Ambassadors Meeting 28/05/2007

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Ulf, Steff, Tiina, Marcus, Davina, Jasper, Sheri, Helga, Mike, Vasilis, and Sharonne
Ulf, Steff, Tiina, Marcus, Davina, Jasper, Sheri, Helga, Mike, Vasilis, and Sharonne

Mon 28 May 2007 2:30PM
De Hems Pub, 2nd Floor
11 Macclesfield St.
London, WE1
United Kingdom
Introductions: Mike
Moderator: Marcus
Secretary: Mike

Contents

Members Present

Alessandro(wingcastles) City Ambassador: Torino
Antoine(superyami) Country Ambassador: France
Birgit(desaparecida) Country Ambassador: Austria
Caroline(carrotshake) City Ambassador: Paris
Davina(onlyone) City Ambassador: London
Emily Stott(moksha) Ambassador: York and UK
Frederic(dreferic) Global Ambassador
Helga(helga_pbv) City Ambassador: London
Jasper(melchior) City Ambassador: Gent
Marcus(bontour) Global Ambassador
Mike(openmic) Country Ambassador: UK
Rory(dublinguy) City Ambassador: Dublin
Tiina(tiina) City Ambassador: Rotterdam
Ulf(ulf) City Ambassador: Cologne
Vasilis(vvas) City Ambassador: Edinburgh
Sherry Huckabee(slhsea) Nomadic Ambassador
Stephanie(steff) Country Ambassador: France


Also in attendance:
Chimps(chimps) Member: UK
Cecile(callegra) Reporter for "Le Monde"
Stephen - Cecile's assistant and photographer
Sharonne(sharonne) Member: Australia

Introductions

We began with a roundtable introduction. All present were given an opportunity to introduce themselves, and talk about the projects they were involved in.

General Concerns

Members freely discussed issues that concerned them. Topics discussed were:

  • Google calendar integration
  • Activating inactive members
  • Monthly meetings in Vienna and Dublin
  • Google caching concerns
  • Rotterdam mini-collective to be focused on bug squashing

Safety

Safety was of great concern to a majority of the members. Some ideas were presented.

  • Country coordinator role should maintain an emergency contact list
  • Someone to be responsible for security 24/7
  • A potential for organised crime was cited
  • Need for update to wiki regarding security
  • Idea: Send out an email within first month reminding users of importance of security
  • Concern: Safety info should be in multiple languages
  • Concern: Security should be a concern of a team, not just one person.
  • Idea: A suspicious profile link, only viewable by amb's
  • Concern: Negative references are not easily identifiable by Ambassadors

Open Couchsurfing

Vasilis briefly introduced the core issues of the NDA, including the competition clause. He discussed why many programmers are unwilling to sign it. Some cross-country legality issues were introduced as well.

  • Concern: Closed communication within the Leadership Circle
  • Concern: Financial issues still exist without a timescale to make them public.
  • The OpenCS petition was discussed
  • Concern: Have OpenCS posts been deleted? No evidence was given.
  • Some felt that OpenCS was an attack on CS.
  • Concern: Why is Chris Burley an admin, without verification. This undermines trust, and being a good example in the CS community.
  • Some miscommunication of Admin and LC.

Local Communities

There was a great interest about building community spirit. Should communities form naturally, or by ambassadors.

  • Vienna is currently and successfully using Google Calendar to coordinate events.
  • A CS Calendar is in the works, however NDA issues have caused a halt on new features
  • Concern: To move to Google calendars, or wait for the promised CS Calendar.

Site Reliability

Concerns throughout the last months raise this issue.

  • Servers are currently running the DB inefficiently
  • The programming needed to fix this is hindered by the current NDA

A solution to hire and pay a full-time developer was introduced. This would solve our problem, however some argued, "why pay someone when we have ready and willing volunteers?"

The handling of user data on the site and DB is currently insecure. There is a very real risk that a hacker can farm personal information. Quoted "Security by oscurity is no real security."

Sorting Algorithm

Vasilis briefly talked about the old sorting algorithm. He also gave a breakdown of how points are used in the new sorting algorithm, and gathered feedback on how it was currently working.

The variables for the new sorting algorithm:

  • References
  • Vouches
  • Verification
  • Percent of CS Requests
  • Last Login
  • Number of requests
  • Picture
  • Random
  • Couch

Once again, the NDA was discussed as a hurdle to any future development for CS.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.couchsurfing.com/en/Ambassadors_Meeting_28/05/2007"
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