Improving Hangouts

I wanna organise a walk to Naples.
If someone want to visit landmarks of the town, i m available to show around the centre.

Hey Mario! Welcome to the forum! I saw you posted this in a different topic, so I moved it here as it pertains to hangouts (and potentially events).

After the Couchers platform is built, you should be able to create a hangout indicating that you want to do a walk around Naples. Alternatively, if you’re planning to walk to naples from somewhere else – you could create an event.

I personally always thought of hangouts as a last-minute thing that is flexible, whereas an event it usually not last-minute and mostly planned-out in advance.

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Just a thought : Hangouts could be made in such a way that people ask (or propose) to join the hangout and the hangout “owner” decides who can join or not their hangout, and once the details of the actual hangout are filled in (time and location) they would be visible only to the people who have been granted access by the hangout owner. It would be compatible with the idea shared earlier to have a 2-step process with a “confirmated” hangout once time and location (+any other mandatory details) have been filled in.

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Hi Guys,

Just joined, think this a great idea. I have read through the posts above and want to expound on Jonas’s post above.

I have been using CS for about 10 years but only really use it for the Hangout function which is great as a primarily solo traveller to meet up with other travellers in the area and explore. I’ve also used it in my hometown when I am missing the travelling feeling to just surround myself with travellers.

The biggest issue I have with hangouts (apart from the horrible notifications and delayed messaging on the app) is the ability as the hangout creator to control the hangout once you start accepting requests which creates a number of issues people have expressed above

I will unashamedly say that I often want to be selective of who and how many people join my hangout as I might be looking for a certain vibe, or not want to have to interact with more than 3 or 4 people.

I won’t go through every issue as some have been touched on in above posts but I believe the below would help solve them and create a better experiance for all.

  • Hangout creator is the only person who can accept requests to join
  • Hangout creator can appoint other admins to the hangout (good for when you are travelling with a friend and you are both trying to organise the hangout together)
  • Allow the hangout creator to invite people in the area to the hangout (CS only lets people request to join)
  • Allow to set for a maximum participants to join a Hangout so people who join have an understanding of the group size the creator is going for
  • Allow to set the hangout to “Open” where anyone can join without request or invite.
  • Allow for clearer indication of the location and time to meet set only by the Hangout creator (map with link to google maps would be good)

Cheers

Ben

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Welcome Ben! Thanks so much for the helpful feedback on hangouts! I like the points you made and agree that the hangouts should be much more customizable and feature-rich than they are currently on CS. I especially like the idea of allowing the creator to set it to “open” so anyone can join without approval. I know I’ve been on hangouts before where we were having so much fun we didn’t even notice someone else had requested to join!

4 Likes

Sorry to hear that. Thank u tho for leaving those 20% for the rest of males. Most of the time I’ve had really good experience walking around, hiking, going for a day trip on a bike etc with females locals or travelers (regardless of age).
Of course there is no perfect recipe for each situation , as for me it’s often a wise choices matter and certain precautions, I do pay attention for profile “reputation” and picture (cuz I would never go for a hike with a “sunset” instead of face on profile).

Unfortunately, despite community efforts to create safe and trustworthy space for everyone, certain negative situations might happen time to time, cuz at the end of the day we never know what is going on in everyone’s head.

My proposal:

Hangouts was activated in 2016 during my travel in Amsterdam I think, I thought it was a great idea, nevertheless thinking in the filosophy of couchsurfing, i see this tool was designed the perfect way to be used for people that doesn’t surf neither host… So CS grow up with many not hosts neither surfers. Hangouts is not nice in this way at all.

Hangouts should be a tool to join a host and a surfer that in that moment of the time could be hosting or surfering, or not, but had already the experience, so they have reviews (reviews that should be created just through host, surf, hangout or creator of events (events also should be created just by hosts and surfers). So a host or surfer that enter to hangouts looking to met visitor in the city, or other host, out of an official event, should be the focus of hangouts.

So; It would be nice to make stronger the community, in the way to encourage to be a host and surfer the world with our community… the limits I propose here in hangouts could help to get e cleaner tool tied to the end of the community that is to be host or surfer.

So the algoritm to try to use hangouts could be active just for surfers and hosts that use the app for this end at least X number of time per year (host or surf).

How to include the people that is not able to be a host in his city and what to create events, or hangout with other hosts and surfers?: Encourage to travel at least to the next city and surf!! (200 km out of your city to don’t hook the algorithm with neighbor friends :stuck_out_tongue: #traveltheworld