Nolo: Couchers.org Forum Admin

Couchers.org talks to Nolo from Las Palmas, Spain about his experience becoming a forum admin and moderator—plus his next big travel plans.

How did you get involved in the Couchers.org project?

Nolo: It started with a call with you! But I have been interested in alternatives to Couchsurfing™ for years. When Trustroots started four or five years ago, I followed its development, but didn’t have much time to spare to actually volunteer. With Couchers.org, I got drawn into the forum discussions quite quickly.

What do you enjoy the most about working with Couchers.org?

Nolo: What I really enjoy is working within a team. I live in the countryside and work as an artist at home. With the whole pandemic situation, this became quite isolated. I really enjoy the more social teamwork, both on our Slack channel and in our forums.

What is your vision for the forum once we’ve released the beta version?

Nolo: I had several visions while we were working on it, mainly imagining something very collaborative. We didn’t pick that up as much because we want most of our community building to happen on the app.

Now, I feel we have a really well-rounded and conversational forum for meta discussion. I believe it’s working well as it is. I think it’s important that when people come to the forums they can easily grasp what it’s about and how they can contribute in a constructive way.

What is it like moderating such a passionate group of people? Do you have any funny stories you could share?

Nolo: What I find funny is that I got into moderation at all. I always thought I’m not that patient. But, over my career I’ve had to deal with various types of conflict and I feel like that has increased my tolerance for how bad things can actually get! Now my motto is “that’s bad, but it’s not that bad yet!”

What do you think has been your biggest contribution so far?

Nolo: Certainly the forum. I got pretty hooked and I love using it. I’m even using the same software to build other websites for projects I’m involved with.

What are you most excited about for the future of the project?

Nolo: I’m most excited to travel again. I want to organize a trip on my motorbike through Turkey and Iran. I did one through France and Spain a few years back and it was great to stay with people while doing it. I’m excited to see how Couchers.org will work travelling overland with my motorbike, since we’re building these nice map features.

Written by Emily. Published on 2021/03/29.

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