What is the Community Center and how can I get started?

[Lizzie]

**Last updated on Jan 11th 2019, to view the new Getting Started topic, click here**

Airbnb exists to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere, and at its heart is its community. The Community Center is here to enable you to come together to inspire, share knowledge and stories, and to support one another.

To help you get started, here are a few handy tips:

How to encourage community spirit

One of the best things about a community is that it brings people together. To make sure the Community Center remains a healthy and inviting space, please:

• Respect each other and show appreciation when someone shares useful content
• Remember to post full answers and stay on topic when replying to a person’s request for advice or help
• Keep an open mind and see the good in each other

For more details, take a look at our Community Center Guidelines.

What do community members talk about here?

There’s a huge variety of conversations, so to make it easier to find and explore, we have several different Discussion Rooms. If you’re looking for a specific topic, try starting with a search.

If you need to speak to Customer Service, please contact them directly on +1-415-800-5959 / +1-855-424-7262 (toll-free).

How can I contribute?

We can all contribute to the life of our community, whether you are new to hosting or have years of experience. Here are the main ways to get involved:

• Support a post: give appreciation to a comment, by clicking the thumbs up button
• Reply to a topic: click ‘Reply’ or ‘Join the Conversation’ to join the conversation on a topic
• Create a new topic: if you have a question or wish to start a new discussion, visit the relevant discussion room and click ‘Start a Conversation’
• Share your knowledge: fancy writing a Community Guide or sharing a story? These are great resources for others, so please feel free to get creative and share yours

Where to start?

Why not introduce yourself to the Community here; we’d love to hear from you.

If you have any questions or just want to say hello, feel free to message either of your Community Managers, @Lizzie or @Quincy.

We look forward to welcoming you to the community.

[Helen3]

Lizzie - please can you add ways to contact BnB directly with all phone numbers, website links, social media

We regularly get asked this on the forum every day (as it's pretty difficult to find the information on the website)

This would really help those using the forums and mean we as hosts don't have to keep repeating this information.

I have suggested on host voices that you have this as a stickie on each forum - could you arrange please?

[Lizzie]

Hello @Helen3,

Thanks for your suggestions here. I have just added the CC Contact guide to my post above, alongside the Airbnb site page. 

I agree, this question is a popular one here in the CC and I think there are a couple of things we can do to improve the visibility, as you know there is a huge amount of information on how to do this,by simply typing in 'Contact' in the search bar. At present the Community Help Guides, which includes the Contact guide is stickied to the top of the Community Help Board. I could also individually stick this thread to the top of this board as well, if you feel that would help?

Thanks again. Speak to you again soon.

Lizzie

[Jude7]

Hi @Lizzie!
can you share the nature of your role here, reasons why we might want to contact you, and your contact info?

Thanks!

Jude

[Shikha0]

Hi Lizzie,

Quite a number of people are asking me how the levels on the Community Center work. Can you spell that out for me?

Would be great help.

Thanks!

[Sandra126]

Hi @Lizzie,

tried to do a DM but that doesn't seem to be an option anymore. I was just wondering about the missing host pictures and badges which showed when you searched, are they gone because of an atttempt at removing discrimination, or a different reason? If you can't see people, you cannot discriminate. But whilst I used to click on listings as much for the host pic as the actual listing, now the personal aspect is missing which is sad. As changes go, this is not a very good one...

Sandra

[Sandra126]

@Lizzie, I also have a suggestion for the newsletter. It would be good if we were informed re the changes, in order to more effectively help others! Hard to be an expert when you are guessing.

cheers

[Lizzie]

Sorry for not getting back to you all sooner. It is great to hear all your questions. 🙂

Hey @Jude7, 

Thanks for asking this. Helen actually asked me the same question the other day elsewhere in the CC, which you can see my answer in the Getting to know you game in the 'Where in the World' (off-topic) board. I am also in the process of putting together a new post about this to make it easier to find and clearer to other community members here. In terms of questions, this is really up to you. As mentioned, I am not a member of the Support Team, my role is to look after the community here, but if you have any feedback, suggestions for improvements with the CC, want to highlight something to me or perhaps just have a chat (to mention just a few things), then I am always here for you. 

Hello @Shikha0, 

I hope you are well.  The levels are linked to your activity on the Community Center, which includes reading posts, starting and replying, thumbs up and creating guides. As you may have spotted the highest level we have here is 10, we are presently work on the levels and so more information around this will be shared with the whole community here, once there are more details on this. So watch this space. 🙂

Hello @Sandra126,

In terms of sending DMs you should be able to send these to other active hosts here in the CC. Do let me know if this isn't the case (I would recommend using Chrome for the CC, if you aren't already). At the moment it is not possible to send me a DM directly, which I know is a very annoying issue, our tech team are working on V3 of the Community Center which includes an update on DM. Yay!

This doesn't mean we can't still speak and ther are a couple of ways around this, the first - you can do as you have here and mentioned me in a thread with your question, alternatively you can mention me and say can we speak privately and I will DM you and we can then carry on the discussion that way. 🙂

In terms of your question, I don't suppose you could explain this a little further, are you talking about the profile images here in the CC? Perhaps you could share a screenshot? The links to host listings are still accessible by clicking on the profile images and clicking view profile (again I would try it in a chrome browser if possible). This is a feature which I think is really useful here in the CC, especially when many hosts ask for feedback on their listing, so please let me know if this isn't working on your end and I will report it to the tech team.

In terms of the newsletter, I completely agree and we want to make the emails as useful to you and other hosts as possible. I will pass it back to my colleague looking after this. Thanks so much.

Looking forward to speaking with you more.

Lizzie

[Sandra126]

Hi @Lizzie, thank you for the message. No, not in the CC, but when you do any ordinary listing search. On the search page where the listings display, the host pics and symbols (superhost, business ready, instant book) are missing. Have been for a while. Everything else looks normal, and in order to see those you have to click on the listings and then it is all there. Is it possible that this is not the case all over the world if you can't see it? I sincerely hope it is a programming glitch and not something classed as an improvement.

[Lizzie]

Hello @Sandra126,

Ah, I see. Thanks for the extra information on this. 

Well spotted! I just checked on my account and it is displaying the host profile images/superhost badge, so it appears that it is not showing across all users. This is the first time I have heard it displaying like you say, therefore it could be isolated to your account, but there may be a number of different reasons. I therefore, wouldn't give up hope yet! 🙂 

On a side note, how long has it been displaying like this? Do you feel this is having any effect on your listing, requests?

I will see if I can find out anymore information on this.  

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Sandra126]

Hi @Lizzie, it isn't just me, I have had a few responses from other hosts who can't see them either. It has been maybe a couple of weeks now, about that. It won't affect my own bookings really, as people don't book for me, they come to the house. But it has stripped personality out of searches. Airbnb has many points of difference, but they are easily blanded out to be like every other booking platform if you remove them. This is a crucial point I think, as you have to click into the listing to see the host and without keyword searches to better find a suitable listing I want to see the faces already at the thumbnails. I guess I am an intuitive searcher. I know how much I miss the pics as I don't search for fun anymore. That's how important the host pics are to me.

Let's hope it goes away soon.

[Lizzie]

Thanks for your helpful feedback here @Sandra126, I am sad to hear you are unhappy with this, I am going to pass this over to our product team. 

I will pass any information I get back on this. 🙂

[Fiona-and-Keith-and-Fami0]

Hi Lizzie ... I have scoured the community center for help on how to create a meetup but am coming up blank with an answer. Please either tell me how to do this or send me a link that does. Many thanks!

[Lizzie]

Hello @Fiona-and-Keith-and-Fami0,

Great to hear you would like to organise your own meetup. I have contacted my colleage who looks after offline meetups/events in your area. I will update you as soon as possible on this. 🙂

Lizzie

[Andrew90]

@Lizzie  Ok I managed to find the post I did that I thought might be relevant for the community guide - https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Hosts/How-can-I-sent-different-minimum-number-of-nights-at-different...

I'm happy to tackle some others if there is a vehicle to get them posted. 

Andrew