A civilised place for public discussion?

Site Suggestions
1

Yesterday I dared a first ever post on an internet forum (this one). Within minutes, several kind members responded with all the frank, helpful feedback & advice I could hope for. As I hit “reply” on my thank-you message, a pop-up indicated that my daily limit was reached & I had to wait 24 hours to post again.

So now I’m back to express utmost gratitude but am also startled by some subsequent responses to my unfortunately impulsive post titled ‘Super(disappointed)host.’ It is indeed too emotional and I had stupidly failed to heed rule #1: Learn The [ever evolving AirBnB booking] System - Guilty as charged!

Confession: For 4 years to date I was a devoted fan and ardent cheerleader of ABnB and their revolutionary concept of authentic travel, closer human connection etc. - until needing to cancel a booking… Unable to find a local number or dial overseas, I messaged them on their app and did not get a response until their robot unceremoniously stripped off my SH badge. (I had read the terms and naively assumed that ‘extenuating circumstances’ meant what the dictionary indicates).

Kind members here counselled: “The veil has dropped,” “superhost status is no big deal,” “their sandbox” their rules, time for “emotional divorce.” Many valuable tips also came regarding options of contacting customer support - in which regard we are challenged by primitive network technology in a remote location.

As an ageing IT newbie in Africa crawling across the ‘digital divide,’ sincere apologies for having sullied this forum with an impulsive rant about my once beloved ABnB’s slide to global corporate cynicism, for pandering to the modern materially aspirant, over-privileged, IT driven, push-button “I want it all, right now, me-me-me, having money entitles me to treat others like dirt” culture. (It was a cry against declining human morals & values plus overall obsession with money, not at all aimed at this forum and its members).

I hope to compensate with respectful, constructive contributions so I need to better understand how this ‘civilised place for public discussion’ works. Zero expression of emotion - check, first lesson learned! How to process being accused by some members and even moderators of hiding facts, being greedy and rudely insulting hosts, with no basis provided or referenced? Comments that don’t address me nor the topic - side conversations expressing glee at my hastily presumed ingratitude and supposed departure as “tail-between-the-legs,” which describes me as a dog? (None of these worth dignifying with a response).

In our direct experience, maybe 1 in 50 foreign guests and visitors fall in aforementioned
“I-can-push-your-button-and-disrespect-you” category. Responses to my post suggest a ratio of 3 or 4/10 of such mentality on this forum. To understand this, please enlighten us! Is it maybe that some are in such a rush to judgement that they don’t read properly? Perhaps a Trumpian trend of generating alternative facts, for ‘othering’ people as targets to attack for prestige & pleasure? Dunning-Kruger effect? Do the moderators here ‘moderate’ each other or possibly stir things up for more clicks and thus advertising revenue? Is everything just monetised now and human spirit and dignity be damned? Am I just a stupid old-fashioned fool for having expected a forum of hosts to be somewhat more hospitable?

Sorry for all the questions. (Hosting is my calling and passion : ) Thank you so much for sharing valuable news, views, tips & insights!

1 Like
2

I just said this on another post so here goes again. Moderators on this site are volunteers who joined the forum just like you, years ago. Due to being active on the forum and winning the respect of fellow members and the forum owner, we were asked to help moderate. We were not asked to quit having opinions or to sugarcoat responses. The moderators on here don’t always agree with each other but we aren’t trying to stir things up.

You, on the other hand, are new and unknown This forum is part of the internet where no single member gets to dictate to others what responses they will get to their posts.

Only you can answer that question.

9 Likes
4

You tripping. Have some coffee and come back later. Super Host Status is meaningless I wish I could give you mine I dont need it.

4 Likes
5

Yep those side conversations are really rude. I mean my mother told me not to point and whisper, to share the joke etc… Some people are reliving the glory days of their school playground bullying. Sad really.
I think it’s fine to be frank and to disagree, but not to get personal. Its about issues not personalities. You can flag a remark for the moderators to look at. Or give as good as you get. Don’t take it seriously, it’s not real life, and bullying says more about the other person than you.

3 Likes
6

All of us here - hosts or moderators (who are also hosts) - have widely differing viewpoints and ideas. And very different rentals too. What is applicable for a host who has four separate rental apartments in a luxury condo building in Miami might well seem like nonsense to a single host in Leeds who rents out her single spare bedroom.

And Airbnb’s rules and regulations are often open to interpretation too.

Hosting is a strange (but wonderful) profession where many people learn by trial and error, studying the Airbnb help pages and importantly, studying the various views and opinions on this site.

As @KKC said, the moderators here aren’t paid employees and our main job is one that many members here probably don’t even notice - such as removing spammers who post meaningless ads to their services, removing or censoring obscene posts (yes, it happens), keeping troublemakers at bay and because we are located in various time zones, this goes on more or less round the clock.

We also suggest to new members that they read older articles thoroughly because there is truly a wealth of information here. If they can’t find an answer, then post by all means but I guess you can imagine how annoying it can be when a new person joins here simply to ask for Airbnb’s phone number or asks a question that has been asked - and answered - dozens of times.

Here we are like any other section of society and all different.

7 Likes
7

There’s also a pinned post of forum guidelines as well. You may have missed it.

Not sure what you are referring to as inhospitable responses. I didn’t really see any, but then I skimmed them all rather quickly. I don’t know. You posted something and you got a plethora of responses that I would have called mostly helpful, but silly me.

The most discouraging thing that can happen here I think is to post something and get NO responses, which has happened to me before. :rofl:

Another thing of note is that we longtimers are all kind of used to each other and don’t get as offended as easily by certain people whose personalities are well known, but they are still valuable members here and have good things to say.

If by side conversations, you mean us going off topic, it’s what we do here. We’ve always done it, we always will and that won’t change. It’s unorthodox, but that is what makes us unique here.

Honestly, you may want to stick to forums like those offered by the official Air community. The posts are sanitized and moderated heavily more than likely.

As for me, I don’t get paid. I only want to see friendly hosts helping other hosts and perhaps, dare I say it, have some appreciation shown for the sage advice that’s been offered, even though some of it might seem a little gruff or impatient. We longtimers have seen your question a million times before and we e answered this same one before many times as well… so perhaps that’s why we are not considered civilized or hospitable by you.

9 Likes