Trustroots Wiki - User contributions [en]

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-09T18:36:45Z

Lemon-head: /* Geo stuff */

This is an overview of the project to migrate [[BeWelcome]] to Drupal.

The BeWelcome project was started late 2006, and it has gained considerable respect for the way it's run. Unfortunately so far this has not materialized into an big active member base. One possible underlying problem is probably the current code base, which takes an considerable amount of time and effort to get into, experience that is not directly usable on other projects. So the idea has risen several times to move to a platform that is

According to a survey among potential and actual BeWelcome developers, taken in October, there is considerable knowledge of Drupal, compared to Zend, Symfony and even the BW Rox framework itself. (The survey: [[File:BW developers survey 2010-10.pdf]].)

:''This is a work in progress. You're very welcome to edit.''

<div style="float:right">__TOC__</div>

==Want to help?==
Some things you can do right now:
* create an account here and ''watch'' this page so you get updates
* Drupal site building
** build features that behave like BW functionality
** find out what's working in D7
* PHP coding
** fix what's not yet working in D7
** add needed functionality to Drupal modules
* Drupal theming => turn the BW layout into a Drupal theme
* learn Drupal 7

More will follow later, such as testing and bug reporting.

===People===
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/guaka guaka], [http://drupal.org/user/331773 d.o] - everything but graphic design
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/lemon-head lemonhead] - everything but graphic design. [http://drupal.org/user/459338 donquixote on d.o.]
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/robino Robin] - experienced site builder (hardly any PHP)
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/su2010 su2010] - experience with theming
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/sitarane Sitarane] - Site builder (hardly any PHP)
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/matthias globetrotter_tt] - learning Drupal, can help with theming and graphic design
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/members/crumbking crumbking] - help with theming and graphic design
* ''[http://couchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Migrating_BeWelcome_to_Drupal&action=edit add yourself]''

==Migration==

Main things to migrate:
* userprofiles (comments / relations / location (geodata) / groupmembership)
** feature: bw_user_profile
* messages
** [http://drupal.org/project/privatemsg privatemsg]
* preferences
** some things will probably already have stuff set up
* admin (backend)
** most things will probably have admin functionality, and permissions.
** we will need to figure out what needs to be adapted at a later stage
* page-like content:
** FAQ => faq content type (multicrud?)
** tour => content type
** about pages => pages?

Other:
* forum
** in core
* groups
** [http://drupal.org/project/og og]
* wiki
** custom content type, [http://drupal.org/project/recent_changes recent_changes]? [http://drupal.org/project/diff diff]
* galleries
** custom content type
* blogs
** custom content type
* trips
** realitygaps was interested in doing this

===Design/Theme===
* http://www.yaml-fuer-drupal.de/de/download (German, drupal 6 only)?!? not really needed, we can take YAML directly, although the non-GPLness is not so great
* We can turn the current BW layout into a D7 theme
* Maybe we want make things a bit funkier here and there, e.g. through jQuery

===User fields===
* user/register should show more than username/password
* geo + address: see "geo stuff".
* User fields settings should be exportable as features: http://drupal.org/node/989900

=== Geo stuff ===
We need a combination of geo and address features, as with support for the D7 field api.

Possible modules:
* [http://drupal.org/project/openlayers openlayers]. D7 dev release out since a few days.
** tmwc [http://drupal.org/node/743856#comment-3776918 says]:
**: OpenLayers CCK will be axed; geofield or another module may be the replacement.
**: Well, [https://github.com/developmentseed/geofield here's what GeoField is currently] - it's a very, very simple implementation of a fields-based geo module.
* [http://drupal.org/project/openlayers_geocoder openlayers_geocoder]. No D7 announced.
* [http://drupal.org/project/location location]. No D7 announced.
* [http://drupal.org/project/geo geo]. No D7 announced, see this [http://drupal.org/node/849354 d7 request]

===Privacy===
Waiting for D7 modules:
* [http://drupal.org/node/744618 CCK Private Fields]?

===Roles===
* developer
* support
* editor
* translator
* admin
* forum moderator
* safetyteam
...

==Translation==
Drupal is based on "everything is English". We would prefer keyword-based translations.
A solution would be creating another language: "real English" or something and rename "English" to "coder English" or "Drupal English".

Drupal can't show translation links, but it might be possible to create a module for that.

==Deployment==
* Deployment strategies. We want to have as much as possible to be code-based, but some modules really love the database and auto-increment.

===Performance===
* Page load speed
* Scalability

==Technicalities==
=== Code driven development ===
* '''[http://drupal.org/project/features Features]''' module for exporting stuff that lives in db into code
* Context module: works with features
* custom modules
** sites/all/modules/custom
** but we want to stick with mainstream modules as much as possible

==Roadmap==
Like Drupal: it's ready when it's ready - no more open critical issues. So no roadmap with dates here. (Yet. Open for change.)

# Implement as much as possible on a D7 installation at bw.guaka.org
#* No importing of data yet
# Make it distributable
#* git
#* everything should become code
# Start importing data
#* With some funky data modules
#* Start with data that has no privacy issues such as wiki
# Create alpha D7 BW

===Drupal 7===
We have chosen to start right away with Drupal 7 (D7).

====Con====
* Many modules aren't ready yet.
* There are still some bugs.

====Pro====
* No need to upgrade to D7 ;)
* D7 has many good things in core that we want.
** Especially: "Fields in core". In D6, only nodes could have fields. To allow (full-featured) fields for users, one needed modules like content_profile, which brings structural problems.
* A lot of Great Stuff we don't yet know about will not be for D6

===Learning Drupal 7===
Some ways:
* Create a D7 site at [http://www.drupalgardens.com/ Drupal Gardens].
* Set up D7 on your own machine
* Read stuff from http://drupal.org/planet

==Questions, comments?==
Please [http://couchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Talk:Migrating_BeWelcome_to_Drupal&action=edit&redlink=1 add it to the talk page...]

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-05T19:55:05Z

Lemon-head: /* Geo stuff */

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-05T19:42:32Z

Lemon-head: /* Geo stuff */

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-05T19:06:22Z

Lemon-head: /* Geo stuff */

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-05T18:57:11Z

Lemon-head: /* Pro */

Migrating BeWelcome to Drupal

2010-12-05T18:54:12Z

Lemon-head: /* Migration */

Trustroots Wiki talk:About

2009-12-23T13:42:31Z

Lemon-head:

= Using couchwiki.org for BeWelcome.org =
I hope I'm writing in the good place, if not, please let me know.

So, BW users know that the wiki is currently moving from bevolunteer.org to an integrated version of erfurt wiki in BeWelcom itself.
I don't know about you but personally, I definitely prefer mediawiki than the solution being set up currently.

I would like to know then, how much sense does it make to use couchwiki for bewelcome.org, your opininon.

I think if we do so, we have to create special pages for each Hospitality networks like CouchSurfing, Hospitality Club, BeWelcome, BeLodged, Global Freeloaders, Servas etc. and make it more clear on the main page.

do we go further ?

--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 15:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

:I think it makes sense to use this wiki for different networks. There's enough space :)
:It can be good to make this distinction clear on the main page. Feel free to do plunge in and edit it! [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 16:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

== More about why this server is good ==

Hi Guaka,

Thanks for running this server. '''I appreciate you doing so at your expense and also with your time'''. This hopefully constructive criticism to '''help persuade those more stubborn then me to use it'''.

If anyone else with more time and interest can do the deep background research to answer this question to hopefully persuade more people to trust and use this server it would be great.

# Which provider are you using (shared hosting?). It's been reliable for me so far but I'm concerned that this may not be the case in the future. There are various free services on the internet to help with this.
# you said '''community in control'''. I support your use of openid and pseudononymous editing. However is [http://www.dataportability.org/ Data Portability] supported - media wiki has default export options I guess?
# Privacy & Trust - I've found that some posters on other forums are quite apprehensive about following untrusted links (must of been rick roll'd too many times ;) ).
# Ease of use
## If you've followed the links in the emails I've sent you then you'll know about the common craft video that I used [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY "Wiki's in plain English"].
## More tutorials? Screencasts (video recordings of the apps with voice overs)
## I've been using wikis now for several months but I still find discussions via it to be a pain in the ass. Forums are much better. I've used the wikipedia help desk and fontain portal and it's a pain.
## As with all new technologies there's a learning curve. I'm find it hard to convince though. Like with Mozilla firefox with voice chat support is there a volunteer run voice chat support. For the events I'm running I may be willing to pay for this service.

--[[Special:Contributions/118.208.189.140|118.208.189.140]] 11:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

::Couchwiki is like any other wiki with [[MediaWiki]] software - so if you need tutorials, a good start is search for MediaWiki on google or youtube. The video looks nice (though I watched it without sound). I think the comments would fit well on the [[MediaWiki]] page. I don't get it what you want with the voice chat support.
::[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 13:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Trustroots Wiki talk:About

2009-12-23T13:42:17Z

Lemon-head: added link to video. some comments.

= Using couchwiki.org for BeWelcome.org =
I hope I'm writing in the good place, if not, please let me know.

So, BW users know that the wiki is currently moving from bevolunteer.org to an integrated version of erfurt wiki in BeWelcom itself.
I don't know about you but personally, I definitely prefer mediawiki than the solution being set up currently.

I would like to know then, how much sense does it make to use couchwiki for bewelcome.org, your opininon.

I think if we do so, we have to create special pages for each Hospitality networks like CouchSurfing, Hospitality Club, BeWelcome, BeLodged, Global Freeloaders, Servas etc. and make it more clear on the main page.

do we go further ?

--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 15:59, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

:I think it makes sense to use this wiki for different networks. There's enough space :)
:It can be good to make this distinction clear on the main page. Feel free to do plunge in and edit it! [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 16:55, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

== More about why this server is good ==

Hi Guaka,

Thanks for running this server. '''I appreciate you doing so at your expense and also with your time'''. This hopefully constructive criticism to '''help persuade those more stubborn then me to use it'''.

If anyone else with more time and interest can do the deep background research to answer this question to hopefully persuade more people to trust and use this server it would be great.

# Which provider are you using (shared hosting?). It's been reliable for me so far but I'm concerned that this may not be the case in the future. There are various free services on the internet to help with this.
# you said '''community in control'''. I support your use of openid and pseudononymous editing. However is [http://www.dataportability.org/ Data Portability] supported - media wiki has default export options I guess?
# Privacy & Trust - I've found that some posters on other forums are quite apprehensive about following untrusted links (must of been rick roll'd too many times ;) ).
# Ease of use
## If you've followed the links in the emails I've sent you then you'll know about the common craft video that I used [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dnL00TdmLY "Wiki's in plain English"].
## More tutorials? Screencasts (video recordings of the apps with voice overs)
## I've been using wikis now for several months but I still find discussions via it to be a pain in the ass. Forums are much better. I've used the wikipedia help desk and fontain portal and it's a pain.
## As with all new technologies there's a learning curve. I'm find it hard to convince though. Like with Mozilla firefox with voice chat support is there a volunteer run voice chat support. For the events I'm running I may be willing to pay for this service.

--[[Special:Contributions/118.208.189.140|118.208.189.140]] 11:46, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

::Couchwiki is like any other wiki with [[Mediawiki]] software - so if you need tutorials, a good start is search for MediaWiki on google or youtube. The video looks nice (though I watched it without sound). I think the comments would fit well on the [[MediaWiki]] page. I don't get it what you want with the voice chat support.
::[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 13:42, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:How to handle freeloaders

2009-12-08T00:13:39Z

Lemon-head: /* wtf */

Most freeloaders do not have a confirmed account (Green Lock)

-- Um that fragment above is a bit out of the uh not with the rest of the open couchsurfing community. It is a true statement but aren't we trying to not promote verification as it is a poor secuirty control feature, if that meaeks sense.

== wtf ==
I think this article is quite unbalanced and naive, and needs some serious quality review.

I see this article was copied from<br/>
http://wiki.couchsurfing.org/en/How_to_handle_freeloaders<br/>

Do we need to be more careful copying things? Or should we introduce a template for disputed quality?

[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 00:13, 8 December 2009 (UTC)

Talk:How to handle freeloaders

2009-12-08T00:13:24Z

Lemon-head:

Freeze moderation tool

2009-11-16T06:05:13Z

Lemon-head:

This tool is meant to be used by moderation to put a thread on hold for a short period.
: Is this a couchsurfing feature?

==Conditions of use==

It sometimes happen when a discussion is taking place between many people that two of them are at the computer at the same time for a long time. If they are challenging each other, it is very likely that the discussion will turn into a conversation between the two, leaving behind all other participants.

For the sake of the quality of the argument, the "freeze tool" allows a moderator that is witnessing this event to put the discussion on hold for a time, in order for other people to be able to log on and read it and reply.

It also can be used to defuse an discussion that is turning into an argument.

==Description of the tool==

A moderator must come to this place and copy-paste the content of the paragraph "The tool" and post it into the thread he means to freeze (editing the date). He is free to write additional content.

==The tool==

Freeze!

This thread is hereby frozen from any post for 2 days. Group members are free to post again from DATE.

If you do post before that, you will be automatically removed from the group for 5 days.

The description of this moderation tool can be found <a href="http://couchwiki.org/en/Freeze_moderation_tool">there</a>.

Talk:Hospitality Club censorship

2009-11-16T05:59:35Z

Lemon-head: /* Less black and white please */

:''moved from [[Template talk:In the news]]''
== 24.08. Hospitality Club keeps on blocking messages containing CouchSurfing, see HC Censorship. ==

Hmm, we have just tested it, we immediately got each other's website promotion in our inbox and five minutes later in our email. To be sure we have also sent a promotion message to grappig, maybe he can report, too. (Anyway, we will be notified if it was blocked, so we will know it even without grappig)
In general it would be nice to learn about the sources, since in the past quite a few rumours that were not true at all were spread on this site without any proof or source. (not saying that everything was / is wrong of course)

Cheers,
Claudia

:Indeed, I got your message:

::"Hey there,

::have you heard of couchsurfing? It's sooo cool.

::claudia"

:I don't have my "spam check" set to "medium" (the default), like amylin had. And I guess neither do you (or Frank) have your "spam check" set to default. Or the "spam check" has just been modified. I would definitely be happy in that case.
:The message on this page is what I got back, exactly like this. It also contains the exact message I wrote to her.
:What proof or source do you want? Shall I forward you the message? It's all electronic, so it's not gonna be proof enough ever. In fact, anything you get to read on the screen can be tampered with. Using cryptography (GnuPG) for verification would help a bit though. The best proof would probably be going through the code, but unfortunately it's not available for download. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 20:02, 31 August 2006 (CEST)

[Well it would already have been a bit more precise to specify that what you are saying refers to levels 1) or 2) of the spamchecking options, but not to 3) If people WANT there messages to be checked, maybe they even WANT promtion to be filtered out. I just don't understand people complaining about the spam check if they still have it turned on... Thanks for confirming anyway :-)
Claudia]

[Just checked again the entry in HC censorship:

"As of August 2006 Hospitality Club is still censoring its users. Messages containing the word "CouchSurfing" are considered "website promotion", which is considered spam, and thus deleted. Here's what Guaka got when he sent a message, only containing "Check out CouchSurfing my dear!", to amylin, who has her spamfilter turned off. Note that this is a big improvement, since members are actually informed about this censorship."

I suppose amylin has NOT yet checked her settings after three levels of spam check had been introduced? - Claudia]

:She did. She just put them back to the default settings to see if CouchSurfing is filtered out ''by default''. The funny thing is that Ebay and other websites are accepted.
:I think that most people don't change the default settings. And are thus subject to somewhat peculiar spam filtering rules. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 06:46, 1 September 2006 (CEST)

----
<br>
For the record, both Amylin and Guaka are part of the "inner core" or primary clique, at CS. These were not simply random HC members, but diehard CouchSurfing members, attempting to prove a point. Their motivation in this simple experiment is suspect, to say the least. Still disappointing to see that HC is censoring '''any''' internal message traffic, whatsoever. This policy is heavy-handed and unnecessary, IMO.
--[[User:84.16.233.47|84.16.233.47]] 01:41, 15 September 2006 (CEST)

:Funny, that I'm considered to be a "diehard CouchSurfing member". Maybe I am. (And yet, I'm not even a "CS Ambassador".) But before I knew what was happening to HC messages, and what the founder of HC thinks of democracy I was seriously thinking of being a "diehard HC member".
:What's suspect in trying to prove a point?
:If I would suspect the same thing to be happening in CS, I would try to prove the same point. And probably find people to start another hospitality exchange site. I just think, that at the moment, CS is definitely the way to go. CS allows me to come up with ideas and realize them. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 10:01, 18 September 2006 (CEST)

== Less black and white please ==

I don't like the style of this article. It very much comes across as a personal thing, not a piece of factual information. We need more experiences, maybe even blind test statistics, that clearly point out the differences of legitimate spam filtering vs censorship, and the exact conditions for when a message is being delayed / censored / marked as spam in one or another network.

The examples are also not the best, imo.
* "Check out couchsurfing.com" really has no value beyond promoting this website. The equivalent would be to send "Check out skype, it's cool". Especially, if this is your first message to a person (which probably the HC spam checkers did not research).
* "Please send a message via couchsurfing.com, because I don't check my HC messages that often". That's already a very different story, because now the recommendation has a context and a practical use within that context. If you can find out that such messages are censored as well (or have been), bingo! You have proven a point. Otherwise, the statement of this article needs to be phrased more carefully.

What remains is the controversy of human spam checkers looking into someone's messages. It is an optional feature, but still, it is controversial.

Thanks, [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 05:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Hospitality Club censorship

2009-11-16T05:58:55Z

Lemon-head:

:''moved from [[Template talk:In the news]]''
== 24.08. Hospitality Club keeps on blocking messages containing CouchSurfing, see HC Censorship. ==

Hmm, we have just tested it, we immediately got each other's website promotion in our inbox and five minutes later in our email. To be sure we have also sent a promotion message to grappig, maybe he can report, too. (Anyway, we will be notified if it was blocked, so we will know it even without grappig)
In general it would be nice to learn about the sources, since in the past quite a few rumours that were not true at all were spread on this site without any proof or source. (not saying that everything was / is wrong of course)

Cheers,
Claudia

:Indeed, I got your message:

::"Hey there,

::have you heard of couchsurfing? It's sooo cool.

::claudia"

:I don't have my "spam check" set to "medium" (the default), like amylin had. And I guess neither do you (or Frank) have your "spam check" set to default. Or the "spam check" has just been modified. I would definitely be happy in that case.
:The message on this page is what I got back, exactly like this. It also contains the exact message I wrote to her.
:What proof or source do you want? Shall I forward you the message? It's all electronic, so it's not gonna be proof enough ever. In fact, anything you get to read on the screen can be tampered with. Using cryptography (GnuPG) for verification would help a bit though. The best proof would probably be going through the code, but unfortunately it's not available for download. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 20:02, 31 August 2006 (CEST)

[Well it would already have been a bit more precise to specify that what you are saying refers to levels 1) or 2) of the spamchecking options, but not to 3) If people WANT there messages to be checked, maybe they even WANT promtion to be filtered out. I just don't understand people complaining about the spam check if they still have it turned on... Thanks for confirming anyway :-)
Claudia]

[Just checked again the entry in HC censorship:

"As of August 2006 Hospitality Club is still censoring its users. Messages containing the word "CouchSurfing" are considered "website promotion", which is considered spam, and thus deleted. Here's what Guaka got when he sent a message, only containing "Check out CouchSurfing my dear!", to amylin, who has her spamfilter turned off. Note that this is a big improvement, since members are actually informed about this censorship."

I suppose amylin has NOT yet checked her settings after three levels of spam check had been introduced? - Claudia]

:She did. She just put them back to the default settings to see if CouchSurfing is filtered out ''by default''. The funny thing is that Ebay and other websites are accepted.
:I think that most people don't change the default settings. And are thus subject to somewhat peculiar spam filtering rules. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 06:46, 1 September 2006 (CEST)

----
<br>
For the record, both Amylin and Guaka are part of the "inner core" or primary clique, at CS. These were not simply random HC members, but diehard CouchSurfing members, attempting to prove a point. Their motivation in this simple experiment is suspect, to say the least. Still disappointing to see that HC is censoring '''any''' internal message traffic, whatsoever. This policy is heavy-handed and unnecessary, IMO.
--[[User:84.16.233.47|84.16.233.47]] 01:41, 15 September 2006 (CEST)

:Funny, that I'm considered to be a "diehard CouchSurfing member". Maybe I am. (And yet, I'm not even a "CS Ambassador".) But before I knew what was happening to HC messages, and what the founder of HC thinks of democracy I was seriously thinking of being a "diehard HC member".
:What's suspect in trying to prove a point?
:If I would suspect the same thing to be happening in CS, I would try to prove the same point. And probably find people to start another hospitality exchange site. I just think, that at the moment, CS is definitely the way to go. CS allows me to come up with ideas and realize them. [[User:Guaka|Guaka]] 10:01, 18 September 2006 (CEST)

== Less black and white please ==

I don't like the style of this article. It very much comes across as a personal thing, not a piece of factual information. We need more experiences, maybe even blind test statistics, that clearly point out the differences of legitimate spam filtering vs censorship, and the exact conditions for when a message is being delayed / censored / marked as spam in one or another network.

The examples are also not the best, imo.
- "Check out couchsurfing.com" really has no value beyond promoting this website. The equivalent would be to send "Check out skype, it's cool". Especially, if this is your first message to a person (which probably the HC spam checkers did not research).
- "Please send a message via couchsurfing.com, because I don't check my HC messages that often". That's already a very different story, because now the recommendation has a context and a practical use within that context. If you can find out that such messages are censored as well (or have been), bingo! You have proven a point. Otherwise, the statement of this article needs to be phrased more carefully.

What remains is the controversy of human spam checkers looking into someone's messages. It is an optional feature, but still, it is controversial.

Thanks, [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 05:58, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

BeWelcome

2009-11-15T09:26:12Z

Lemon-head: /* Why use BeWelcome? */

[[Image:BeWelcome_Logo.jpg‎|left]]

'''Be Welcome''' is a project aiming to connect people from all over the world through [[hospitality exchange]] and to allow them to learn about other cultures, countries and traditions. It was founded in 2006 by volunteers of [[Hospitality Club]] who experienced the limits of decision making, transparency and legal structure within the management of HC.
Thus an official NGO was founded in July 2006. First called HCvol it's final name is BeVolunteer.org.

The first beta website of the project BeWelcome was launched in February 2007. A second upgrade was carried through at the end of June 2007, the third and actual Version was introduced in the beginning of December 2007. In 2007 various volunteers of [[CouchSurfing]], spreading "Open CS" also joined the volunteers network.

Check http://www.bewelcome.org

== Why use BeWelcome? ==

BeWelcome has a few nice things to point out:
* A good reply rate to accomodation requests (afaik)
* A quite responsive community of volunteers
* Openness for ideas from the community.
* If you like the interface, that's one more point. If you don't, well, then not.

Why would someone not use BeWelcome?
* not as many members as some other networks. You don't get that many requests, and you don't have that much choice in small places.

==History==
See [[History of BeWelcome]]

== Philosophy ==
See [[Philosophy of BeWelcome]]

==References==

The Software which runs BeWelcome[http://sourceforge.net/projects/bw-rox/]

Article on BeWelcome [http://www.idealist.org/en/org/166947-211]

Wikitravel about BeWelcome [http://wikitravel.org/en/Hospitality_exchange#BeWelcome]

Canvi article about BeWelcome (Catalan) [http://www.cambio16.info/canvi/pdf/107.pdf]

Indymedia article about Media and BeWelcome [http://de.indymedia.org/2007/11/198280.shtml]

more ?

----
:''From http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=BeWelcome&action=edit&oldid=5616''
{{Hospitality service}}

History of BeWelcome

2009-11-14T22:02:51Z

Lemon-head:

The beginnings of [[BeWelcome]] and [[BeVolunteer]] can only be told alongside a history of [[Hospitality Club]], since this is where all the founders started and learned to love the idea of hospitality exchange.

===July 2000===

Together with his brother Kjell, [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] founded the [[Hospitality Club]], inspired by other hospitality exchange networks like [[Servas| SERVAS]].

===2002-2005===

The later founders of the future "HCvol"/"BeVolunteer" started volunteering for [[Hospitality Club]], covering all areas of [[Hospitality Clubs]] volunteering from programming, spam checking, accepting members, forum moderation, translation to service for [[Hospitality Club]] members.

===in 2005===

Some of the core volunteers from the [[Hospitality Club]] - the ones who had been working so closely with [[Veit Kuehne| Veit]] for years - started to question Veit about some processes which were obviously missing in the [[Hospitality Club]]. These special topics were the following:
* the absence of any legal status for the [[Hospitality Club]]
* the absence of any democratic system in the way of taking decisions, at any level
* the absence of any transparency in the management of finances, at any level
Other aspects were pointed out too: feeling of manipulation of volunteers, lack of transparency on [[Hospitality Club]] policies for members...

Those shortcomings became even more problematic to the founders of HCvol since the [[Hospitality Club]] could not be considered a baby anymore but a real project that was actually growing very fast. Concerned volunteers felt the responsibility to work on these topics so they could evolve and, with some time and efforts, be implemented in [[Hospitality Club]].

However, Veit never focused on these problems but tried to make volunteers stick to concrete work instead. He refused to debate and chose neither to involve nor to inform even the most committed volunteers on those issues.

===December 2005===

After many futile and highly frustrating attempts to push the above mentioned issues further in personal conversations, the time was there for more concerted action. A "manifest" was sent to [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] requesting him to work with the concerned volunteers on the mentioned points, or those volunteers would stop all their work for [[Hospitality Club]]. Regardless of that action, those volunteers were - and still are - totally in love with [[Hospitality Club]], and never stopped working, but motivation was decreasing.

===February 2006===

Finally after 2 months of silence, Veit disclosed his position: NO WAY would he accept that manifest. It was clear for him: never would [[Hospitality Club]] offer transparency about money management, never would [[Hospitality Club]] be managed by a democratic structure, and for the legal status he suggested a company status or even worse, something based in the shady tax heaven St Kitts & Nieves.

===25th of february 2006===
A meeting in Dresden was arranged, to discuss problems and find a new way of structuring [[Hospitality Club]] volunteer teams and rework procedures. Only an inner circle of [[Hospitality Club]] core volunteers was invited. Many attended, some coming from 1000 km of distance, to help solving these ever growing problems in [[Hospitality Club]] and the big lack of motivation after the manifest was turned down. Two later HCVOL founders, Matthias and Marco, took part in the meeting. Two and a half days of heated debate revealed that there was no room for compromise from [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] side, as he did not give in on any topic. At the end of the meeting, [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] finally accepted to consider an external audit for finances inspection; he set a board of 5 persons chosen by him, and in which he would keep a veto right, to take strategical decisions - but explicitly NOT empowered to discuss finances and the possibilities of creating a legal organization - anything discussed in that board was to keep secret; he considered establishing a legal team to work on defining, what would be the best statutes for [[Hospitality Club]] and he talked about creating a page explaining his point of view on [[Hospitality Club]] policy.

For some of the concerned volunteers this was still not enough, and so unacceptable.

For others it was already a good evolution, even if not enough.

The problem, however, was that '''''none'' of the good intentions have ever been implemented'''. The board had one or two skype conferences, where nothing was achieved. Afer six months, the board was officially dissolved. Two later HCVOL founders, Pierre-Charles and Marco, were members of that board.

But there was still the hope that [[Hospitality Club]] could evolve to become the organization that is worth its incredible members!

===March-April 2006===

A group of highly involved [[Hospitality Club]] volunteers decided to set up HCvol, in order to build a space of communications for volunteers, independent from [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] control. The underlying main point of criticism of [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] was that he wanted to prevent real communication between volunteers, in order to prevent them from discussing what he decided - be it good or bad. The founders of HCvol considered it unacceptable that [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] had blocked many issues for so long even though whole teams didn't agree with his position.

===Is HC [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] thing?===

The underlying idea of HCvol is the question whether the [[Hospitality Club]] was [[Veit Kuehne| `Veit Kühne´s´]] thing'. The conclusion that [[Hospitality Club]] was rather the volunteers' thing, if not the members' thing, was quite obvious. Consequently the [[Hospitality Club]] should be owned by a legal non-profit organization composed of the ones who build [[Hospitality Club]] everyday: the volunteers. It is true that Veit invented the [[Hospitality Club]] and there is no denying of him having done enormously great things for it. But great inventions transcend their inventor...

The mere thought of all the volunteer work being used in the future for one man's interest was unbearable for the founders of HCvol. Trusting [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] was not enough. Building a future for HC was ensuring that the possibility of [[Hospitality Club]] being sold or used in a commercial way could never come true. This seemed more important than improving HC website or accepting more members.

===July 2006===

HCvol being set more or less it was introduced to [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]]. There were many hopes that [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] would accept that proposal of a new organization, or at least evolve in that direction. [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] radical answer soon destroyed those new hopes: NEVER.

Never democracy, never transparency.

Some of the HCvol founders, who had given so much of these last years for HC were even threatened to be kicked from [[Hospitality Club]] [http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=In_the_news], and told that their only aim was to gain personal power.

===September 2006===

Since nothing was moving in [[Hospitality Club]], it was felt that a real counter-power had to be built. It was evident that having a place for the volunteers to work out of Veit's control can only be a very productive thing. Only by word of mouth many volunteers had found their way to HCvol and started to use the forum extensively for all kinds of discussions.

===October 2006===

Since October, HCvol is an official organization, and so submitted to democracy and transparency. A group of 9 worked a lot to set an organization as basis of work in HCvol. They (minus one founder) constitute the first "Board of Directors" (which we call the BoD), whose role is to meet weekly in order to take any needed decision, to organize HCvol so volunteers can work well, and to make sure no abuse takes place. As soon as HCvol will contain a bigger group of volunteers, there will be a General Assembly and a BoD will be elected by HCvol members.

In the middle of the month, there was a (last?) big hesitation. Wasn't the whole project a huge waste? Wasn't there any way to work on a really new project with HCvol, but including HC members?
So the BoD suggested to Veit that HCvol start developing a project on a new site (new website) but that the [[Hospitality Club]] database be shared. In exchange HCvol members would help maintaning the [[http://www.hospitalityclub.org| Hospitality Club site]] for a limited period of time. So the HCvol site would have been like a test site, a new site, which [[Hospitality Club]] members could have used if they wanted. It would have been difficult technically, but possible.
After lots of hours of discussions one of the HCvol BoD members told Veit about that idea. Well, we understand why he refuses, but for the members, however, we would have liked that compromise.

===January 2007===

HCvol is renamed BeVolunteer and is totally dedicated to its project, BeWelcome[http://www.bewelcome.org].

The majority of the topics touching the creation of that new platform are being discussed among the volunteers, decisions are taken and all the teams and routines are set.

===CouchSurfing volunteer exodus===
During mid-2007 many former [[Couchsurfing]] volunteers began volunteering for BeWelcome instead, including 3 of the 4 former [[Couchsurfing]] core developers active during the short-lived CS 2.0 experiment. Begun following the termination in July, 2006 of the [[http://www.couchsurfing.com| CouchSurfing website]] by its owner, [[Casey Fenton]], following a major loss of data, the main emphasis of CS 2.0 was to be decentralized volunteer participation -- [[Couchsurfing]] was no longer to be dominated by one person. But during the following year, when many selfless volunteers answered the call and helped take [[Couchsurfing]] from the edge of ruin and marginal financial stability to thriving success with a budgetary surplus, [[Casey Fenton]] and his hand-picked associates, mostly in secret, organized a top-down pyramidal corporate structure with paid employees, all of whom are close associates of [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton]]. Independent-minded volunteers who raised questions about the integrity of the managerial processes, or questioned [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton´s]] unaccountable and privileged position within the community, were blacklisted and encouraged to leave. [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton]] turned out to be much like [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]]. Some of the major issues prompting the exodus were secrecy, unaccountability, unfair treatment of volunteers, unkept promises and an extremely oppressive, one-sided non-disclosure agreement.

Thus, many former [[Couchsurfing]] volunteers share common values with the founders of [[BeVolunteer]], and appreciate the work they did in establishing a new home for those in the hospitality community who support the enlightened principles upon which [[BeWelcome]] is founded.

===October 2007===
BeWelcome.org becomes the first Open Source Software [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software] hospitality website, by unanimous vote of its developers. See the [http://www.bevolunteer.org/joomla/index.php/home/1-latest-news/49-bewelcome-first-open-source-hospitality-network?format=pdf Press Release (PDF)]

===Here we are, now.===
'''
Full of motivation to BUILD something, our minds free of conflicts from the past, and full of our experiences and hopes.

Go through [[http://www.bevolunteer.org| BeVolunteer website]] to discover its projects and how it all works!
'''

==References==

The Software which runs BeWelcome[http://sourceforge.net/projects/bw-rox/]

Article on BeWelcome [http://www.idealist.org/en/org/166947-211]

Wikitravel about BeWelcome [http://wikitravel.org/en/Hospitality_exchange#BeWelcome]

Canvi article about BeWelcome (Catalan) [http://www.cambio16.info/canvi/pdf/107.pdf]

Indymedia article about Media and BeWelcome [http://de.indymedia.org/2007/11/198280.shtml]

more ?

----
:''From http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=BeWelcome&action=edit&oldid=5616''
{{Hospitality service}}

Talk:BeWelcome

2009-11-14T22:01:33Z

Lemon-head:

== Philosophy ==
Should the "philosophy" stuff really be on this page, or rather on a separate one? I think this section is very lengthy, and most of the points have little value to the reader. (I don't like it anyway, but that's my personal problem) And, if this stuff is moved somewhere else, what can be on this page instead? [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

Talk:BeWelcome

2009-11-14T22:00:32Z

Lemon-head: Created page with '== Philosophy == Should the "philosophy" stuff really be on this page, or rather on a separate one? I think this section is very lengthy, and most of the points have little value…'

== Philosophy ==
Should the "philosophy" stuff really be on this page, or rather on a separate one? I think this section is very lengthy, and most of the points have little value to the reader. (I don't like it anyway, but that's my personal problem) [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:00, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

BeWelcome

2009-11-14T05:23:21Z

Lemon-head:

[[Image:Bewelcome-logologo.png|left]]

'''Be Welcome''' is a project aiming to connect people from all over the world through [[hospitality exchange]] and to allow them to learn about other cultures, countries and traditions. It was founded in 2006 by volunteers of [[Hospitality Club]] who experienced the limits of decision making, transparency and legal structure within the management of HC.
Thus an official NGO was founded in July 2006. First called HCvol it's final name is BeVolunteer.org.

The first beta website of the project BeWelcome was launched in February 2007. A second upgrade was carried through at the end of June 2007, the third and actual Version was introduced in the beginning of December 2007. In 2007 various volunteers of [[CouchSurfing]], spreading "Open CS" also joined the volunteers network.

Check http://www.bewelcome.org

== Why use BeWelcome? ==

BeWelcome has a few nice things to point out:
* A good reply rate to accomodation requests (afaik)
* A quite responsive community of volunteers
* Openness for ideas from the community.
* If you like the interface, that's one more point. If you don't, well, then not.

Why would someone not use BeWelcome?
* not as many members as some other networks
* ..

==History==
See [[History of BeWelcome]]

== Philosophy ==
The [[Philosophy of BeWelcome]] has the following points:

Here are some values that seem to us to be the real basis of the work in BeVolunteer (the NGO that started BeWelcome)

*Goodwill

Goodwill is the precondition for any cooperative work. It enables us to face some minor/medium problems between us without getting under pressure or questioning our common goals. We are all here with the same aim, isn't it?
However, this should not be misunderstood as a free ticket for the refusal to learn and improve. Things done with a good intention might still be bad for others. So we should see goodwill as a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

*Altruism

We are not working in BeVolunteer for personal glory or enrichment, but to spread the words of hospitality as a great idea, and to provide the tools to help this idea come true all around the world. Our highest goal is the welfare of the whole community, not personal benefits. And the other way round, according to our statutes, money can never give any priviledge in BeVolunteer.
Still, it is up to us to enjoy our own-enrichment we gain through the network...

*Trust and courage

Trust starts within ourselves. We believe in ourselves, our values, our community and our goals. We are not afraid of other people and communities but curious to get to know them. We trust our future because it is us who create it! The trust in ourselves is the basis for courage. There is no reason to hide or to be afraid, we are here to bring light into our lives.

*Ambition and excellence

Ambition is mainly not a negative thing. We have big goals and are impatient to turn them into reality. We are not dreaming as if we would live forever, and do not live as if we would die today. We are here to live our dreams! This is our ambition, we are not afraid of big ideas, but greedy to make them come true.

*Voluntariness

In contrast to businesses, we do not require commitments. Our enthusiasm for hospitality is a higher guarantor than any commitment. We work voluntarily, that is why we love it so much.

*Transparency

Trust and transparency condition each other. No trust without transparency, no transparency without trust. Transparency is a joy for the sincere, and the ruin for the malicious.

*Diversity

We are here to reduce distances, to cross borders and to unify people who share our values. However, we are not here to equalize and standardize people and cultures. We appreciate the precious value of variety, the right of being different and how diversity is able to freshen up and open our minds.

*Participative, well-fortified democracy

As an organization, we have a democratic structure. Democracy guarantees many of our values, and in particular prevents the abuse by a few mighty individuals.
At the same time, we are not naive but aware of the drawbacks of an exaggerated interpretation of democracy that undermines the functioning of its elements. A democracy deserves its name only as long as it is capable of acting for the welfare of its individuals. A good way of keeping a democracy working well is to enforce the principle of subsidiarity: Discussions, decisions and actions are done on organizational levels only as high as necessary but as low as possible, i.e. individuals first, then teams, then Board of Directors (BoD), then General Assembly (GA).
So the best way to describe our structure is neither a representative nor a basic democracy, but a participative one.

*Friendship

Friendship is not something that obeys to any rules or statutes: friendship results from the delight you have while spending time with other people. We hope you find a lot of them in BeVolunteer!

==References==

The Software which runs BeWelcome[http://sourceforge.net/projects/bw-rox/]

Article on BeWelcome [http://www.idealist.org/en/org/166947-211]

Wikitravel about BeWelcome [http://wikitravel.org/en/Hospitality_exchange#BeWelcome]

Canvi article about BeWelcome (Catalan) [http://www.cambio16.info/canvi/pdf/107.pdf]

Indymedia article about Media and BeWelcome [http://de.indymedia.org/2007/11/198280.shtml]

more ?

----
:''From http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=BeWelcome&action=edit&oldid=5616''
{{Hospitality service}}

History of BeWelcome

2009-11-14T05:16:28Z

Lemon-head: Created page with 'The beginnings of BeVolunteer can only be told alongside a history of Hospitality Club, since this is where all the founders started and learned to love the idea of hospi…'

The beginnings of [[BeVolunteer]] can only be told alongside a history of [[Hospitality Club]], since this is where all the founders started and learned to love the idea of hospitality exchange.

===July 2000===

Together with his brother Kjell, [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] founded the [[Hospitality Club]], inspired by other hospitality exchange networks like [[Servas| SERVAS]].

===2002-2005===

The later founders of the future "HCvol"/"BeVolunteer" started volunteering for [[Hospitality Club]], covering all areas of [[Hospitality Clubs]] volunteering from programming, spam checking, accepting members, forum moderation, translation to service for [[Hospitality Club]] members.

===in 2005===

Some of the core volunteers from the [[Hospitality Club]] - the ones who had been working so closely with [[Veit Kuehne| Veit]] for years - started to question Veit about some processes which were obviously missing in the [[Hospitality Club]]. These special topics were the following:
* the absence of any legal status for the [[Hospitality Club]]
* the absence of any democratic system in the way of taking decisions, at any level
* the absence of any transparency in the management of finances, at any level
Other aspects were pointed out too: feeling of manipulation of volunteers, lack of transparency on [[Hospitality Club]] policies for members...

Those shortcomings became even more problematic to the founders of HCvol since the [[Hospitality Club]] could not be considered a baby anymore but a real project that was actually growing very fast. Concerned volunteers felt the responsibility to work on these topics so they could evolve and, with some time and efforts, be implemented in [[Hospitality Club]].

However, Veit never focused on these problems but tried to make volunteers stick to concrete work instead. He refused to debate and chose neither to involve nor to inform even the most committed volunteers on those issues.

===December 2005===

After many futile and highly frustrating attempts to push the above mentioned issues further in personal conversations, the time was there for more concerted action. A "manifest" was sent to [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] requesting him to work with the concerned volunteers on the mentioned points, or those volunteers would stop all their work for [[Hospitality Club]]. Regardless of that action, those volunteers were - and still are - totally in love with [[Hospitality Club]], and never stopped working, but motivation was decreasing.

===February 2006===

Finally after 2 months of silence, Veit disclosed his position: NO WAY would he accept that manifest. It was clear for him: never would [[Hospitality Club]] offer transparency about money management, never would [[Hospitality Club]] be managed by a democratic structure, and for the legal status he suggested a company status or even worse, something based in the shady tax heaven St Kitts & Nieves.

===25th of february 2006===
A meeting in Dresden was arranged, to discuss problems and find a new way of structuring [[Hospitality Club]] volunteer teams and rework procedures. Only an inner circle of [[Hospitality Club]] core volunteers was invited. Many attended, some coming from 1000 km of distance, to help solving these ever growing problems in [[Hospitality Club]] and the big lack of motivation after the manifest was turned down. Two later HCVOL founders, Matthias and Marco, took part in the meeting. Two and a half days of heated debate revealed that there was no room for compromise from [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] side, as he did not give in on any topic. At the end of the meeting, [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] finally accepted to consider an external audit for finances inspection; he set a board of 5 persons chosen by him, and in which he would keep a veto right, to take strategical decisions - but explicitly NOT empowered to discuss finances and the possibilities of creating a legal organization - anything discussed in that board was to keep secret; he considered establishing a legal team to work on defining, what would be the best statutes for [[Hospitality Club]] and he talked about creating a page explaining his point of view on [[Hospitality Club]] policy.

For some of the concerned volunteers this was still not enough, and so unacceptable.

For others it was already a good evolution, even if not enough.

The problem, however, was that '''''none'' of the good intentions have ever been implemented'''. The board had one or two skype conferences, where nothing was achieved. Afer six months, the board was officially dissolved. Two later HCVOL founders, Pierre-Charles and Marco, were members of that board.

But there was still the hope that [[Hospitality Club]] could evolve to become the organization that is worth its incredible members!

===March-April 2006===

A group of highly involved [[Hospitality Club]] volunteers decided to set up HCvol, in order to build a space of communications for volunteers, independent from [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] control. The underlying main point of criticism of [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] was that he wanted to prevent real communication between volunteers, in order to prevent them from discussing what he decided - be it good or bad. The founders of HCvol considered it unacceptable that [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] had blocked many issues for so long even though whole teams didn't agree with his position.

===Is HC [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] thing?===

The underlying idea of HCvol is the question whether the [[Hospitality Club]] was [[Veit Kuehne| `Veit Kühne´s´]] thing'. The conclusion that [[Hospitality Club]] was rather the volunteers' thing, if not the members' thing, was quite obvious. Consequently the [[Hospitality Club]] should be owned by a legal non-profit organization composed of the ones who build [[Hospitality Club]] everyday: the volunteers. It is true that Veit invented the [[Hospitality Club]] and there is no denying of him having done enormously great things for it. But great inventions transcend their inventor...

The mere thought of all the volunteer work being used in the future for one man's interest was unbearable for the founders of HCvol. Trusting [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] was not enough. Building a future for HC was ensuring that the possibility of [[Hospitality Club]] being sold or used in a commercial way could never come true. This seemed more important than improving HC website or accepting more members.

===July 2006===

HCvol being set more or less it was introduced to [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]]. There were many hopes that [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]] would accept that proposal of a new organization, or at least evolve in that direction. [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne´s]] radical answer soon destroyed those new hopes: NEVER.

Never democracy, never transparency.

Some of the HCvol founders, who had given so much of these last years for HC were even threatened to be kicked from [[Hospitality Club]] [http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=In_the_news], and told that their only aim was to gain personal power.

===September 2006===

Since nothing was moving in [[Hospitality Club]], it was felt that a real counter-power had to be built. It was evident that having a place for the volunteers to work out of Veit's control can only be a very productive thing. Only by word of mouth many volunteers had found their way to HCvol and started to use the forum extensively for all kinds of discussions.

===October 2006===

Since October, HCvol is an official organization, and so submitted to democracy and transparency. A group of 9 worked a lot to set an organization as basis of work in HCvol. They (minus one founder) constitute the first "Board of Directors" (which we call the BoD), whose role is to meet weekly in order to take any needed decision, to organize HCvol so volunteers can work well, and to make sure no abuse takes place. As soon as HCvol will contain a bigger group of volunteers, there will be a General Assembly and a BoD will be elected by HCvol members.

In the middle of the month, there was a (last?) big hesitation. Wasn't the whole project a huge waste? Wasn't there any way to work on a really new project with HCvol, but including HC members?
So the BoD suggested to Veit that HCvol start developing a project on a new site (new website) but that the [[Hospitality Club]] database be shared. In exchange HCvol members would help maintaning the [[http://www.hospitalityclub.org| Hospitality Club site]] for a limited period of time. So the HCvol site would have been like a test site, a new site, which [[Hospitality Club]] members could have used if they wanted. It would have been difficult technically, but possible.
After lots of hours of discussions one of the HCvol BoD members told Veit about that idea. Well, we understand why he refuses, but for the members, however, we would have liked that compromise.

===January 2007===

HCvol is renamed BeVolunteer and is totally dedicated to its project, BeWelcome[http://www.bewelcome.org].

The majority of the topics touching the creation of that new platform are being discussed among the volunteers, decisions are taken and all the teams and routines are set.

===CouchSurfing volunteer exodus===
During mid-2007 many former [[Couchsurfing]] volunteers began volunteering for BeWelcome instead, including 3 of the 4 former [[Couchsurfing]] core developers active during the short-lived CS 2.0 experiment. Begun following the termination in July, 2006 of the [[http://www.couchsurfing.com| CouchSurfing website]] by its owner, [[Casey Fenton]], following a major loss of data, the main emphasis of CS 2.0 was to be decentralized volunteer participation -- [[Couchsurfing]] was no longer to be dominated by one person. But during the following year, when many selfless volunteers answered the call and helped take [[Couchsurfing]] from the edge of ruin and marginal financial stability to thriving success with a budgetary surplus, [[Casey Fenton]] and his hand-picked associates, mostly in secret, organized a top-down pyramidal corporate structure with paid employees, all of whom are close associates of [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton]]. Independent-minded volunteers who raised questions about the integrity of the managerial processes, or questioned [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton´s]] unaccountable and privileged position within the community, were blacklisted and encouraged to leave. [[Casey Fenton| Casey Fenton]] turned out to be much like [[Veit Kuehne| Veit Kühne]]. Some of the major issues prompting the exodus were secrecy, unaccountability, unfair treatment of volunteers, unkept promises and an extremely oppressive, one-sided non-disclosure agreement.

Thus, many former [[Couchsurfing]] volunteers share common values with the founders of [[BeVolunteer]], and appreciate the work they did in establishing a new home for those in the hospitality community who support the enlightened principles upon which [[BeWelcome]] is founded.

===October 2007===
BeWelcome.org becomes the first Open Source Software [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software] hospitality website, by unanimous vote of its developers. See the [http://www.bevolunteer.org/joomla/index.php/home/1-latest-news/49-bewelcome-first-open-source-hospitality-network?format=pdf Press Release (PDF)]

===Here we are, now.===
'''
Full of motivation to BUILD something, our minds free of conflicts from the past, and full of our experiences and hopes.

Go through [[http://www.bevolunteer.org| BeVolunteer website]] to discover its projects and how it all works!
'''

==References==

The Software which runs BeWelcome[http://sourceforge.net/projects/bw-rox/]

Article on BeWelcome [http://www.idealist.org/en/org/166947-211]

Wikitravel about BeWelcome [http://wikitravel.org/en/Hospitality_exchange#BeWelcome]

Canvi article about BeWelcome (Catalan) [http://www.cambio16.info/canvi/pdf/107.pdf]

Indymedia article about Media and BeWelcome [http://de.indymedia.org/2007/11/198280.shtml]

more ?

----
:''From http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/wiki/index.php?title=BeWelcome&action=edit&oldid=5616''
{{Hospitality service}}

Aachen

2009-11-14T05:06:10Z

Lemon-head: Created page with 'Aachen is a city in NRW, Germany, close to the Dutch and Belgian border. It's full of students and smart people. The French name for Aachen is Aix-la-Chapelle, the Dutch name…'

Aachen is a city in NRW, [[Germany]], close to the Dutch and Belgian border. It's full of students and smart people. The French name for Aachen is Aix-la-Chapelle, the Dutch name is Aken. The old Latin name for Aachen is Aquisgranum.

{{stub}}

Couchsurfing.net - traveller's community for international connections

2009-11-14T04:53:27Z

Lemon-head:

{{stub}}

Little (fun) network with just over 170 members. To become a member you ''(have to get invited by someone else.)'' you can just join!

Its name is a very obvious ''rip off'' of [[CouchSurfing]].

"Comment by Patrick Rau, creator of couchsurfing.net:
Nothing about couchsurfing.net is a rip off, not the idea, not the name, nothing. I ve had the idea to build couchsurfing 1999, or earlier, i don t even remember. and, who cares, we should be happy social networks exist and shouldn't fight about "rip offs". that doesn't make sense at all."
: I love that presentation :) [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 04:53, 14 November 2009 (UTC)

==Own Site Description==

The couchsurfing community connects social networks with each other. All members are responsible to help extending the network.

The community is for people who want to find out about the place they are travelling to by making contact with locals or with people who have already visited there.

The concept behind couchsurfing is that members can contact one another via e-mail.

As a member of this community, you can for example use the search engine to find someone who lives exactly where you want to go. Or maybe you can find somebody who has been there before sharing experiences

This type of personal contact can enable you to get much more information than a guidebook could offer. In addition to general information about your destination, you might be able to find a local to meet up with, or even hook up a place to stay.

You could also receive mail from another member who is interested in information about your country or city.

Couchsurfing's aim is to create a social and exciting rapport between travellers from all over the world who can share, learn from each other and have a great time.

==Newsletter - Big Change ==

<pre>
cc> It has been a while since i have sent the last newsletter.
cc> To be honest, unfortunately the idea of connecting social
cc> networks based on the theory of the six degrees of separation,
cc> kind of didn't really work out very well.

cc> Many members got the idea and helped extending our friendly
cc> network inviting other people. But, since the site is up for even
cc> a couple of years now, the result is not really great.

cc> A couple of days ago couchsurfing.com, a different but
cc> similar community, lost all its data.
cc> I feel very sorry for the people who built couchsurfing.com.
cc> They did a great job.
cc> Now, I get many requests of former couchsurfing.com members.
cc> I have decided to welcome all of them, everybody who wants to
cc> join couchsurfing.net.

cc> To keep the couchsurfing.net concept based on the theory of
cc> the six degrees of separation alive, all new members names who
cc> haven't been invited by people who are allready members, will
cc> appear with a "*".

cc> We will work out some ideas maybe to be able to link all
cc> different hopefully developing social networks with each other.

cc> We'll see what happens next.

cc> Best,
cc> Patrick and Pantelis
</pre>

==Links==
* http://www.couchsurfing.net

----

{{from hospexguide}}

Trustroots Wiki:Domain name

2009-11-14T00:58:52Z

Lemon-head: Blanked the page

Decentralized networks

2009-11-01T16:49:57Z

Lemon-head: /* Examples */

For a long time the idea has been floating around to have independent and '''decentralized networks''' as an alternative to the existing centralized (= one user database, one management) [[hospitality]] networks.

The idea is interesting, but has some difficult aspects, that can be discussed on this page.

== Why? ==

Is decentralized always better?

Always? Probably not. But that should not stop anyone from exploring!

The great benefit of decentralized networks is that they allow to experiment with different technology, different styles of moderation, different safety and trust features, different search features, different looks, different peer groups.

== Pieces of the Puzzle ==

=== Local computers with normal browsers ===
You can find them at home, at friends' places, at school, in Internet Cafés. They can be used for surfing the web, but we can't expect any special software on these machines.

=== Local computers with special P2P software ===

=== (Small) social networks with user profiles ===
This is where you would upload your pictures, write about your hobbies, etc. You could even use different sites for that: Have your photos on flickr, but your profile information somewhere else.

One of these networks can store your friend links, another your messages..

=== Meeting places (groups, forums) ===
If user profiles are distributed on different networks, we still want groups and forums that connect people from different networks. The most simple example is: A and B each have a blog, that are technically independent of each other. A leaves a comment on blog B, with a link pointing to blog A.

The problem is that B can't be sure if A is really A, or if it C who claims to be A to spread all kinds of libel and nonsense. So, the advanced version would provide a possibility for A to prove that it is truly A (the person with blog A), and not someone else.

=== Dedicated systems for friend links, messages, different kinds of interaction ===
Honestly, I have no idea how this would look like :)

=== Services for Moderation and Conflict Handling ===
Similar to the Couchsurfing MDST, there could be services that can filter out inappropriate references, or decide which profiles are relevant to you or not. Sounds quite abstract and unclear, needs to be fleshed out. Somewhere else I used the term "reference realms".

=== Aggregation Services ===
This can be bigger players (google, whatever) that scan user profiles on different sites and offer this information for searching or to deliver pages with information mashed up from different sources.

We can want this or not, we can fight these aggregation services or use them. In any case, they are part of the picture, and can't be ignored.

== How it can work ==
A lot can be said about decentralized networks, but in the context of [[hospitality exchange]] the most important is user profiles, (location-based) member search, messages between members, and [[trust]] / [[friend]] connections. All of this has to work across different networks, otherwise it won't be really useful.

The biggest challenges here are [[privacy]] and proof of [[identity]]: How can one restrict the visibility of information that is shared across different networks? And how can I prove that I am the owner of profile A on network X, when interacting with members form network Y?

=== User accounts / profiles ===
The idea would mean that there is not one big network where you create a user account, but instead you would choose one or more networks where you want to create an account and have the information you define stored in the database.

Problems:
* Multi-accounts: Duplicate search results, and redundant information to update in different places.
* Agony of choice: How to choose my favorite network?

Solutions:
* Tools for import, export and profile migration
* Auto-update a profile on site X with information from site Y.

=== Searching member profiles ===
To make member search useful, it has to be cross-network. This means, a search request either has to request information from all connected networks, or you need some kind of search engine that crawls member profiles on different networks and caches the information.

Problems:
* Privacy: Information that is shared between an arbitrary number of networks is practically public information.

Solutions:

=== Messages from one user to another ===
You go to someone's profile on network X, click "send message", type the message, submit. You leave a link to your own profile on network Y.

Problems:
* You need to type in the link to your own profile manually, which is inconvenient, and you can make typos.
* You can type in a fake link to someone else's profile.

Solutions:
* OpenID? Does that allow to identify you as a member of a different network?

=== Trust/Friend links between members ===
Just like the references or friend links in couchsurfing, you could create a trust link from profile A in network X to profile B in network Y.

This can only work if there is a way to prove that your friend link does in fact come from profile A in network X, and not from somewhere else. This is the same problem as with messages.

=== Profile data visibility constraints ===
In traditional networks it is possible to show some profile information "only to my friends", or have some other constraints. How can I control that if the friends' profiles are on separate networks?

=== [[Trust]] links between networks ===
Just like there can be a trust network of people, there can also be a trust network of networks..

== Examples ==

* Crash at Mine (?)
* Noserub
*: Q: How does Noserub solve the above "problems" ?
* OpenSocial? Shindig?

[[Category:P2P Hospitality]]

User talk:Lemon-head

2009-10-28T22:30:32Z

Lemon-head:

Welcome! Danke fuer deine Beitraege! I just turned you into a sysop and bureaucrat. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I did not understand your edit there : http://couchwiki.org/en/Couchwiki:For_different_organizations
[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 22:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
: True, the example sucked. Hope it's [http://couchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Couchwiki%3AFor_different_organizations&diff=970&oldid=963 clearer now]. I tried to apply this guideline in the [[Drupal Hospex Features]] article, that I adapted from the BW wiki. I thought it would be a good guideline for other content as well. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

User:Lemon-head

2009-10-28T22:30:04Z

Lemon-head: Created page with 'Member on BW and CS, same username.'

Member on BW and CS, same username.

Talk:Main Page

2009-10-28T22:29:39Z

Lemon-head:

== wikicouch or couchwiki ? ==
why on the main page is written Wikicouch everywhre instead of the current couchwiki ? isn't it confusing ?
--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 16:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

:You're right. I just fixed it. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 16:46, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

== "Future of couchsurfing wiki is uncertain" ==
Is there any source for that? [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:29, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Main Page

2009-10-28T22:29:08Z

Lemon-head:

User talk:Lemon-head

2009-10-28T22:25:39Z

Lemon-head:

Welcome! Danke fuer deine Beitraege! I just turned you into a sysop and bureaucrat. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I did not understand your edit there : http://couchwiki.org/en/Couchwiki:For_different_organizations
[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 22:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
: True, the example sucked. Hope it's [http://couchwiki.org/en/index.php?title=Couchwiki%3AFor_different_organizations&diff=970&oldid=963 clearer now]. I tried to apply this guideline in the [[Drupal Hospex Features]] article, that I adapted from the BW wiki. I thought it would be a good guidelines for other content as well. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

User talk:Lemon-head

2009-10-28T22:23:37Z

Lemon-head:

Welcome! Danke fuer deine Beitraege! I just turned you into a sysop and bureaucrat. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

I did not understand your edit there : http://couchwiki.org/en/Couchwiki:For_different_organizations
[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 22:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)
: True, the example sucked. Hope it's clearer now. I tried to apply this guideline in the [[Drupal Hospex Features]] article, that I adapted from the BW wiki. I thought it would be a good guidelines for other content as well. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:23, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Trustroots Wiki:For different organizations

2009-10-28T22:21:23Z

Lemon-head: removed the bad example, and rephrased the text

[[Couchwiki]] is a wiki about [[hospitality exchange]]. It was started to have a back-up for the upcoming freezing and deletion of the CouchSurfing wiki. But that's not the only goal. It's good to have an active and spam-free wiki that can be used for brainstorming and organizing - this doesn't have to be limited to [[CouchSurfing]] - information written about [[BeWelcome]], [[Hospitality Club]] and other hospitality exchange organizations is very welcome as well.

Some guidelines:
* Make sure that it's clear what a page is about.
** TODO: Let's create some templates.
* Even project-specific information can often be explained in a way that it has some value for other readers.

{{stub}}

[[Category:Project]]

Trustroots Wiki:For different organizations

2009-10-27T17:13:05Z

Lemon-head:

[[Couchwiki]] is a wiki about [[hospitality exchange]]. It was started to have a back-up for the upcoming freezing and deletion of the CouchSurfing wiki. But that's not the only goal. It's good to have an active and spam-free wiki that can be used for brainstorming and organizing - this doesn't have to be limited to [[CouchSurfing]] - information written about [[BeWelcome]], [[Hospitality Club]] and other hospitality exchange organizations is very welcome as well.

Some guidelines:
* Make sure that it's clear what a page is about.
** TODO: Let's create some templates.
* It can be a good idea to formulate your text in a way that it has a value for readers outside of a specific project! For instance, "In the BeWelcome support team we made the experience that a lot of members only write because they like our poetic answers."

{{stub}}

[[Category:Project]]

Talk:BeWelcome FAQs - Check-up and Update

2009-10-27T14:56:04Z

Lemon-head:

==TO DO list ==

*Howto : get rights for this or that

*"Vol" function

*GA reports
* wiki "support group" : OTRS, FAQ etc...
* How does BW does technically works ?

--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 14:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

== BW Context ==

Hi!<br/>
If you move BW stuff to couchwiki, I think it is important to add some context information. The wiki will be read by people who have no idea about BW, and it can have information about very different projects.. so, better say in an intro text that this is BW-specific stuff, and explain if or how it is relevant to the reader.<br/>
Just my opinion<br/>
--[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 14:56, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Talk:BeWelcome FAQs - Check-up and Update

2009-10-27T14:55:33Z

Lemon-head:

==TO DO list ==

*Howto : get rights for this or that

*"Vol" function

*GA reports
* wiki "support group" : OTRS, FAQ etc...
* How does BW does technically works ?

--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 14:15, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

== BW Context ==

Hi!
If you move BW stuff to couchwiki, I think it is important to add some context information. The wiki will be read by people who have no idea about BW, and it can have information about very different projects.. so, better say in an intro text that this is BW-specific stuff, and explain if or how it is relevant to the reader.

Decentralized networks

2009-10-24T20:17:07Z

Lemon-head: /* Services for Moderation and Conflict Handling */

Decentralized networks

2009-10-24T20:16:56Z

Lemon-head: /* How this can work */

Nexus P2P trust network

2009-10-21T16:06:17Z

Lemon-head: /* References */

''This is a preliminary draft description of the'' '''Nexus P2P trust network'''.

After a long search for an easily deploy-able existing solution, I did not find one and so began developing one. So far, I am the only developer working on it. I'm about half-way through.

==Design goals==

===Hardware configuration===
Operates on a swarm of networked personal computers, like existing file-sharing networks. Minimal or no corporate server involvement. The heart of the system is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kademlia Kademlia]-like network. There is an unavoidable trade-off of speed vs. privacy and immunity from control. I opted for the later, but will try to optimize speed.

===License===
Free and open software. I'm not familiar with licenses, but am leaning toward GPL2. ''Could use some advice''.

===Software platform===
Should be as universal as possible. Considered a Firefox browser add-on, but went with Java because of the availability of the UDP data protocol and many other advantages.

===Functionality===
Functionality limited to searching for and evaluating the reputation of individuals or communities. Usable from a GUI or XML-RPC interface.

==Status==
The heart of '''Nexus''' is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kademlia Kademlia]-like distributed P2P network and is awaiting large scale testing. Data can be stored and retrieved from it. One or more layers will be built on top of it to complete the functionality.

I would like to set this up for community development once a license is chosen and if anyone else wants to help.

[[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 12:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[[Category:P2P Hospitality]]

==Questions==
===Intro===
Yeah, things are moving!

Some questions I have:

===Where do you want to store member profiles?===
A fundamental design specification is to keep Nexus as lightweight and as fast as possible. An ''identity record'' on Nexus would be not much more than a handle, a set of descriptive tags, a link to a profile on a social website, an expiration date, a public encryption key, and a digital signature.

If applying the public key to the record (less the signature) produces a match to the signature, then it is confirmed that the owner of the private key corresponding to the public key is the individual who created the record. This step is automatically performed by Nexus.

The website profile would include a means of contact (such as email). If an email containing some random data (or just a unique message) is encrypted with the public key and sent to the owner of the profile, and that person responds with an email containing the random data, then the original sender now has a reliable means of contacting the true owner of the Nexus record and has the option of having a private (encrypted) communication with that owner. That owner can confirm that the profile used to contact him is legitimate.

Typically, the owner of a Nexus record would have many profiles on different social websites. That owner would pick one of them to represent his identity to Nexus. He could actually create several independent Nexus identities if he chooses.

The essence of a virtual identity on Nexus is the public key. It can be used to reliably connect to the real person behind the identity as long as that person keeps his private key secret. A virtual identity starts out with no reputation and must acquire one over time. This is done through a second kind of record, a ''reference record''.

A Nexus reference record contains at least a rating code but perhaps also a text reference. It also contains the handles and public keys of the owner of the reference and the object of the reference, an expiration date, and a signature made from the owner's private key.

Each record stored in Nexus has a search key (probably invisible to the end-user). A search key can have multiple records associated with it. Identity records can be retrieved with keys like ''identity:handle'', reference records with keys like ''reference-for:handle'' or ''reference-by:handle''. Several different identities might use the same handle, so a handle is only a convenient approximation to an identity. The retrieved references are matched to the correct identities using the public keys.

There are also ''tag records'' in Nexus, used for searching for identities using descriptive tags. The design of this could go several ways, but the basic idea is that these records only contain handles.

So, all of the data that is moved and stored on Nexus is relatively small in size. No web pages, no pictures or other media. This is important for speed especially since there is much redundancy.

Please note that I have not actually implemented the layer that manages structured records yet. What is currently implemented can only store (with redundancy) and retrieve unstructured data records using a search key. But the lower-level mechanisms for bootstrapping and maintaining a distributed network with many nodes frequently entering and leaving is now implemented.

===Will there be redundant copies on different machines, or will each profile live on one machine?===
There will be redundant copies of all nexus records, probably about 20 live (online) copies. No profile information is stored. If the owner of a nexus identity record wants to change the link to his profile, he must create a new identity record. All records on nexus have an expiration date. So two competing records referring to the same identity are resolved by the most recent update. It is up to the owner of an identity to periodically refresh or update his identity and the references he creates. He can specify the lifetime of his records, but there would be a system-wide maximum time limit.

===What about people switching off their home computers - will that disrupt anything?===
The Nexus network frequently refreshes itself. If one of the twenty copies of a record goes offline, it would soon be automatically replaced. The current version does ''not'' store any records offline. It is very dynamic, almost like a living thing. In the even of a total simultaneous internet failure, or the unlikely event that all twenty copies would disappear before the next refresh cycle, the worst consequence is that the searchable data is gone until the owner goes online and refreshes it (automatically). For this application, I don't think that's very serious. It would be easy enough to provide for local storage of records on multiple PC's, but it would be interesting to try to avoid this.

Right now, the only things locally stored between sessions are:
*a list of IP addresses to enable quick reconnection to the network. This list is updated every session with known active nodes.
*the identity record and reference records created by the local node owner.
*the public/private key pair of the owner.

===How can I know that the network node I'm currently connected to delivers authentic information?===
The Nexus network is a swarm of interconnected computers. Anyone who can run a java program on their computer can become a node in the network if they have even one IP address of another live node. The could get this in a number of ways:
*from the saved list of nodes from the last session
*someone gives them a live node address via email, chat, web page, etc.
*automatically from a range of dyndns.com domain names with a predetermined pattern like nexus-001.dyndns.com, nexus-002.dyndns.com, etc. that the Nexus software can automatically scan. Some members of the network would have to set up one of the domains for the benefit of the whole network. But this measure would only be needed for first contact or after a long absence.

One of the unique features of Nexus is that the hash codes of its DHT (Dynamic Hash Table) are computed from the IP addresses of the nodes. This is a protection against manipulation of the network, such as introducing a split in the node grid.

But the data itself can always be verified by making use of the public encryption keys and digital signatures that are part of each identity or reference record.

The network could allow for access through an XML-RPC port on nodes with known domain names (such as from dyndns.com), but they would not be peers in the network, and could probably be tricked by an impostor. But in the end the data acquired would not stand up to validity checks.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to allow such access to the network. An individual node might be overwhelmed with requests (unless the requests were automatically dished off to other nodes). I would rather have all users of Nexus also be peer nodes. Since the Nexus platform is Java, the big hospex websites could participate in Nexus by embedding a Java applet in one of their web pages (making each of their users a node of Nexus) (this is another reason to keep Nexus very lightweight), or else by creating a PHP version of Nexus to run on their server, or at least making it available to download.

===How does a search work? Where do you want to store the search index?===
As explained above, there would be no centralized index residing on a server somewhere. The index would be distributed across the Nexus network in the form of ''tag records''.

This is probably the most challenging and interesting part of the project. It is really still an open question in P2P network technology. I haven't worked out the details yet but I have several ideas.

There are some fairly good open-source implementations in use such as [http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1 eMule] that we could imitate. P2P range searches are the most challenging, and they are an active area of academic research already producing usable results. A few recent papers are available on the internet.

In keeping with the minimalist philosophy of this project, I suggest that searching should be highly structured according to a standardized format suitable for hospex, which would make implementation much easier. But innovative ideas are welcome.

====Dedicated Search engines?====
If I understand right, there is nothing that would stop a bigger player (such as Google) to crawl all the records and store them on a central server, with a search index, and associated with the profile information on the social networks - if this profile information is publicly available. Maybe that is not what you intended, but this would be a possible solution for search: Have one or more services that offer search features.

''I hadn't thought of it, but you are right.''

''Although the 3M's talked a lot about privacy and dark nets, this particular project is for people who want to be found (up to the level of detail provided in their profile), and don't mind being the subject of references. So there's no need to protect the network even from Google. Third-party server-based searching would enhance the network, providing speed and caching, and reducing the network load. But I would want to design the network so that it ''could'' function completely independently of any third-party server.''

''As for persons who are sensitive about privacy, they can hide within a community. The community can create a profile which gains a reputation on the trust network based on how well they internally vouch for their own members.''

===References===
If I leave a negative reference to someone, how can I be sure that it will be displayed on this person's profile? And, how can you prevent anonymous people from leaving fake negative references?

''A universal problem with P2P networks is that there is no guarantee that all records corresponding to a key will be found on any given attempt, especially when first connected when the DHT is only partially filled. (P2P file sharing networks take a few minutes to get up to speed). Redundancy does a lot to offset this weakness. The reliability is quite high, but not perfect. The positive side is that there is no censoring possible.''

I think the magic needs to happen at the moment that the profile is rendered: The system will have some rules to find those references that are relevant to the visitor, and then decorate the social network profile with this additional information.

''Yes, there needs to be an algorithm that gives more weight to references by those you highly trust, somewhat less weight to references by friends of those you highly trust and so on. A reference by someone with whom there is no prior trust relationship would carry little or no weight. There are trust metrics already well-established that take into account the various paths of trust between two entities.''

''I imagined that the result of a search would be a list of candidates (along with perhaps a thumbprint picture that could be part of the identity record or obtained from the profile), a link to the profile, and a trust ranking, and maybe a display of trust paths to this person. Clicking on a link would render a profile in a browser and as you say some magic might be needed to embed the trust info into the rendering.''

''Typically, the results of a P2P search are displayed as they come in over some seconds or minutes. Visually on the display, that would correspond to a growing list of entities, with possibly changing values of the trust measures as the results come in. This is not like what people are used to from a central database, and is one of the reasons why P2P networks have limited popularity. Anything we can do to improve on this would help popularity.''
: I imagine that aggregation services will spring up for that purpose, similar to the search engines mentioned above. They will be powered by central servers and thus not be truly P2P, but at least they don't own your data.

This means: Either the social network where you created your account needs to be aware of Nexus, or you need to view the profile information through another service that adds the Nexus information - which can be a Firefox extension, or a website.

''It might be possible to handle the rendering within the Nexus platform. (Java is known for it's vast range of libraries. There must be a rendering engine. Java can do almost anything.) Or, Nexus can fetch the html page, modify it, and then pipe it to the browser in some way. This would be a nice little piece of magic.''
: Please keep in mind that this should work in internet cafés!

There could be "reference realms", their purpose being to decide which references are relevant and which are not. In addition, these entities could offer services similar to couchsurfing's MDST. The difference being that you can switch to a different reference realm if you feel they do a bad job.

''Possibly, a whole digital eco-system could spring up around this. That's fine with me. I like your concept of competing reference realms. I used to study genetic algorithms, and it's amazing what self-organized complexity that can spontaneously occur if you create the right kind of framework for that to happen. Incidentally, from the beginning we've kept the possibility in mind that this trust network could grow beyond hospex into bartering, etc.; anything requiring trust.''

''Great thoughts. Thanks!''

===Conclusion===
Basically, I would like to see answered all the questions I posted on [[Decentralized networks]].

Each time when I thought myself about decentralized networks, it was these questions that stopped me.

Thanks!
-- [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest! [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 12:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nexus P2P trust network

2009-10-21T14:14:02Z

Lemon-head: /* Conclusion */

''This is a preliminary draft description of the'' '''Nexus P2P trust network'''.

After a long search for an easily deploy-able existing solution, I did not find one and so began developing one. So far, I am the only developer working on it. I'm about half-way through.

==Design goals==

===Hardware configuration===
Operates on a swarm of networked personal computers, like existing file-sharing networks. Minimal or no corporate server involvement. The heart of the system is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kademlia Kademlia]-like network. There is an unavoidable trade-off of speed vs. privacy and immunity from control. I opted for the later, but will try to optimize speed.

===License===
Free and open software. I'm not familiar with licenses, but am leaning toward GPL2. ''Could use some advice''.

===Software platform===
Should be as universal as possible. Considered a Firefox browser add-on, but went with Java because of the availability of the UDP data protocol and many other advantages.

===Functionality===
Functionality limited to searching for and evaluating the reputation of individuals or communities. Usable from a GUI or XML-RPC interface.

==Status==
The heart of '''Nexus''' is a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kademlia Kademlia]-like distributed P2P network and is awaiting large scale testing. Data can be stored and retrieved from it. One or more layers will be built on top of it to complete the functionality.

I would like to set this up for community development once a license is chosen and if anyone else wants to help.

[[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 12:42, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

[[Category:P2P Hospitality]]

==Questions==
===Intro===
Yeah, things are moving!

Some questions I have:

===Where do you want to store member profiles?===
A fundamental design specification is to keep Nexus as lightweight and as fast as possible. An ''identity record'' on Nexus would be not much more than a handle, a set of descriptive tags, a link to a profile on a social website, an expiration date, a public encryption key, and a digital signature.

If applying the public key to the record (less the signature) produces a match to the signature, then it is confirmed that the owner of the private key corresponding to the public key is the individual who created the record. This step is automatically performed by Nexus.

The website profile would include a means of contact (such as email). If an email containing some random data (or just a unique message) is encrypted with the public key and sent to the owner of the profile, and that person responds with an email containing the random data, then the original sender now has a reliable means of contacting the true owner of the Nexus record and has the option of having a private (encrypted) communication with that owner. That owner can confirm that the profile used to contact him is legitimate.

Typically, the owner of a Nexus record would have many profiles on different social websites. That owner would pick one of them to represent his identity to Nexus. He could actually create several independent Nexus identities if he chooses.

The essence of a virtual identity on Nexus is the public key. It can be used to reliably connect to the real person behind the identity as long as that person keeps his private key secret. A virtual identity starts out with no reputation and must acquire one over time. This is done through a second kind of record, a ''reference record''.

A Nexus reference record contains at least a rating code but perhaps also a text reference. It also contains the handles and public keys of the owner of the reference and the object of the reference, an expiration date, and a signature made from the owner's private key.

Each record stored in Nexus has a search key (probably invisible to the end-user). A search key can have multiple records associated with it. Identity records can be retrieved with keys like ''identity:handle'', reference records with keys like ''reference-for:handle'' or ''reference-by:handle''. Several different identities might use the same handle, so a handle is only a convenient approximation to an identity. The retrieved references are matched to the correct identities using the public keys.

There are also ''tag records'' in Nexus, used for searching for identities using descriptive tags. The design of this could go several ways, but the basic idea is that these records only contain handles.

So, all of the data that is moved and stored on Nexus is relatively small in size. No web pages, no pictures or other media. This is important for speed especially since there is much redundancy.

Please note that I have not actually implemented the layer that manages structured records yet. What is currently implemented can only store (with redundancy) and retrieve unstructured data records using a search key. But the lower-level mechanisms for bootstrapping and maintaining a distributed network with many nodes frequently entering and leaving is now implemented.

===Will there be redundant copies on different machines, or will each profile live on one machine?===
There will be redundant copies of all nexus records, probably about 20 live (online) copies. No profile information is stored. If the owner of a nexus identity record wants to change the link to his profile, he must create a new identity record. All records on nexus have an expiration date. So two competing records referring to the same identity are resolved by the most recent update. It is up to the owner of an identity to periodically refresh or update his identity and the references he creates. He can specify the lifetime of his records, but there would be a system-wide maximum time limit.

===What about people switching off their home computers - will that disrupt anything?===
The Nexus network frequently refreshes itself. If one of the twenty copies of a record goes offline, it would soon be automatically replaced. The current version does ''not'' store any records offline. It is very dynamic, almost like a living thing. In the even of a total simultaneous internet failure, or the unlikely event that all twenty copies would disappear before the next refresh cycle, the worst consequence is that the searchable data is gone until the owner goes online and refreshes it (automatically). For this application, I don't think that's very serious. It would be easy enough to provide for local storage of records on multiple PC's, but it would be interesting to try to avoid this.

Right now, the only things locally stored between sessions are:
*a list of IP addresses to enable quick reconnection to the network. This list is updated every session with known active nodes.
*the identity record and reference records created by the local node owner.
*the public/private key pair of the owner.

===How can I know that the network node I'm currently connected to delivers authentic information?===
The Nexus network is a swarm of interconnected computers. Anyone who can run a java program on their computer can become a node in the network if they have even one IP address of another live node. The could get this in a number of ways:
*from the saved list of nodes from the last session
*someone gives them a live node address via email, chat, web page, etc.
*automatically from a range of dyndns.com domain names with a predetermined pattern like nexus-001.dyndns.com, nexus-002.dyndns.com, etc. that the Nexus software can automatically scan. Some members of the network would have to set up one of the domains for the benefit of the whole network. But this measure would only be needed for first contact or after a long absence.

One of the unique features of Nexus is that the hash codes of its DHT (Dynamic Hash Table) are computed from the IP addresses of the nodes. This is a protection against manipulation of the network, such as introducing a split in the node grid.

But the data itself can always be verified by making use of the public encryption keys and digital signatures that are part of each identity or reference record.

The network could allow for access through an XML-RPC port on nodes with known domain names (such as from dyndns.com), but they would not be peers in the network, and could probably be tricked by an impostor. But in the end the data acquired would not stand up to validity checks.

I'm not sure it's a good idea to allow such access to the network. An individual node might be overwhelmed with requests (unless the requests were automatically dished off to other nodes). I would rather have all users of Nexus also be peer nodes. Since the Nexus platform is Java, the big hospex websites could participate in Nexus by embedding a Java applet in one of their web pages (making each of their users a node of Nexus) (this is another reason to keep Nexus very lightweight), or else by creating a PHP version of Nexus to run on their server, or at least making it available to download.

===How does a search work? Where do you want to store the search index?===
As explained above, there would be no centralized index residing on a server somewhere. The index would be distributed across the Nexus network in the form of ''tag records''.

This is probably the most challenging and interesting part of the project. It is really still an open question in P2P network technology. I haven't worked out the details yet but I have several ideas.

There are some fairly good open-source implementations in use such as [http://www.emule-project.net/home/perl/general.cgi?l=1 eMule] that we could imitate. P2P range searches are the most challenging, and they are an active area of academic research already producing usable results. A few recent papers are available on the internet.

In keeping with the minimalist philosophy of this project, I suggest that searching should be highly structured according to a standardized format suitable for hospex, which would make implementation much easier. But innovative ideas are welcome.

====Dedicated Search engines?====
If I understand right, there is nothing that would stop a bigger player (such as google) to crawl all the records and store them on a central server, with a search index, and associated with the profile information on the social networks - if this profile information is publically availabe. Maybe that is not what you intended, but this would be a possible solution for search: Have one or more services that offer search features.

===References===
If I leave a negative reference to someone, how can I be sure that it will be displayed on this person's profile? And, how can you prevent anonymous people from leaving fake negative references?

I think the magic needs to happen at the moment that the profile is rendered: The system will have some rules to find those references that are relevant to the visitor, and then decorate the social network profile with this additional information.

This means: Either the social network where you created your account needs to be aware of Nexus, or you need to view the profile information through another service that adds the Nexus information - which can be a Firefox extension, or a website.

There could be "reference realms", their purpose being to decide which references are relevant and which are not. In addition, these entities could offer services similar to couchsurfing's MDST. The difference being that you can switch to a different reference realm if you feel they do a bad job.

===Conclusion===
Basically, I would like to see answered all the questions I posted on [[Decentralized networks]].

Each time when I thought myself about decentralized networks, it was these questions that stopped me.

Thanks!
-- [[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 22:17, 20 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your interest! [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 12:01, 21 October 2009 (UTC)

Nexus P2P trust network

2009-10-21T13:55:08Z

Lemon-head: /* How does a search work? Where do you want to store the search index? */

Drupal Hospex Features

2009-10-21T00:33:16Z

Lemon-head: Created page with ''''Drupal''' is a versatile free software content management system. It has quite a bit of social network functionality in the form of modules. On BeWelcome there have b…'

'''Drupal''' is a versatile [[free software]] content management system. It has quite a bit of social network functionality in the form of modules.

On [[BeWelcome]] there have been some calls to explore the possibilities of Drupal as an alternative to the home-grown BW-Rox platform that the network currently runs on. More generally speaking, Drupal is a possible option for any initiative to set up a new social network.

This page is adapted from [http://www.bevolunteer.org/wiki/Drupal], but unlike the source page, this article should be less about BeWelcome and more about the general idea of using Drupal for hospex purposes.

While a lot can be done with existing modules, it will be interesting to see where it makes sense or is necessary to have dedicated new modules built for hospex purposes.

Some of this article will be puzzling for people who don't know Drupal lingo. If you (yes, you!) feel like it, you can add links and explanations where they make sense.

== Requirements ==
We'd like to have user profiles, (location-based) member search, messages between members, trust links between members (references, friend links etc), and general community features such as groups, events, wiki-like editing etc.

Nice to have would be [[Decentralized networks|decentralization]] features, where different sites can interact with each other. Or even [[P2P]], but that would better be solved by something else (not Drupal).

Other nice-to-haves are couch/location objects that are independent from member profiles: One member can have more than one couch/location, and a group of members can share the responsibility for a couch/location (such as, in a shared flat. The pros and cons of that can be debated, but it's nice to have the technical possibility.

== User profiles and couches/locations ==

Drupal has a built-in user and profile system that allows for arbitrary custom fields, user avatar images etc. If that is not enough, the [http://drupal.org/project/content_profile Content Profile module] allows to unleash the full powers of the famous [http://drupal.org/project/content_profile Content Construction Kit ("CCK")].

A separate node type "couch" or "location" or "shared place" could be created and connected to user profiles via node reference or user reference.

== Location features ==
Drupal has a bunch of location modules working with CCK, Google Maps, etc.

See also http://www.openstreetmap.org (have not checked this link, it was in the wiki page on BW)

== Searching members and couches ==
Drupal core has a built-in search that searches everything (users, nodes, etc). More powerful and customized things are possible with [http://drupal.org/project/views Views] in combination with one of the location modules - but still needs to be explored.

It can make sense to write a ''custom search module'', for a better performance and flexibility, and so that site owners don't have the trouble of customization. This custom module could even define a custom view (based on Views module)

== Messages between Members ==
Need to check existing modules.

== Menu / Navigation ==
Basically, I don't see any technical limitations for this. The Drupal menu system + [http://drupal.org/project/menu_block Menu Blocks] module are usually sufficient, and some custom functionality can be implemented where this is not enough.

Admin links: The nice thing with Drupal's menu system is that it filters out links to pages that you are not allowed to see. So, admin links can simply be added in the normal menu.

== Multi-language features ==
Drupal has a lot of language features already built-in (core locale module). You can get more with the [http://drupal.org/project/i18n Internationalization ("i18n") module] and a bunch of other extra modules.

=== Translated content (nodes) ===
If you want to translate a node, Drupal creates a new node for each language version.

=== Translated text ===
Drupal, similar to WordPress, has a translation function used inside core and module code, used this way:

t('Please translate this piece of text');

Consequence: If you change one letter of this text, all the translations need to be re-done. And, if two texts are the same in the code, the translations will also be the same - even if the context is different.

The BW system works differently, because the translation function does not get the English string as an argument, but a keyword. In some way this is more flexible, because you can have different keywords for two texts that might be the same in English, but different in Russian. And, you can change the English translation without flushing all other translations, and without changing the code. On the other hand, if you implement a new page you always have to add some english translations, otherwise it will look horribly broken.

=== Interface for translators ===
The current platform running [[BeWelcome]] has some nice features for translators, where translation links are placed directly in the content. The BW system does work even if the text to translate is in a html tag attribute (such as, an image '''alt''' attribute, or a link '''title''' attribute - the link is placed somewhere where it doesn't break the layout.

Drupal has some similar features, but I have not checked out how they work exactly. Would be a good idea to do some research.

== Trust links / Friend links / References ==
Modules to check for friend links:
* http://drupal.org/project/drupal_universal_relation_api
* http://drupal.org/project/user_relationships
* http://drupal.org/project/friendlist

References could be modeled as comments, but maybe it's better to have a dedicated custom module for that.

== Other features ==

=== Groups ===
Check the "organic groups" module.

=== Forum ===
Ideally this should work together with "groups".. or for smaller sites it can make sense to have one big forum.

Check the "Advanced Forum" module.

=== Wiki ===
Check http://drupal.org/project/wikitools and a bunch of other wiki-related modules.

=== Chat ===
Check out the different available modules

=== Blog (for users and groups) ===
Site-wide blogs are easily possible with Drupal. User blogs are possible with the blog module (shipped with core). I'm sure that group blogs are possible with some contrib module..

=== Galleries ===
Usually you will make each picture node with filefield, and with any number of extra fields you want, plus comments. OR you can make each node have a collection of pictures, using flexifield or just multiple imagefields. Or make a custom data structure for that (but why?)

There is a bunch of modules to make this easier for you and that provide different ways to browse these pictures. Some of them based on Views. And if that is not enough, a custom module can make everything possible.

== Customized pages and forms ==
Sometimes we want to have a page or a form (such as, user profiles, or a signup form, etc) almost exactly like it is delivered by Drupal + contributed modules, but we want to change some tiny bits: For instance, add an option to the signup form to sign up for specific groups, etc. Or disable some fields. Or, split the profile page up to several different pages.

Luckily, this is all possible by creating custom modules! You can grab the data for generating a form or a page, modify it, and let Drupal render the modified form. Or you can intercept the usual process of rendering a page, do your modifications, and give back to Drupal to do the rest. The nice thing is, you only implement what you want to change, and leave the rest to Drupal core + contrib.

And of course, you can theme every bit of a Drupal page. You can even do a lot of the above mentioned customizations with themes alone, but beware! This can bloat your theme and makes it hard to provide alternative themes.

== Migration (Import / Export) ==
Drupal does have various import and export features to import data from other platforms.

== Release Management ==

(written from a BW-Rox perspective - please adapt)

Right now release management in BW is based on SVN. Most changes live in the code, so it's easy to track things via SVN, and a release is mostly code.

DB changes are done via dbupdate.php - which is not the nicest way to do it, but it keeps things more or less transparent by only looking at SVN.

=== Problem: How to deploy configuration changes? ===

Drupal works quite differently, as a lot of things happen in the DB, and will thus not show up on SVN. Releasing a new version will mean both changes to the code (CSS files, theme templates, modules), and changes in the DB via the admin backend. This makes things a bit more difficult and less transparent for developers who want to keep track of things via SVN.

And quite often you get heavy dependencies of DB and code - for instance, if template files refer to content type names that only exist in the DB.

=== Solution: Custom modules instead of admin configuration ===

It is possible to define a lot of stuff in Drupal in the code, instead of the DB, via custom modules. I would very much vote for this option. It requires some Drupal expertise, though.

==Links==
* [http://www.bewelcome.org/forums/s630?sidTB=OZUdxsHBu7pWxdTf6KfFrqYPf9c Technical alternatives: bw.rox, drupal and whatever]
* [http://bw-drupal.midsch.net/node/34 Drupallinks and Tutorials]

P2p

2009-10-20T23:22:36Z

Lemon-head: Redirected page to P2P Hospitality initiatives and proposals

#redirect [[P2P Hospitality initiatives and proposals]]

Nexus P2P trust network

2009-10-20T22:20:49Z

Lemon-head: /* Questions */

Nexus P2P trust network

2009-10-20T22:17:44Z

Lemon-head: /* Questions */

Trustroots Wiki:Community portal

2009-10-19T19:03:22Z

Lemon-head: /* Category sitemap in footer */

:''Feel free to leave questions and comments here. Also see [[project:tech]] for technical issues.''
[[Category:Project discussions]]

==Interwiki links==
I'm trying to set up some interwiki links. But there always seems to be a caching issue. So far I've done [[:hitch:|hitch]], [[:trash:|trash]], [[:cs:|cs]] and [[:csgroup:7621|csgroup]], if you want any others, just let me know. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 15:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sharewiki.org please [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 05:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

BW groups please [[User:Midsch|Midsch]] 19:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

==Other languages==
There's also a version of [http://couchwiki.org/fr/ Couchwiki in French] now :) The links aren't working properly yet. I'll happily set up other languages if there's enough interest, (especially German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Swedish). We just need some people (or even just one person) who is willing to take care of it enough, i.e. put up a front page and check for spam regularly, and ideally make sure there are new articles every week. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 20:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

==Feature request: Category sitemap in footer==
If we could find an extension to display a context-sensitive sitemap based on the categories of a page, wouldn't that be awesome? Maybe this could even be done with jquery, so the browser could cache the category information between requests, and it doesn't add up to page size.

(maybe "sitemap" is the wrong term here, because I only want to show related stuff)

I could work on that when I have time.

--[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 19:03, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

Trustroots Wiki:Community portal

2009-10-19T19:02:50Z

Lemon-head: /* Other languages */

:''Feel free to leave questions and comments here. Also see [[project:tech]] for technical issues.''
[[Category:Project discussions]]

==Interwiki links==
I'm trying to set up some interwiki links. But there always seems to be a caching issue. So far I've done [[:hitch:|hitch]], [[:trash:|trash]], [[:cs:|cs]] and [[:csgroup:7621|csgroup]], if you want any others, just let me know. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 15:43, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

Sharewiki.org please [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 05:43, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

BW groups please [[User:Midsch|Midsch]] 19:50, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

==Other languages==
There's also a version of [http://couchwiki.org/fr/ Couchwiki in French] now :) The links aren't working properly yet. I'll happily set up other languages if there's enough interest, (especially German, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian or Swedish). We just need some people (or even just one person) who is willing to take care of it enough, i.e. put up a front page and check for spam regularly, and ideally make sure there are new articles every week. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 20:27, 14 October 2009 (UTC)

==Category sitemap in footer==
If we could find an extension to display a context-sensitive sitemap based on the categories of a page, wouldn't that be awesome? Maybe this could even be done with jquery, so the browser could cache the category information between requests, and it doesn't add up to page size.

(maybe "sitemap" is the wrong term here, because I only want to show related stuff)

Trustroots Wiki:Domain name

2009-10-19T18:50:00Z

Lemon-head: /* Couchwiki.org */

'''Several possible domain names''' have been registered for [[Couchwiki]]:
* wikicouch.org
* couchwiki.org
* hospitalitywiki.org
* nomadwiki.org

[[Category:Project discussions]]
So the question is: which one do we want to use as our canonical domain name? Leave your preference and comment on this page. We'll come up with a deadline for the votes when it's more clear.

==Options==
===Wikicouch.org===
* Ok, but I like the sound of couchwiki more. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

===Couchwiki.org===
* I like this one most, also because it goes well with [[:trash:|Trashwiki]] and [[:hitch:|Hitchwiki]] :) But I'm fine with the other options as well. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I also like this one the most, it is easiest to understand by outsiders [[User:Kilgoretrout|kilgoretrout]] 15:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* Flows off the tongue the most smoothly [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* I am for this one: it seems to me the word ''wiki'' is the main one, and the ''couch'' part is only describing better its aims, so... [[User:Dan°|Dan°]] 07:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* It's the obvious name for a wiki related to couchsurfing (may be not for the others hospitality networks). I personally prefer something more general, but it should be fine for me --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* I am for this name. Antoine
* I like the sound, but Casey and friends have totally captured the couch-x namespace. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:50, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

===Hospitalitywiki.org===
* More general. Slightly neutral towards this one. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This general and neutral name is my favourite [[User:Midsch|Midsch]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, but what about making it even more general as Hospexwiki? [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* I agree with Flapic. [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 17:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, Flapic, Matrixpoint but don't like the full word but like shorter HospXwiki [[User:Luna1|Luna1]] 19:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I like the HospXwiki, it sounds a bit from star trek but I like it very much :) --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 06:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
* Makes the most sense, but I was never a friend of the terms "hospex" or "hospitality" - these words just sound awkward and unwieldy and unsexy. HospX makes this look fancy, but the sound is still the same. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

===Nomadwiki.org===
* Probably useful for a project with a different angle. Use later for something else :) [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This is my favourite, but I agree it might be the "hat" holding several other projects inside of it and not limited to hospex only [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* Agree with both of you on this one [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* It seems I agree also with the previous, I'm really curious about the coming "something else"--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

==Other languages==
Could we borrow from other languages, maybe? I don't have an exact idea, though. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

==Discussion and comments==
Note that if at any point, there is convergence towards a domain name that is not yet registered it should be registered asap. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Trustroots Wiki:Domain name

2009-10-19T18:49:44Z

Lemon-head: /* Hospitalitywiki.org */

'''Several possible domain names''' have been registered for [[Couchwiki]]:
* wikicouch.org
* couchwiki.org
* hospitalitywiki.org
* nomadwiki.org

[[Category:Project discussions]]
So the question is: which one do we want to use as our canonical domain name? Leave your preference and comment on this page. We'll come up with a deadline for the votes when it's more clear.

==Options==
===Wikicouch.org===
* Ok, but I like the sound of couchwiki more. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

===Couchwiki.org===
* I like this one most, also because it goes well with [[:trash:|Trashwiki]] and [[:hitch:|Hitchwiki]] :) But I'm fine with the other options as well. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I also like this one the most, it is easiest to understand by outsiders [[User:Kilgoretrout|kilgoretrout]] 15:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* Flows off the tongue the most smoothly [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* I am for this one: it seems to me the word ''wiki'' is the main one, and the ''couch'' part is only describing better its aims, so... [[User:Dan°|Dan°]] 07:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* It's the obvious name for a wiki related to couchsurfing (may be not for the others hospitality networks). I personally prefer something more general, but it should be fine for me --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* I am for this name. Antoine
* I like the sound, but Casey and friends have totally captured the couch-x namespace.

===Hospitalitywiki.org===
* More general. Slightly neutral towards this one. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This general and neutral name is my favourite [[User:Midsch|Midsch]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, but what about making it even more general as Hospexwiki? [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* I agree with Flapic. [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 17:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, Flapic, Matrixpoint but don't like the full word but like shorter HospXwiki [[User:Luna1|Luna1]] 19:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I like the HospXwiki, it sounds a bit from star trek but I like it very much :) --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 06:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
* Makes the most sense, but I was never a friend of the terms "hospex" or "hospitality" - these words just sound awkward and unwieldy and unsexy. HospX makes this look fancy, but the sound is still the same. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

===Nomadwiki.org===
* Probably useful for a project with a different angle. Use later for something else :) [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This is my favourite, but I agree it might be the "hat" holding several other projects inside of it and not limited to hospex only [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* Agree with both of you on this one [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* It seems I agree also with the previous, I'm really curious about the coming "something else"--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

==Other languages==
Could we borrow from other languages, maybe? I don't have an exact idea, though. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

==Discussion and comments==
Note that if at any point, there is convergence towards a domain name that is not yet registered it should be registered asap. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Trustroots Wiki:Domain name

2009-10-19T18:49:22Z

Lemon-head: /* Other languages */

'''Several possible domain names''' have been registered for [[Couchwiki]]:
* wikicouch.org
* couchwiki.org
* hospitalitywiki.org
* nomadwiki.org

[[Category:Project discussions]]
So the question is: which one do we want to use as our canonical domain name? Leave your preference and comment on this page. We'll come up with a deadline for the votes when it's more clear.

==Options==
===Wikicouch.org===
* Ok, but I like the sound of couchwiki more. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)

===Couchwiki.org===
* I like this one most, also because it goes well with [[:trash:|Trashwiki]] and [[:hitch:|Hitchwiki]] :) But I'm fine with the other options as well. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I also like this one the most, it is easiest to understand by outsiders [[User:Kilgoretrout|kilgoretrout]] 15:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* Flows off the tongue the most smoothly [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* I am for this one: it seems to me the word ''wiki'' is the main one, and the ''couch'' part is only describing better its aims, so... [[User:Dan°|Dan°]] 07:51, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* It's the obvious name for a wiki related to couchsurfing (may be not for the others hospitality networks). I personally prefer something more general, but it should be fine for me --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)
* I am for this name. Antoine
* I like the sound, but Casey and friends have totally captured the couch-x namespace.

===Hospitalitywiki.org===
* More general. Slightly neutral towards this one. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This general and neutral name is my favourite [[User:Midsch|Midsch]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, but what about making it even more general as Hospexwiki? [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* I agree with Flapic. [[User:Matrixpoint|Matrixpoint]] 17:23, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I agree with Midsch, Flapic, Matrixpoint but don't like the full word but like shorter HospXwiki [[User:Luna1|Luna1]] 19:24, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
* I like the HospXwiki, it sounds a bit from star trek but I like it very much :) --[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 06:02, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
* Makes the most sense, but I was never a friend of the terms "hospex" or "hospitality" - these words just sound awkward and unwieldy and unsexy. HospX makes this look fancy, but the sound is still the same. --[[Special:Contributions/78.49.111.163|78.49.111.163]] 18:46, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

===Nomadwiki.org===
* Probably useful for a project with a different angle. Use later for something else :) [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 01:34, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
* This is my favourite, but I agree it might be the "hat" holding several other projects inside of it and not limited to hospex only [[User:Flapic|Flapic]]
* Agree with both of you on this one [[User:Luna1|Luna1]]
* It seems I agree also with the previous, I'm really curious about the coming "something else"--[[User:Bikepunk|Bikepunk]] 08:31, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

==Other languages==
Could we borrow from other languages, maybe? I don't have an exact idea, though. --[[User:Lemon-head|Lemon-head]] 18:49, 19 October 2009 (UTC)

==Discussion and comments==
Note that if at any point, there is convergence towards a domain name that is not yet registered it should be registered asap. [[User:Guaka|guaka]] 00:01, 15 October 2009 (UTC)

Decentralized networks

2009-10-15T17:45:33Z

Lemon-head: /* How this can work */

Decentralized networks

2009-10-15T17:41:03Z

Lemon-head: /* Trust/Friend links between members */

Decentralized networks

2009-10-15T17:40:34Z

Lemon-head: /* Messages from one user to another */