We might put a bit more work into a project brief, to give the best possible orientation to designers that work on the project’s visual identity. We don’t have a working platform so far, but I believe everyone has expectations already that brought them here.
I’d like to propose two specific questions:
What are you expecting from Couchers, that you didn’t or don’t find with Couchsurfing?
What are you expecting from Couchers, that you didn’t or don’t find with BeWelcome and/or Trustroots?
That’s from a blog post 9 yrs ago when they went corporate. It’s not even that now they do make you pay, it’s that they have a track record that makes it practically impossible to trust them about any future decisions or directions.
What I expect contrary to that from a project where I get involved as a volunteer is that it is built with a clear foundational and directional proposition and with transparent decision processes.
What are you expecting from Couchers, that you didn’t or don’t find with BeWelcome and/or Trustroots?
I think I’m expecting exactly what the project proposes: re-establishing local communities. I believe that’s an essential pillar next to individual exchange to cultivate something like a shared culture and values and welcome and onboard new members to it.
Couchsurfing has already everything that I expect from a hospex community, so to your question “What are you expecting from Couchers, that you didn’t or don’t find with Couchsurfing?” my answer is: nothing.
Trustroots, at the moment lacks a reference system and discussion forums. BeWelcome seems to be run by above 50 years old people who refuse to make it evolve but rather prefer to keep things as they are without changing anything. So to your question “What are you expecting from Couchers, that you didn’t or don’t find with BeWelcome and/or Trustroots?” my answer is: a reference system which displays on the same member’s page both the reference written to a specific member and the one received from that specific member (just as it used to be on CS until few years ago), well structured discussion forums and have the current “flagged by community” system removed from the coding of the platform so that a post or thread can be hidden/removed/edited only by the hands of a human moderator not by a “community flagging”, and finally an attitude of the management that shows they are willing to make things evolve fast and not that you guys talk and talk and talk for years about a feature before actually doing something. The ability to make good fast decisions is highly appreciated.
