Talk:Airbnb/Archives/2017

Question about the name
How is the name Airbnb pronounced and where does it come from? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.44.150.113 (talk) 23:00, 2 November 2011 (UTC)


 * I believe it is Air b and b. Instead of an 'n' it is and. Hope that helps. NCSS (talk) 23:20, 2 April 2013 (UTC)


 * As a native speaker of American English, when I see "Airbnb", I pronounce it "Air-bee-en-bee". "Bnb" is already an oral abbreviation for "bed-and-breakfast", so that's probably why it was adopted into the name.  And most American speakers of English pronounce "bnb" as "bee-en-bee".  The "en" isn't a pronunciation of the letter "n", but rather, an unstressed pronunciation of "and".  In normal speech, we tend to drop the "d" at the end of "and", especially before a consonant, in an elision.  Best regards

TheBaron0530 (talk) 18:48, 18 November 2016 (UTC)theBaron0530


 * It comes from the idea of providing a "B&B" Sevice (bed and breakfast), that might just be an air mattress on your floor. This was the starting point of the organisation.So from that follows the logical pronunciation Air Bee 'n' Bee

Euclid, Ohio codified ordinance regarding rentals
1761.01 RENTALS, HOTELS, MOTELS; CERTIFICATE REQUIRED. On and after January 1, 1989, it shall be unlawful for the owner, agent or person in charge of any dwelling structure used, designed or intended to be used as a multiple dwelling or a single or two-family dwelling structure, or any operator of any hotel or motel intended to accommodate transient guests, to rent or lease such structure or any part thereof for residential occupancy, or temporary occupancy by transient guests, unless the owner thereof holds a Certificate of Occupancy issued by the Commissioner of Buildings for such structure, which Certificate has not expired, been revoked or otherwise become null and void, or unless such structure or part thereof is licensed as a temporary rooming house. (Ord. 74-1996. Passed 4-1-96; Eff. 5-1-96.)” §Daniel H. Garland

AirBnB discriminating against guests based on their political or religious views
"Airbnb has canceled a number of accounts and bookings associated with the Unite the Right Free Speech Rally... Airbnb confirmed that it had canceled the accounts of some users who were involved with the event, citing the company’s request that its users sign a commitment to “accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age.”". The article makes clear that it is guests rather than hosts that were affected. Jaw-droppingly astonishing - a company would not be allowed to operate that way under EU law for example, and it's obviously a abrogation of their own supposed commitment to "accept people regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age". At first sight, a policy that demands users "accept people regardless..." would be assumed to apply to hosts accepting guests, and absolutely not be a requirement that guests must hold a particular political or societal view before they can be accepted as AirBnB customers! Is this sort of discrimination allowable for hosts too? For example, are hosts allowed to refuse bookings by single women, or couples who are not married? (Booking.com allows this, for example "Please note that XXXXX Hotel does not accept bookings from non-married couples. All couples must present a valid marriage certificate upon check-in" is a commonly seen on that site) Should we have a section on the user policies of AirBnB? Tiptoethrutheminefield (talk) 14:58, 16 August 2017 (UTC)

Tax avoidance by Airbnb-More examples
It would be pertinent to add a paragraph on special laws that were adopted in some countries to stop tax avoidance. For example, in 2015 the province of Quebec in Canada adopted a new law, Bill 67, to regulate tourist lodging.ABBslp (talk) 20:20, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

Crimes committed by users- Relevance
I feel like the content of this section should either be removed or edited. The paragraph lacks relevant information about the subject in question and cites newspaper articles describing sensationalist horror stories that happened to people using Airbnb. More objective and reliable data such as the number of crimes listed by city and type seems more appropriate for this section.ABBslp (talk) 21:36, 21 September 2017 (UTC)
 * I agree and went ahead and removed the section for being WP:UNDUE. If we are to have a section like this, it'd be very difficult to decide what is and isn't notable enough to warrant inclusion. Meatsgains (talk) 22:23, 19 October 2017 (UTC)

Criticism section - Facebook linkage, inadequate help
The current Criticism section is very mild/simplified. For example, it skips over the growing situation where would-be users who do not have an active Facebook (or similar) life, or do not want it entangled with their Airbnb account, are being effectively shut out of participating.

It may not be sufficiently "notable" that entire websites are devoted to Airbnb complaints. But the user feedback on fairly neutral/respectable BBB is a tidal wave of overwhelmingly negative individual experiences, with a common theme: a lot of time/money/distress is at stake in each transaction, there is a lot that can and does go wrong, and the Airbnb rules are more complex than many users understand; when users have problems they frequently cannot get timely and adequate help from Airbnb. Is there some good and appropriate way to add this to the article?

A would-be user of the service who carefully researches the situation before trying to join could reasonably conclude that the experience would be uncertain and risky in a daunting variety of ways. -71.174.175.134 (talk) 13:09, 25 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sounds like someone has a vendetta against the company. Bad experienced with Airbnb or what? Everthing you noted above is WP:UNDUE criticism and unless it is referenced in multiple reliable sources, it should not be added. Meatsgains (talk) 19:29, 25 August 2017 (UTC)

I think the main focus of this section should be the struggle within city/state/national governments on how to adequately regulate Airbnb to address its criticisms. As of November 2017, countless cities and local governments around the world (not just San Francisco and Scotland) are still struggling with accommodating Airbnb while also appeasing local critics. An example is San Diego, where the city attorney deemed short-term rentals illegal while the city council refuses to enforce such mandate and is trying to pass legislation allowing for short-term rentals. This struggle applies to many other local governments, and so I think a general summary of pro-Airbnb and anti-Airbnb arguments should be included. Further, Airbnb has addressed some of its criticism and now has a page for hosts with instructions on how to abide by local regulations. The current criticism section does not include any proposed solutions to the criticisms, either on Airbnb's or the government's behalf. Ultimately, I think the section should be reframed as a developing story as opposed to a list of criticisms, given that the discussion is still ongoing and new policy options are still being tested and implemented. Marcomonroy (talk) 04:57, 9 November 2017 (UTC)