Technical Stuff

Questions and answers related to more technical aspects of the platform.

By Bot

• 5 articles

How does the map search work?

When searching for a host or a local to meet up with on Couchers.org, you have several different ways you can search, and there are different ways to look at the results. Ways you can search: Map & List View - Zoom in and move around the map - You can zoom in on the area of the map you are interested in and click on pins to view the profile of the pin. If you click on a cluster of pins, it should zoom in and center on the cluster so you can click on more pins and clusters of pins within that cluster. - If you are zoomed in far enough on the map and you move the map, you can click on "search this area" to show more pins in the new area of the map: - Search by a location name - Enter the location name (1), click on the search symbol (2), and then click on the correct result (3): - If you type in a location name, keep in mind that the pins on the map may only be some of the people in the community. To see more pins, you need to click "next" at the bottom of the list. zoom in more and click "search this area" or you need to scroll to the bottom of the list of results - If you search for a specific place and there are no results, there still might be some pins in that area of the map (but just not in the specific place you searched). To see the pins, you can remove the location filter by clicking the green X button: Then click the "Search this area" button to see all of the pins in that area of the map: - Search by a keyword - First, click the dropdown menu that says "location"(1) and select "keyword" (2) enter the keyword (3), and then click the search symbol: List View - Click on the "List" button to switch to the list view - When you click on the list view button the map will disappear: - Type in a location name - Enter the location name (1), click on the search symbol (2), and then click on the correct result (3): - You can click "Next" in the bottom right-hand corner of the search results to see the next page of results. Filter your search results - Click the filter button and select the filters you want - Keep in mind you can select more than one filter option at once! For example, you can choose the option to hide empty profiles and also select the hosting statuses "Can host" and "May host" at the same time. Don't forget to click the "Apply" button! - Click on the filters symbol (1), then select the filter options you want (2), and click the apply button (3): - You can remove any search filters you have applied by clicking on the green X next to the filters symbol:

Last updated on May 11, 2025

How does the "Invite the community" feature work?

When you create an event, you can use the "invite the community" button to send an invitation to everyone in the local community. After you submit your request, the moderation team will review the request. Generally requests are reviewed the same day. After approval, an invitation email is automatically sent to everyone in the local area. The invitation email includes: - All event information - Your profile picture - Your name, age, and where you're from An example invitation is below:

Last updated on May 11, 2025

How are "response rate" and "response time" calculated on my profile?

The purpose of the response rate and response time on your profile is to give people an idea on how likely it is that they will receive a response to their hosting request and how long it might take to receive a response. It also influences where you appear in search results. If you respond very quickly to hosting requests you will appear higher than someone who replies after many days. Try to respond to hosting requests as soon as possible, but definitely within two days! Response rate is the proportion of requests that received a response. A “response” is when you click the accept or reject button, or send a message in response to a hosting request. The categories are: - Not sure yet (Insufficient data): < 3 responses - Low: response rate <= 33% - Sometimes: response rate <= 66% - Usually: response rate <= 90% - Almost always: response rate > 90% Response time is the duration between when the hosting request was sent and the first response by the host. If the host didn’t respond yet or at all, then response time counts as “infinite”. "Response time" is based on the 33rd and 66th percentiles of your first responses to requests. So if a third of your fastest responses were in less than 1 hour, and the third of your slowest responses were more than 20 hours, then your response time will be reported as “1 hour to 20 hours”.

Last updated on May 11, 2025

Where can I download the Couchers logo or wordmark?

You can use our logo and wordmark when organizing Couchers events or promoting Couchers. Our logo and wordmark are available in various formats. You can download our logo and wordmark here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LpArrYWQT94KMAfpX2iF5wNJn8r19K7p Our wordmark is the font "Manslava" and our primary font is "Ubuntu". The primary colors we use are the orange "#E47701" and teal "#00A398".

Last updated on May 11, 2025

Couchers.org Android App Privacy Policy

*This document summarizes the Privacy Policy of the *Couchers.org Android app. Please also read the binding Terms of Service. This document was last updated 27th January, 2025. Overview We collect data required to provide you with the service, such as your profile information, your email address, and other data. We use cookies to keep you logged in. We take the protection of your data very seriously. All communication between you and the platform is encrypted with transport security (SSL/TLS), and data is stored securely on servers in accordance with industry standards. We want to make Couchers.org the best platform possible, so we additionally collect analytics data for the following reasons: to help us grow the platform (by finding out what kind of content and services appeal to users), to help us fix bugs and improve the experience for you and other users (e.g. so we can spend time on features you actually use), and for purposes of user safety and content moderation (e.g. to understand usage patterns by adversarial users). The analytics data we collect includes things like how users found us, what pages they read before signing up, what features they use on the platform, as well as debugging information such as: automated bug reporting, analytics on error rates, exception rates, and timings of different backend functionality. We believe this is necessary for the purpose of getting a full view into how the site is used and what the community wants from the platform. For now we use third-party tools for the client-side analytics, but we would like to build our own tooling to be able to better tailor it to the platform, please let us know if you would like to help us in this effort! We do not sell any user data and will only use or process it for purposes in line with our policies as well as our non-profit, community-led mission. Our service providers Our platform is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), and we use a variety of their products to provide this service to you, including hosting our servers, storing our backups, and sending emails. We use Google Analytics for analytics purposes. We use Google Workspace for our email hosting, Sentry for automatic bug reports, and GitHub for code hosting and bug reports. We use a trusted third-party application called Iris ID by Iris Development AB to read your passport if you choose to complete Strong Verification. Please see the Additional terms for Strong Verification in our Terms of Service for further details. We may add additional service providers as needed, and will make an effort to update this document. How to contact us If you have any questions about your data or our privacy policy please do not hesitate to contact us at privacy@couchers.org

Last updated on May 11, 2025