Yeah, I still don’t believe them. I doubt new HOs would get their listing approved then go make it worse. I’ve seen new HOs with listings with 3 dark and blurry photos and one sentence in each info section. If MS thinks that’s what should be considered good for going live, that’s unfortunate. And the fact that they rely on us to help police but refuse to give us the tools (which are easy to implement and have been requested for YEARS) to do so is annoying.
To be clear none of this is to you, you just have to hear about our frustration because you’re the easiest person to vent it to. I know you have no control over any of this. But I have no faith in anything MS says on the topic at this point because it’s so obviously wrong. Either they don’t manually approve or the person/people doing it are terrible at their job.
I would love to hear more on the quantity for this spot checking of listings with new dates
10%? More/less?
If you rely on us to do the work, perhaps compensation should be considered in terms of annual membership credit. Say, some days for a valid reporting of an improper listing
@Jenny Way before you joined the community, I was the (only) volunteer forum moderator. I gave thousands of hours of my time working directly with all staff forum members. I appreciate that some time has passed, but I support those here who are saying that the understanding is that only the initial post of a new homeowner is checked.
Of course, membership services may have changed its policy, but if so - if they truly check every listing - then a good number of staff need retraining or better supervision. I say that kindly as the quality of many listings is now poorer, as the membership has grown rapidly. I’m a 10-year member/sitter and think fondly of the good olde days. I am of the opinion that rapid growth has caused quality to slip noticeably.
Add me to the list of those who disbelieve the responses you’ve received from membership services. I’m also not willing to report those who don’t comply, unless I have concern for a future sitter’s safety.
Well said @Snowbird as I totally agree with you in all you have written. Like you, I am a long time member and the quality of listings has definitely slipped. There are new listings that slip in that don’t meet all the criteria and owners certainly can change their listing whenever they want to and they are not manually checked again. @Jenny add me to the list please.
All I can really do here is pass on your feedback and suggestions, which I’m happy to do, and it’s ok if you’d prefer not to report listings moving forward.
If there’s an opportunity to add your voices to any review of how listings are approved, I’ll make sure to refer the team to this discussion and any others around concerns over listings.
It appears it could be a training issue rather than a policy issue, with (some ) member services staff not understanding THS policies . For example forum members reported a listing directly to MS , the listing which clearly stated a third party would be residing at the property , however MS still did not take down the listing .
That was the thread I started. This is the first time I have posted for months after being castigated via a private message from someone on the team after posting about this issue and told that I was raising something that wasn’t true. Sad (but not surprised) to see it’s still happening.
Remarkable that a forum supposedly dedicated to open discussion would become a place where speaking the truth leads to private reprimands – and seemingly even subtle threats – from the very team that should be promoting transparency.
There’s a certain irony in this, though the ongoing edits and removals in here suggest it’s less coincidental and more indicative of a pattern.
Imagine if the energy and resources spent on covering up these breaches and the intentional lack of action were instead focused on resolving the underlying issue.
@LizBCN How unfortunate (but not surprising) that your valid insights were dismissed, only for the problem to resurface, still smoldering in plain sight.
It’s quite normal for Forum staff to reach out to members privately where there’s been a breach of guidelines, or concerns around information being shared, and that’s what happened here. We don’t discuss moderation decisions with members, but having seen the chat being discussed here, I wanted to mention that there’s been no subtle threat made. That’s not how we work.
I also want to make it clear that nothing is being covered up here - in fact, we’re trying to be more transparent regarding ongoing issues - and I feel that we’ve been successful in improving things over the last year.
The only time we get involved is when a member breaches Community Guidelines, we don’t censor anyone, and we always pass feedback along wherever necessary.
The Forum team don’t have the ability to make changes to processes or features at Trusted Housesitters, therefore we wouldn’t spend time resolving any ongoing issues, and passing along feedback is the best thing that we can do to help.
I am comfortable that the person who dealt with the issue acted appropriately, and I’d recommend that the member involved drop me a line if they don’t agree, and I’ll be happy to review things again.
I’m looking at ways to log the frequency of specific issues on the Forum e.g. concerning listings, things like that, to see if it’s a more impactful way of providing feedback to the team.
I know it must be frustrating for everyone when I come back with a response that doesn’t fix the concerns, but please know that they don’t go unheard. If only I had a magic wand to make things right!
As always, if anything helpful comes of any of this, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.
Just a reason as to why not ( if the answer is no). We are your eyes and ears, the frontline sitters, so it makes sense to give us a quick and direct route to report any infringements. It is our safety afterall.
I hear you @MarieHuggins - leave it with me. I’m on annual leave for a few days but I’ll check in with the team when I’m back on Tuesday so bear with me!
