Post by High Priestess on Feb 26, 2016 11:45:31 GMT
Olivier François shared on New HOsts Forum Feb 25 2016 (the day that Airbnb was scheduled to close the existing AIrbnb Host Community Groups!)
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-210562
The raising of Lazarus
Here what have been posted on all CC 2 hours ago :
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Groups Closing Update
Hello Everyone,
As previously announced, we have some exciting updates planned for the Community Center - improvements based on the feedback we've been gathering since it launched in November.
Right now, we're focusing on launching these improvements and getting your feedback once you've had the chance to use the new features. After that, we'll turn our attention to closing Groups, which will now be available until April 29.
Thanks.
8 comments•5 likes
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Mizuki
Leah
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Deborah
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Michelle
Michelle9 hours ago
Perhaps the powers that be will see sense and leave these forums alone. Why fix what isn't broken?
Reply Liked 3 likes Delete
C C
C C9 hours ago
Yeah. Just give us search capabilities & you've got it.
Reply Liked 2 likes Delete
Glenn
Glenn9 hours ago
Or perhaps they realized the Community Center is horrible.
Reply Liked 2 replies•4 likes Delete
C C
C C9 hours ago
Ha! Glenn. They need to look alive!
Linda
Linda9 hours ago
Exactly - what a boring design they here there.
Carmen and Jim
Carmen and Jim6 hours ago
Yippee!
Reply Liked 1 like Delete
Deborah
Deborah6 hours ago
Wow! Do any of you feel that Bozo is at the helm?
The Bozo Chronicles!!!
Bozo!!
First Airbnb said these groups would close to us to use as of November 25 2015. Then that was moved back to February 25 2016. Thru this whole time many host organizers of various communities on here have put in many hours in trying to first set up and then move their members offsite. (The amount of work I have done in setting up Globalhosting forum would probably boggle many of your minds --) . Now at the 11th hour, really 11 hours and about 58 minutes, they say oh we were just kidding we will stay open after all until April 29 2016... !!! Does anyone here feel jerked around? Raise your hands or honk your horn if you feel sort of thrown across the room.
I am glad that the powers that be do recognize the value of these communities-- that is a GOOD thing-- and it appears that they also take seriously the feedback they received in their 11th hour survey, (which must have been devastating and led to some ashen faces in high places. ) I am heartened that they will seek to improve the community center-- just wish they would have believed us more with the feedback we have been giving them on it these several months now.
So we have a couple more months at least.
Andrew and I and many others do see the need for an offsite community in any case ( or several such) so I am glad we started Globalhosting forum and we will keep going strong there.
Meanwhile-- we will all be able to continue here until at least the end of April now!
Reply Like 4 replies•5 likes Delete
C C
C C6 hours ago
Yes, Deborah. I feel jerked around. Again.
Olivier François
Olivier François5 hours ago
Mee too Deb! So we spend time to give a lot o feed back during beta times from September to November, nothing done. We spend many time giving feed back from november to now, nothing done. And now they will improve new amenities and depending on feed back they will perhaps make another changes...
Alexina
Alexina4 hours ago
Yeah! What CC and Olivier François said!
Maria and Larry
Maria and Larry2 hours ago
Unbelievable! Are they serious? What a lack of respect from AirBnB.
Nic and Rach
HONK AND BEEP AND THE LOUDEST HONKERS !! when is this screw ups going to stop rather end ? my feed back for them is not to include this group in their plan of getting rid of this community groups, we will be happy here if they can just preserve this one but it's also a good thing to have GHF as a back up in case they come back and say that this group is done..can we file a petition ? not to include this group Deborah ?
Deborah
Thanks Nic for your vote of enthusiasm. I think AIrbnb's plan was not so much to "get rid of groups" as to move us over to new software, but I think one of the key problems in the changes they want, is that they didn't want host moderators/organizers, they wanted an Airbnb run groups. So they are using an independent contractor organization, Standing on Giants, to run and moderate the new groups. That the software is problematic is one issue, but that they are booting out all the host organizers and in effect taking over the host groups may be a bigger problem. So in their new model, that of Standing on Giants Moderators, there is no way for New Hosts Forum as it is to continue, because one of the essences of New Hosts Forum is that it is a group run by hosts for hosts.
One of the other essences is Andrew and Glenn and I and our values and our styles. Then another essence is all you regular contributors and your styles that you bring to support the culture here. So it's a whole culture of all these complex parts, and that cannot be recreated just by calling a group "New to Hosting" (the name of one of the "groups" (actually more a topic bucket) on the Community Center. I don't see how they could preserve New Hosts Forum on the new CC, and I don't see them making any special exemption for this group to live while the 439 other existing host community groups are shut down. I can't see them retaining groups in two places, and also , I can't see them leaving this group and shutting down the other 439 existing host community groups (like ANecdotes, Hosting 911, London Community Hub, all the regional groups) . SEveral of those groups are quite active too and they have a good argument to remain too.
Besides which, even if somehow New Hosts Forum could remain, if this were the only group on these old groups, or one of a much smaller set of groups, just the fact that this group were then existing in a smaller set of groups would likely change the participation dynamic here quite a bit. At the same time, I think it's too bad that the culture we have created here, which I think has very postively contributed to the formation and education of Airbnb hosts, would be dissolved, because I think quite frankly we benefit AIrbnb quite a bit with what we all do here. Hosts aren't benefitted or "brought up" as well by the CC.
Here, one of our values is that we expect hosts to put in some effort when they start out as hosts. We chide them for not putting in some basic effort. We dont' just allow them to come in and expect to be spoon fed. But on the CC, there is too much spoon feeding and hand holding going on, and that is not beneficial for the hosts who get it, nor those who give it, nor for the community witnessing the tedium and boredom of a Help Desk. A Help Desk isn't a host community. I think actually it would be beneficial to Airbnb and to the host community to set up the new groups alongside a new "Help Desk Group" which was staffed by host volunteers. Those who wanted the Help Desk style interaction, where you just go and ask technical questions, and not engage in any other dialogue, could go there -- similar to Airbnb 's program with "expert hosts" who they pay (i think) to help other hosts. Then on the other hand, those hosts who wanted to particpate in community, could go to the other place, where they could be in community and get different responses to their questions that were more engaging of their whole person. So folks could choose where they wanted to go. ANd in order for this to work, I do believe they would need host moderators. Someone like Andrew and I (or Helga, or Queenie and Ted or Raymond and Elaine, or John, or Olivier, and others who have experience and skill here). The host moderators would need to have the ability to work to preserve the culture we have established of expecting new hosts to put in some effort and develop workable house rules, have good boundaries with guests, use good judgement, and some other things we have valued as a host community here. And hosts who would start participating in the forums in ways that were destructive to these values or antithetical to them, would be called out on this. So those are some of my thoughts about this....on this Friday morning the day after the Resurrection of Lazarus from the tomb.
helga
helga5 hours ago
Deborah, I see this a marketing disaster similar to that when Coca Cola changed the taste and had to return to the original. To lose such a big part of the active hosts and defenders of the brand is a huge damage. To go on like this, take another two months and another is ridiculous- I wonder if they are just floating in a wild water river or if it should discourage the alternative solutions.
What is mind boggling to me is that the old forums are all on one server, you can see very easily that there are over 200 Thousand threads there now, after a few years. The CC started with the claim that it would be easily searchable and you could hail everyone into every thread, but effectively it is a software for a really small forum which will work well with a few hundred threads, not several hundreds of thousands and the hailing function is limited at maybe 10 to 50 names per first letter, no way to find all active members. Thy can't improve it if they keep this software. For such an important order, they should have defined minimum functions like 3 or 5 times the current use and have a dummy test done for function before even thinking about the layout.
Reply Liked 1 reply•1 like Delete
Deborah
Deborah2 hours ago
Helga, thank you for bringing your astute views on this to share with us all. ANdrew too was quite prescient about this moment coming to pass -- I recall about 4 months ago when we of the Launch Pad Hosts got our first look at the new COmmunity Center and Andrew used the same metaphor and said something to the effect that he wondered when Airbnb would have its "New Coke moment." Apparently they have had it. You're right too about the hailing function --- in fact last time I tried to hail you on there, the system wouldn't pull your name up and I was unable to do it.
helga
Maybe I picked the metaphor from Andrew or it's simply The Flop that comes to mind. But I did no longer believe that they would have a new Coke moment. I thought they would just go on with the mess. I worked for companies which would go on even if it costs huge money, has all the staff in uproar and nearly breaks the company. Here, it costs a fortune but those young founders turned billionaires have a special value scale for money, it has some experienced hosts becoming more and more critical, but they have many hosts, an ever growing number of hosts, and experience can't be a value to them, as they did something new probably against sceptical advice of elders and turned it into a huge success. Were would they aquire the notion that they are fallible? Let's hope they start to learn that here and are so fast learners as they were clever founders. Because that is the highest risk to the longterm success of airbnb: they were clever, innovative and started on easy to use apps before many others. They have this missionary streak concerning hosting but that's just image and company colors, you need such things for identification. But they do not have the strategic planning, cost and efficiency controling and midfle term planning of a good business. It's all young and excited and no col assessment. They have Chick Conley guest side but they need the same capacities supplier side, in marketing and controling. And cut back the influence of 25 year old techies.
Andrew
Andrew5 hours ago
It's been several weeks since the Launch Pad Hosts were last updated about anything in (email hidden)r awhile there, it seemed like they were at least building on the Beta version, but it seems that they abruptly stopped doing anything with it. I don't think they've had a single announcement that didn't feature the word "exciting," but the company culture at Airbnb is so insular and culty that it seems to have taken them a very long time to realize that nobody was excited. And that pretty much everyone seems to hate the new product.
Perhaps that survey was what finally gave them the hard data to confirm that their active users weren't pleased with the CC, as their comprehension of our many emails and posts was severely selective.
But It's fine with me that we get to keep this board for a couple more months. Hope everyone we've bid farewell to has gotten the message about the extension.
Reply Like 1 reply•1 like Delete
Alexina
Alexina4 hours ago
"... it seems to have taken them a very long time to realize that nobody was excited. And that pretty much everyone seems to hate the new product." Hee hee.... ;-)
Lou
Lou3 hours ago
Andrew and Deborah,
I am thrilled this will be available for a while longer but so sorry for all the work you've put in to transfer all the info. I go back and forth and have seen every day how much is added. We are doubly grateful for this monumental service to all of us.
Reply Liked 1 reply•3 likes Delete
Deborah
Deborah2 hours ago
THanks Lou -- I believe the preservation of some of the best posts on GHF (as we call GlobalHosting Forum) is valuable regardless, because as these groups stand at present, it is not possible to find old posts on here, unless you have saved the links to them.
Deborah
Deborah4 hours ago
Airbnb's announcement about this can be found here:
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Reply Like 1 reply•2 likes Delete
Deborah
Deborah4 hours ago
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Zaza & Kevin
Zaza & Kevin3 hours ago
Thanks Deborah.
www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-210562
The raising of Lazarus
Here what have been posted on all CC 2 hours ago :
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Groups Closing Update
Hello Everyone,
As previously announced, we have some exciting updates planned for the Community Center - improvements based on the feedback we've been gathering since it launched in November.
Right now, we're focusing on launching these improvements and getting your feedback once you've had the chance to use the new features. After that, we'll turn our attention to closing Groups, which will now be available until April 29.
Thanks.
8 comments•5 likes
Following
Liked
Mizuki
Leah
Alexina
Andrew
Deborah
Delete
Hide
Michelle
Michelle9 hours ago
Perhaps the powers that be will see sense and leave these forums alone. Why fix what isn't broken?
Reply Liked 3 likes Delete
C C
C C9 hours ago
Yeah. Just give us search capabilities & you've got it.
Reply Liked 2 likes Delete
Glenn
Glenn9 hours ago
Or perhaps they realized the Community Center is horrible.
Reply Liked 2 replies•4 likes Delete
C C
C C9 hours ago
Ha! Glenn. They need to look alive!
Linda
Linda9 hours ago
Exactly - what a boring design they here there.
Carmen and Jim
Carmen and Jim6 hours ago
Yippee!
Reply Liked 1 like Delete
Deborah
Deborah6 hours ago
Wow! Do any of you feel that Bozo is at the helm?
The Bozo Chronicles!!!
Bozo!!
First Airbnb said these groups would close to us to use as of November 25 2015. Then that was moved back to February 25 2016. Thru this whole time many host organizers of various communities on here have put in many hours in trying to first set up and then move their members offsite. (The amount of work I have done in setting up Globalhosting forum would probably boggle many of your minds --) . Now at the 11th hour, really 11 hours and about 58 minutes, they say oh we were just kidding we will stay open after all until April 29 2016... !!! Does anyone here feel jerked around? Raise your hands or honk your horn if you feel sort of thrown across the room.
I am glad that the powers that be do recognize the value of these communities-- that is a GOOD thing-- and it appears that they also take seriously the feedback they received in their 11th hour survey, (which must have been devastating and led to some ashen faces in high places. ) I am heartened that they will seek to improve the community center-- just wish they would have believed us more with the feedback we have been giving them on it these several months now.
So we have a couple more months at least.
Andrew and I and many others do see the need for an offsite community in any case ( or several such) so I am glad we started Globalhosting forum and we will keep going strong there.
Meanwhile-- we will all be able to continue here until at least the end of April now!
Reply Like 4 replies•5 likes Delete
C C
C C6 hours ago
Yes, Deborah. I feel jerked around. Again.
Olivier François
Olivier François5 hours ago
Mee too Deb! So we spend time to give a lot o feed back during beta times from September to November, nothing done. We spend many time giving feed back from november to now, nothing done. And now they will improve new amenities and depending on feed back they will perhaps make another changes...
Alexina
Alexina4 hours ago
Yeah! What CC and Olivier François said!
Maria and Larry
Maria and Larry2 hours ago
Unbelievable! Are they serious? What a lack of respect from AirBnB.
Nic and Rach
HONK AND BEEP AND THE LOUDEST HONKERS !! when is this screw ups going to stop rather end ? my feed back for them is not to include this group in their plan of getting rid of this community groups, we will be happy here if they can just preserve this one but it's also a good thing to have GHF as a back up in case they come back and say that this group is done..can we file a petition ? not to include this group Deborah ?
Deborah
Thanks Nic for your vote of enthusiasm. I think AIrbnb's plan was not so much to "get rid of groups" as to move us over to new software, but I think one of the key problems in the changes they want, is that they didn't want host moderators/organizers, they wanted an Airbnb run groups. So they are using an independent contractor organization, Standing on Giants, to run and moderate the new groups. That the software is problematic is one issue, but that they are booting out all the host organizers and in effect taking over the host groups may be a bigger problem. So in their new model, that of Standing on Giants Moderators, there is no way for New Hosts Forum as it is to continue, because one of the essences of New Hosts Forum is that it is a group run by hosts for hosts.
One of the other essences is Andrew and Glenn and I and our values and our styles. Then another essence is all you regular contributors and your styles that you bring to support the culture here. So it's a whole culture of all these complex parts, and that cannot be recreated just by calling a group "New to Hosting" (the name of one of the "groups" (actually more a topic bucket) on the Community Center. I don't see how they could preserve New Hosts Forum on the new CC, and I don't see them making any special exemption for this group to live while the 439 other existing host community groups are shut down. I can't see them retaining groups in two places, and also , I can't see them leaving this group and shutting down the other 439 existing host community groups (like ANecdotes, Hosting 911, London Community Hub, all the regional groups) . SEveral of those groups are quite active too and they have a good argument to remain too.
Besides which, even if somehow New Hosts Forum could remain, if this were the only group on these old groups, or one of a much smaller set of groups, just the fact that this group were then existing in a smaller set of groups would likely change the participation dynamic here quite a bit. At the same time, I think it's too bad that the culture we have created here, which I think has very postively contributed to the formation and education of Airbnb hosts, would be dissolved, because I think quite frankly we benefit AIrbnb quite a bit with what we all do here. Hosts aren't benefitted or "brought up" as well by the CC.
Here, one of our values is that we expect hosts to put in some effort when they start out as hosts. We chide them for not putting in some basic effort. We dont' just allow them to come in and expect to be spoon fed. But on the CC, there is too much spoon feeding and hand holding going on, and that is not beneficial for the hosts who get it, nor those who give it, nor for the community witnessing the tedium and boredom of a Help Desk. A Help Desk isn't a host community. I think actually it would be beneficial to Airbnb and to the host community to set up the new groups alongside a new "Help Desk Group" which was staffed by host volunteers. Those who wanted the Help Desk style interaction, where you just go and ask technical questions, and not engage in any other dialogue, could go there -- similar to Airbnb 's program with "expert hosts" who they pay (i think) to help other hosts. Then on the other hand, those hosts who wanted to particpate in community, could go to the other place, where they could be in community and get different responses to their questions that were more engaging of their whole person. So folks could choose where they wanted to go. ANd in order for this to work, I do believe they would need host moderators. Someone like Andrew and I (or Helga, or Queenie and Ted or Raymond and Elaine, or John, or Olivier, and others who have experience and skill here). The host moderators would need to have the ability to work to preserve the culture we have established of expecting new hosts to put in some effort and develop workable house rules, have good boundaries with guests, use good judgement, and some other things we have valued as a host community here. And hosts who would start participating in the forums in ways that were destructive to these values or antithetical to them, would be called out on this. So those are some of my thoughts about this....on this Friday morning the day after the Resurrection of Lazarus from the tomb.
helga
helga5 hours ago
Deborah, I see this a marketing disaster similar to that when Coca Cola changed the taste and had to return to the original. To lose such a big part of the active hosts and defenders of the brand is a huge damage. To go on like this, take another two months and another is ridiculous- I wonder if they are just floating in a wild water river or if it should discourage the alternative solutions.
What is mind boggling to me is that the old forums are all on one server, you can see very easily that there are over 200 Thousand threads there now, after a few years. The CC started with the claim that it would be easily searchable and you could hail everyone into every thread, but effectively it is a software for a really small forum which will work well with a few hundred threads, not several hundreds of thousands and the hailing function is limited at maybe 10 to 50 names per first letter, no way to find all active members. Thy can't improve it if they keep this software. For such an important order, they should have defined minimum functions like 3 or 5 times the current use and have a dummy test done for function before even thinking about the layout.
Reply Liked 1 reply•1 like Delete
Deborah
Deborah2 hours ago
Helga, thank you for bringing your astute views on this to share with us all. ANdrew too was quite prescient about this moment coming to pass -- I recall about 4 months ago when we of the Launch Pad Hosts got our first look at the new COmmunity Center and Andrew used the same metaphor and said something to the effect that he wondered when Airbnb would have its "New Coke moment." Apparently they have had it. You're right too about the hailing function --- in fact last time I tried to hail you on there, the system wouldn't pull your name up and I was unable to do it.
helga
Maybe I picked the metaphor from Andrew or it's simply The Flop that comes to mind. But I did no longer believe that they would have a new Coke moment. I thought they would just go on with the mess. I worked for companies which would go on even if it costs huge money, has all the staff in uproar and nearly breaks the company. Here, it costs a fortune but those young founders turned billionaires have a special value scale for money, it has some experienced hosts becoming more and more critical, but they have many hosts, an ever growing number of hosts, and experience can't be a value to them, as they did something new probably against sceptical advice of elders and turned it into a huge success. Were would they aquire the notion that they are fallible? Let's hope they start to learn that here and are so fast learners as they were clever founders. Because that is the highest risk to the longterm success of airbnb: they were clever, innovative and started on easy to use apps before many others. They have this missionary streak concerning hosting but that's just image and company colors, you need such things for identification. But they do not have the strategic planning, cost and efficiency controling and midfle term planning of a good business. It's all young and excited and no col assessment. They have Chick Conley guest side but they need the same capacities supplier side, in marketing and controling. And cut back the influence of 25 year old techies.
Andrew
Andrew5 hours ago
It's been several weeks since the Launch Pad Hosts were last updated about anything in (email hidden)r awhile there, it seemed like they were at least building on the Beta version, but it seems that they abruptly stopped doing anything with it. I don't think they've had a single announcement that didn't feature the word "exciting," but the company culture at Airbnb is so insular and culty that it seems to have taken them a very long time to realize that nobody was excited. And that pretty much everyone seems to hate the new product.
Perhaps that survey was what finally gave them the hard data to confirm that their active users weren't pleased with the CC, as their comprehension of our many emails and posts was severely selective.
But It's fine with me that we get to keep this board for a couple more months. Hope everyone we've bid farewell to has gotten the message about the extension.
Reply Like 1 reply•1 like Delete
Alexina
Alexina4 hours ago
"... it seems to have taken them a very long time to realize that nobody was excited. And that pretty much everyone seems to hate the new product." Hee hee.... ;-)
Lou
Lou3 hours ago
Andrew and Deborah,
I am thrilled this will be available for a while longer but so sorry for all the work you've put in to transfer all the info. I go back and forth and have seen every day how much is added. We are doubly grateful for this monumental service to all of us.
Reply Liked 1 reply•3 likes Delete
Deborah
Deborah2 hours ago
THanks Lou -- I believe the preservation of some of the best posts on GHF (as we call GlobalHosting Forum) is valuable regardless, because as these groups stand at present, it is not possible to find old posts on here, unless you have saved the links to them.
Deborah
Deborah4 hours ago
Airbnb's announcement about this can be found here:
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Reply Like 1 reply•2 likes Delete
Deborah
Deborah4 hours ago
community.airbnb.com/t5/Announcements/Groups-Closing-Update/m-p/35168#U35168
Zaza & Kevin
Zaza & Kevin3 hours ago
Thanks Deborah.