Host discussions: Public vs. Private

Hello Andrew, and jvo! Nice to see you here Andrew, my you have an interesting hair style!

(There is another thread discussing changes in groups/features of the new Airbnb groups here: globalhosting.freeforums.net/thread/1/discussion-forum-changes-airbnb-groups )

I communicated with one of the administrators/planners of the new Airbnb groups, expressing my concerns about allowing all Airbnb users to not only read everything that is on the host community groups, but also to participate. I tried to flesh out my thoughts as well as I could, rather than simply state my position on the matters, since I wanted to offer the administrators substance to contemplate, realizing that they are in the midst of planning, and really have not yet made all their decisions about the new groups yet. THey are open to feedback and input, so it seems important to me to give them the best and most thorough feedback possible at this juncture, in hopes that the best decisions can be made. Also, there are some things I can only hypothesize about, concerning potential outcomes and results on the new groups if they are accessible by the public at large to view, and by all Airbnb users to utilize and post in.

That said, I will share some of my own thoughts on this issue, and would value your contributions if you have additional thoughts on the matter, which Andrew and I could convey to those planning/setting up the new groups.


HEre's what I shared with one of the Administrators:

I think there are a lot of hosts who would prefer that ALL the host community groups continue to be for hosts only, eg those with active listings (which may be in snooze or unlisted mode). I think Andrew and I would both prefer that. ANd beyond that I think we would both be concerned if guests, people who had often been Airbnb guests , but never hosts, could post all over the host groups --- particularly if these guests wanting to do the posting on the host groups were "bad" guests.

I do see the point you are bringing up of belonging, and wanting those who are not hosts to have the opportunity to learn from what hosts are sharing, in reading their experiences. IN fact it could actually help people avoid making serious mistakes as new hosts if they were able to read a lot of what hosts had shared, and thus gain some perspectives and insights on dilemmas hosts face, which they might not be aware of otherwise. However, I also see potential problems if all users can drop into the groups.

One is , as we have mentioned, that guests could easily read things that had been said about them. If a guest experiences some "issue" with a host, that guest could immediately go to the host groups and see if the host is talking about it there. Because people talk very differently about a situation they experience with another person, when they know that person can't hear, than they do when they think what they say may reach that person, hosts would feel straitjacketed by the fear of their guests peering in. They may feel afraid to say what they really think or feel, and even if they can describe the problem, to not be able to do that in the style they want, as freely as they want, could deprive them of a lot of the satisfaction of participating in groups.

ANother potential problem if all users have access to host groups, in terms not only of being able to read the content, but also post on these groups, is that we could experience a degradation of the quality of the discussions. Currently, the culture of a host community like New Hosts Forum or Hosting 911, includes the value or perspective that experience as a host is a good teacher, and that experience as a host should be respected. Those who are new at hosting, or who have never been a host, don't tend to come in and argue with those who are very experienced hosts, about things they know little about. This seems natural, and I would hope that the common sense of this perspective would prevail, but I wonder what would happen if guests could suddenly post all over the host community boards? When a group of 5 experienced hosts talks about a situation with a "demanding" guest, those hosts shake their heads knowingly -- what this means has become part of our culture, at least those of us seasoned by long participation on the very active host groups. But what happens when a guest who has never heard hosts talk, and who happens to be a prototype of the demanding guest herself, wanders into these new host groups, feeling entitled and expansive, determined to make her presence known in a space she has heretofore been excluded from, and commences attacking these very experienced hosts for their "arrogant" attitudes and the language they use about guests?. A good part of the fun that hosts experience in the existing host communities, is sharing knowing nods and elbow pokes and laughs about the "stereotypes" of bad guests that we have from time to time, which we may have names for. What would happen if suddenly one of those people we are laughing about for the problems they cause us, wanders in on us talking about the "type" of guest she suspects she might be?

Part of the cohesiveness in any community, what brings them together, is their shared experience. They feel close to each other because they have been through the same things, struggled with the same things. It isnt' easy to be a host -- being successful and happy as a host requires a lot of skills, and those who have never been a host, only a guest, may not appreciate this at all. And if they have no desire to be a host (or no ability to -- no extra space to offer) , these guests may actually have little or no respect for the skillset required to host, and thus of the value of long experience having guests or renters.

I bring this up because this is something I have learned through many years of watching the relationships between tenants and landlords, which bear some relation to the relationship between guests and hosts. Just like tenants can end up resenting the power that landlords have, hating their power and authority without realizing the depth of their responsibilities and the complexity of their position, I think people who are only guests and not hosts might have difficulty apprecating what is involved, and those which are "not so great " guests, most especially. I really don't know what would happen if guests completely ignorant of the challenges and issues involved in hosting came into a host group and started criticizing hosts or taking offense at what was said =about some guests there. I know that on the existing group which has the most new hosts dropping by (not New Hosts Forum but Anecdotes) the quality of many posts is low because of the lack of experience of the host who is posting.

This brings up another issue related to possible degradation of content in the groups. Currently, groups are not so easy to find. Many hosts don't even know there are groups. Those who find them, often post in the very first one they see --- Anecdotes -- about their hosting question. THus ANecdotes bears the brunt of what I envision could happen to an even greater extent once ALL AIrbnb users are not only able to use the groups, but can find them more easily. THere could be a lot of low quality posts. Maybe that wouldn't happen, but I wonder about it. Currently the groups are found by those intelligent or curious enough, or needy enough, to find them. WHich means that we get many intelligent hosts, and we also get hosts who have quite an urgent issue, and urgencies/emergencies tend to make for interesting threads. But the day to day run of the mill questions -- such as what is a preapproval, or should I take a guest who has no verifications, (or even clueless questions like does the guest pay me when he arrives) -- tend to be tedious if these are repeated too often. With the search function working maybe excess repetition could be headed off, but if the overall volume of participation on groups increases dramatically, I wonder what will happen to the quality of the groups. Currently, the groups like New HOsts Forum and Hosting 911, even Anecdotes, are working okay partly because they are not submerged with dozens of very very basic or low quality posts every day. What happens if that type of post appears much more often? I don't know -- maybe people will be not as quick to participate as I imagine, and will enter into the groups more thoughtfully. I really dont' know what to expect. It seems good to have options open for adding more groups and/or changing some things about how they work at later points in response to what actually happens.

Another possible issue in making the host groups more acessible to all users, is that they become more accessible to the general public, including those in the public who are opposed to Airbnb, to hosting, to short term rentals. Many of those who are opposed to Airbnb and short term rentals, have gone on the Airbnb site and tried to find information on hosts in their area, often with a mission to use any info they can find, against those hosts politically, in trying to ban short term rentals. I know about this because of the hostile battles in my area in particular, such as in San Francisco. I dont' think it's been easy for such people to find the host groups, particularly if they previously had no access to them - they wouldnt' know these existed. BUt if anyone who signs up on Airbnb as a user, can easily find these groups, the content in them, and the hosts participation on them, are more vulnerable to misuse and distortion by those so disposed.

(To clarify -- when one makes host groups available to all users, without having to set up a listing to get in, then the bar is lowered for those "anti-Airbnb" folks of the general public who want to get into the groups only to find "dirt" to use either against specific hosts, or against hosts in their area, or against hosting in general.)


If the decision is made to allow all Airbnb users to have access to the host groups, I think it would be preferable to allow all users to READ the content, but only those with active listings to POST to the host groups in the threads on the groups, at least to start. Then, perhaps have a specific guest group where guests can talk about what they learned from reading host group threads, so they have a place to talk about it. Hosts could use those guest groups too so there would be the opportunity for host-guest mutual sharing and learning in the guest groups, but hosts would still be able to retreat to the all-host groups if they found it fatiguing to talk to people about hosting, who knew nothing about hosting, but were not aware of what they did not know.

Here's more on this discussion, found here: www.airbnb.com/groups/content/content-183652


Janet
Morning Andrew. I would hope that the host group would be exclusive to just hosts. I would be less inclined to post any queries or grumbles if I thought every man and his dog could see it! By the way, you do a marvellous job in these posts, Deborah too.

Mig (mig)
I second Janet, I will be unlikely to post if it is going to be open to all and sundry to comment on. To my mind, The whole point of a forum for hosts is to teach, learn and share among ourselves. Poor show airbnb.


lesley
I expect Airbnb will favour 'stories of sharing' rather than 'guest trashed my place' . In the interest of promoting the brand, they would surely not move a rant/complaint/bad feeling post into a public arena.
I think it's interesting that a lot of hosts think that our groups now are private and so feel able to speak freely without anyone from Airbnb knowing or even interested. However, of course they are mistaken, as a company doesn't get this big ignoring what is in front of their noses.


Andrew (andrew)
Airbnb employees are encouraged to read the content on Groups - and I'm glad they do, as it provides a wealth of useful information about what's on the minds of their most important users. But it is currently their policy not to intervene in the discussions or migrate the content. This is one policy that they are changing. Another thing that will be different is the accessibility of Groups content to the broader public. If anyone in this forum has been under the impression that it was not visible to Airbnb staff, I apologize for not making that clearer, but I've been assured that no host is penalized at any level for what they say on here.

Fiona (fiona)
The fact that there will be a more private hosts area is good news. Although airbnb staff will be able to move content, it's not really going to be in their interests to make problems more public by moving posts, is it? Perhaps it would be better to give people the option of deleting rather than having their posts moved though.


Jvo: (jvo)
PUBLIC means "public," which means a huge chilling effect on what (savvy) hosts will feel free to say. Because any frank words or anything at all can end up in the MEDIA with your REAL NAME attached.

So, I'll be sayonara baby on this whole arrangement.

C C (CC)
Absolutely right, Jeannette! Like moving your bachelor party to the altar an hour before the wedding!


C C
I mean, being able to vent to other hosts is extremely helpful!!! Built-in sympathetic audience--my daughters don't get my rants--and yet hosts don't always back each other, and that's where the learning happens!! A guest says a guest "verbally & physically abused" her. What's the other side of that story? A guest said your room was dirty & barren. Well, maybe it was. The fact that a seasoned host would take her time to let you know airbeds on wood floors can be freezing cold is of GREAT value!! (And you're in Canada!?). See if you can at least get the floors cleaner & get a cheap frame!! A guest flew across a continent to meet you because you're so pretty. He was then inappropriate, but you went out to a bar to meet him anyway. We gave you a different perspective on that, one I'm sure you took to heart after your feelings healed a little. Host groups will dry up in their true, helpful form. And who's got time for namby-pamby posts after that?

Raymond & Elaine (elaine)
Reading carefully the discussions taking place in the other forums on this subject, I have already resigned myself to the fact that I will nolonger post any advice, opinions,stories or help in the new forums as proposed so far. I shall try and understand better the workings of The Global Forum which I have been reading with great interest but so far haven't posted anything.

Evelyn
I totally agree we had an illusion of privacy. And I appreciated Airbnb not really interfering with our community, even if sometimes we wanted their opinion or a reaction. And we forgot that any "guest", press or anyone else could become a "host" and read, pull information, and use to their advantage. Like we read in another post.

What is also going to be interesting is to see posts from guests. What do they have to say? Will they be posting about hosts and profiling them? A new wild west.


Jvo:
Very good point! I am going to be interviewed this week by a Baltimore Business Journal reporter -- who contacted me after signing on as a "guest" -- actually, so I suppose I should have flagged his post, in one sense.

Kristi
Wow, I think I will bow out too. I will check in and see if something is helpful but the level of camaraderie won't be there. What I will miss the most is seeing my tested friends here and getting their expert advise. You all don't realize it but I love seeing your posts, I love looking at your listings and most of you I have on my Wish List. Today I have a guest who has been a guest in another Host here's home and I would only know of him because of his wonderful helpful nature of sharing. Now that gives me the feeling of Community!

One thing I hope will continue is Evelyn's Webinars! I look forward to learning how to be a better Host.


Evelyn
Kristi thanks.. Webinars will continue.. . October's webinar.. How to deal with a demanding guest.. announcing it this week but it will be October 29th and two sessions one at 2pm and one at 9pm. Title courtesy of you folks.. November Webinar.. Airbnb Open Paris Review WITH host educators from Paris. I'll also be doing some Periscope while in Paris and will make sure to find Andrew.. We have to hear the voice behind the words. December's webinar. Getting ready for the holidays or end of year? I haven't decided yet. In 2016: I'll be periscoping from Guatemala at the beginning of the year while staying at an Airbnb. Also, some webinar topics planned out for the new year. From getting your files ready for taxes, slow seasons, marketing. The new book.. muchas cosas

Queenie & Ted (queenie&ted)
I do not like the idea of all my posts being made public and being collectible by name. Of course there are measures a guest can take to join a host group but the average guest doesn't have the time or desire to do so. I speak very frankly on this Forum and would not do so if I were searchable by a guest. To me, this is the place to come when I'm having a bad moment or to talk others through their bad moments. Taken as a collected body of work, we could easily appear mean and heartless to guests as all our days would seem like bad ones. I'm on the new globalhostingforums.net and feel very comfortable there. I am not trying to hide what I have to say, but I feel there is a big difference between doing some research to find me and having all my thoughts at the touch of a guest's fingertips.


Deborah (High Priestess)
( globalhostingforum.net or globalhostingforum.com are a couple addresses you can use to get there....)

C C
Absolutely right, Queenie, as usual.

Hassen
Before giving any thoughts or position to whether what airbnb will be doing wanted to understand their objective behind these actions : is it to conncet guests to hosts community or to public? What for? Getting more business going through platform? Not sure

Hassen
Hit send too early. As a first impression i dont beleive they want host deliberately open up their mind but again i feel it as a test baloon before the Open and why not keeping the current moderators and name them as employees who should know/care and who are best placed to know about this forum hosts? So my current position is wait and see/hear/read from the Open then decide what to do next although am alraedy registered in global forum;
may be i am a bit too suspicious here but it all relates to our next hosting generation and change of style to make it more beneficial not only $ wise.
Sure some will comment that my post couldn't be understood. Happy to clear it


Deborah
Hassen, I think Airbnb wants to increase the sense of belonging , by not keeping some parts of its site hidden and inaccessible to many of its users (guests). They are struggling with a perceived conflict between a company representing "belonging", which has "hidden" content that only some of its users (hosts) can access. As well, I think there is a desire to have material and content available to those who may WANT to be hosts, who aren't hosts yet, to read over and learn from , before they take that first step. Many people start out as hosts who aren't ready -- have very inadequate knowledge/skill in hosting. THey sometimes fail catastrophically just after starting. If they had had access to content that could have better prepared them, it would be not only in their interest but also Airbnb's interest to have them better prepared.

Deborah
I've tried to present to the new Airbnb groups administrators a very thoughtful, in-depth consideration of some of the potential drawbacks of having the host community groups open not only to all guests to see and read, but also to post in, and the general public to have greater access to.

Of course, thoughts about the consequences of opening up host community groups to guests can only be hypothetical, and we dont' know for sure what would happen since we haven't tried that before, but for several reasons I don't think it's a good idea and I anticipate problems with doing that. I don't think any of us would be able to talk as freely on the host groups, for instance, if we knew that the problem guest we were writing about and seeing advice how to deal with, could not only read what we said about them, but actually jump right into the thread where we were talking about them, and tell off their host and all the hosts who'd expressed empathy for this host, say the situation wasn't as described, and perhaps present an entirely fictitious version of the situation, one which made the host look bad. Or very bad. I would argue that a place where this can happen, is no longer a host community. Hosts would likely flee from such a "community", or share only pablum there, cutesy stories and articles, which might be endearing or pleasant, but aren't the real reason and motivation that hosts come together to share. As someone who has watched the host communities on the existing Airbnb groups develop since their birth, 2 years ago, I can say that having a place to express oneself freely, to "kvetch" and swap "tales from the trenches" is a very important, even essential part of keeping the host communities healthy and alive. We aren't on here just to talk about what are the best types of linens to get, or to say that we like to give guests a bottle of wine and a gift card. Hosts' participation in threads here gets most active and engaging, when the knotty problems with guests or neighbors arise, including reviews and ratings issues.

I fear a degradation of the content of posts in host communities, if people with absolutely no experience as hosts are invited to post on those groups . I fear that the host communities could for instance suffer a deluge of numerous very basic questions, which many hosts are willing to address at times, but I think our collective patience would run out if we saw a vastly higher number of very basic questions, or even posts from people who had never been hosts, telling hosts what to do and how they should host. Part of the reason we have not experienced such a deluge in the current groups, is due to the fact that these groups take a little effort to find. If they were vastly easier to find, and people were funneled here, what outcome could we expect?

There are privacy issues at stake for hosts. Many of us have been asked to help build the new community groups by posting content there, but I notice my reluctance to share my own experience in the content I post. So, I find I am more oriented to posting "teaching" type content, which does not involve me personally. I find that not knowing who will show up to read what I wrote, has a suppressive effect on me. Also the fact that I can't delete or edit my own posts after 45 minutes have passed, without help from the administrators (they have indicated they would be able to help anyone with this, but are reluctant to delete original threads, as then this would cause a deletion of all the replies) makes me feel more cautious about what I say.


Serafina (Serafina)
I think Airbnb reserving the right to move posts from the Host Circle to the general public discussions is a chilling thought. There may be nuanced reasons that a host chose to post it in a more private place that may not be immediately apparent to an outsider.

While the current groups aren't entirely private, there are some natural buffers built in to the structure that allow a more honest conversation. I wouldn't be surprised if the coming changes lead to some people creating an additional profile in order to participate in discussions with less personal accountability, despite it being against the terms of service.

Hi All,
I'm not at all happy with the prospect of "them" seeing my posts or those of other Host's for that matter. It took me a bit to be accepted into Hosting 911. I was happy to be accepted and equally happy in thinking it was "exclusive". I was never worried that anyone from Airbnb might read my posts; it was something I just expected they could/would do. However, I, like many other Host's always felt my posts were going to be answered by a knowledgeable and experienced person.The general public is NOT capable of such. I admit to being a bit paranoid...after all I was born in NY and I think it was in the water..lol, but in short; no, I'll not be posting in the groups once they've changed over either.

Here are some more ideas I shared with the Admin of the new Airbnb groups:

I had an idea for a possible way to meet the goal of creating a way to meet Airbnb users' needs to find out things about hosting from experienced hosts, while at the same time protecting host community groups from posts/comments that do not constructively add to the conversation , or which may be repetitive. This would be to allow all users to access the host group "New to Hosting" while keeping the other host groups for use only by hosts with an active listing. Or, perhaps there could be THREE types of groups oriented either to beginner hosts or those interested in hosting but who were only at the stage of thinking about it, not yet ready to start.

(1) Set up a group in the guests' community where users interested in starting to host or who wanted to ask questions of hosts, could talk to hosts there. Eg, "Host/Guest dialogue". THis kind of group could also help both sides understand each other -- hosts could ask guests questions, guests could ask hosts questions. Many hosts have never been guests and may not sufficiently understand the needs or views of those who have been guests.

(2) Set up a group called "Thinking about being a host?" or similar , where those who had not even taken one step towards hosting, could come in and read material and ask questions.

(3) Then have the group which you already have, "New to Hosting" which would be more oriented towards those who have actually already started hosting, or almost started, and were having a different level of needs/questions than those who up to now had only just started thinking about it.

The first two groups could definitely be accessed by guests, or those with no listing. The third might also be.

My 2 cents is that I'm glad we have this dorum independent of Airbnb because we can be frank without big concerns that Airbnb may retaliate against anything they believes threatens their brand.

Right, Linda, that is a good point. To some extent I can empathize with Airbnb not wanting harsh critiques of Airbnb on its own website. If I ran a company, I wouldn't really like it if people could post arbitrary nasty comments about my company on my own company website. So I can understand that, particularly in the instances where the critiques have no merit. To me this is one example of why it makes sense for both types of forums to exist: one on AIrbnb, where AIrbnb hosts can readily find help and find each other, and offsite forums and host communities, where hosts can also form community, but can attend to their own interests which are often aligned with but not the same as those of Airbnb, including saying things that may be at times critical of Airbnb. Having the distance from the Airbnb site protects both sides: protects hosts from feeling censored and watched,and protects AIrbnb from having certain negative things about its company be said on its own site.

When I spoke to Laura Hughes, at AIrbnb Headquarters, she indicated that part of Airbnb's view of the new AIrbnb community groups, was that they should be of benefit to both sides: the hosts, and to Airbnb. So for instance, a small group just for hosts who like vegan food or engage in crochet as a hobby, Laura said they would not want on the new platform, because while it might benefit hosts, it had no benefit for Airbnb. AIrbnb benefits from hosts being educated about hosting and how to use the Airbnb site, and also from Hosts developing community and some host activities like work advocating for short term rentals in various cities. But a whole board on discussing alternative short term rental platforms like VRBO and TripAdvisor etc, would clearly not be in Airbnb's interest to have on its own company site -- yet such a board benefits hosts who use more than one platform. So it is good for all hosts to be mindful that part of the need for an independent global host community is that though there is a lot of overlap, our interests are not in all cases the same as Airbnb's interests.