What is wrong with my favourites list?

I have lots of sits saved as favourites. I filtered them today to show sits currently seeking a sitter.
I got 29 results but when I go through them 27 of them say ‘currently not in need of a sitter’. So only 2 actually seeking a sitter. Anyone else having this problem?

When I’m on the app and I check √ currently seeking a sitter, it always seems to include some that do not need one. I don’t know why, but it’s always done that as long as I’ve used the app. (ETA: it’s slightly annoying but not too much so. I can still see all my favourites which are currently needing sitters and there are far fewer of ones who don’t. I just scroll past those ones.)

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I’m not expecting miracles but 27 errors out of 29 results is simply ludicrous. :woman_shrugging:

One or two errors could be overlooked but 27 out of 29? Something is seriously wrong!

I just tested it.

I have 347 favourites. If I filter for those with current dates, I get 35. Of those, 18 actually have current dates and 17 don’t.

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That’s dreadful. Do you know how we report stuff like this?

Hi @Jilly the forum posts are followed by the team but I’ll also tag @Therese and she will put in a report when she is next online on Monday.

Francine
Volunteer moderator :canada:

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@Snowbird thank you.

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Hi @Jilly thank you @Snowbird I will have to ask our tech team to look into this. @Jilly I will email you directly from membership services, so please look out for this, as we need screenshots for our tech team to recreate this, so they can investigate this further. Best wishes Therese

@Therese I haven’t seen an email yet. Checked my junk mail but nothing there either.

@Jilly this is still happening to my favorites

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I am new to this site and totally frustrated by the large number of home owners coming up who do not currently require sitters. I think it is a ploy to make house sitters think this has more sits than it really has.

@jilly i did a month long experiment on that feature. I have over 4000 favourites. At any 1 time about 300 of those were allegedly “seeking a sitter”. In reality, only 20% were when I went through the list, as most were reviewing already. Some hung there for weeks…until they probably just expired. I have hard data but no one in THS was interested in seeing it, nor acknowledge that it’s even a problem.

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I might be missing something. It seems logical that there’d be plenty of hosts who aren’t actively seeking sitters at any given time. Most probably go on trips a few times a year.

@Maggie8K but the filter is “currently seeking sitters”. So ~300 come up. But you can actually only apply for less than 20% of those.

Thanks, @Timshazz. My comment was in response to @Myree, but yes, THS has various tech problems. Given what I’ve pieced together, their back end is probably a wonky mess that’s hard to fix. Not that it couldn’t be, but it’s often the case that startups build at bare minimum and, if the business takes off, there are years of what are known as “technical debt” to address.

That’s agnostic of THS. For instance, I worked at an early stage startup for 7.5 years and our cofounder-CEO (with no technical training) wrote a lot of the original code. It took years to fix and upgrade even as we grew as a business and could hire many, many talented engineers. That’s because the business never starts from scratch technically at that point — the plane is flying in mid-air and you’re trying to fix and upgrade it during flight. You’ve taken on more and more passengers meanwhile.

Such companies typically have a very good idea of all the technical problems and would love to fix them overnight if possible, but it’s not.

@Maggie8K I guess my biggest issue was there was NO acknowledgement of the issue at all, despite the offer to assist. And just removing the search option could prevent much of the angst.

Yes, I can see how that would be frustrating and disappointing.

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@Maggie8K THS was like that. The first version was in php.

Then there was a complete rebuild of the code 2012 - 2013 by this company:

And now they are in the same mess again. Problems with scaling up the number of users. Read their description of what they found 2012.

Compare with what they say now:

Many companies run into major trouble by hiring outsiders to (re)build their tech. That’s because outsiders NEVER know your business well enough to anticipate and plan as well as inside teams, all else equal. And most such outside companies are crap anyway, unfortunately. They’re also not motivated the same way, since they can create problems and walk away.

These kinds of problems are common among tech businesses. The key difference with THS: There’s no strong competition. If there were, users would’ve already fled, rather than complaining nonstop, LOL.

As many business folks know, if users are vocal with complaints, then you’ve got them hooked. The companies with real problems get cancellations much more than complaints.