Talk:Hospitality service

Original Research?

This strikes me as original research. - FrancisTyers 18:41, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Potential Modification as a charitable service

The concept

At present, the hospitality exchange phenomena is very much enclosed within the purview of highly advantaged populations in the global North. However, it would seem that the kind of people who are at present most interested in using this system: young, educated, idealistic, trusting, liberal, and international in nature, would be very much inclined to convert at least some of their tourist time to volunteering overseas in a worthy cause.

Let's just say group of Americans students from Austin, Texas wanted to drive across the U.S.-Mexico border, travel for a couple of months on their summer break in Central America, and do some good works along the way. If they went to the Internet to try and find some locations conducive for volunteers in their position, they would be summarily disappointed. There are options available for volunteers, but they remain highly formalized. In fact, most programs require that you pay a fairly large nonrefundable fee (often exceeding $300) up front and stay for an extended period (at least ten days or so). Furthermore, they require extensive documentation and institutional references. These restrictions would likely deter these students from pursuing volunteer efforts at all and they would likely fall back onto the hosteling/tourist circuit exclusively. There are many worthy causes to be found (educational, environmental, organizational, structural), especially in poor nations, but they aren't well publicized outside of the local community in which they take place.

A potential issue could be that the training required for many volunteer opportunities is extensive, but there are certainly jobs that require far less. Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) may be reluctant to involve short term, non-paying volunteers because they have more structured continuous programs requiring many extraneous adminstrators who must receive a salary. However, there are many needs in poor countries that cannot be filled by NGOs and their programs. This is especially true with short term projects. Many of these services are organized by local churches, which may attract some faith-based volunteers from abroad, but may also put off potential non-religious volunteers. Accommodation sharing could connect truly grassroots community development projects with potential volunteers from the developed world. During their stay, they could lend skilled and unskilled labor and reap the benefits of a truly rewarding relationship with local peoples in need.

What needs to be done

An action research approach will be used to test the feasibility of integrating accommodation sharing with community-based development projects. The first step would be to choose and screen different potential programs with different environments, requirements, and themes. It would be necessary to sample a diverse array of settings in order to determine how differences would affect the overall experience of hosts, volunteers, and the projects themselves. This demostration project would be undertaken with the support of one accommodation sharing site which would create a special link on their home page with an explanation of the project and links to the profiles of different host organizers. Volunteers would be screened through the same accommodation sharing format as the general user population. The organizers would have full discretion on who to invite, but the process they use to select invitees would be recorded. Perhaps it would be possible to line up a potential "volunteer circuit" through multiple programs in the region.

The variables in programs would include: wealth of nation and locale, rural vs. urban settings, nature of work performed, its purpose and ideological justification, size of project, skills and funding of organizers, skills and demographic background of volunteers, linguistic conditions, living conditions for volunteers, and the duration of their stay. The data collection would be decentralized, having no lead researcher in charge at specific sites. Participant observation and personal journaling would comprise the primary methods for gathering information about ongoing activities. The local organizers and volunteers would both be required to keep these kinds of detailed records of their experiences, which they would duly record each evening on an individual basis. In addition, all participants and organizers would be asked to write an autoethnography about themselves and their expectations before participating in the program and the conclusions they came to about their experiences after they had left. These materials would then be sent to a team of qualitative data analysts who would code the information for specific themes and call participants to discuss/clarify their experiences in a debriefing session. When emerging themes reached a near saturation point, their analysis would inform an in-progress research report that would be shared with organizers at the specific sites. Furthermore, this information would then lead into face to face interviews with organizers/participants and on site focus groups including both groups.

When all programs had reached completion, the data would be compiled into a comprehensive report assessing their benefits and shortcomings of the programs along with concrete policy proposals for the future. This information would be first distributed to the organizers, who would be given the opportunity to review and comment. These suggestions would be taken into account in the final version which would then be made fully public and translated on the Internet.

comm

i'd just like to say, i think this wiki is great. it's extremely informative and encyclopedic. i think some commentators may say the formalization of "for example, you may [... ...]" to describe things isn't very encyclopedic, but i think the whole thing here is great. bye.

Please add reference or remove this phrase

Amarent, why do you once more add "very subjective evaluation by -- who seems to be fighting some sort of personal battle with Hospitality Club founder Veit Kuehne" without adding a reference? Guaka 02:20, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Interesting article to refer to: Emotional Tourism

An interpretive study of online hospitality exchange systems as a new form of tourism, by Paula Bialski. Guaka 02:44, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Possibly unencyclopedic phrase

I've removed the following phrase as possibly unencyclopedic "website about some hospitality networks with a very subjective evaluation by - - who seems to be fighting some sort of personal battle with Hospitality Club founder Veit Kuehne". The comments about "very subjective" and "fighting some sort of personal battle" would appear to be editorializing as defined by WP:WTA.Addhoc 13:24, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

number of users

can we do a quick calculation here? please edit figures & total if out of date and add the source:

   Data retrieved on April 7, 2008 (unless specified otherwise)
   
   * CouchSurfing --       501,172 [1]
   * Hospitality Club --   386,550 [2] 
   * GlobalFreeLoaders --   56,961 [3]
   * Servas Intl --       > 13,000 [4]
   * TravelHoo --            6,954 (March 29)  ...shut down? [5]
   * Warm Showers List --    5,036 [6]
   * BeWelcome --            3,076 [7]
   * Pasporta Servo --       1,350 [8] 
   * WWOOF --                  800 (March 29, 2008)
   * LGHEI --                  500 (March 29, 2008)
   * Homeshare Intl --
     -----------------------------
   * TOTAL:                975,399

Keep in mind that while members may overlap, many of these services' entries are also actually couples using a single account.

If someone knows how to make this into some kind of spreadsheet (autocalculating) table, that'd be great. My apologies is this qualifies as original research, i couldn't find this from a single source.

the wikitravel article, it is also very informative.Brallan 01:00, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

AFS?

AFS could be regarded as the a hospitality service. What do people think, does it fit? If so, the history is prior to Servas. Brallan 00:08, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Links to hospitality services

Recently this site appeared in the description and listing: http://www.thefriendshipforce.org/

YOu can see the added text with this diff:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hospitality_service&diff=205282742&oldid=204023855

I haven't heard of this site before. But looking at the homepage it lists a bunch of travel packages which can be rather expensive. Take this one for example: Southern Brazil May 30 - June 21 Estimated Price: $ 3,000 - for all 3 weeks, from Phoenix, AZ or $ 2,580 from JFK Bill Kram, ED, bilnpnky@juno.com, Phone: 623-974-0614 Join the Friendship Force of Central Arizona for three weeks of exploring the beauty and culture of Brazil. Our journey will begin with an optional guided tour of Iguacu Falls and Rio de Janeiro, two of the top destinations in South America.

That doesn't exactly seem to be what this page is about. Also, it notes connecting 300+ networks together. But when trying to search for networks the page does not respond. So I could not confirm that or even look at any of these networks.

As such, I have removed the content and opened it up for discussion.

--203.31.232.2 (talk) 02:17, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi people, I have a problem with the few links to other hospitality services of which no wikipedia page exists. I consider them as link spam. Why don't they have their own wikipedia page? Maybe, because they are not relevant enough? If so, why do we need to link to them? Let's take BeWelcome for example. Until recently they were in Beta mode. And until now they don't publish any numbers of members. --Splette :) ^{How's my driving?} 00:07, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be fair to also mention smaller hospitality services. There aren't that many anyway. I see your point though, that it might be better to list only those that have their own article. Cheers, --spitzl (talk) 17:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

"Let's take BeWelcome for example. Until recently they were in Beta mode. And until now they don't publish any numbers of members." http://www.bewelcome.org/whoisonline.php -> 1948 members, this is publish since I know the page. BeWelcome has more members then "Pasporta Servo" for example and is worth mentioning it because it s a result of very motivated volunteers who have worked in both big Hospitality Exchange Networks (HC,CS) and get the good experince from this work into the new project. Fabzgy (talk) 02:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I also think it is worth mentioning BeWelcome, and maybe-maybe other networks like Place2Stay and Stay4Free, in the article. After all, they are mentioned on http://www.hospitalityguide.net/hg/site/?sid0=networks as significant hospitality exchange networks. I also wonder why there is no Wikipedia article yet on BeWelcome since it seems like it is a strong and potentially very significant community which has attracted many active volunteers both from CouchSurfing and Hospitality Club.--Sigurdas (talk) 13:40, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

there are far more "very motivated" volunteers existing in CS/HC. Having some volunteers does not a good example website make. New sites should establish themselves before using themselves as example networks. Otherwise, it's just too much of the old "using wikipedia for selfpromotion and advertising". I also note that both fabzgy and sigurdas are volunteers for BW, whch they both neglected to mention in their views above. And hospitalityguilde.net is not a reputable source of information according to wikipedia's rules ( note also that the owner of that domain is a bw member themselves, and frequently post anti HC/CS stuff around the internet ). Passporta Servo is a specialist network, just for esparanto speakers, so of course their membership will be small. It is however a great example of a niche network.

BeWelcome is the first and, as far as I know the only open source hospitality network, thus working in the very same spirit as wikipedia. Isn't that worth a mention? regards, --spitzl (talk) 21:45, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

No. ( google: Results 1 - 10 of about 193,000,000 for "open source" )

--Jyhegron (talk) 10:45, 2 February 2008 (UTC) Wikipedia is not a place for advertising, they are plenty of social networks which appears and disappears : Ok, but I think that if one exist for at least one year, has a growing amount of members, and has real activity it must be considered in the hospitality service page.

It is important to remind that HospitalityClub has a policy of censoring (just check the news in this independent place to have an idea). Hospitality Club was the biggest network until it was replaced by CouchSurfing for this position. The HospitalityClub policy was very clear : doing everything possible not to allow HospitalityClub members to speak or inform other members about other networks. To figure it, just look how COuchSurfing allow to speak about HospitalityClub while HospitalityClub forbid to speak about other networks saying it is blatant promotion.

I am not sure it is important to speak about these polemics in the foreground (and I will not start it since I have a partisan opinion) but definitively wikipedia must reflects this reality they are many networks (if these networks are real ones and are working).

Some references of people protesting about HC censorship :

• independant hospitalityguide : [9]
• Couchsurfing members : [10]
• a sample of hospitality club member opinion : [11]

it is not one nor ten, but hundreds of people who say so

-- you are a founder so of course you think that way. i looked in HC and see lots of mentions of CS and cross HC-CS meetings, so your claims of censoring seem unfounded. I searched around the internet and most claims of cencorship come from the forums some years ago. Interestingly, two founders of BW were the forum modertors back then. So, the censorship team seems to have moved to this infant network. edit: wow, actually it seems 3 of the people from "those times of censorship" are trying to create this new site. How interesting these claims are...

I see 0 people logged in there, it's hardly an active network.

This isn't a page to list all the networks out there. There are tons, and most of them are much older than your personal project which has only been some months out of beta, and has a fraction of 1% of the membership base of the established networks. This is a page about hospitality service, and it is absolutely not necessary to provide an extensive list of networks; that's advertising, not providing examples of well established networks.

Wikipedia is very strict against advertising. Please stop trying to overrepresent your project here.

Here are some guidelines for you, since this is really just following rules:

Not a mirror of links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files Not a directory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_directory SockPuppet#MEtapuppets rule ( since most comments on this point come from high-level volunteers of your organisation, you are effectively trying to create concensus from a single biased view. Metapuppets are recruiting "friends" who share your view. Multiple organisational people for the project clearly fall into this. ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry#Meatpuppets

And finally, that project has attempted to have it's own page created in wikipedia and had it removed since it didnt meet the guidelines for new pages.

If we want to list only networks that have at least 50,000 members (why that number?), we must remove "Servas". (13,ooo members [12]) I hope you see where this ideological fight is leading. I hope also we can cool this a little. It's really not that of a big deal, whether one or more networks are listed or not. Besides, please sign your posts. --spitzl (talk) 14:28, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

good point. Servas is the original it serves excellent historical relevance. The goal here is to adhere to wikipedia guidelines about having a directory. Given there are dozens of websites out there about hospitality exchange it is both ugly to include a list of them all, and it is against the guidelines of wikipedia which works very hard not to be a free advertising space. For generalised network samples, two clear metrics are long-standing and large numbers of members.

• BeWelcome has now more than 2600 members (this information is public an easy to find as stated before)

that is less than 1% of the population of CS. A tiny number for a world-wide idea.

• It is a very active [13]

anyone can write a blog.

• It is the only project open source for hospitality exchange by now [14]

this page is about a concept that extends beyond the internet. this page is not about open source software.

• It was started in 2007, but it is now translated in 14 languages (watch the website), so it is more than a "going to disappear project"

many sites are multi-lingual. And it did not even appear on the internet until 2007 and was in a broken state for a long time marked as "beta".

• I of course restore the cancelled information, they are two kind of sorting for listing the general active networks, Alphabetical or By Size, I used alphabetical since size is subject to change.

that doesnt' even deserve comment. What you are doing there is clear to anyone. The website you started is about a year old and has less than 1% the membership of the larger sites. And of the dozens that could be listed your website is well off the radar.

it should be pointed out that the person above is a) an X high level volunteer of HC, and b) started the BW website with some friends. Attempts to politicise wikipedia will be ignored. Perhaps your website would like to have just 1 person giving an opinion instead of having multiple people who run the site coming here to give the impression of consensus.

back on topic

The question is not is it worth including a specif new website in this page, but rather what needs to be listed in a page that is a generic idea of hospitality exchange. Wikipedia guidelines are very clear on using pages in this way. The page is about an idea. That idea extends well beyond websites. To come in here and list websites is essentially attempting to get free promotion, and the links don't help the understanding of the concept but rather distract from the purpose of the page. A few simple google searches reveals there are literally dozens of websites out there involved in the idea of hospitality exchange. That is why only a sample is provided.

Servas -- the longest existing known website out there. It also has a wikipedia presence. Couch Surfing -- the largest known network out there. It has over 400,000 members. It also has a wikipedia presence. Hospitality Club -- the second largest network out there. Formerly the largest. It has over 350,000 members. It also has a wikipedia presence. Global Free Loaders -- a long standing network with a large user base. IT does not have a wikipedia presence.

That is quite a good sample: it gives people an idea of what is out there with regards to websites, and also directs people to the most popular networks: ones that have existed for a long time, and have a very large user base and lots of activity. They are good criteria to trim the list of dozens so that this stays merely as an educational sample list rather than an attempt to clutter the page to become a directory listing.

The point here is to follow the guidelines and not turn this page into a directory listing. It is not the purpose of the page; the purpose of the page is to explain an idea that extends beyond the internet and webpages anyway. Given there are dozens of websites about this idea, the sample is just that: a sample,

Specialised networks are also useful too. Their specialised purpose is stated there very clear and it is quite obvious how they are specialised.

As pointed out a couple of posts above: what we have happening here is some of the people involved in operating a very new and very small website coming to wikipedia and trying to add their page here to gain free advertising. What is even more amazing is how some are attempting to politicise discussions.

The bottom line is this is not a directory, nor is it a page dedicated to websites who offer hospitality exchange services. The list is a sample of long standing websites which have large membership bases, and that sample excludes dozens of websites which makes this page adhere to wikipedia guidelines and stay on track as an informative page of an idea. Of the dozens of websites out there, those 3 or 4 are clear candidates. Every newer website can twist an argument to say why they are also special, but the bottom line is age, activity and membership base are unambiguous measures, and clearly relate to the topic of this page.

The correct place to include a comprehensive list is a page whose purpose is a) to be comprehensive about websites and b) a place that doesn't have specific rules against such listings. There are other websites out there that do that: but they aren't as popular for some reason.

answering the back topic

The point is that the guy who wrote bewelcome is a "very very small network" has a personal feeling against BeWelcome. He is accusing me of beeing the founder of BeWelcome, just like if it was a crime !

I am one of the founders on BeWelcome, but also as the programmer who also made previously 80% of the Hospitalityclub programs, I think it can be considerated that I know what I am talking about, I know very well the history of each networks, they are not countless.

They are several of them, and this is a good thing. Among these several, they are some active regarding they number of members (like CouchSurfing and previously like HospitalityClub), some active thru the number of programmers/designers who are working in it with daily visible results (like BeWelcome), some who are older than the web and will remain a long time alive, even if not the biggest (like Servas), some who have not really display any activity since two or three years like (globalfreeloaders), some who nobody speak about here like (http://www.comitasintergentes.org/ -my opinion beeing that it is a dying project-).

I have no problem with any of these networks, all of them can be quoted here.

I also noticed that several people in this discussion agrees that BeWelcome is to be include in this page, and I need to remind that since almost one year BeWelcome is not anymore a Beta project.

It is a very serious project, with a real legal basis and really setup public organization

Anyway, to reduce the argument Big Network / Small NetWork, I have made a paragraph Other Smaller networks, I think someone will change this someday, future will tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jyhegron (talk • contribs) 19:11, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

-- it's incredibly clear that you are merely trying to get some free promotion. Googling your site name with wiki shows how it has spammed hundreds of wikis on the internet with your URL. While you are only concerned with adding your own website here, others are concerned about the idea and providing a balanced sample of established networks selecting from all the ones out there; all you do is come here and advertise your one website. I think any bias present here is very clear. YOu call http://www.comitasintergentes.org/ a dying project, but it started after yours and has more people online right now! You have a very attacking and hostile approach.

The guidelines have been pointed out to you numerous times but completely ignore those points. There are literally dozens of websites which address this concept. Yours is very low on that list. As said before, any person who runs a website can come along and try to say how theirs is more special, but this is not a directory and you are nowhere near the size or age of the few chosen for examples. --

I have the feeling that you are speaking alone and in the void ;-)

You just have a problem with BW, and you are not enough honest to sign your post with a real name

Jyhegron (talk) 21:45, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

--

I don't see the reason for this discussion, why not include all active web site references here ? They are no other better area than wikipedia for this since each of these web sites considers each others as competitors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.167.120.64 (talk) 15:47, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

So what you're saying is, wikipedia is the best place for websites to advertise on any page that relates to the service they offer? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.31.232.2 (talk) 01:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

--

I have read the history and the previous version of the page Hospitality service, I really dont see why the reference to BeWelcome have been considerated as Spam. I am member of HospitalityClub and have attended here in Brussel to one BeWelcome meeting, I would say that people in BeWelcome are quite active and seems really serious. It can be a small network considering the number of people in it, but, at least here in Belgium it really seems an important actor of the Hospitality Exchange, I will probably join it soon. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.240.248.88 (talk) 17:41, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

--

The reason is because of the wikipedia guidelines. There are dozens of websites that facilitate hospitality exchange. New ones keep cropping up. The list is included to give an example only, and is selected from the very top of those sites: age, membership base, presence in wikipedia, presence in popular news etc. Most of them so established they they were the initial cause for this concept to be documented here in the first place. There is no doubt that the people running this specific website are quite active about it. But that is not the issue in question. The point was made most clear when Jyhegron chose to defame a similarly new network, http://www.comitasintergentes.org/, as a dying project. He is not interested in getting a balanced list here, he is interested in attacking others' and getting his own website listed for the promotion it gives. There are new projects around and many other projects which are trying to promote themselves in various ways. But wikipedia is not a place for promotion.

--

@203.31.232.2 (or whatever Australian IP you use, please answer this easy question are you "babso" the HC forum moderator or not ? personally I sign my contributions).

I wrote that I believe that comitasintergentes was a dying Network because I didn't see its activity, I did not mean to defame it at all, this is your interpretation. I just remind that it was existing and try to find some agreement with you that they are networks with non obvious activity. Comitasintergentes was a bad sample ? ok, I apologize for my words, I have absolutely no problem to quote comitasintegentes here, and it is very possible that I miss statistic about it, event about meetings, etc...

What I say since the beginning is that they are not "countless" hospitality networks networks, they are only few ones really active. If one of them is active enough to be quoted by people in this talk, it means that it is active enough to be enlisted in the Hospitality Service page. I don't agree with the logic of size as the criteria to decide which to exclude and which one to keep. If size is a problem, just give it as additional information. I suggest to refer to the well known hospitalityguide who is existing since a while and did a lot of work collecting informations and facts about Hopsitality Service and what is going on/happening in them. This is a real independent information source. About promotion : the problem is to define what is promotion and what is not. Quoting the existence of something with one sentence is not promotion. This especially if the references are verifiable. Jyhegron (talk) 13:00, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

--

There are far more than "a few ones". A simple google search reveals dozens. And frankly, I find it quite hypocritical for you to imply many others are "not active" when yours is so small, new, and inactive itself.

"About promotion : the problem is to define what is promotion and what is not. Quoting the existence of something with one sentence is not promotion" Unfortunately it is. Please read the guidelines. It specifically relates to people who try to "link spam" in external links sections, to give their site promotion on wikipedia. And the fact remains that your website does not have a wikipedia presence. One was started, and quickly removed by a wikipedia admin. Perhaps work on that first. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 121.44.202.103 (talk) 07:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

I think BeWelcome is worth to mention here. It is true, there are quite a lot Hospitality Guide Networks out there (I added a link to a overview of them). There are two reasons whey BeWelcome does complement this article (reasons most Wikipedians will be happy about): BeWelcome is the first and only network that 1. is OpenSource and 2. is maintained by a democratic volunteer organisation. Regarding the size, I think it is just a question of a couple of months, until it has the same size as the other networks. It is impressive how many Page Views it produces lately (see alexa.com), compared to the low Rank and Reach, and as it seems like, it might soon overtake HospitalityClub in this aspect... --Aaida (talk) 10:53, 6 April 2008 (UTC)

For it to appear to overtake HC it would need growth that indicates that. Your URL shows BW at rock-bottom compared to the traffic generated through HC and CS. It barely shows up on the graph. Add to that the complete unreliability of alexadata as statistics since their methods of gathering data rely on users installing plugins and the like and then extrapolating across a broader population. Their numbers are, in all reality, made up. I searched through the wikipedia guidelines and saw no mention of wikipedia philosophy favouring open source or democracy. Wikipedia isn't even democratic so I'm amazed you would suggest that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.31.232.2 (talk) 02:11, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

I would appriciate it very much when you could use an account for your contributions as it is emphasized by the Wikipedia community. To continue the discussion, I have to clarify some points: 1.) You are welcome to compare the date with all the other networks that are listed within Wikipedia and see how it is related to them. However, you are right, Alexa might be unreliable. Nevertheless, Alexa indicates some activity what distinguish it from many other (here mentioned) networks. 2.) I mentioned the points above not in relation to any Wikipedia guidelines, but that the network might bring a new aspect and kind of network to the list. Yes, Wikipedia does not have any guidelines regarding this or might be especially in favor for those, but hopefully you are in favor of those principles as you contribute here (or at least not in favor of the opposite). You are right; it might be good to establish a BeWelcome Wikipedia entry first. Nevertheless, I think the points and arguments mentioned above are enough to legitimate that the network is listed in this entry. --Aaida (talk) 13:43, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

-- @203.31.232.2 (who is Babso the forum HC forum moderator who spend his energy trying not to have any BeWelcome reference quoted in the HC Forum, so definitively not a neutral person).

I don't think we can rely on the Alexa statistics even if they show the activity of BeWelcome, but for sure, if we compare the activity in the public BW volunteer wiki ([15]) vs the HC one ([16]) , or the activity of the BW volunteer forum vs the Hospitality club forum, or the recent changes on these web sites, we can have a good measurement of the BeWelcome activity.

Since I am the 711th Hospitality Club member (in July 2001) , since I have done a lot in the area of HC programming and in helping the HC growth in its the early days, I can say I have some experience with this subject. It is clear for me that HC has had more than 400 000 subscribed members (the current displays numbers beeing outdated since month, and this don't mean they are 400 000 members active).

What I can see is :

• that in 2006 HC sometime had very often 400 peoples online, where today, in the recent months, it is no more than 300 generally 200

• it is also an evidence that there is no programming activity in HC, no new significant things in the HC website since beginning of 2006. This it is a pity, I am still willing to help here, providing some of my answer to HC founder can be answered, but thats not the point.
• I remember I programmed the Hospitality Club groups in 2004-2005 and they are still announced as a new feature, the same stands for the "NEW! Invite friendly people!" still anounced as new but which I programmed in 2003. The HC preferences are announce as a new thing but I remember I made them in 2003 or 2004. The HC meetings features is a bit recent, but it is just some basic use of a google feature which doesn't work very well (don't misunderstand me, the work Nagzyl did is good, but I think a network of HC size should have a feature at least at the level of the Couchsurfing meeting feature)
• In other hand Couchsurfing is really today several step before HC, and BeWelcome, even if it has still a small number of members is weekly having new features, new improvment.

Currently HC is slowly going down (this might change and I would like it to change), CS is at the top and increasing/improving daily, BW is really active (number of members constantly increasing, volunteer activity, brainstorm of idea, work meetings, transparency, clear legal statute) but has of course not reach the activity of CS founded 7 years before it. The total amount of members is not the proper indicator of a network activity, to see what is alive and what is not just look to the change on the web page.

@Babso, it is also clear by this discussion than many people think BeWelcome has its place in the Hospitality Service web page

If someone feels like to restore a reference about BeWelcome (Which differ from HC and CS because it is not owned by a single person, but by its volunteer and manage in a democratic way), I think he will help the community of wikipedians.

As Babso stated it I am very involved in BeWelcome, after having made very big contribution to Hospitality Club, so I might be consider as a not completely neutral perso, so I will not restore this link myself this time. If someone wants additional information about Hospitality Club, or about BeWelcome, just ask me, I will be pleased to answer.

Jyhegron (talk) 11:35, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

13:32, 19 April 2008 (UTC) --

BeWelcome as 'split-up' of Hospitality Club (and other networks)

I added the note again with a recent newspaper article as additional reference to support those facts. I think, together with the above points, it is sufficient to mention BeWelcome here (opposite to the above claims that Wikipedia is used for ‘advertisement’ only). In my view there are enough things that a) show that BeWelcome is not just another network (and adds additional value to this entry) and b) that it can be seen as a natural evolution of hospitality exchange/services. However, the future will show if this network (and construction) will be successful. --Aaida (talk) 13:41, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

A volunteer deciding to start their own website does not make a split. heck 6 volunteers do not when there are hundreds of volunteers working towards putting back in what they personally get out. It's clear that you want to position this new website next to the established ones like HC, CS, Servas etc, by making any attempt to draw connections that you can. None of the networks have split. Your website is not connected to them other than the people who started it had volunteered some time along with hundreds of others. As for natural evolution, what you say sounds like marketing material: it's meaningless. This aggressive single-minded push of multiple members of your organisation is what makes wikipedia sometimes an unwelcome place to be. But luckily there are many members here ready to clean up such acts, as has happened with your posts. I'm not going to rehash great arguments that have been put forward to you again, other than to say look at the difference between people putting a balanced page together here and your aggressive push to overrepresent just one single website without any care for the dozens of others out there. Interesting isn't it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.167.155.3 (talk) 14:48, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Please log in and try to find a consensus in the post and not just undo edits as it is welcome here on Wikipedia. I changed the main article regarding the point about "split of" you raised, this is for me understandable. Further, I have to point out that I am in no way associated to BeWelcome. My interest in this issue is hospitality exchange and I do not care much about the network disputes. Am I right with assumption that you are affiliated with HospitalityClub? About the other "dozens of others out there", they will come after we solved the arguments here and come to a compromise. I do think it is important as it produced quite some discussion here on the talk page, I do think there is quite some truth in both sides. Hopefully I can count on your help (afterwards), that your interest goes further then solely blocking new or controversial points (that do not fit in your agenda). --Aaida (talk) 07:41, 28 April 2008 (UTC)