Stay with a fellow HNer for SXSW

airbnb.com

9 points·wolfparade··5 comments

OR just surf someone's couch at www.couchsurfing.org

I can't be the only one who thinks these types of things are sketchy... possibly dangerous. (Craigslist killer(s) anyone?) Of course I'm not... so I wonder what kind of screening process goes on to prevent harmful intruders.

I googled a few combinations of the following keywords "airbnb couchsurfing safety precautions screening" (etc.) with no specifics. It looks like airbnb leaves safety entirely up to the participants.

I'm guessing the majority is based on ratings... so you end up with a bit of the chicken and egg scenario... so at first it would seem everyone's gotta take a bit of a risk.

I am a couchsurfing member and have stayed and hosted a few people and have gone to the CS meetings and events. The community is extremely warm and generous and I've never met anyone who is sketchy let alone dangerous. Of course, you should follow a good screening process meaning checking their history on courchsurfing, looking for recommendations and checking for profiles of recommender.

I have met really nice people on CS and have actually dated a few people I met on courchsurfing. I would highly recommend it to everyone.

Unfortunately it only takes one horrific story to kill off something like couchsurfing. People aren't very good at extrapolating risk when they hear about that 100 in a million awful news story (how many millions of Craiglist people met before that one Carigslist killer?). It's what killed off hitchhiking in the US. Let's hope it doesn't kill off some of these new internet phenomena.

How did this make the front page?

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