The past couple of months we’ve tossed around the idea of transitioning the weekly event to a permanent ongoing zoom call. The idea is that anyone around could join whenever they have time or feel like being social/meeting other couchers, and if no one is there, it’s not a big deal for now. We could experiment with this to see if it’s popular or successful, and maybe as a group effort the first few days we do it we could take turns moderating it and discussing how it goes.
When we first started weekly events, there was no other way to meet members of the community and answer their questions about couchers. However, now we have town hall meetings for that. Attendance to online events has been historically low (and it’s not for a lack of members - it’s probably just a sign that people’s schedules are getting less and less predictable).
Ideas we discussed:
- Have a link on the dashboard to join the Zoom call anytime, 24/7, where users can drop by and see if anyone else is around for a chat. Leave it unmoderated but allow for users to report unpleasant user behavior straight to support (added benefit: easily educate or weed out members of the community that don’t understand our community values). Some people said that over time, moderator-like users could emerge as the people most frequently on the call and most vested in keeping it pleasant.
- Potentially have it on just one day a week (like the weekly event, but for an entire 24-hour period). It could also be featured on the Dashboard. It could be something like “Live Chat Tuesday” or whatever. This could be moderated in shifts or again, not at all.
- Whatever we do, the current amount of people on the call should be displayed somehow. People may be more tempted to join if they see the number besides the link, if it’s at all possible.
Does anyone else from the community - especially previously frequent attendees like @Climbatiz, @Aleja, @nolo, @womxn, @phaula, @coboat, @meow, @Push-K, @lenanrt, @Danny, @jay, @darren want to chime in on this?
Personally, I’d probably be on the call a lot, at least at the beginning. I’m free a lot of the day. I don’t know if I’d always participate, but I wouldn’t mind having it on like 4-5 hours per day when I can. I love meeting people! I’d also consider going in for 15 mins or so during our regular Istanbul meetup so that Istanbul can say hi to any passers by 
On the other hand, I’m finding it nigh impossible to be at the scheduled meeting times week to week, and it’s not because I don’t have time… it’s because I don’t have that specific time. I think I’m probably not the only one in that situation!
Anyway, I’m looking forward to other thoughts from the community!