Host Community vs Help Center -- Differentiating these two

Host Community vs Help Center: Differentiating these two things


www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-219191

Hello all you wonderful Airbnb hosts!

CLOSURE OF HOST GROUPS

So as many of you are hopefully aware, this host community group, New Hosts Forum, will be closing as of May 31 2016, along with all the other "Version 1.0" host community groups, which can all be found here --- www.airbnb.com/groups (That is, assuming that Airbnb doesn't move back the closure date).
Airbnb's replacement for these old host groups, the Airbnb Community Center, (found at www.community.airbnb.com )has existed already for 5 months now. In its present form, it has left something to be desired, as many hosts have found it to be not much of a "Community Center" and more like a "Help Desk." Many of us have given feedback to Airbnb so that they can make improvements to this Community Center, which they have been doing, and they plan to roll out the improved version of the Community Center in 2 to 4 weeks.

HISTORY OF HOST COMMUNITY

We hope the improved Community Center will indeed offer more in terms of helping hosts build community, but it occurs to me that many hosts may not be aware of the potential that hosts have to form community, and what that community could look like, and how such a community differs from a Help Desk or Help Center. So I wanted to say a little about my own experience in being an organizer of a part of the Host Community, for the last 2.5 years, during which Andrew and I have organized/moderated New Hosts Forum, and participated heavily on this group as well as a few other Host Community Groups like Hosting 911, Airbnb Products and Updates, and Anecdotes and Stories from Hosting.

In the first early history of the Host Community Groups and New Hosts Forum, hosts would post introductions about themselves and how they got into hosting, or tell stories about guests, or ask questions of difficult guest situations where there was no real right/wrong answer, just a variety of perspectives. Because these early hosts had done their homework and already learned how to use the Airbnb website, and how to host guests, we did not get many hosts asking very basic questions about how to use the website, or when they would get paid. We got more complex questions, questions which dealt with issues of judgement, which were more interesting to all of us because instead of treating us like a set of encyclopedias or a customer service desk, the complex questions which called on our collective experience and judgement as hosts, and allowed us to share more about ourselves and our own stories. This led to many memorable threads and delightful sharing, and the building of friendships. Hosts posting stories or questions did not approach the host community as if it existed only to help them with one questions. Many of these hosts engaged in dialogue with others, were welcomed into community, and stayed around to continue being part of community by responding to others' questions and stories. So there was a degree of commitment to the community as evidenced in hosts' participation in it.

NEW COMMUNITY CENTER CHANGES COMMUNITY INTO HELP DESK

Unfortunately, when the new Airbnb Community Center was announced, and the closure of the existing host community groups was announced, all this started to change. Facing the imminent loss of the communities that we had built up over time, many host organizers began to plan to move their host communities offsite, since it appeared that the new Airbnb Community Center would not allow us to continue these communities in the way that we wanted to. Andrew and I felt, and many other host organizers felt similarly, that a "host community group" which was not actually run by or organized/moderated by hosts, was not really a host community group. We felt that moderation provided by staffpersons paid by Airbnb would lead hosts to feel like children and act like children. One of the great benefits of having host organizers/moderators, is that the hosts can set an example by their own participation, and create a culture by their participation, and as hosts themselves, they are well situated to have insight into the problems being discussed, and not be perceived by hosts as outsiders. We also felt that it was a mistake for Airbnb to open the Community Center to the public, so that hosts' posts there could be read by anyone, even those hosts own guests.

In fact, we have seen these problems on the Community Center, and more. In part because the Community Center is run by staff paid by Airbnb, hosts mistake it for a Help Desk run by Airbnb, and the number of questions being asked there which are really more appropriately directed to Airbnb customer service, is quite large.

The huge volume of very basic questions not only reifies the Community Center as a Massive Help Desk, it is off-putting and tedious to those who are looking for community, so that ironically, the Community Center has repelled those who most seek community. The "levels" and "most helpful answer" designations are detrimental to community building, and make participants feel like they are on a game show or Yahoo Answers. These elements of competition and the whole orientation to providing HELP, is at odds with community building and instead builds a Help Desk. As a result, the most active hosts on the Community Center are those who are most amenable to it operating like a massive Help Desk. As well, the Community Center lacks a positive culture. There have been more than a few not so pretty interactions. Some of the most frequent contributors there, were not participants on the old host community groups. They have sometimes given poor advice, and are not able to carry on a tradition of wisdom and sharp judgement based on years of hearing about many hosts' situations with guests, because they were not formed in that culture. Sometimes poor advice is allowed to stand uncontested, because it was posted on a forum visible by the general public, and hosts don't want to post on public forums with their photo, profile and listing linked to that.

Those who were the most active participants in the old host communities, have since the announced closure of these old groups, begun leaving them and so unfortunately these groups are not benefitting from their participation as they used to. These active participants also are mostly not participating on the Community Center, but have gone off to a variety of offsite groups, such as various Facebook Groups, as well as the GlobalHosting Forum (http://www.globalhostingforum.com) that has been set up to continue something of the spirit of this New Hosts Forum.

GOING FROM HERE TO CREATE COMMUNITY

We are hoping that Airbnb's improvements to the Community Center will allow it to function more as a host community and less as a help desk. Some hosts will hopefully find community there, and other hosts will find community in other places, but we have experienced the joy and delight of host community, and wish that many of you will be able to find that as well.

I'd like to summarize some things that I think it will help hosts to know, who are seeking host community.

First, hosts need to do their homework and learn about how to use the AIrbnb website. The host community is not here to be a tutor to thousands of new hosts, some of whom dont' want to be bothered to learn the basics of how to use the site.

All of us who began hosting 3 or 4 or 5 years ago, did not have the host community to go to, to ask basic questions. We had to find out the answers ourselves, by spending time learning to use the website. We had to find out how to contact Airbnb, not by posting a thread on the host community, as seemingly hundreds of hosts are now doing, but rather by looking on the Airbnb website. We were able to do all this, and we expect hosts who are serious about hosting, to also put in some effort, so that when you come to participate in host community, you dont' weigh the community down by annoying hosts and asking the same questions that have been asked 100 times or 1000 times, but instead, you can offer something new, a story, or a question that requires more of hosts than that they simply work as an unpaid customer service center volunteers.

To assist hosts with this, I have spent hundreds of hours compiling resources on www.globalhostingforum.com so that hosts with questions can look there for answers. As well, the search function on the Airbnb Community Center really works and hosts need to learn how to use that before posting the very same question that has been posted already 20 to 30 times in the last month.

Second, host community is created when hosts participate. If you ask a question and others give you answers, it is both polite and helpful in community building, to respond in some way, to continue the dialogue. One of the most fun things that happened in these old host groups was that a host would ask a question, which might lead to a whole different topic. People went on tangents in their responses, and that really benefitted us as some delightful and funny conversations were thereby had.

Participation means putting in time. It means that you don't only post when you have a need, but you participate in the host community to help others in need and to support the creation of and maintaining of the community.

THird, share your stories. IT's fun to read not only host questions, but also their stories.
We hope to see you around in the Host Community!




Maria
Great post Deborah, thank you.


Penny

Fantastic post Deb and your contribution to the forum is simply brilliant!


Evelyn

Thank you Deborah for your dedication.

Deborah

Thanks, Maria, Penny and Evelyn -- I have so valued all your contributions to the host community over the years!!


Alan

I have to say Deborah, the information you provide to the 'community' far exceeds what we would expect from airbnb, the organisation we all contribute to with £££'s/$$$'s. Airbnb owes you heaps.


Fiona

Great post Deborah.

I've dipped into the Community Centre but not much (still only a level 2, I think!) and it isn't very interestin. The London community has disappeared elsewhere (Facebook, I think) and there isn't much posting going on. The different categories confuse me too, you have to go into each category and see what's new (not much). I dip into the global hosting forum too, but I'm not comfortable there either. So I end up back here. Which is a little ironic as I remember when I first joined how everyone was moaning about how useless the layout was because it wasn't search-able and the same questions got asked over and over again.

What I think we should probably do is ignore all sections of the Community Center except the Host Circle and try to recreate this community there. I know it's supposed to be for sensitive issues only, but it can be what we want it to be really.


Deborah

Fiona, I think you have a point in that many hosts are going to be more comfortable on an Airbnb website host forum. So for that reason, I hope the new version of the Airbnb Community Center is better. Yes, hosts could use "Host Circle" There -- which is currently, unfortunately, very little used --- though at this point I have heard from many hosts that they dislike the Community Center so very much that they have basically sworn off the whole thing. I think it was a big mistake for Airbnb to roll out the Community Center as we see it now, because it has been off putting to so many, and they may not give it a 2nd chance. THey should have obtained more feedback and input and waited to produce something that was better.

We of the Launch Pad Hosts talked to Jonny et al at Airbnb about the purpose of Host Circle, and they agreed that it should not be viewed as for "sensitive" issues only, though perhaps that designation stayed. We argued successfully I think that any issue hosts want to discuss and not have non-hosts be able to drop in on, should be able to be posted there. So I guess we will see who uses that board. Most all the posts go on General Hosting or New to Hosting, boards which are open to all the public (including host's guests!) and so I think it is problematic to post there, since we can only post in a way that is linked to our profile and listings. If we could post in a way that was NOT linked to our profile and listings, then that would be much better and I think would relieve many in using those open-to-the-public boards.


Fleur, Dan and kids

Thanks Deb for all your work. I've looked at the 'community centre' and it's pretty awful over there. Definitely not the same spirit as here. It's such a pity.


Lula and Larry

Thanks Deborah. You have done a superb job!!!


Fiona

But hopefully all the annoying basic questions will end up in the New Hosts section, which we don't need to partake in. We could start a thread in Host Circle called 'Dilemmas and Stories, interesting ones only please' and continue the chit chat there?




Deborah

Yes, we could do that, Fiona -- and perhaps some of us will! I do think the Host Circle is the best option currently on the Community Center. Oddly though it is the board which seems to be the least used!

I think a couple difficulties for many of us who have participated regularly on these old groups, are these:

(1) all the boards on the Community Center are moderated by staffpersons paid by Airbnb -- people who are not hosts. THey have not had experience participating in the host community and don't know the regular members of these communities, and some of the values that developed on those communities. WHile they might in fact do a decent job of moderating in some respects, there are a couple aspects to the moderation style that they have shown that don't bode well for the host community culture as we have known it. One is that hosts have often gone on tangents in their replies on certain threads. This is not a problem -- it is actually part of how community is built. Yet the moderators on the CC have often urged people to stick with the topic that the OP posted. That is not always useful. Second, when faced with a scuffle or kerfluffle on the boards, the moderators tend to take a "let's be nice" approach and are unable to actually make comments or judgements based on the content -- again, likely because they aren't hosts themselves, and they have not been brought up in a host community which had certain values. In several of the kerfluffles I have observed on the Community Center, what I saw was actually a battle between opposing cultures, often really conflicting cultures.

In this older host community, we have developed the values that hosts need to put in some effort if they want to be hosts. We don't like to see hosts post very very basic questions which indicate that they have barely put in any effort to learn how to use the website. We put that effort in, and so can they. But on the new Community Center, which has become a Help Desk, the most active hosts there, are those who seem so eager to help every single host with every single question (no matter how much it really is a question for Airbnb customer service) that they are not well representing the culture we have developed on these old groups. THere is a new archetype, that of the Heroic Help Center Host, who may in some cases have an addiction to helping people, --- which in many cases, really means ENABLING people, to not put in the required effort to be hosts, but intsead to expect to be spoon fed. THis is not good for hosts, and it's not good for those spoon feeding them, and it isn't good for all the rest of us watching the degradation of a brilliant community as it disintegrates into a call center staffed by those who often have a silly line at the signature of their posts, such as "vote for me if I helped you!" GAWD!

As well, there are a few martyr hosts on the Community Center, who give poor advice to hosts, advice which can be summed up this way: "Geez, sorry to hear you are going through that with your guest, but listen Sally, guests will be who they will be and it's your job to just be a doormat! You know, people all around the world are different, and I have learned a lot in my 2 months of being a host, and one of the things I have learned is that it's your job just to shut up and put up! And by the way Sally did you know that sometimes guests really mean well, really they do in their heart of hearts, but golly gee sometimes it just doesn't come across that way, so gosh, just chant the mantra, "I'm a doormat, I'm a happy doormat" and smile!"


The fact is that these cultures and values that some of these Help center Heroes and martyr hosts are demonstrating, are at odds with some of the values we have developed on these old groups. And this could make it more difficult to use the Community Center. Particularly since we can't delete our own posts there, or even edit them after 45 minutes. And we have to rely on moderation from outsiders.

So -- it's a big experiment, and no one knows for sure what will happen. I do think that the Host Circle is a better option than any of the other boards, and I do think that hosts have an easier time participating on groups on the AIrbnb site, so I hope it all works out somehow for that to continue. At the same time, I think offsite groups offer something else that many hosts will want and enjoy and feel comfortable with -- so hopefully everyone will find a place and we could even have the best of both worlds.


helga
You describe that very well. It feels like shifting from reading the best international newspapers to reading the free paper in the metro. Or like someone stood before a Picasso in the museum and said: "interesting painting, but somewhat in disorder. Looks like a five year old did it. I'll copy it but put the eyes and nose straight. And the colours? Ah yes, natural colours evidently. " at best, that could have produced a photo, but never an artwork. The motivation of airbnb was similar: they discovered they had something interesting on their servers and it had irregular effects, with the crazy conclusion that channelling the irregular flow would create a better result. No, it's boring and full of people with a messiah complex and people that are so stupid that not even their family listens to them. But lo, thanks to Airbnb, the world listens to them.

Deborah

Magnificently articulated, as usual from you Helga! And Picasso straightened out -- -- what an apt metaphor for the soul-less, sterile thing we were all at first standing shellshocked to realize, is supposed to be the correction! Carl Jung spoke of this phenomenon when he talked of the murder that men (and it generally has been men) of science do to mythology and the symbol. By dissecting the symbol and trying to explain it, one murders it. There is another metaphor in there too -- all the explaining that is being done on the CC, grows fatally heavy. The explainers and their explaining, weigh the thing down like the most incredible lead block.