Please concentrate on the basics and the things members are currently crying out for.
I would definitely not use a video call facility through THS.
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@Ben-ProductManager : Is this really true?
@NorthWoods @Ben-ProductManager No benefit for us either. I remember when Upwork introduced something similar. It never worked for me and I still had to go off platform to talk with clients. Nobody I know ever said it was useful. Instead clinky, if it worked at all.
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What poll @Wildcolonialgirl? Where & when was that? I must have missed it.
@Saltrams It’s buried in this post - entry #38.
Excellent response @Shella_in_the_Forum. Worthy of proper thanks, not just the emoticon response.
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@Ben-ProductManager This poll (entry 38 on this post) is a perfect example of the ADHD mentality of TrustedHousesitters these days (or years, to be more precise).
2021 - on the forum we were made aware of a review system being worked on. Later posts from staff reminded us that it’s a complex project. I doubt anyone would disagree with that but we’ll soon be into 2024. 
2023 - a month or two ago we were told that the new review system would come out in stages. I remember reading that the terminology would change (valid, but a minor tweak). There was no mention of anything big to give a sense of equality between owners and sitters e.g. star ratings used by owners, but not sitters.
2024 - my guess is that we’ll perhaps be updated by the messaging & applications project team. I don’t want to guess how long that will take to complete, or how fragmented or redirected it might get along the way. Don’t try to branch into video calling on the site … if the process ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it. 
Please go back to your 2021, 2022, and 2023 to-do lists and see what’s still outstanding. Many members are getting increasingly frustrated, disheartened, and somewhat embarrassed. TrustedHousesitters is so proud of how much it has grown, but not all members see that as a positive thing.
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Ding ding ding!
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Well said @Snowbird - I couldn’t have put it any better myself.
It used to be a great site and something I was proud to promote but no longer.
I hope they deliver what they have promised so far before moving on to the next gimmick (pet centric tags and grid photos etc etc).
The site is getting more and more complicated to navigate as it is 
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Thanks @Saltrams. I hope all of our comments reach the decision makers and have an impact.
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Thank you @Snowbird for so clearly expressing what many Forum members, especially those going back since nearly its inception, think. I was brought up with “If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well” but this isn’t something that THS puts into practice.
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That is exactly what I suspected. THS is afraid to touch the code. When they do something, it can have disastrous consequences somewhere else.
So they do new things: pet centering! video chats!
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Not to mention…
The exact same amount of coding to change the term HOMEOWNER to PET PARENT could have been used to include a key for the calendar.
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Yessssss. At least Ben is honest about it. Tweaking something as basic as filters seems to be an impossible task! And was asked for years by members. I thought it was a simple excel sheet formula (tick, untick) that was just put aside because too boring, then I realize now that it might not be doable…if you can’t work on that, don’t get busy elsewhere where it’s not needed. Please Ben, not an attack on you but you are the voice of the tech team. Why not take the list of things we’ve suggested and asked for, for years and honestly express what could work, and what would require a full revamp of the code. And therefore a massive injection of $.
Then we’ll feel a bit more included. A generic poll in the forum while ignoring the increasingly gigantic elephant in the room just makes the tech team look weak, uninterested in really hearing us, when really that’s not the issue here. The code is, not the team.
Please please stop tweaking things for the sake of tweaking things. Either leave it as is, or if you change something, do it for the members, not for the sake of pretending you’re busy innovating. The only innovation most people want to see is being connected with more listings and more sitters. Mostly. We don’t need a new useless video function that nobody asked for. And we can work with that messaging thing.
But why this useless, member’s time wasting tweak on the « new » vs « low application » filter in the app?!? Big massive eye roll on a lot of members end. It’s like you almost want to piss us off more and more.
Please start listening to your members 
before you change anything
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There are loads of mature professionals out there, very experienced with all kinds of old code/languages. I have one such in my family! Here’s a thought, employ one or more of them while the young staff remake the platform.
Edit: sorry @pietkuip I wasn’t replying to you specifically, it happened because I quoted from your post
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@Saltrams I believe that this describes the present code.
The page is from 2012/2013. As you can see, it was the same problem then, code that was poorly documented, unstructured, difficult to scale, etc. So they started over from scratch.
And now they are in the same situation.
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That’s a great find @pietkuip & interesting too. It shows that THS did at one time (10 years ago) acknowledge the need to upgrade. Well, that time has come again and this time, they need to choose their tech partner more carefully. The very fact that sunscrapers is still citing work they did 10 years ago on their own Website doesn’t inspire confidence!
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Who wants an integrated video chat function?
- Nope; just stop inventing stuff no one has asked for.
- Yessss! Great, didn’t know I wanted that until you suggested it.
0
voters
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It almost seems like the THS team has expanded and the new people are trying to make their mark and make changes for the sake of it. THS definitely isnt the amazing platform it once was.
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It definitely expanded as I’m sure they got a big round of investment so more shiny ideas more employees and more ways to make the company profitable (which I understand perfectly the need for, so we’re clear).
That can turn out to be a big problem in startups that when small, were deeply connected to the end user and the product, and later on, become a bigger structure where the end user isn’t that important. THS is almost a stereotypical case study of what not to do in startup world with their forum as the main focus of the study. I keep saying it but: it’s so sad. I wonder if the founders and first employees or associates read that forum?
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