Talk:How to handle freeloaders

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Midsch, I just found and love this page. Thank you loads! --Kaoxoni 21:11, 18 January 2007 (EST)

There are other types of freeloading as well, some stuff is handled at the good host/guest sites:

  • People who overstay their welcome
  • People who eat everything in the fridge

Maybe the title of the article is wrong?

Setting up more "how to handle ..." pages?

An article about what's not cs?

here: Couchsurfing_is_not_... - midschCS 16:05, 5 November 2006 (EST)

This could be useful, but should be a small part of "Tips and such" - I think it's necessary to make this points clear, but it's better to work out the positive howtos. Midsch CS 19:06, 16 October 2006 (CEST)

  1. brandnew member
  2. empty profile (no pics, description ...)
  3. copy & paste request with no personal touch for the reciever
  4. it's very urgent / emergency
  5. request is not from a traveller (typical: "moving to your town")
  1. Everyone was a brand new member at some point. Just welcome them and tell people to
  2. fill in their profile a bit more.
  3. I try not to, but I'm still guilty of that at times. (Especially in combination with #4... Or #2, if there's nothing in the person's profile. Though I regularly add a request for more profile info in my couch request :)
  4. Happens regularly to me. If I were to go and pay hostels I would have finished travelling a while ago. I also always find a place to stay (in cities).
  5. I think that's still valid, I know many people who do that, and it fits the CouchCurfing Mission.
Still, I think it's very useful to continue working on this page! The title is probably okay. The other articles are useful as well. But it's good to take a look at the CouchSurfing Mission Statement now and then :) GuakaTalkCS 12:32, 16 October 2006 (EST)
I don't want to become the bad guy! :( I know the CouchSurfing Mission Statement - that's why i think it's better to write positive howtos (good guests / hosts). But there are some people worried about those requests, so we should provide some tips. I would like to get some more input - somebody out there?
Midsch CS 23:25, 16 October 2006 (CEST)


Honestly, some types of behavior are unpleaseant and should be discouraged for that. CS is now on many travel guides and more and more people hear about it. Is is a concret fact that bulk requests has become a real issue in CS.

The man problem is the freeloader. The site is open to the public and it's still safe and cool, which is just great. But it has some other mechanisms to ensure it works.

The problem is not 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 themselves. But it is a fact that some of these combined are annoying and should not be promoted. Someone with a brand new empty profile sends you an anonnymous messge requesting a couch with urgency... well, sorry but for me that deserves a copy-paste negative reply.

For me it makes more sense to have "brand new members", "empty profiles" and "freeloaders" merged into a single page about 'how to handle inadequate requests' or something like that.

I think so because as I said, an empty profile, seen as an isolated issue, has the trivial solution of filling the profile, but I would like to discuss how to handle unpleasent freeload requests.

What do you people think about merging the pages?

One other item I'm adding is a tip about "Warnings" people put in their profile.

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