change the places we go to? For better, for worse? Can this mean it would be better not to go? At least not to certain places, or in certain ways?

Isn’t hospitality networking ultimately just a way of extending the privileges of those already better off, by making their money go even further? Is the world really going to be “better” because of millions of white, male, heterosexual, not gainfully employed, under 25s, middle class, with higher education, from North America or Europe, visiting the rest of the globe, without spending much money there? Isn’t it really just an exclusive golf club type thing?

Why are 80% of signed up Couchsurfing users from North America or Europe? Why are so many active Couchsurfing users in the rest of the world expatriates from North America or Europe?

What would be necessary to make hospitality networking equally interesting to people from other continents? What are the cross cultural borders that prevent people from other cultures to become equally involved? Can it be that people from other cultures don’t like to talk about themselves that much in their profiles? Can the positive and negative feedback options be contrary to what they are used to? Can the dominance of traditional colonial nations and races just be scary?

What does travelling to the 1st or 2nd world mean for people from the 3rd world (and what about these numbers)? What does it mean to go to a rich place where the legal minimum hourly wage is what you make in a day or week?

I’ll stop here, and open the field for others, to come up with answers, or more questions. In the middle of all political controversy about how to run a show like Couchsurfing, I would really love to have an open debate about the underlying concept of travelling as such. Just one more question:

Is Opencouchsurfing usership possibly even less diverse than Couchsurfing?

;-]

Short announcement about a long non-written post

Published by on 26 February 2008 at 00:35 in Uncategorized. 10 Comments

After the interesting post about “non-violent communication” (and the following discussion), I had another post in mind about the last CSC newsletter titled “Half a million members and only one single voice?”. Guess what? I’ve taken my time to dig into some other stuff and prepare the results to donate it as my voluntary work somewhere else.

Recently I stumbled over a CS profile where the box “How I Participate in CS2″ was filled with:

I help the project by directing everyone I meet to www.bewelcome.org

Sorry for wasting your time.

Proposal: CouchSurfing legal fund

Published by Callum on 25 February 2008 at 19:39 in Casey Fenton, Donations, Finances and pickwick. 19 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I believe CouchSurfing and Casey Fenton have broken, and continue to break, the law. Among other things, I believe that member’s “donations” are being misused. I think this misuse is the clearest breach of the law.

As the membership continues to grow, the potential for abuse also continues to grow. I think this situation must be brought to a head as a matter of urgency.

My proposal is to start a CouchSurfing legal fund. A financial fund where individuals could choose to donate money. That money would be used to pursue legal action against crimes perpetrated by CouchSurfing International Inc and Casey Fenton.

I think a number of issues would need to be addressed prior to any donations being accepted.

  • The constitution of the organisation / fund
  • Who would direct the legal action (I propose Pickwick as a core figure, if he accepts)
  • How lawyers would be appointed to carry out the action
  • Specifically, what action would be taken

Pickwick has diligently researched the legal constitution CouchSurfing. I think this work has made the greatest progress towards the goals of OpenCouchSurfing. I believe this area of work should be financially supported on a larger scale.

To start the ball rolling, I, Callum Macdonald, pledge $100 to this fund. I’ll make the actual donation once the fund is in place.

I warmly invite you to share your opinion, and if you feel appropriate, make a financial pledge. (Dislcaimer, financial pledges will be entirely voluntarily, so any commitment you make here is not legally binding.)

Is the Couchsurfing collective a cult?

Published by on 25 February 2008 at 14:39 in Casey Fenton, Collective, cult, Culture of Appreciation, Transparency and volunteer coordination. 51 Comments

First off: Don’t panic! What I’m trying to investigate is the collective, not the website or the entire CS community. I will try to look at various aspects of the collective in relation to typical cult characteristics, but I will also try and suggest an “antidote”, a way in which certain tendencies could be reverted. Note that I only approach this from a psychological point of view, religion has little to do here (for now). For all you conspiracy nuts out there: I do not believe cults are formed with the intent of forming a cult. I believe they are usually a result of well intentioned, but badly executed social experiments. Lastly, you might not agree that some of the characteristics are bad, which is fine as well of course.

Let us look at the key steps for coercive persuasion typically found in cults.

  1. People are put in physically or emotionally distressing situations.
    As a former participant, I can testify that taking part in a collective is both physically and emotionally draining. Simply put, there are too many people in too little room. Sleeping in the living room, getting too little sleep regularly because of the continuous activity, general lack of truly private moments. Many people in the NZ collective needed a “break” (temporarily move out) because of how stressful is was at times.
    Possible solutions
    Separate the working environment from the living environment. Encourage realistic working hours instead of letting people work into the night. Lower the number of participants to suit the venue.
  2. Their problems are reduced to one simple explanation, which is repeatedly emphasized.
    The simple explanation given in this case is “We’re all together in this monumental task”. CS as an abstract idea is seen as a supremely important goal and anything that stands in its way (criticism, the law, etc) needs to be pushed aside. “Nonviolent communication” (see previous post) is seen as the only reasonable communication style.
    Possible solutions
    Place CS within the larger context of hospitality networks, cooperate with other organizations on a structural level (seminars, shared initiatives, etc). Get outside experts and expertise that does more than promote the party line. Challenge entrenched viewpoints regularly, create a culture of continuous evaluation. Stop using NVC.
  3. They receive unconditional love, acceptance, and attention from the leader.
    I’ll translate a part of a collective participants’ blog (“Doogie”) which I think speaks for itself:
    “The atmosphere is anything but serious or professional. Everyone is more than friendly with each other. At unguarded moment, when you least expect it, you’ll get a heartwarming energy hug or a ‘good work’ pat on the shoulder. It is impossible to be depressed here, because every little dip is countered with the best medicine: a good portion of well meant affection.”
    Possible solutions
    Make rewards realistic and conditional. In essence, compliment someone on a specific job done well, instead of broad emotional rewards. Be a bit more professional, perhaps the constant hugging is not such a good thing?
  4. They get a new identity based on the group.
    The “ideal image” is the Burning Man persona: Carefree, the eternal traveler, unbound by relationships, jobs or anything similar, experimental and spiritual. During my time at the NZ collective I saw more than one “spontaneous dress up party”, where suddenly half of your colleagues are dressed in fur coats, bunny ears, half undressed and in various levels of intoxication.
    Possible solutions
    Keep the party out of the collective. Moderate the dressing up and make sure you have a better age/background mix in your volunteers. How many carefree 30 year old North Americans do you really need? Give some room for the “boring” people. (Note that I don’t really care about what one does in their spare time, but if a group is socially pressured into the same behavior I do object.)
  5. They are subject to entrapment and their access to information is severely controlled.
    As a volunteer, a collective is financially draining (most participants are relatively poor to begin with), which quickly limits your options to staying at the collective constantly (24/7) or quitting altogether. You are bound by a very restrictive NDA, limiting your career possibilities and ability to communicate with the outside world. Criticism is kept off the CS website through social pressure (hence the existence of this website) and criticism is put on par with “hating” (which is pure indoctrination). Again, a lack of real outside expertise (social academics and more experienced people are actively being held outside of the collective). The collective is organized in a very remote location (New Zealand, Thailand), isolating people from their regular social network.
    Possible solutions
    Pay all of the participants or severely limit the duration. Organize it in a much more accessible location (Europe or North America). Kill the NDA. Make critical evaluation a highly accepted and rewarding activity on CS on all levels (instead of repressing it in the “brainstorm” group).

Any other ideas?

Hospitality Club: Violent Communication

Published by on 21 February 2008 at 19:25 in Censorship and Hospitality Club. 53 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I’ve been a member of Hospitality Club since April 2004. I had over 100 positive comments and left about the same number of comments. Then I received this, out of the blue, after not even having logged in for about a month:

Hospitality Club: termination of your membership

Hello grappig,

you seriously abused our rules as outlined on http://rules.hospitalityclub.org, therefore we had to terminate your membership to protect other members and our network.

Greetings,

the Hospitality Club Abuse Team

–
The Hospitality Club
… bringing people together!

http://www.hospitalityclub.org

Rock on Veit!

Nonviolent communication

Published by on 19 February 2008 at 21:10 in Casey Fenton, Culture of Appreciation, Matthew Brauer, Participation and Transparency. 101 Comments

Thailand collective newsletter nr 3 is out. There’s not many real announcements in it, much “we are going to …” or “we are working on …”, but a particular section caught my eye:

Collective Members Learn a New Way to Talk it Out

Communication is crucial, particularly when considering our growing membership. That’s why volunteers at the Collective are devoting their own time to learn from enthusiastic CouchSurfer, Johnny Colden about Nonviolent Communication (NVC). Collective participants who already have training in this communication technique have found it useful not only in CS member relations, but in their personal and professional relationships as well.

Now, this communication technique called “nonviolent communication” is something that some of the old-timers (like Kasper and me) have seen before at the New Zealand collective. To be able to understand CS, it’s good to try and understand this NVC thing.

The term itself is of course sheer marketing genius: You can’t possibly be pro violent communication can you? However, the odd thing is when it is being applied in a situation (like here) where there is absolutely no evidence of “violence”, except when you stretch (and pretty much redefine) the word to mean “angry” or “direct”. If CS has had trouble, physical violence within the organization or amongst volunteers certainly hasn’t been it. In other words, it is a great example of Newspeak. Oddly enough, NVC does endorse (physical) violence as a means of self-defense [3]. The enormous difficulty of defining self-defense is however ignored (something Ghandi was for instance much better aware off).

The origins are pretty ambiguous as well. It was invented by a guy called Marshall Rosenberg, who now has a “center for nonviolent communication” in… San Fransisco. His “supporting research” is mostly based on domination systems in primate communities [1]. That’s right: monkeys. Of course, this completely disregards not so subtle differences like self-awareness and actual language or any effect rational thinking might have. To the point however, the entire theory is based on the notion that we (still) behave like primates, which is a gross generalization at best. There is no scientific research whatsoever of the effectiveness of NVC in daily life, organizations or elsewhere, making it the same type of “theory” as “intelligent design”, which incidentally is also American in origin.

But what is it about? The goal is to “to observe without evaluation, judgement, or analysis”, “to look for feelings behind words that are expressed”, “to look for unmet needs, connected to these feelings; evaluating which needs are not (yet) being met instead of evaluating actions in ‘right’ and ‘wrong’” and “to make a request how another person could enrich life. Essential in this is that the other person is to be left free to honour or decline the request.” [2]
In essence, it promotes a “feeling” based language as opposed to “critical” thinking. Any kind of moral judgment is to be avoided, as is obligation (things you have to do) or any feeling of guilt. In nonviolent communication one would never say “you should” or even feel guilty for an wrongful action. At best, you can have a “sweet bad” feeling [1]. But, let’s listen to this:

They were not ordered around, for the simple reason that if the chief officials had been told what to do in the form of: you must, you have to, that would not have helped matters any. If the person in question does not like what he is doing, the whole works will suffer. We did our best to make everything somehow palatable.

Where that quote came from might shock you: Adolf Eichmann. If you think quoting Nazi’s is over the top, please realize that Rosenberg himself posits NVC as an antidote to certain lingual techniques described by the Nazis. The fact that there actually is quite some overlap in the ways of redefining language is a sad and somehow frightening irony.

Now, to be fair, NVC has supposedly had quite some success in places like Rwanda, Burundi, Serbia and Ireland, essentially in (war) conflict zones. It is easy to see how a non-judgmental language can help in solving such deeply rooted, civilian and truly violent conflicts.

The elephant in the room, the BIG question however is: What is nonviolent communication doing in CS? Why is it being used in an volunteer organization that has absolutely nothing to do with civilian conflict zones? The consequences of using NVC are highly disruptive for any kind of constructive or even pragmatic work. CS and Casey in particular has repeatedly shown an unwillingness to acknowledge mistakes, which allows those mistakes to endure and be repeated indefinitely, simply because feeling guilty is “violent”. Casey (and Matthew Brauer) repeatedly refuse to state an official answer on critical questions, because “every opinion is equal”. CS would much rather let the issues raised here on OCS hang in the air unanswered than to critically self-examine. It has repeatedly chosen an emotional process over rational thinking. (NVC ignores the possibility that rationality and emotions aren’t such separate entities or that they can coexist easily).

Nonviolent communication in the couchsurfing organization is actually “non communication”. NVC is a horribly ill suited way of communicating in an organization such as CS because it is explicitly against critical thinking and badly suited for any kind of self-improvement. It is a system of avoidance, useful only for being able to ignore any guilt or moral judgment.

It is hard to say what came first to CS: NVC or the avoidance culture. But it seems here to stay.

[1] Marshall B. Rosenberg, The Basics of Nonviolent Communication: An Introductory Training, two video-cassettes, Center for Nonviolent Communication, 2001
[2] Nonviolent communication on Wikipedia.
[3] Advanced Training, Day 1, with Marshall Rosenberg, Ph.D., raising your giraffe consciousness, 6 Jan. 2005, Center for Nonviolent Communication, 4 May 2005

As an happy/sad/ironic side-note, it’s typical to see that the guy that gave an NVC presentation in Thailand (Johnny Colden) put as his occupation on CS: “Dream engineer”. Sigh.

A call for disclosure

Published by Callum on 17 February 2008 at 13:06 in Censorship, couchsurfing, Leadership Circle and Transparency. 29 Comments Tags: , , .

I would like to warmly invite anyone who has copies of any of the CS mailing lists, or has access to any of the “closed” groups to publish these copies here, on this site.

I feel that it’s time we started to take direct action to open up these channels of communication. I’m not suggesting we publish the information on this blog, I don’t think it’s the correct vehicle. I’ve started a discussion on how we might publish this information on the Google Groups mailing list. Please join the conversation.

cs-dev-public-disabled: “Simply said, as of now, I am the only member on the board.”

Published by on 15 February 2008 at 23:43 in Uncategorized. 19 Comments

While looking for the exact time that Casey mentioned he was the sole member of directors I found out that cs-dev-public is now cs-dev-public-disabled. I feel that there is a lot of information in there that should be public. Fortunately I still have it among my emails. Here is the specific email I was looking for. Also note how Dan Hoffer (one of the 4 founders) didn’t even know who Matt Whatley was.

Sent Januaary 28th 2007:

from Casey Fenton <Casey@kaseyventon.com>
to Promitheus <subwaywall@yafuuuu.com>,
cc Joe Edelman <joe.edelman@khmail.com>,
Aldo <aldootje@yafuuuuuhooo.com>,
Daniel Hoffer <dmh@dkwdkgoefqffer.com>,
Kasper Souren <kasper.souren@gmail.com>,
csc-nz@googlegroups.com,
cs-dev-public@googlegroups.com,
Duke <dukecancun@ktotemail.com>,
whatley88@ktktkgmale.com,
date Jan 28, 2007 3:06 AM
subject Re: Board of Directors, real decision making process

hide details 1/28/07

 

Reply
 

Simply said, as of now, I am the only member on the board. When we move
to 501c3 there will be several members. We are in the process of moving
to 501c3 and hope to do so in the next couple months. It is a
complicated process that must be done exactly right otherwise the IRS
will reject us.
- Hide quoted text -

Promitheus wrote:
> May i suggest that this discussion is moving to our group?
>
> I don’t see the reason to keep it here ;)
>
>
>
> */Joe Edelman /* wrote:
>
> I think it would be a good idea to have some spending guidelines and a
> small group of people that make financial decisions instead of just
> one.
>
> I will keep talking to Casey about this idea. I’ve put some sample
> spending guidelines (edit away!) on the wiki:
>
> http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Spending_guidelines
>
> –Joe
>
> On 1/28/07, Promitheus wrote:
> > I just don’t know …
> > for the Board seems that Dan knows what he is talking about …
> >
> > about the decision making process … i think we don’t have
> something
> > established!
> >
> >
> > Daniel Hoffer wrote:
> > So far as I know only founders are board members.
> >
> > I don’t know Matt Whatley. So I doubt he is on the board. Who is he?
> >
> > Good question about the decision making process.
> >
> > Dan
> >
> > At 7:38 PM +1300 1/27/07, Kasper Souren wrote:
> > >I have some important questions:
> > >
> > >a) Who is currently on the Board of Directors of the official
> > >organization that is CouchSurfing? I thought it was the “founders”
> > >(i.e. Casey, Leo, Dan, Seb), but apparently Matt Whatley is in the
> > >Board as well. Who else joined? And, are the original members
> still in
> > >the Board?
> > >
> > >b) There have been a lot of questions about the decision making
> > >process. But most of those have been dealing with what I would
> > >consider minor issues. Real issues, such as regarding CouchSurfing
> > >finances and legal situation are much more important. So, who is
> > >deciding on those issues?
> > >
> > >Kasper
> >
> >
> > –
> >
> ______________________________________________________________________
> > d a n i e l h o f f e r ( 4 1 5 ) 9 9 0 – H O F F
> >
> > “He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a
> > man.” — Samuel Johnson
> >
> >
> >
> > ________________________________
> > Looking for earth-friendly autos?
> > Browse Top Cars by “Green Rating” at Yahoo! Autos’ Green Center.
> >
> >
>
>
> –
> J.E. — 413.695.6578 — http://nxhx.org
>
>
> ————————————————————————
> The fish are biting.
> Get more visitors

> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=49679/*http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php?o=US2140&cmp=Yahoo&ctv=Q107Tagline&s=Y&s2=EM&b=50>

> on your site using Yahoo! Search Marketing.

> <http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=49679/*http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/arp/sponsoredsearch_v2.php?o=US2140&cmp=Yahoo&ctv=Q107Tagline&s=Y&s2=EM&b=50>
–
Casey
—————————-
mailto:Casey@KaseyVenton.com

John: “Casey’s style: indirect, manipulative, pulling strings from behind the scenes”

Published by on 15 February 2008 at 23:34 in Casey Fenton, Corpganization and NDA. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

I think almost all of John’s comments deserve to be blog posts on their own. So I’m copying this one over here:

 

“I think it was Matrixpoint who said that Casey really insists that he is not the true leader of CS…”

 

Actually, I don’t know that he ever said this. On the contrary, since I first appeared at the Montreal Collective, and during the following year as a volunteer, I found it very difficult to determine the organizational structure of CS and Casey’s role in it.

Everyone knew that the organizational structure was being revamped as part of CS 2.0, but the only public information I could find was an organizational diagram on the website that showed a central box labeled “Admins and Founders” or the like, months after I left Montreal. I was disturbed to see this for two reasons: 1. the complete lack of detail of the internal structure of this box, and 2. it’s central position, which was in conflict with the agreed upon decentralized organizational structure suggested by the tree model (see the logo of this website) that was created during the Montreal Collective.

There was no particular mention anywhere that Casey was the supreme, unaccountable head of CS. He was only included among the list of 4 founders prominently featured on the website. There were no by-laws to be found. The only information available about the Admins was a brief statement that they were volunteers who helped with important administrative duties involved in running the website. No information about how they got their positions or whether there was a term of office, etc. No information about performance reviews, etc.

As someone who had begun volunteering full-time with the intention of working freely on behalf of the hospitality community for years to come, I sought clarification as to who I was actually working for. I made it clear that my intent was to work for the Community, not for Casey and the Admins unless they were in some way accountable to the Community. Why in the world would I (or anyone) work full time so that Casey and his hand-picked buddies could live it up in exotic locations, unless the Community who provided the support for that had some say in it?

I got no meaningful response to two lengthy requests for information from the Admins beginning in December, 2006. That’s when I started reconsidering my commitment to CS and paying attention to such matters as the NDA (another whole story in itself).

It wasn’t until the following year (in the spring I think) that Casey finally revealed to the developers that he was the sole member of the Board of Directors. (According to Pickwick, Casey’s told a different story to NH government officials).

So, you see, Casey’s style was very indirect. CS 2.0 was supposed to be about members participating in the operation and evolution of CS, and the emphasis was **decentralized** participation. It was “The CouchSurfing Project”, not “Couchsurfing International, Inc., Casey Fenton CEO and sole member of the Board of Directors”. “Do-ocracy” was promoted by at least one of the Admins, and another Admin was generating most of the communication which included a call for member involvement.” No where was it mentioned that these Admins derived all their power from Casey and that he quietly controlled everything with absolute authority. He rarely took a public stand one way or the other, but rather allowed people to form impressions, whether they agreed with his personal agenda or not, that he did nothing to correct.

An example of his indirect style was when he made Chris Burley the new Tech Team leader near the end of the New Zealand Collective. Chris obviously was functioning as Casey’s tool, being used by Casey to shake up the development team (probably due to issues with Joe and Kasper). Chris had very little familiarity with the code or with ongoing initiatives. He only had Casey’s authority backing him up and used it to rule with an iron fist, announcing that no “personal ideologies” would be tolerated and all developer-initiated projects would be put on indefinite hold. (Developers were clearly now to be thought of as order-following employees, but without the pay, not co-participants in a project to make the world a better place.) Casey remained quietly in the background while Chris took most of the heat for Casey’s “house-cleaning”. Chris quietly dropped off the radar by the end of last summer, as if his usefulness as a tool had expired.

What was most disturbing to me about this incident was that not long before this Casey had finally talked with me on the phone (after a 3 month wait) for a few hours and we seemed to have reached a meeting of minds. I explained to him that I would begin no new projects until the NDA was fixed (as he had promised some nine months before). I told him that it was outrageous as it stood. He said nothing in response. But he actually invited me to participate in the formulation of the organizational structure that was in its final stages. I said, yes, I would very much like to be involved. The result of this call was that I felt Casey had heard my concerns and that I now was getting some respect as a full-time volunteer (of more than half a year).

So I was very shocked that Casey appointed Chris, without even consulting me or any of the Tech Team about it, especially since he had the opportunity to discuss it with me on the phone and had given me the impression that he wanted me to be in the loop when it came to organizational issues.

I was even more shocked when I sent him an email saying that although Chris might be a good choice based on his past general contributions (this was before his new personality as a “leader” emerged) but that he didn’t have enough technical knowledge to lead the team, and a least another co-leader who did was needed. Casey never responded to my email.

I was even more shocked when the new organizational structure was announced (completely done in secret), and that what little apparent accountability it seemed to include amounted to nothing.

I was ultimately shocked when the proposed NDA came out (after a year) that was supposed to be the “fixed” version, but it was 10 times worse than the original. It had the feel of the Patriot Act to me. I was utterly uppalled by the mindset that produced it, and by the way this whole drawn-out fiasco was conducted by Casey and his appointed elite.

I certainly felt the trust I had put in Casey as a result of the phone call completely betrayed, and I took the NDA as an indirect message to me that I was no longer wanted as a developer, since I had publicly announced I would no longer begin any new projects if the NDA wasn’t sufficiently fixed.

I would have much preferred that Casey had told me this directly, as I would have preferred that he shake-up the Tech Team himself instead of having a henchman do his dirty work for him.

This is Casey’s style: indirect, manipulative, pulling strings from behind the scenes, while giving a casual, no-worries, laid-back, often non-committal impression in public: a fun guy to party with.

In case any one is wondering whether Casey might have been justified in “cleaning house”, I can say that the 4 core developers made a huge contribution to CS, much more so than Casey, at least in the technical area, for most of the year following the Montreal Collective. (I suspect it was our very success that scared Casey, and threatened his absolute control.) Speaking for myself, the greatest problems I encountered as a volunteer developer were all caused either directly or indirectly by Casey or the Admins due to their arbitrary assertions of power without understanding the situation, extremely poor communication, and poor judgment. Working with the Community, on the other hand, was delightful and I still have those good memories.

John