I would love to have a reference section similar to airbnb, where you can’t see the other person’s reference until you’ve both written one, and if you don’t write one then you lose the opportunity.
As a woman on couchsurfing when writing an honest review of a creepy hosts behavior we would often face revenge reviews or further harassment. One time a host was trying to get me to be nude in the home, there was no mention of it on his profile or in any of the reviews. When I left a honest review of his behavior on his profile, he retaliated and wrote a bunch of BS on my profile.
If we had a reference/review feature like airbnb, we could cut down on these acts and create a more safe place to write honest reviews while also cutting down on the creepy behavior.
Although this is how it works on app.couchers.org for host/surf references now, friend references do display as soon as you write them. Should those stay hidden until both parties write one too??
I was also wondering how to write a host reference… but then I noticed that there is a button for writing a reference at the bottom of the request my surfer sent me. Not sure if it appears immediately or after some period of time. I usually write references few days after. I agree it is not very intuitive, my surfer didn’t know how to write me the reference either. I think I read somewhere that there should be (in the future?) reminders for writing references.
It appears at midnight after the surfer leaves.
Actually, all my surfers texted me to ask how to leave a reference, and 2 out of 3 still ended up leaving a friend one because they were confused I hope a reminder (maybe a banner on the dashboard!) is coming soon (@aapeli I’m not grumpy with the devs! :))
I have in my one, but they did not confirm because, due the unusable way that messaging and notifications works on couchers after first request we had all arrangements via direct email (also because they were two so I had to be sure that any message be received by anyone) . so a usual in the other communities I set accepted just together with the message via email, asking to give their confirm calling on the phone, so i could be sure to have the correct phone number (this is a caution that i started after once a person gave me a phone number with one wrong figure, since she was late i called (1930UTC) and the person that answered was in Irkutsk, and was very annoyed about my call.
SO, yes, they did not confirmed on sidte, but I have withnesses that they were here for three days.
Yes, I see. With the current messaging system, the guest has to confirm their stay for the option of references to become available. Then, you have to go to messages > host (or surf) > the specific conversation in order to write a reference…
Kind reminder that Couchers developers are humans, too, and some have been working tirelessly on this project FOR FREE, and have offered it FOR FREE for everyone to try out in its beta version. Please consider being less caustic in your comments.
CS had the same, the stay had to be confirmed on both ends. I would even send reminders because some people didn’t know they had to confirm, too. Usually something like “Hey, once you know for sure that you would like to stay with me, please confirm your stay so I can send you my address and other contact information”. Sending my info after people confirmed always did the trick to ensure that I will be able to write them host references.
On CS the reference remind arrived also if the host has confirmed but guest did not acknowledged it. a confirm on both sides is desirable, but if there have been other contacts often it is just formal .
Also do not forget that, expecially in these times, there is people that want to receive reference only after at least two weeks from the time they had guests.
It’s not very intuitive right now