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AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

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Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#61

Post by rdancer »

prawn wrote: post #60
rdancer wrote: post #32

AirBnB's ability to handle failure modes is beyond bad. If a host fails to accommodate you, you better have a hotel in mind for a plan B. Their UK customer service phone line drops calls after 300 seconds in the waiting queue. Go and try it: +448435047257 Form replies to e-mails, never enough detail, multiple days' response times. What's the procedure for documenting a host has checked in, or hasn't? That's right, th…

When I have had a host screw me over in a major city where finding accommodation in a peak time is incredibly difficult, I've complained to Airbnb very persistently and aggressively, and they've compensated me.

That's exactly the point I'm trying to get across: there should be a well-defined business process, reflected in the UI in their app/website, for getting refunds. That there isn't speaks volumes.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#62

Post by DannyBee »

pm24601 wrote: post #41
DannyBee wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They can't be a community when participation is subject to veto by a single entity/person." Says who? This is not any requirement of any commonly accepted definition of community. You certainly can just make crap up and define words however you like, but you can't expect others to go along with you :)

I am not making crap up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community Community... "who mutually define that relationship (subjectively) as important to their social identity and social practice." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community : 1. a unified body of individuals: as a : state, commonwealth b : the people with common interests living in a particular area; broadly : the area itself c : an interacting po…

The dictionary definition clearly has no requirement that it be a mutually defined membership, just a common group of people.

You are saying "because the dictionary does not say one entity can control who is a member, it's not allowed".

But the dictionary definition neither requires nor disallows a single entity from defining membership, and definitions don't fall into the "that which is not referenced is not permitted" category of things. In fact, it's the opposite. If you meet at least the minimum requirements of some definition, you are that thing. You may also be other things that are more specific.

So they are completely within the dictionary definition of a community. They are a group of people with a common characteristic (they are airbnb hosts) scattered through a larger society.

Whether this is defined by airbnb or not doesn't matter.

Claiming anything else is simply ridiculous to me.

Do you also believe the daughters of the american revolution are not a community, because the daughters of the american revolution defines who is part of their membership?

Is hacker news not a community because contributing requires accounts HN reserves the right to remove accounts at any time (thus controlling participation)?

I'm not sure why you are not just willing to admit you are being silly.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#63

Post by dang »

luciferous wrote: post #57

This item was on the front page just a minute ago with 11 points. It grew to 134 but is now all the way on the fourth page. Something is suspicious.

No admin touched this post. It dropped in rank because of user flags and the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic and treats all posts the same way.

HN admins don't penalize posts for being anti-YC or anti-YC-startup.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#65

Post by luciferous »

dang wrote: post #63
luciferous wrote: post #57

This item was on the front page just a minute ago with 11 points. It grew to 134 but is now all the way on the fourth page. Something is suspicious.

No admin touched this post. It dropped in rank because of user flags and the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic and treats all posts the same way. HN admins don't penalize posts for being anti-YC or anti-YC-startup.

Ok, that's a possible reason. But shouldn't there be some amount of human intervention for false positives? There wasn't a flamewar brewing in this thread.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#66

Post by dang »

luciferous wrote: post #65
dang wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No admin touched this post. It dropped in rank because of user flags and the flamewar detector, which is algorithmic and treats all posts the same way. HN admins don't penalize posts for being anti-YC or anti-YC-startup.

Ok, that's a possible reason. But shouldn't there be some amount of human intervention for false positives? There wasn't a flamewar brewing in this thread.

'Flamewar detector' is a catchy name that stuck, but it isn't only about flamewars. It's about damping, on HN, the kind of low-quality, unsubstantive discussions that swell up quickly and would otherwise flood this site the way they do most of the internet.

Indignation is a common driver of these. Look at the top comment in this thread, beginning "What a shitty", or the one that, with admirable forthrightness, says "Reading that article makes me furious". Such discussions do often lead to flamewar-like behavior (e.g. the argument about the definition of 'community'), so "flamewar detector" isn't exactly wrong, either.

We do look several times a day at the stories that are penalized by this software, because sometimes there are genuine false positives that need rescuing. I wouldn't say that this article and thread rise to that level, though.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#67

Post by prawn »

rdancer wrote: post #61
prawn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I have had a host screw me over in a major city where finding accommodation in a peak time is incredibly difficult, I've complained to Airbnb very persistently and aggressively, and they've compensated me.

That's exactly the point I'm trying to get across: there should be a well-defined business process, reflected in the UI in their app/website, for getting refunds. That there isn't speaks volumes.

True of almost every large company until you complain like a bastard. I've been stonewalled by Dell, Airbnb, airlines, etc but eventually won through sheer stubbornness.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#68

Post by chinathrow »

dang wrote: post #66
luciferous wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, that's a possible reason. But shouldn't there be some amount of human intervention for false positives? There wasn't a flamewar brewing in this thread.

'Flamewar detector' is a catchy name that stuck, but it isn't only about flamewars. It's about damping, on HN, the kind of low-quality, unsubstantive discussions that swell up quickly and would otherwise flood this site the way they do most of the internet. Indignation is a common driver of these. Look at the top comment in this thread, beginning "What a shitty", or the one that, with admirable forthrightness, says "…

Appreciate your feedback on why it get burried.

A little meta, that an algo said to flag the thread down while the airbnb host in the linked article likely got flagged down by an alogrithm.

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#69

Post by danielweber »

disillusioned wrote: post #18

What a shitty termination notice and a shitty way of handling things from an account that has clearly been one of their better hosts. If you're going to ascribe the "superhost" appellation, you'd think they'd actually give a fuck before algorithmically cancelling the user's account, or maybe work through a warning or validate their concerns or literally ANYTHING before turning things up to 11 and nuking the account f…

You know how the web 2.0 companies have a massive amount of revenue per worker?

It's because the normal rough edges of handling customer complaints is shoved out the door, because that didn't really matter, right?

"For your convenience your account has been closed. Do not reply to this email."

Re: AirBNB why did you terminate my account? – An Open Letter to AirBNB

#70

Post by dang »

chinathrow wrote: post #68
dang wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Flamewar detector' is a catchy name that stuck, but it isn't only about flamewars. It's about damping, on HN, the kind of low-quality, unsubstantive discussions that swell up quickly and would otherwise flood this site the way they do most of the internet. Indignation is a common driver of these. Look at the top comment in this thread, beginning "What a shitty", or the one that, with admirable forthrightness, says "…

Appreciate your feedback on why it get burried. A little meta, that an algo said to flag the thread down while the airbnb host in the linked article likely got flagged down by an alogrithm.

> while the airbnb host in the linked article likely got flagged down by an alogrithm

We really don't have the slightest basis for that assessment, do we?

That highlights the deep problem with posts like this: they invariably have only one side of the story. That's not the authors' fault—why shouldn't they tell their side of the story? But it makes objective discussion impossible. Since the internet abhors a vacuum, what rushes in to replace the missing information is speculation and rage, and those things make for poor HN discussions no matter what the topic.

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