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Around The World and Back Again
Personal blog · ejroundtheworld.blogspot.comculture
Around The World and Back Again is a personal blog at ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com about culture. Since 2011, 18 different Hacker News readers have linked it 24 times, most often “Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight”. The last post was in 2012, but the archive is still widely read.
Too few sampled comments (17) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
HN readers link this blog as the primary source for the first-person account of a vandalised Airbnb rental and the author's later posts disputing Airbnb's public statements. Comments cite it rather than judge the writing.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 17 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight8 people · 9 mentions · first linked 2011-07-29
- Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned 7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2011-07-27
What Hacker News says?
First, let me say I am a huge fan of PG and YC, but... I have to second (third, fourth, etc) the several opinions already expressed here. This is about the customer's response: http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... If she's a liar, let us know. Thanks. Trying to silence a customer? - this is getting me to doubt how trustworthy HN is - who else is being silenced??? If PG supports guys like t…
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight”Submitted Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight as a story · 1017 points
HN discussionPerhaps you didn't read her first post, pg's comment is corroborated by EJ: she herself claims they offered her "emotional and financial"[1] support. There is no conspiracy. I believe she's telling the truth. But I don't believe Airbnb is some evil company blindly exploiting her. [1] http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html "I would be remiss if I didn’t pause here to emphasize that the customer s…
Comment linking /2011_06_01_archive.html
on “Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight”Submitted Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned as a story · 952 points
HN discussionPaul Graham would have a lot to lose by making such a broad, unfounded statement...unless of course that's what he's been told and has good reason to believe it's correct. If so, why should we disbelieve the pg and Airbnb account? Simply because EJ's is loaded with emotional appeal? I don't see how a random blogger is more plausible than pg and Airbnb? I believe that most of her story is true (in the first blog post…
Comment linking /2011_06_01_archive.html
on “Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight”Submitted EJ: How I Feel today as a story · 42 points
HN discussionI've just learned more about this situation, and it turns out Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted. I think this goes a long way towards confirming suspicions some people have held since the beginning of the debacle, namely that the victim here is blowing things out of proportion in an…
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Airbnb Nightmare: No End In Sight”Submitted Violated: A traveler's lost faith, a difficult lesson learned (2011) as a story · 3 points
HN discussionHmm? http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... (Discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820615 )
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Violated: A traveler’s lost faith, a difficult lesson learned ”http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... > If the “her” he is referring to is me, then the first part of this statement is false (the second I cannot attest to). During the first week of my nightmare, the customer service team at Airbnb was - as I stated in my June 29 blog post – helpful, caring and supportive. In particular, one customer service manager - and the company’s freelance photograp…
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Amazon Flex”What about this from her own blog post? > I would be remiss if I didn’t pause here to emphasize that the customer service team at airbnb.com has been wonderful, giving this crime their full attention. They have called often, expressing empathy, support, and genuine concern for my welfare. They have offered to help me recover emotionally and financially... ( http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travel…
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on “The Moment Of Truth For Airbnb As User’s Home Is Utterly Trashed”This article on TC adds nothing at all. Original blog post: http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... HN submission of that blog post for discussion: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2820615 ======== ADDED IN EDIT: Clearly this is contentious - it went up to two points, now as I write this it's down to zero, and who knows where it will go next. Yes, I agree, sometimes TechCrunch adds informa…
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Airbnb Victim Speaks Again: Homeless, Scared And Angry”The victim has updated her blog with a new post in which she explains how some of the public statements made by Airbnb's ceo are not true: http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare...
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Vandalised home puts pressure on Airbnb”Sure...but the more people you bring into the conspiracy, the more likely it is to be found out. Of course airbnb will call the cops into investigating this. If this were a setup, EJ and her fellow perpetrators made it MUCH more complicated than it needed to be. The alleged homewrecking occurred over a lengthy time period and involved not only simple burglary, but destruction of walls and bizarre behavior (such as t…
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on “Vandalised home puts pressure on Airbnb”> I see no reason to doubt what EJ has said so far. AirBnB/pg have made several conflicting statements, called reporters liars for repeating official statements, and in general, proven to be less consistent/trustworthy than "EJ", which considering her anonymous status, really says something. Her anonymous status really says something, like what? Well it says she's anonymous, that's it. Nothing more. This is pure hyp…
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “A Billion Dollars Isn’t Cool. You Know What’s Cool? Basic Human Decency”Her blog post here http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/01/new-year-new-hom... mentions that its a rented apartment. I quickly rented a place of my own and began to settle in – unpacking dusty boxes, unloading suitcases and scouring the internet for furniture. Something along the lines of a home began to take shape, and with it came that invaluable feeling of being at peace.
Comment linking /2011/01/new-year-new-home.html
on “Plot thickens in Airbnb vacation rental horror story”I agree, something about this whole thing just seems off. She said was "growing a very thick skin" because of accusations that she was part of a plot by the hotel industry to discredit Airbnb Has Airbnb been looking into this possibility? EJ blogged, And I was - but no longer am - scared of Airbnb’s reaction, the pressure and the veiled threat I have received from them since I initially blogged this story ( http://e…
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on “Plot thickens in Airbnb vacation rental horror story”This is almost as disturbing to me as the original announcement—make a prominent post saying that you're working on the problem, let it get lots of attention, and then (apparently) ignore the issue. Well, it didn't work very well for AirBnB ( http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/07/airbnb-nightmare... ), and hopefully it won't work for Paypal, either.
Comment linking /2011/07/airbnb-nightmare-no-end-in-sight.html
on “Regretsy Issue Resolution”While I'm not aware of anything happening to the guests, I think that people should be wary before they open their home to Internet strangers. See: http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travele...
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on “Legalize Airbnb”You're "remembering" facts to justify your bias. Here's the original blog post from ransackgate: http://ejroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/violated-travele... She never said anything about being an owner. As far as I can tell, she was a renter. Certainly, nobody knew if she rented or bought at the time the post hit HN. Basically, what you're saying is that you don't like the guy's tone, so you think he doesn't des…
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on “Comedian Furious After Airbnb Rents His Apartment To "XXX Freak Fest" Orgy”The most egregious case of title manipulation that I recall was when the submission of a blog post that broke the airbnb scandal [1] was renamed. The title of the blog post was too generic to attract interest and gave no indication that it was related to airbnb [2]. The submission's title was originally something like "Airbnb user's home wrecked". The title of the HN submission was changed to the blog post's vague t…
Comment linking /2011/06/violated-travelers-lost-faith-difficult.html
on a deleted threadThey already offered to pay for a new apartment and new furniture as well as anything else she needed to assist her in recovery[1][2]...this story is really getting old. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2822721 "Airbnb has been offering to fix it, from the very beginning. From the beginning they offered to pay to get her a new place and new stuff, and do whatever else she wanted." [2] http://ejroundtheworld.b…
Comment linking /2011_06_01_archive.html
on “Airbnb's Rental Nightmare Ends in Arrest and One Still Unlucky Renter”
