a nice feature to add would be a text message to my cell when someone requests hosting. i don't check my email that often. i have a stupid-phone.
i also have suggestions for routes in my local area that avoid dangerous sections. a second layer to the hosting map could include notes on routing.
for example: the section of LA Hwy 190 between Krotz Springs and Livonia Louisiana is a tight land bridge called the Morganza Spillway. we suggest that riders take the old road running parallel to the north of 190, and avoid 4 miles of harrowing ride. riding west on 190, as soon as you pass 'Lo-VAC', look to your right for the alt-road. brings you to the base of the Krotz Springs bridge.
FP Promote:
Not on Front Page
I must take issue with your alternate route between Livonia and Krotz. You do not avoid 4 miles but 5 miles, a 20% difference! :-) I just send a pdf and also a text (if they have a phone based in the USA) when I receive confirmation they are indeed coming. However, your suggestion about "alternative routes" is interesting.
I miss so many hosts because they don't check their Warmshowers page until 2 weeks after I have passed. How about when we send an email request, it also is sent out as a text? My UPS store does that when I receive a package.
That’s seem a great idea. I am afraid that people check their e-mail less often than their phones. May be the low responsiveness rate I complain about on a previous thread would decrease.
if you look at my hosting page, you will see that i ask to get a text to my phone by incoming riders. occasionally some people miss that part, with me finding a message a week after they had passed through.
It depends a lot on individual persons. And how they set their devices. I have my phone set so it check email every 5 minutes and remind me. But not from 2330 to 0700 so i avoid being woken in the night (that with text can happen) .
What is sad is that often the person that sent a reguest does not reply even if you reply them within two minutes.
An when they reply one day later thy are worried that i offered the place to someone else !
Adding text message alerts is certainly something WS can look into. I do AirBnB as well as WS and love that I get a short email alert when I am recieving a request. Thanks for the idea!
good idea
Surely the alert notification can be incorporated into the app, so when someone messages you, your phone alerts you via a tone like when you receive a standard sms,
Only opening my profile shows new messages, it seems. I do not think I saw anything when I logged in on the site and the forum. That makes that one may miss a message. And probably the person who sent me the message sees when I was last active on the site, and wonders why I did not answer.
I think it is important to change this. One should be notified of new messages when one logs in. And it may be a bit more difficult to program, but it would also be nice with notifications when one is logged in already.
(And yes, a WS app would also be good for notifications.)