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Page 5 of 6

Short announcement about a long non-written post

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.

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

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

Scared by OpenCouchSurfing?

I’m sorry to read Doogie posting to be scared of OpenCS. Two short points:

  • Everything you post publicly on the internet will be read by many people. This can be scary, but it’s better to realize this every time you post something. (I don’t even do this myself.)

“I’m sure that if the people behind openCS would visit us for only 1 day they would be so amazed by the work we are doing right now they would  close down their site. I know I would.”

  • Dude, I spent months and months at Collectives. I know how it works and I won’t close down the site. It seems that even people who knew about our critique still become volunteers for CS, and then later quit for the same reasons “we” all quit. This also means that many people don’t even become volunteers for CS because of this site and their effort and time is not wasted on CS.

And I’m sure more points will pop up in the comments…

Casey Fenton needs to go.

Disclaimer: I am not OCS, if the OCS doesn’t like me utilizing their venue, I can perfectly understand them removing this, so go ahead Callum or whoever runs this site ;)

That title works to grab everyones attention. Hello there lazy bums in Thailand, celebrating ineptitude under the sun!

I was thinking how all the work of the motivated volunteers full of ideals and good intention can be saved. The title was my only answer. One thing i have learned is that people dont really change, i dont expect Casey or the majority of his buddies to be different, despite all the visionary leadership.

Why do I point out that people don’t change? Because I am convinced that they would have to change if Couchsurfing is supposed to progress. Couchsurfing as a website and Organization has grown beyond the size that is governable with the attitude and management employed by Casey and his appointed BurningManBeer Buddies. We are dealing with an Organization that is crooked and mismanaged from the Top. Casey might be a nice guy, he might be a good coder, he might even have that MC1R sexyness to get all the good bitches in the pack, but he is about as good as a manager as Paris Hilton is an expert on Quantum Mechanics.

From the Top down, it was all about happiness and fun, NEVER about accountability and results. Casey initially, when first launching cs.com public, already made a claim on how cs is a 501c3 non profit. He either made a false claim, which would make him a liar and crooked person, possibly a felon, since he collected the donations, or an amazingly inept manager. You don’t run an Organization without knowing its legal status, dot! I tend to go with a third option though. He is a hopeless dreamer, who wants to make a 501c3 and heal the world, but gets ahead of reality way too much. This pattern was followed in the whole CS team and Spirit of Organization. Sure, it would be great to have a good manager, but lets settle for someone who COULD be a good manager, such as TTT, but who actually sucks ass since he settles for having a manager title, rather than doing the job, just like Casey and 501c3. On CS, the culture of Vaporware needs to go. The people will not change, so unless they go, Cs will never proceed beyond the Fratboys who would LOVE to be cool, but end up being drunk failures.

They ALL lack the self confidence to critically reflect upon their managerial skills or the apparent lack of. The root of all this is of course, Casey. He appointed Managers who lack the wit and gut to debate with a dissenting community. A dissenting community that actually argues constructively and is kind enough to share all the solutions.

CS, thanks to the pressure built up by Pickwick, is about to arrive in the cloud of Accountability that is the real world. I hereby Claim that there will be no milestone accomplishment at the Thai Collective, which will make it nothing more than an expensive party for Casey and his equally inept cronies.

You run an Organization and fail to deliver, you go. If Couchsurfing.com is all about buying Caseys’ Burning Man crew 4 Months of sponsored Holidays on the beach along with pussy that would not be available to this elusive group of mediocre men, then Couchsurfing.com is indeed a brilliant success for aforementioned visionary leader and his associates. It would of course make it a racket and scam, morally at least, regardless of how it would be judged by a legal professional.

If Couchsurfing is not a racket and scam but instead an organization with genuinely good intentions, then it is a failure on all accounts. Absolute top-performing professionals in their respective field get alienated or sacked by a management that has possibly not even learned how to spell (project) management. The Couchsurfing Management in its current incarnation is a direct result of Casey Fentons inability to accept superior skill from employees and volunteers. The current management has a track record of rejecting highly skilled employees and outside advice, lacks skill and self confidence along with the inability to accomplish anything themselves.

You guys all need to go. I am glad CS is in the Real World SOON, legally speaking. Casey and friends, you guys talk all the talk, all the time. I have yet to see anyone walk the walk. I invite you to prove me wrong, but you and me, we both know, you fail.

p.s. i invite everyone to personally attack me on my position, preferably somewhere in real life

p.p.s please, since i am so full of shit, be so kind and make a list of all the accomplished managerial successes of the current leadership team, since thats all that it takes to turn my whole posting into a pile of shit. hint: most mangers work 45-50h a week and deliver results correlating to this

CS Corporate Records

Pickwick took the trouble of unearthing CS’s public corporate records. He also wrote a clear preliminary assessment of what he found, but the scans of the original documents could not be attached within the CS forums. I have attached them to this post, pending publication within the domain of couchsurfing.com

Scan of CS corporate records; articles of incorporation; amended bylaws; conflict of interest policy; additional documents

Disclaimer: as far as I was able to determine, publishing copies of these documents does not require consent of the New Hampshire Secretary of State. This post will be removed immediately upon first request, should publication on this website not be in full accordance with legislation.

Pickwick: “Charity status: what Casey didn’t tell”

Pickwick got access to some interesting documents and wrote an interesting analysis of the current legal state of CouchSurfing, as always, displaying a lot of insight and highly readble. I’m happy we have the permission to copy his work.

When Casey wrote to everybody about the application for federal tax exempt status according to Section 501(c)(3) IRS Code, he omitted to mention something:

On 14th November 2007 he filed an application to register Couchsurfing International, Inc. as charity in New Hampshire, including the Articles of Incorporation, Corporate Bye-Laws, and Annual Reports for 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006, with financial statements. The information in those documents is public by law. If enough members write to ask for a copy, it may well turn out to be easiest for the management to finally make it public on the web site. Until all members can read it in detail, and make up their own minds, here are some highlights and comments:

1. It is now clear that for four years running Casey has violated New Hampshire law by not complying with registration, reporting and disclosure duties, and has exposed the organisation to the risk of being prosecuted and fined.

2. Even as of today no Certificate of Registration has yet been issued by the State of New Hampshire, and the application for registration as charity is still pending. There still are areas of concern about which I have been in communication with the Directorate of Charitable Trusts in the New Hampshire Department of Justice.

3. For example: Casey is still a paid employee and presides over the Board of Directors, whereas according to New Hampshire statute RSA 292:6-a “No employee of a charitable nonprofit corporation shall hold the position of chairperson or presiding officer of the board”.

4. For example: Statements about members of the Board of Directors over the course of time are untrue and inconsistent. Even in his application to the Attorney General Casey tries to create the impression as if the corporation had always had the five directors which New Hampshire statute RSA 292:6- requires as minimum figure. The truth is that in the 2005 Non Profit Report, which Casey filed with the Secretary of State of New Hampshire on 24th December 2005, he lists himself as sole director and officer, and still stated this to be the case publicly on 28th January 2007. Two more members were then appointed later in 2007, and listed in the online Policy FAQ. This information was removed from the web site after I mentioned the legal requirement of a minimum of five directors in the groups.

5. It seems that members of the Board of Directors currently are:
Casey Larkin Fenton
Daniel M. Hoffer
Sebastien G. LeTuan
Rachel Dicerbo
Joseph Matthew Brauer
I fail to see what could be so secret about this information that the previous list of directors was completely removed from the web site, and not simply updated by adding the fresh appointments.

6. The company finally has proper corporate bye-laws. The Board of Directors now decide by majority vote, so that Casey can be overruled. So far there was an informal ‘consensus model’ which effectively meant that Casey had a veto.

7. The bye-laws state in Article III Section 2: “Casey Fenton shall serve as a permanent member of the Board of Directors until such time as he voluntarily withdraws or is removed by majority vote of the Board of Directors for just cause.”

8. The corporation now had to adopt a Conflict of Interest Policy which restricts certain insider deals.

9. Instead of using Form 990 (for charities), in 2004, 2005 and 2006 the annual tax returns were filed on Form 1120 (Corporation Income Tax Return), which would be consistent with a non-profit corporation which is NOT a charity. Form 990 is by law “Open to Public Inspection”, Form 1120 is not. The annual tax returns for 2004, 2005 and 2006 now had to be re-filed on the proper form.

10. Matthew T. Whatley is designated as Chief Financial Officer. He is the man Casey thanked profusely for being a “key force” with the 501(c)(3) application, omitting that Matt Whatley is entitled to charge $225/hour for legal services and $125/hour for preparing tax returns. above). Matt Whatley is the man who describes himself as having “elite ninja tax skills” www.taxninja.com/ and who, for his fee, seems to have “mistakenly filed form 1120 instead of 990” because he ‘didn’t know’ better. He is the man who claims to be the corporation’s lawyer, but apparently ‘didn’t know’ what New Hampshire law required. He is the man who is said to have drafted the controversial revisions of the Volunteer/Non Disclosure Agreement (NDA) which have driven numerous key volunteers away.

11. The financial statements to the Attorney General were notarised on 31. October 2007. They are NOT identical with the financial statements on the web site. Whilst there is no large discrepancy in the sums total, hardly any individual figure in the official version matches the published one. Firstly this shows that the book keeping so far seems to have been a farce. Secondly it is hard to understand why the statements on the web site have now remained uncorrected for more than five weeks.

Despite some remaining areas of concern, which will hopefully be clarified soon, I believe great progress has been made overall. The organisation has now come under a certain degree of public supervision which should ensure that the right thing will be done more in future. It is a pity that Casey and his friends still seem to behave like reluctant witnesses, where everything has to be dragged out of them, and they only admit to facts that have already been proven against them. It’s not smart, and it looks suspicious.

Now would be a good time for them to publish all relevant information on the web site.

Reasons for not using CouchSurfing.com

To preserve this information in case of a decision by the CS ‘leadership’ to suspend my profile for having the wrong hairdo or something, and because OCS attracts more readers than my CS profile, what follows is my current list of 10 reasons for not using CouchSurfing.com. It is personal, not exhaustive, and contains little explanation. Still, I hope it will give first-time visitors to this website some kind of overview of all that is wrong with CouchSurfing.com. Comments and additions (and corrections if factually incorrect!) are much appreciated.

  1. The company that owns CouchSurfing.com, CouchSurfing International inc., is privately owned and has Casey Fenton as is its sole owner and director. He holds all power over the company and, consequently, the website. This means that, when push comes to shove,
    1. He cannot be held accountable for how donations are spent
    2. He can sell CouchSurfing.com to whomever and walk away with the dough whenever he gets tired of it
    3. CS users have no of influence whatsoever on anything CS-related
  2. Although incorporated as a not-for-profit, CouchSurfing International inc. is not a charitable organisation. Not-for-profit status only means that the company cannot pay dividend to its owners (i.e. Casey); the company and its assets still are his, and his alone. Casey can do with it whatever he wants, whenever he wants it
    1. In addition, not-for-profit status does give not any kind of guarantee that company assets are not utilised for personal enrichment. For instance, as its sole owner/director, Casey can give out loans to himself or others at zero-interest rates, and use that money privately to make a profit
    2. Such potential abuse of company assets is even easier because CouchSurfing International inc. does not appear genuinely interested in obtaining a “501c3″ tax exemption. Non-profit organisations can easily apply for this designation with the IRS, but it requires compliance with strict disclosure and reporting duties, plus having a board of directors, and Casey doesn’t like that much openness. Therefore, part of user donations is waisted on avoidable tax-paying
    3. Most importantly, CouchSurfing International inc. does not have a clause in its bylaws that irrevocably dedicates company assets to a charitable cause. This means that Casey can always revoke the company’s not-for-profit designation and cash in, by volition but also by necessity (for instance, when he or the company ever get sued for damages)
  3. In clause 5.1 of the Terms of Use, CouchSurfing International inc. claims a virtually unbounded and irrevocable right to use whatever material you decide to upload to its servers for its own purposes, without limiting these in any way. This opens up the road to selling user data, including your contact and site usage details, to third parties. At the same time, CouchSurfing International inc. does not have a published policy detailing how they keep your personal information safe
  4. There are no published protocols how the company deals with users committing crimes (violence, abuse, theft…) that involve other users; instead, these appear to be dealt with in an ad hoc fashion. In addition, it is extremely difficult to find who’s responsible for what when it comes to safety. By being so negligent, CouchSurfing International inc. puts the users of CS at risk
  5. On the whole, CouchSurfing.com scores very poorly on transparency. There are hardly any protocols about anything; there is no full list of people on the payroll of CouchSurfing International inc., information is scattered across countless forums and scores of mailgroups, etc. The current management seems to take no interest whatsoever in even starting to improve this situation
  6. Apart from being fraudfully sollicited (i.e., under the pretext that CS is a charity / non-profit), aspiring volunteers are asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement in which they cede all rights on the material they develop to CouchSurfing International inc.
  7. All known employees of CouchSurfing International inc. (i.e., Casey Fenton, Matthew Brauer, Jim Stone and Weston Hankins, all of whom are members of the Leadership Team) are male caucasian US citizens.
  8. The verification procedure is a blatant scheme for increasing donations. It does not offer any kind of added security, and could be carried out at a fraction of the current fee
  9. What little financial information is available gives cause for suspicion. There are interesting discrepancies between assets and interest gained, and attempts to get this clarified are met with deafening silence
  10. Casey and the other employees of CouchSurfing International inc., as well as the influential volunteers in CouchSurfing.com simply do not respond to any kind of question or criticism at all, while still hammering on CS being a community-thing

The common good

One thing that doesn’t cease to amaze me is the way in which many CS users react to Pickwick’s recent announcement to report the fraudulent actions of CouchSurfing International inc. to the New Hampshire District Attorney. Besides the deafening silence by He Whose Opinion Matters, two kinds of responses are noticeably frequent:

  1. What that you ever did for CouchSurfing.com entitles you to take this kind of action?
  2. What is your interest in harming CouchSurfing.com?

To me these reactions indicate that the community at large does not recognise a crucial difference between civil litigation and criminal prosecution. The former is a legal procedure between two parties, each with their private interests; the latter is between ‘the people’ and whoever harms the public interest.

That’s right, the public interest, and CS users would do good to realise that they are the public here. Just some points for consideration:

  • If you decide to donate a (substantial) amount of money to CouchSurfing because you think it is a charity, only to find out it isn’t because the IRS fines you for illicit tax deductions, your interest is being harmed.
  • If you decide to donate valuable time as a volunteer to CouchSurfing because you think it is a charity, only to find out you’ve made a fool of yourself because you put free slaving on your resume, your interest is being harmed.
  • If Casey decides to sell your user data to a third party for a neat sum, and this party turns out to be a spammer, your interest is being harmed.
  • If you decide to donate code and programming effort to CouchSurfing because you’re an idealist and you believe in its cause, only to find out that Casey sells CouchSurfing International inc. to a large commercial player that turns CS into a paid service, your interest is being harmed.

To return to the responses I started with, it will be clear that the potential harm to the public interest is all the moral entitlement Pickwick needs for his actions. Second, they aren’t even his actions to begin with, let alone they could serve a private interest; if the New Hampshire DA sees sufficient reason to prosecute, they are the public’s actions.

Free Burma!

There are more important things in the world than CouchSurfing (or even OpenCouchSurfing).
I’m sure you won’t blame me for adding support to the peaceful revolution in Burma.


Free Burma!

So long, and thanks for the fish

Also posted in: ambassador’s public

It’s finally time to let go of all my remaining ties to volunteering in CouchSurfing, a few words about the why, if you will…

It wasn’t a bad year (1) In fact, it was a very good year. How often do you get a chance to see the world, settle down a bit in places, work for the things you believe in and meet the people you’ve been craving to meet all your life?

I’m still coming to terms with my feelings of this year, and CS more specifically. There’s a strong component of unjust treatment, and many questions which are to date not answered. I could probably write a book about all this but this will have to wait until a later date (you might want to check here in the near future though ;) (2)

There’s definitely some anger: after all, I started doing CS work after already been burned once in a volunteering setting (3) and for this reason really did not want or need a second similar experience. However, I got one. What makes me angry is not the “wasted time” itself, it’s more the fact that had I known the fundamental attitudes (4, 5) of the leadership a year ago, I would probably not have started volunteering to such an extent – my anger is more directed towards concealing these attitudes (with lack of real communication there was no way of telling what the admins were thinking) rather than having them in the first place – for at least it would have offered an opportunity for me to choose if these were the kinds of people I’d like to work with (or as it seems, for). This by now almost feels like purposeful deception to lure in willing volunteers (6).

There’s also sadness: thinking of what might have been, the possibilities for creating real difference, all in vain. And not because people, the community didn’t want it, they were ready to take CS to the next level, to decentralize (7) along with the mission crafted up after the big crash of 2006 (7, 8 ) to create a better world, one couch at a time. No, it was the attitudes of the leaders, lack of any real communication by them, lack of meaningful, respectful dialogue with the community or even volunteers who are actively striving to make things better that stopped (sometimes even reversed) (9) the momentum of the community to decentralize itself. I also feel sad that this potential of the community was never recognized by those in power and that corporate structures, top-down management and weeding out all possibility to self-organize were seen as the only way to go forward – where’s the space for diversity, more bohemian attitudes towards life and independent thinking that are very present in the spirit of this community?

But there’s (always?) a silver lining: if it wasn’t through CS, it would have probably taken me years longer to find the people I connected and hope to continue working with (some, though by means not all ;) of them here: 10,11) to create a better world, one whatever (Line of code? Guest bed? Idea? Freedom?) at a time!

I’d like to thank all the great people I have worked with and met on my 21st century version of the”Grand Tour” (11). Regardless of my issues with the leaders at the moment, I believe the rest of you are still good people and deserve far more credit and appreciation than what you’re given now.

Finally, just a fair warning from someone who cares about all of you: please keep your eyes open before jumping in the deep end with CS or if you’re there already, and don’t stop asking the questions (13) in case there’s something worrying you…

Goodbye, and happy surfing,
Anu

1. http://anujossain.blogspot.com
2. http://www.opencouchsurfing.com/author/anu/
3. http://anujossain.blogspot.com/2007/09/dj-vu.html
4. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=329495#post332871
5. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=7161&post=329495#post331893
6. http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2007/08/22/follow-the-money/
7. http://www.couchsurfing.com/recovery_page.htm
8. http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/2007/08/23/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-cs-20/
9. http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Idea_to_feature:_lessons_learned (original)
http://www.opencouchsurfing.org/wiki/Idea_to_feature:_lessons_learned (backup)
10. http://www.bevolunteer.org
11. http://www.crashatmine.org
12. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour
13. http://www.couchsurfing.com/group_read.html?gid=429&post=379068