As a developer, I’ve had interest in contributing to the website since it started. A major thing that has bothered me and has killed enthusiasm to contribute is the becoming a volunteer process.
The volunteer process demands that I contribute a certain amount of hours weekly, and I have to submit a becoming a volunteer’s application, and I have to do an interview too, and I’ll get some kind volunteer agreement later on… The problem with all of this is, if you are not going to pay me, you can’t really ask me to do these things! 
I’ve contributed many hours to other free software/open source communities, but I was never told how much or how often I have to contribute. In some cases I’ve spent months doing full time volunteer work, because I’ve had the enthusiasm and the time do that, but you can’t ask for me to promise to spend more time in the future!
The way it worked in other communities is, that I start contributing directly, without agreements, expectations, interviews, filling forms, or anything like that. I just do it as a regular user. I start by submitting a small contribution, and if a senior developer likes it, he accepts it and says “thank you”. Then I submit more contributions, and over time, if many of my contributions get accepted, and people see that I can do the job, they start giving me more control of the development process. Basically the becoming a volunteer process is just me doing the work.
So I’m wondering if the current kind of volunteer process that Couchers has is a good idea? Several years ago, I just thought that volunteering for Couchers is just not something for me, but it maybe works for others. Now I see that the website hasn’t improved in any way that I can notice in years!
Do you think that maybe you have to reconsider how volunteering is done here?