Sam Houston

"Then it sounds like you don't know what "gay" means." - Sam Houston

"Are you twelve years old, or do you actually mean that his lyrics are homosexual in nature? If it's the latter, please elaborate." - Sam Houston

"Just read the wikipedia entry...wow, he has been through some terrible things in his life. I'm glad he continues to go forward and tries to make a positive difference in this world. We need people like him :)" - Sam Houston

"Holy cow, that was awesome! Nice job, Crawford!" - Sam Houston

"I don't think there's a lot that I can say to you right now because you're obviously very angry. The site and mobile apps will be much better over the next few months and I'm optimistic that then you will see how the Couchsurfing service has improved. I will respond to your comment about references: At this time, people are afraid to leave negative references because they think people will retaliate against them with a negative reference or something worse. Due to this, we're losing a lot of potentially important information, information that could help information Couchsurfing and other users about how a member conducts themselves. It's important that Couchsurfing gives all members a safe place/opportunity to give an honest and private report of what happened. --- We're not trying to maximize profit nor are we trying to make money right now. There is absolutely no one at Couchsurfing that is focused on making money right now, we're entirely focused on making a better website and..." - Sam Houston

"Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that it's kickass now. Though I think it will be in the future. Here's my reply to each of your points. - Yeah, we've had problems scaling our email system. Couchsurfing sends *a lot* of email to users and we've been working hard to make the email delivery system more reliable and stable. - The new Events system should make it easier to create Events. You can create Events by clicking on the "Create Event" on any Place Page. You can invite your friends to these events, as well as invite other users if you know their username. - A lot of the CS emails that you are receiving are from the old PHP website which has many problems. We're in the process of recoding that website and in that process we're remaking the emails, which will fix all of the bad link problems that you're having. - We're updating the site with a new navigation within the next few weeks, and that new nav will make it easier to go to Groups. - We've periodically had some problems with..." - Sam Houston

"(Disclaimer/Context: I'm a Community Manager at Couchsurfing) I found the blog post pretty interesting, because it is mostly focused on the problems that occur when a small community scales up. As a Community Manager at Couchsurfing, I'm personally very fascinated and interested with the Couchsurfing community and how it can scale, while maintaining a quality experience for members. I looked up the author's Couchsurfing profile, and he signed up in 2006 and was one of the first 100,000 users on Couchsurfing. Since he signed up, Couchsurfing has grown to nearly 6 million members, a bulk of which signed up within the past two years or so. The community has definitely changed over that time, as the site was spread from person to person via word of mouth recommendation. This story is part of what makes Couchsurfing amazing. Couchsurfing has never advertised itself and rarely seeks out press coverage of any sort. We receive press inquiries often and receive national and international press..." - Sam Houston

"There's a GDC Couchsurfing meetup this Wednesday, you could look through the RSVP's and try to find a potential host: http://www.couchsurfing.org/activit..." - Sam Houston

"Dude, I'm so jealous! Nice work" - Sam Houston

"How did you manage to meet them/find them in a 1v1 setting?" - Sam Houston

"AvA is clearly Tom's band. They practice at his house, they use his studio to record everything, his company runs their website, and he bankrolls their movies and projects. He also writes all of the songs. I don't think the other members have a whole lot of power in that band." - Sam Houston

"Interesting....thanks for sending it our way. I'll make sure our Events team has a look at it." - Sam Houston

"Which city are you listed under? I'll have to check that out for you. I found Helsinki's Place Page here: https://www.couchsurfing.org/n..." - Sam Houston

"Yep, we're working on brand new Android and iPhone apps. The team was recently staffed up a bunch, and now they're working full-steam ahead on new apps. I'm really excited to see them launch, since I use my iPhone all the time and a CS app would be really helpful." - Sam Houston

"There is no black list." - Sam Houston

"Cool joke" - Sam Houston

"Couchsurfing is growing, people are still active on the site, and activity has not decreased on the site at all..across any segment of the community that you look at. Two nights ago, there were 27,000 surfers that were hosted that night. The site gets a million unique visitors every week. The community is still very much alive, vibrant, and growing. Couchsurfing is going through a tough and awkward transition, from an old site that was coded by volunteers years ago, to an entirely new site that is coded and operated by a corporation. To some people, that transition (both technology transition and company transition) is not something that they are OK with, and they are upset. Others are upset because some programs have been shut down, or various features haven't been created/finished yet. There's also a group of people that have attempted to bombard this subreddit and social media, claiming that Couchsurfing is censoring and deleting members that "speak out" against Couchsurfing...." - Sam Houston

"The Couch Search feature on Couchsurfing is, admittedly, not very good. The Couchsurfing team is working on a new Surf/Host Engine, which will launch this summer, and it will do a better job of matching people together. The engine will help you plan your trip and help make things easier for both surfers and hosts. A quote from Couchsurfing's CEO, Tony Espinoza: >When the new surf/host engine rolls out and does the work of matching surfers and hosts it will also be a data-driven approach unlike anything we've had before. Why do we need such an engine? We have over 68,000 couches set to yes in Paris and only ~1,000 of them have ever received a couch request. There's got to be a better way. > New mobile apps will also launch, and they will tie into this surf/host system too." - Sam Houston

"Couchsurfing is only spread by word of mouth, but that's besides the point. Please report this profile, along with the fake reference, and Couchsurfing's Safety team will respond quickly." - Sam Houston

"I bought it when it came out, took it to school every day and read it so much that it's falling apart now. Where are you getting copies now?" - Sam Houston

"What brand of guitar is that?" - Sam Houston

"He did talk about them speaking with different companies about re-releasing their stuff on vinyl..so maybe Dogs Eating Dogs will be a part of that too." - Sam Houston

"At the Midem Music Conference in January, Mark said that they haven't made a physical release because "we're lazy". Basically..it sounds like they just wanted to release it ASAP, and it was easiest to release it digitally. We'll see if they get around to having it printed on CDs/Vinyls, but I'd be kind of surprised if they did that anytime soon. They seem to be all doing their own thing right now/on a break, since their Australia tour just ended." - Sam Houston

"I don't have a time line, though Tony (our CEO) has said that he's going to spend the next ~100 days to interact with the Ambassadors to "learn how we can best work together". Part of what Tony can help figure out is how Couchsurfing can better communicate with the community, especially passionate members like the Ambassadors. We've tried a lot of different ideas, including the Webcasts, but they didn't seem to do a very good job. We need to figure out something that works, and Tony can help us figure that out." - Sam Houston

""Dissenting opinion" is actually not a term I'm using, it's a term that some community members are using. Contrary to what some people may think, I don't mind if someone has an opposing opinion of Couchsurfing or Couchsurfing HQ. I think everyone has a right to their opinion, and if that opinion includes a statement that they think another site is better than Couchsurfing, then that's fine. We're not spending time trying to go after and remove people that oppose Couchsurfing. We are spending time trying to start an open dialog with members that are concerned about Couchsurfing's future, because we feel that we may be able to calm their fears and worries. The reality of what Couchsurfing is doing and will do is often very different from what people think, so we are working hard to bring more facts and reality to community." - Sam Houston

"Yes, there is a difference between "dissenting opinion" and "commercial spam". Most of the time commercial spam is an account or message that spams/advertises to users about a website or service. That's very different from someone that disagrees with or does not like Couchsurfing's staff or developments." - Sam Houston

"Answer to 4: No, it's not fair to say that the former amb program is dead. That is not a correct interpretation." - Sam Houston