Talk:Airbnb/Archives/2018

Government actions against Airbnb and short-term rental

This section appears to be a violation of WP:Globalize. Are we going to list every city in the world that regulates Airbnb and the history of the regulations? There are thousands of cities that regulate Airbnb. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.196.163.157 (talk) 00:57, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

No they aren't that many. And we put in what is notable and sum it up like we did in that section. It can't be done better than that including various viewpoints on the regulations. With the EU section mentioned, it makes it obvious that restrictions or attempts against Airbnb have been made. Likewise in America, the story is the same. The mention of Arizona and other states banning municipalities from interfering indicates that it has been banned or restricted across various American cities.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 06:08, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

There are plenty. You mentioned a few cities in the U.S. as well as the EU in general. There are specific regulations for Airbnb is almost every major city in the U.S. You can write an entire article about Airbnb in New York City, but NYC is not even mentioned in this section. Several cities in Europe, such as Paris, Berlin, and Barcelona have detailed restrictions on Airbnb. And there is no mention of any of the regulations in Australia, taxes required in Mexico City, and the stringent regulations in South Korean cities. Those are just a few examples.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.196.163.157 (talk) 13:10, 9 February 2018 (UTC)

Let's see how the current version of the article turns out, otherwise I'll make a proposal here, but don't do anything for now.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 22:26, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

NPOV? Nature of the business model/ pattern

I think the page is a bit misleading in presenting AirBnB as a "hospitality service" like CouchSurfing or Be Welcome, social networks sharing accommodation based on reputation. AirBnB is really a catalogue and booking platform for a massive, transnational motel franchise, which accepts anyone as a franchisee, as long as they have space to rent and can operate the platform from their own device. Comparing themselves to CouchSurfing et al is their PR, not an accurate description, as is referring to Rachel Botsman's concept of 'Collaborative Consumption', without also referring to ideas like Commons-based Peer Production, which highlights the important differences between reciprocity-based sharing clubs like CouchSurfing and financially-based booking services like AirBnB. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Danylstrype (talk • contribs) 15:07, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

"Awards" section

I don't see how winning an "app" award at SXSW or "best place to work" in the Glassdoor "employee's choice" award are important enough for this article. If you feel they are, perhaps they could be moved into the "History" section (which is a disaster of its own). power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:39, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

"Benefits" is arguably promotional but I don't care enough to argue about it. It may be worth moving it under "Overview", though. power~enwiki (π, ν) 00:39, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Makes sense to me, and I didn't add back the second award because there was no secondary source talking about. I've made the suggested edits. Saturnalia0 (talk) 21:56, 6 March 2018 (UTC)

Should we include this source?

[1] can this be added to the controversies section?--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 21:08, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

I see no reason why it can't be mentioned in the Concerns and resistance from the hotel industry subsection. Meatsgains^(talk) 02:29, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

Safety mechanisms section has serious NOR, POV, and missiong citations issues.

The majority of the safety mechanisms section either has no citations or disingenuous citations. Highly critical statements, inferences, and conclusions regarding Airbnb are made with no support. I feel that there is a clear deviation from a neutral viewpoint and significant amounts of original research. I believe most of this section should be removed if sources cannot be found. I have added a missing citations tag, and I think a POV and NOR tag would also be appropriate. All of these statements were added two days ago by User:Igaskin. I have removed this user's contributions - they can be re-added when they have specific sources to support them. 134.223.230.152 (talk) 13:52, 8 June 2018 (UTC)

Guest review section

"Therefore, it's impossible to obtain an objective picture of the property from the reviews on Airbnb." This is opinionated and only represents some people's perspective rather than being presented as a matter of fact. To my knowledge this system has a mutual guest and host review. Or am I wrong about that?--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 02:12, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

This also contradicts above section which states this has a mutual guest-host review system.--NadirAli نادر علی (talk) 02:15, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree NadirAli, I have rewritten the section to make it more objective. The above statement was purely opinion. The review system is mutual and has some in-built mechanisms to promote accuracy and objectivity in reviews, obviously there are shortcomings which I have presented in a more factual manner. Wpcwpc (talk) 19:28, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Appears promotional

I doubt the neutrality of the article. Parts of the Airbnb entry appear advertorial and promotional and give the impression that someone close to Airbnb may have edited it to let Airbnb look good. One example is some language, e.g. "almost all Airbnb experiences work out perfectly." Another example is the structure of the article, with Airbnb's insignificant sponsoring activities appearing above criticism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.41.165.40 (talk) 17:03, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Added by Cloversmate: I have to concur with this experience. Around March 2017, I edited the early section that talks about guest fees. This very early and prominent section refers to guest service fees - 'On each booking, the company charges guests a 6%-12% guest services fee and charges hosts a 3% host service fee'.

From my own research, this is clearly not true. The article replicates the info on the Airbnb website and understates the fees charges - well those in the UK market where guest fees are typically 15-16%. Really very high given that Airbnb is also charging hosts an additional fee (around 3%). Within a week or two, this extra information was deleted back to the original statement of 6-12%. It looks very likely, to me, as a professional journalist, that someone from Airbnb is editing the Wiki entry, or doing it on their behalf. BEWARE ANY INFORMATION ON THIS ENTRY - I AM VERY SURE THAT THIS WIKI ENTRY IS BEING COMMERCIALLY EDITED to make AirBnb look good. Comment added by Cloversmate 17 May 2017. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cloversmate (talk • contribs) 10:39, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't think that I've read a more promotional page on Wikipedia to date. I've copy-edited it for NPOV and encyclopedic format, inviting other editors to check for NPOV. I hope it's also now more accessible to edits of individual entries (and omissions).AHampton (talk) 20:42, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Online presence / Tech community influence

I feel like it might be of interest to provide information regarding Airbnb's influence in the software open source community. Among other things, they are responsible for Enzyme, which is a very commonly-used testing framework for React systems. They are also well-known for their JavaScript style guide, which is incredibly popular as an adopted style standard. Would this information belong in its own section? The headers I came up with for this section are "Online presence" or "Tech community influence" but I'm not sure what would be appropriate. Poplopo (talk) 19:12, 22 June 2018 (UTC)

This may be a bit WP:UNDUE. Can you find independent reliable for support? Meatsgains^(talk) 01:41, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

Seems worth looking into and possibly including. AHampton (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Page protection

This page is frequently edited to remove masses of information perceived as negative, so should be protected, in my opinion. Ditto Uber... often by the same IPs. AHampton (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Legit pic or advertising?

Struck me as advertising, not sure it should be on Wikipedia... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Airbnb_app_screenshot.png AHampton (talk) 17:19, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Settlements

We have a minor edit war over how to handle the decision to remove listings. I think that section of this article should probably be viewed as included in the articles subject to Wikipedia:Arbitration/Index/Palestine-Israel articles. One factor is the range of opinion: not all Israelis support expansion of settlements, Palestinians are disappointed at the mildness of AirBnB's reasoning. I particularly noted that no Palestinian could possibly book one of those listings, a point AirBnB cited. Also, this might be a test of US and state anti-boycott laws. Human Rights Watch has not been mentioned so far. User:Fred Bauder Talk 10:43, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

Airbnb did not prevent Palestinians from booking these listings, and it is inaccurate to state that "no Palestinian could possibly book one of those listings" - I can think of several circumstances in which a Palestinian could book and stay (the converse by the way (Israelis booking in Palestinian controlled cities) is not true - Israelis are not permitted, by ordinance, to enter Area A of the West Bank).Icewhiz (talk) 10:55, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

The words AirBnB used were "effectively banned." User:Fred Bauder Talk 15:21, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

A few of the listings are in illegal (according to Israel, itself) settlements on land owned by Palestinians. User:Fred Bauder Talk 18:21, 21 November 2018 (UTC)

It's ridiculous to pile on source after source that are all basically the same story in different news outlets. Do some pruning. And cut out the predictable opinion-spamming (you know who you are). Zero^talk 13:09, 22 November 2018 (UTC)

There really is excessive sourcing.Bangabandhu (talk) 15:57, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

The attempt to attribute Airbnb's decision to the BDS movement is not supported by either of the given sources. So it must go. Zero^talk 08:55, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

this source right here says airbnb caved into pressure from BDS--1.136.110.168 (talk) 21:39, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

here is bds saying it is "A Partial Victory for Human Rights & Accountability" --1.136.110.168 (talk) 21:54, 23 November 2018 (UTC)

Apart from the title of the opinion piece (written by some sub-editor, which counts zero) you found only after-the-fact approvals. Zero^talk 01:42, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

We don't need quotes from pundits on either side explaining the move. Lots of people call it anti-semitic, regardless of the merit of that claim, and it is (briefly, without WP:UNDUE) reflected in the text. Bangabandhu (talk) 15:56, 24 November 2018 (UTC)

The Simon Wiesenthal center is not a "pundit" - but rather one of the leading bodies that studies antisemitism. Furthermore, it seems that the majority of coverage is focused on antisemitism - and per WP:W - we should follow that as well.Icewhiz (talk) 06:26, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

It is ok to quote criticism within modest limits but it isn't ok to quote yellow text like "names schools and shopping centers in honor of mass murderers" which is not even about the topic. And the SWC is an advocacy organization, obviously. Now there are 5 words which mention praise without saying what it is, and 72 words of explicit criticism. Please explain why you think NPOV is satisfied by this. On second thoughts, don't bother. Zero^talk 07:27, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

WP:BALASP, per continuing coverage of the topic in RS, though I agree the Palestinian response could be expanded from sources covering the airbnb decision. Icewhiz (talk) 07:40, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I see. You added a non-Israeli response from an advocacy organization but you think only Palestinian negative responses are due. Got it. Zero^talk 10:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

Hmm.. I think you have cut out a lot of text that was relevant Icewhiz. The section now doesn't even mention the BDS campaign, nor the legal issues surrounding the West Bank listings. The likely reason (imo) for the delisting is that the company was in breach of EU law and that the European Commission would be eligible to issue stiff fines on it. It is not WP:BALANCED that the section mentions SWC:s partisan opinion, but not BDS:s. ImTheIP (talk) 09:31, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

There was a claim that Airbnb's decision was due to pressure from the BDS movement. That should not be reinserted, because it was unsourced. Airbnb did not disclose the source of the complaints it received and we don't need speculation. The BDS movement issued a statement in support after the announcement; it is eligible for insertion but I won't. More relevant would be to cite HRW. I might do that. Zero^talk 10:10, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

I didn't remove BDS (I think!) - it got trimmed by someone else (I think!). In as much as we have reasonable sources connection the two (or claiming to connect the two) - it should go in.Icewhiz (talk) 14:02, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

You removed a quite important part here claiming it was WP:SYNTH. That Airbnb could have faced prosecution from the European Commission clearly is relevant... ImTheIP (talk) 18:18, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

clear SYNTH.Icewhiz (talk) 18:35, 27 November 2018 (UTC)

It would be SYNTH to attribute Airbnb's recent announcement to Dugard's opinion, but to simply present it as an example of criticism that Airbnb has faced over the settlements in the past would clearly be allowed. Zero^talk 01:11, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

When I inserted it last week [2] the context was clearer, but the section has changed a lot since. ImTheIP (talk) 12:09, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

Delisting of Jewish settlements

There has been a partial retraction of airbnb's policy, source. --101.173.77.164 (talk) 23:58, 25 December 2018 (UTC)