The CouchSurfing Wiki, an informal workspace which anyone can edit.

Please note:

The Leadership Team will not be checking this page for updates. Instead, we will be checking for your questions submitted to the CouchSurfing Policy FAQ.

Questions about the Leadership Team:

Q & A

• Will these new members of the "Leadership Team" be appointed as directors of CouchSurfing International Inc?

• Are leaders leaders for life? When we reach 15 leaders, when can new ones be accepted? Do they have to wait until someone quits or is voted out?

• How often will you have meetings? Will the agenda be published beforehand? Will there be minutes published of the key decisions made at the meetings?

• Who will determine what constitutes a "Policy violation" that excludes candidacy?

• New leaders have to be accepted unanimously. How will "critical" leaders ever get in the circle?

• Why do the ambassadors have to vote for a tech team coordinator? Why can't the tech team do this themselves?

• Why wouldn't these leaders be elected by a vote of ambassadors, volunteers and/or members? Why do they appoint themselves?

• What will the Peer Review System entail? A 360 degree survey? (Casey, Leadership members, and volunteer team members all filling out the same survey on the person)

• I noticed that 4 months inactive status qualifies as a potential removal of a Leader. How many conference calls in a row, or within a 12 month period, must be missed before a Leader is voted on for removal? This is an important question because projects can be significantly delayed if a vote is unable to be taken on an important issue because the key person is not present.

• Can a Leader send a voting Alternate in their place if they cannot attend a conference call? Or can a Leader send a representative of their specialty to at least participate in the meeting if the Leader cannot attend?

Inclusiveness and Communications

(based on post in cs-dev-public group)

It would be good to have a chance to get to know who they are as people, surfers first, since that will facilitate understanding their point of view, whatever it is, later on (to not to see them as just another one of the "unknown" admins). (Not everyone can or wants to be at the collectives to witness this firsthand themselves.)

• How do you see CS org structure growing and becoming more inclusive, more specifically if it's more top-down and control at all costs or bottom up?

• What you see as dangers in letting the "lower levels" organize themselves more independently (ie letting people start things themselves or at least form meaningful networks on their own so they can start working together when the time comes) rather than pulling the strings from above?

• Where do you stand in regards to communication and openness? What are your greatest fears in letting the community (whoever wants to know regardless of "status" within the organization) even see some of the discussions or any other "classified" information? Any ideas of how to improve this?

• What are the communication bottlenecks as perceived by the admin group towards the outside world? Through which channels is each approached most? What types of questions are most asked in these personal communications? Any ideas on how to improve this? (FAQs, more public dialogue, bidirectional feedback channels, more "in-between" people to handle informing the public, what is it that would make you feel both safe about not disclosing "too much" and not overwhelmed?)

Why all these questions: there MUST be something the tech team (some software solutions might be beneficial) and others concerned could help with, and we can't do anything before knowing exactly what are the problems and concerns they have. I know that from a technical standpoint, you need to have full understanding of the underlying problems and what can be accepted as a final solution before you can even start planning the solution!

Anu 20:25, 12 May 2007 (EDT)