freecycle- reuse dont bin

judderman62

Hi Wendy

thanks for the reply and nice and useful to have a view from a moderator.

I have to say every group I have joined (five in my area) there HAVE been rules regarding no of wanteds per month and high value items, indeed one of them regularly sends the rules round to remind us all, and yet they are often disregarded.

The scenario you describe is opposite to a situation in one of my local groups - one member complained about the number of high value wanteds and that he was getting very fed up. Many members including myself emailed him (privately, off group) to show our support. The moderator chose to slap him down (if I recall correctly On group :eek: ).

he then announced that he was leaving freecycle because of this. Several of us showed our support (on group this time) and the mod did a rapid and hasty u-turn.

That in conjunction with the posts in this thread surprise me to hear that on your group the feeling/mood seems to be the opposite.

I also recently had a mod reject an offered of mine in a situation I was VERY unhappy with (and she had made some assumptions that were incorrect and very relevant). I mailed her back and let her know how unhappy I was and she had neither the courage or common human decency to reply :mad: :mad:

As I said above Wendy I think freecycle is a great concept It's just the behaviour of SOME members and SOMME moderators that sometimes gets my back up and sours the whole thing for me

Thanks again for your post

wendyl1967 wrote: »

I am a moderator of my local group. It is a large group with 3300 members and now 1300 messages a month. The whole movement does not have rules on the amount of wanteds and high value goods. Each group can decide that individually. The only national rules are goods must be suitable for all ages. So e.g. no firearms, !!!!!! etc. And everything for free.

Up until last month we deleted all high value goods and limited wanteds to three a month but that brought in a lot of complaints. Since letting anything legal through we have only had one complaint. I personally do not like so many wanteds and high value goods to be asked for but we have five moderators so I had to go with the flow.

Also moderators do not get first pick of things.

If you are not happy about the way your group is run politely email your moderators and let them know. We are there to help. We listen to ideas. We vote amongst the members or ourselves and change things when required to try and run a better and more efficient group. But remember we are all volunteers who spend a lot of time each day moderatoring something we believe in. I want to keep stuff out of landfills and that is my reason for joining and now moderating.

Also I do not mind if I put something on there and someone collects it and trys to sell it. I either could not be bothered to sell it or could not find a buyer myself or not appropriate for the local charity shop. If it saves me a trip to the tip (and filling the landfill) or paying the local council to take it away I am still happy. It has left my house. IMHO

judderman62

Hiya Pammy - to be honest I suspect (though I could be wrong of course) that he was just being a WUM after having read how we feel on this thread and he was just trying to bait us.

frugalpam wrote: »

There was someone posting on this thread last night who was boasting about how much stuff he got off Freecycle, and the money he made selling it to 'mugs' on Ebay. Its the people like that who really wind me up. I emailed the Mods here about him, and was glad to see they deleted his posts (and may well have banned him)
I'm happy to give stuff away to people who can make use of the items, but I don't like the thought of greedy so-and-so's profiting from my generosity, and probably depriving someone of something they could have made good use of.

IMHO

Pam

frugalpam

judderman62 wrote: »

Hiya Pammy - to be honest I suspect (though I could be wrong of course) that he was just being a WUM after having read how we feel on this thread and he was just trying to bait us.

Yeah, you're probably right. Still, it was nice to see the back of that particular troll :rotfl:

judderman62

frugalpam wrote: »

Yeah, you're probably right. Still, it was nice to see the back of that particular troll :rotfl:

Indeed

essexgal

okay, here's one that appeared on my local group today



I'm looking for a once-off gardener to clean up my garden, (cut grass,
prune, clean out flower beds etc.)

If you know anyone or are interested yourself please send me an email.

Thankyou.

I suppose at least they said thankyou:D

Still wondering what exactly is getting saved from landfill on this one:p

essexgal

bones61

We are going to have a clear out in preparation for a house move and I intend to list stuff on our local, can't be bothered to try and sell. After reading comments here I am partly prepared for rude people and I'm going to keep a note of replys and attitudes for a laugh. If I get any good ones I'll let you know.
Best item given away that I have seen was a large trailer tent (fold up thingy).

Keen_Saver

I think they should scrap the "WANTED" section of the Freecycle site or at least put it in a seperate section to the "OFFERED" - too many dreamers requesting stuff.

Edinburghlass_2

frugalpam wrote: »

WANTED

Lawnmower (electric), wheelbarrow, garden tools and shed.

Awfully hard to resist saying 'try B+Q'......

Pam

Not been a great day Pam but that has me rolling about laughing :rotfl::rotfl:

wendyl1967

judderman62 wrote: »

I have to say every group I have joined (five in my area) there HAVE been rules regarding no of wanteds per month and high value items, indeed one of them regularly sends the rules round to remind us all, and yet they are often disregarded.

As I said above Wendy I think freecycle is a great concept It's just the behaviour of SOME members and SOMME moderators that sometimes gets my back up and sours the whole thing for me

Thanks again for your post

Our group is fairly large so we have five moderators, one who owns the group. Some members complain (1 quite often!) that a group like Freecycle cannot be owned by anyone. But I think the reason there is an owner is because a yahoo group has to be owned? I am also a member of the national group called modsquad (love that word!) for any moderator to join where we can get advice from other moderators and ideas of how other groups run their groups. Each one is so different. Some allow people to post whatever they want unmoderated. Others like ours moderate almost every post.
Anyone can volunteer to be a moderator. I am sure some groups would welcome it as I know some groups have asked for volunteers and no-one has come forward. Others like the control so will not accept help or perhaps feel there are enough at the moment. We have enough with five but eventually we will all feel we have done our time and want to pass the reigns over to someone else.

As I stated before contact your mods. I welcome constructive critism that is polite and friendly and helpful.

I urge you all to not give up on Freecycle or the alternative groups. It keeps waste out of our landfills, helps others in need, (when it is not abused). Scroungers annoy me and we do our best to keep them off our site. We ban anyone who we get complaints about for being aggressive or scroungers or cheeky in keep placing wanteds or time wasting by being a no show etc.

I moderate the Preston group so any of you out there part of our group feel free contact any of us with suggestions etc.

wendyl1967

frugalpam wrote: »

There was someone posting on this thread last night who was boasting about how much stuff he got off Freecycle, and the money he made selling it to 'mugs' on Ebay. Its the people like that who really wind me up. I emailed the Mods here about him, and was glad to see they deleted his posts (and may well have banned him)
I'm happy to give stuff away to people who can make use of the items, but I don't like the thought of greedy so-and-so's profiting from my generosity, and probably depriving someone of something they could have made good use of.

IMHO

Pam

I would be very annoyed by someone boasting about it. We deleted one person who kept asking for 2 items in particular. We know she received 3 and still kept asking! She was also very aggressive at peoples homes. We do our best. If you spot anyone who looks like they are abusing the system email your mods and let them know. We do not always spot it as five of us moderate and do not always read previous posts. We try but sometimes time is limited and there are about 1300 emails a month and climbing. If anyone makes you feel uncomfortable email and let the mods know. The group is for the members and we all need to keep Freecycle working how it is meant to work. We can work together and get rid of the bad wood in each group. IMHO