Déjà vu?

(a peculiar thing: I was checking up on how the blog is doing just now (25.9.2007, 3pm CET), and this post had vanished from sight - it was found as draft on the backend side. The last time I was tweaking anything on the blog was its layout, and at that time the post was still up. I hope it was me accidentally pushing the wrong button, but who knows...)

I left some comments on Duke's blog a few days back (but after some back and forth perhaps better to keep them on my own instead) about an organization I was involved with in the past as a volunteer. I'm including the comments here now, as I think this background might explain why I have reacted so strongly recently to certain things going on in CouchSurfing: payoff only for the few close to the founder and nothing for the people who were also working hard as volunteers, lack of transparency in organizational goals to these hard-working volunteers, unclarity of finances and organizational status. This was at the time I left, the path for the organization by the looks of their site now seems to be a commercial one, but I and others were not informed this was going to happen.

"Be careful with Jolly Dragon (add .net, I'd rather stay under the radar of their pingback list) - they were at the time I left posing as a non-profit run by volunteers (ie. people who don't get paid), while getting sponsorship for their events from e.g. bars and sports companies - so someone probably was/is getting some benefit out of others' volunteering efforts. The founder has also set up a consultation & advertising business called Unfair Advantage and has at least on one occasion claimed the two are in no way connected (this was questioned by and published in a mag quite a while back and I would need to look up a reference at some point)

Of course this is all fine and well as long as you don't really care where those free drinks are coming from and are not volunteering for Jolly Dragon. And anything that makes it possible to meet any Finns at all is of course an improvement over the status quo :)

Oh there, the reference:
http://www.ylioppilaslehti.fi/2006/12/15/fun-every-day/

This might sound a bit harsh, but I think it's only fair to let people know what they're dealing with in case they want one day to become more involved or volunteer for a new & shiny-looking organization."

I might one day in the future extend the story beyond the comments, however have other things to take care of right now. Such as rediscovering Finland after (very nearly) one year of globetrotting.