Yikes, sorry to hear that you got kicked out of CS. It happened to me as well but I still really love CS. It gave me such amazing friends and experiences.
I am all up for different platforms in the market that compete with CS. I think CS has enjoyed a strong monopoly over the years and it is time that there are similar platforms that offer the same or even better experience.
I am not sure though that it will ruin Couchsurfing though. It has over 15 million users (expect you and I) and I believe in the future it will only going to be strong, unless the CEO of CS screws up again ( I hope he does).
Anyway best of luck Tevlon. Waiting to see your CS clone soon.
Hugh and I would be confident to offer hospitality during Christmas . It would be wonderful to see the website up and running by then, so we could invite people. Iām imagining that Australian interstate borders will be open and that New Zealanders can travel here freely. I think we should should celebrate that.
Actually, NZers and people who have been in NZ for more than 14 days can already come to Australia quarantine free if they have a valid visa! Iām planning to make the trip in February. Even if the product isnāt ready yet, we can still try to me each other and the same goes for everyone else!
For me, itās is going way too slow and thatās a shameā¦ Iām wondering when it will really arrive and if it willā¦
When most of us used CS, the website was minimalist but enough to create a community and be part of the traveling experience.
Just being able to find hosts in places weād like to go, have a little profile so we can have hints on how to contact them and present ourselves is the base for me. It shouldnāt take so long to developā¦
A sexy website with lots of features is really secondary. And as it was said in the beginning, you should keep such minimalist version so we can access the community in really low coverage places with the least bandwidth as possible.
For people who would like to go traveling and meet locals it sounds there is nothing left since monthsā¦ Iām hesitating to pay CS for a year as Iām willing to travel early 2021. It would be great to start promoting a free alternative. Cause it shouldnāt be about money as many interesting people we wish to meet certainly canāt afford it or just wonāt.
So in my opinion a minimalist version should already be out. The important thing is to have a solid back-end with a database we could start filling. The design of the database is not so complicated. It can easily grow with more information (tables) in the next steps when the ārealā version of the website will come. Why waiting building the community and allowing people to meet and help each others?
why would you wipe the test app database?
(Iām a software developer, freelance, Iāve experience in databases and back-ends, if needed I can help. Also for a building a non interactive website, just no vue or react, old school html with a minimum of jsā¦ or building a mobile app but that comes after )
You might be glad to see that we do have a very minimalist version that you can have a poke at, which you can find here. We do update it now and again but much more work is being done separately that we wonāt update through the alpha version. Itāll come as a beta release later on. (btw we likely wonāt be wiping the alpha data).
We arenāt pushing this version though, and our official release will come later. As it stands, something like this has no benefit over the other alternatives apart from the momentum behind it. Weāre not going to wait til we have all the fancy features but thereās a definite middle ground we should reach before a proper release. This includes things like city pages, groups and events that are necessary infrastructure to grow communities. If we go out to the public before this is built, itās going to turn more people away than it brings in, because it wonāt have more substance than all the other alternatives out there and people are sick of platforms without a minimum amount of usability.
I should also stress that in most of the world, we should not be encouraging travel for the time being. Thatās why we want to lead with the community features to get those established which is far less risky
What is the very minimalist version? Iāve only seen https://app.couchers.org/. Will you have 2 versions of the website or just one?
About the release, the most important feature for me would be the city page. Well Iām not exactly sure what you mean by that but I suppose that it is to be able to search hosts by cities.
I donāt understand why we donāt have this already in the alpha version. So we could start experiencing creating requestsā¦ Is the back-end ready for it?
I didnāt try the other alternatives, but even if some are functional with a decent number of people on it (so we could find several couch anywhere in the world), in my opinion, if you release a first version that is simple without more features, it would not turn people away as long as there is visibility on the roadmap and the improvements to come. For me it would be the opposite, it would make clear that Couchers would be the way to go if the communication is there on where the platform will go and when.
So what is your roadmap? first release for May 2021?
Do you still need help for the back-end?
About the traveling in this fucked up sanitary situation, I guess we do not need to encourage people to travel but neither stop them to do it. I believe everyone can make their own decisions and be responsible about it. You can choose to not see people at risk. People at risk can choose life above caution and thus accept to meet peopleā¦ and of course we should all be careful and avoid huge gatherings.
From the comments that some wrote above it seems to me, but maybe I am wrong, that some donāt like You. Me, I really donāt care what otherās think about me so here is my friendly advice: I really believe that if You, or anyone else, manage to create competition is good for the entire hospex āplanetā, is a great idea - competition is always positive for the end-users, monopoly is not. But I also believe that whatever is done out of revenge only hurts more the person who is doing that. Instead, is better to forgive. And only after one has put its heart at peace and overcome the negative feelings that fuels the desire of revenge, when one has a āclean heart and mindā can decide if what wants to accomplish is worth or not.
I and other enthusiastic developers are working hard on the website. Maybe you would like to take a look at it at GitHub: https://github.com/Couchers-org ? I am curious what you think about it.
My preference would be to have the basic functional features such as:
a way to create local events (even if itās a forum like this as an MVP)
profiles
searching function to find a host (just a general list with a search filter function - for specific cities - would be okay at first)
That way people can get on there and start meeting and surfing, which is really the crux of CS.
From there, additional safety features/member ratings/city groups etc can be added in, and then eventually enhancements to make it easier to use.
By keeping it invite only (for now) we can prevent any bad eggs from getting in there, plus itās small enough for now to manually moderate.
I think that OG CSers will be pretty patient and forgiving if itās really basic to start with, but everyone is here to meet, host and surf so if we canāt do that then a beautiful UX isnāt going to be that helpful for starters.
We just enabled public events as a preliminary feature on the forum! We donāt have a location feature for posts on the forum, so for a local event youād need to spell out the location in the title and the post. Itās just an option to get started and weāll remove it as soon as itās available on the app!
About surfing, @womxn already published the very first Couchers.org success story with @anon46748786 and @tieflow! So we can certainly find hosts and surfers on the forum already! After all, we should have a group of most dedicated people on here
You can actually see both a memberās location (if they set it) and contact them right from their user cardsā¦ try clicking @Nolo. I promise to host you if youāe stranded in the Atlantic!
In āhost a sisterā fb group i also offer emergency couch.
I thought this would be great here as well but some of you seem to be really judgmental about people travelling nowā¦ Also when someone for example in fb groups asks for emergency couch we could share link to emergency host posts.
Im still an active host and also i changed my mind about product releace after posting in host a sister. You should make sth even if just basic by the end of the year. Even when not travelling, people now have time to fill their profile and daydream about travelling/checking for future hosts/connecting and forming community.
If you happen to be stranded in austria or daydream about travelling here, dont hesitate to write me
Lol Iām blowing up couchersā forums right nooow. Iām a little excited.
Where are we at with product release? Sorry if this info is already somewhere. On my phone and a lil hard to navigate.
I, for one, would LOVE a product release soon. Anyone else skeptical of this pandemic ā¦ lol or is this community not the place for conspiracy, deep rabbit hole vibes
and the same goes for everyone else!
I think youāve seen the