The Thread for our Discussion about this new group site

Jessa commented in the shoutbox,






Here are some of my thoughts on that....


As far as a Facebook group, were you thinking of doing that in ADDITION to this forum, or INSTEAD of this forum?

WE specifically chose not to use Facebook as an alternative to this forum, because it is quite limited in many ways in conducting a forum. One of the limitations is that the new forum is intended to be for more than one group of hosts. We see it as the basis for building up a global community of hosts, in time. New HOsts Forum folks will be coming aboard, and this is actually the primary group of hosts who are coming in now, the hosts in NHF and the worldwide groups, but we are also bringing in hosts in at least 3, possibly more, other groups, such as Home Sharers of San Francisco, Home Sharers of the East Bay, Home Sharers of the North Bay, and other Home Sharers chapters now in development. Additionally, we are starting to contact other group organizers and see if they would like to participate here and bring their groups here. WIth a forum like this we can have all the groups who are interested to join, all in one place, each with their own group on the forum. One couldn't do that on Facebook -- you'd have to keep going to different Facebook pages, and we couldn't have one central Facebook page, because there is no way to route and organize a bunch of groups through one Facebook group. It just doesn't fit the needs.

As well, many people don't like Facebook and won't use it. Facebook is like the existing Airbnb groups in that all messages go in one place, and you can scroll down and read everything, which some like, and it has its advantages for flowing dialogue, but it has no options for searching for material, it has no ways to store and organize threads, and several other limitations. One of the things I have done a lot of work on over the last 2 years, is saving some important links and threads , and a forum offers a way to easily access those, particularly with sticky threads and FAQs. It is useful as a library for someone just coming to get information. Facebook doesn't offer that. Facebook is also considered more of a social network setup than a formal forum setup.

If some folks really like the scroll-down method it offers, however, it's possible we could use Facebook, for one or more of the groups on the new forum. We can continue to talk about and explore our various options. I just wouldn't want us to get too spread out and dispersed over too many different websites. I think there is value in staying in one website, at least to begin with. It's really important in my mind, and it's part of the Home Sharers mission, to work to build a global host community and I think staying in one place until we get the rudiments of that makes sense.

OThers' thoughts?


Deborah

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Finally a searchable forum! I'm looking forward to meeting some old friends here!

I just found out a little more about AIrbnb's plans for the new groups, and the fate of the old groups. I posted that here

www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-181292


and here is the content of what I found:


I found a couple threads on other groups about the upcoming Airbnb group changes



As I mentioned before I actually didn't hear directly about any of the upcoming changes in groups, but I have found a couple other posts on other groups that go into some details.
Here is the most recent one I found which gives a lot of info I had no idea about:

THis is the post: www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-180589

On the MOntreal and Quebec group, this one: www.airbnb.com/groups/963

THis is the post, translated from French into English using Google Translate:


"Read this Q & A about where will the groups Airbnb ...What change? We're evolving our Groups platform to improve the way the members of our community get to link and learn from each other. The new community platform will more easily find valuable content submitted by guests as well as proximity worldwide. Instead of being organized into "groups", the new platform will be organized by subject categories that are popular among Groupes.

When comes this change? The new platform will be launched in November. As of November 23, 2015, the group members will no longer publish new content in Groups. Current posts will remain visible until February 25, 2016. After February 25, 2015, this information will not be récupérables. (recoverable)

What Will happen for the content in Groups? The content in Groups will not migrate to the new platform Platform. If you have content you want to keep, please record the content that you created and post it again in the new platform will communautaire.Y he group organizers on the new platform? The new platform will grow from groups organized by forum members on the basis of selected topics. Therefore, instead of group organizers there will be active contributors. All guests are invited to publish, to welcome new members to pay their contributions to the conversations and to come together to build a support network for its members. We will recognize members based on their level of participation on the new (email hidden) ment to inspire members of our current group to go to the new platform?

Did I can post an explanation of this change to inform the members of my group? You can share with members of your group's information in our FAQ. WHich languages ​​will be supported on the new platform? To launch in November, the community platform will support English, French, Italian, German, Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese. These languages ​​include the majority of the members of our community currently using Groups. We plan to support more languages ​​in successive bearings. Korean and Japanese will come out at the beginning of 2016. All members will still be able to participate in the platform anglais.Est do I can always stay in touch with the guests in my area? And how it goes for those around the world? The new platform will facilitate linking with your guests in your region but also worldwide. We will launch areas depending on location criteria forums in several cities in November. You can also browse other areas to cities chat with other guests in the régions.

Who will run the new community platform? The community is largely self-moderate, but we will put in place tools and a charter moderation to sustain and grow the healthy way to become the community and prospère.Que Meetups? The possibility of organizing meetups will not be available at launch in November. We know how meetups are enjoyed by members of our community to meet off site, so we strive to find ways to incorporate this feature on the new platform."


As you can see, Meetups will no longer be possible, which seems a quite serious problem for local hosts needing/wanting to meet each other, for instance to do local organizing for political advocacy work on obtaining favorable regulations in their city or region. I just can't believe they would get rid of meetups!

Hence it seems all the more important that we have this new site for our groups, available for REGIONAL groups to use as well, so that Meetups CAN be organized by those regional groups. Our forum allows announcements to be made and there is a board for posting meetups.
Also, as you can see, the content currently in groups will not be recoverable or viewable after Feb 2016. So I encourage all of you, if you have favorite threads or links, to not only save the link but save the content of those threads too in a WORD document. THe links will not work after Feb 2016.

I found another thread in a Brooklyn group which also has some info about the proposed changes to groups:

www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-176759