Freecycle Nusiance

frugalpam

The moderation policy does seem to vary with individual groups. In my fully moderated groups, we don't have the ridiculous wants posted any more e.g. long shopping lists. It must be a lot of work for the Mods, but they must have decided it made for fewer problems. There'll always be a few folk in any group that cause problems for others.

Pam

jordylass wrote: »

On our group not all posts are moderated. Users are moderated until they post correctly. Then there posts go straight to the group.
We then get the occasional one that goes straight to group that would not have been allowed had it been moderated, these are removed from the group and the poster informed and put back on moderation. The users who have messages sent straight to their email still receive it and often don;t realise the moderators have done something about it.

angelavdavis

frugalpam wrote: »

What a totally ignorant individual! Did you report all this to the Moderators of your group?
There are fortunately a lot of good, honest and appreciative freecyclers out there, but we never know quite who is going to turn up at our door to collect something we've offered - giving out our addresses to total strangers carries its risks. Yes, it would nice to be trusting, but not everyone can be trusted, unfortunately.

Pam

Hi Pam,

Yes I did complain to the mods - intially I submitted a message to the other members going over my experience - the mod responded that he was refusing the post and he had had "similar experiences, but Freecycle is mainly full of good people" and I could forward my experience and he would then escalate, which I did. That was it. I actually have resigned from the group for the time being - which is a pain as one of my items (plastic bench and table) wasn't picked up by anyone!

Mr_Proctalgia

My local group (Nottingham) have now left Freecycle and joined Realcycle, the thought that some political issues were behind freecycle now, and, as a consequence left.

This copy of my email my help to clarify things

Hello All,

Effective immediately, we are no longer affiliated with The Freecycle
Network®.

This has come to pass for many reasons, some of which are below.
Obviously, there is a great deal of sadness associated with this
change due to lost opportunities. However, as one chapter closes
another opens—and we believe there will be new opportunities that
simply never were realised by Freecycle.org

What the change will mean to members?

Essentially, for now, nothing. The list will continue as before, a
place to offer or seek items that no longer need be consigned to our
bulging landfills. Everything will continue to be free; no commercial
announcements will be welcome.

The new group address is *Intentional deletion*
please add this to your bookmarks in replacement of the Freecycle address.

The group's move will also mean that previous members from other
split-off groups who were told they had to post on their local group
first will be able to post on this list as this one now covers the
whole of Nottingham.

What the change will mean to prospective members?

For a time, it may be harder to find us. We anticipate this will be
temporary, since we will be embarking upon a public relations
campaign— with the help of our members!

Why was this change necessary?

1. Many moderators are concerned about the recent Freecycle response
to the DEFRA invitation. We do not believe that Freecycle UK should
adopt a political stance other than its own remit to keep landfill
waste down.

2. Those moderators, who stated their wish that the Directors of
FreecycleUK should not take it upon themselves to put forward views
that purport to represent the UK Freecycle membership (currently at
770,000), have been ignored.

3. Freecycle is currently developing a new website. It is widely
believed that this new website will centralise Freecycle groups so
that the community aspect is diluted or even lost altogether. There
may be no local point of contact, i.e. local moderators.

4. We are told that the transition to the new website will be entirely
voluntary… Perhaps in the beginning, yes, but Freecycle will
eventually insist that all groups migrate from their current Yahoo
platform to the new site or lose their listing on the directory.

5. Throughout the Freecycle global community any moderators who
question or offer an alternative viewpoint have found themselves on
permanent moderation on Freecycle discussion groups or even had their
groups taken from them.

6. Freecycle is in a state of disarray and confusion at the present
time. Many groups have been locked down, moderators removed from
their groups (bear in mind that all mods give their time voluntarily
and many have spent several years building up their groups in order to
benefit their community) and there is no one central source of
information.

7. TFN's (The Freecycle Network) main sponsor in the U.S. is a company
called Waste Management Inc. This company has, in the past been
guilty of (and fined for) several incidents involving the illegal
dumping of toxic waste.

http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/19/weiser-freecycle/
<http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/05/19/weiser-freecycle/&gt;

These are just a few reasons why the group has left The Freecycle
Network®, there are many more including being told by the head of
Freecycle to add an email address on our groups to enable his website
to access YOUR emails, something which is against the TOS of Yahoo
Groups and could get our groups closed down!

Why Realcycle?

Realcycle UK is an initiative started by a few other disillusioned
Freecycle moderators. We will continue to use the Yahoo platform for
group messages as, despite the occasional glitch, it serves the
purpose well. Realcycle has just been born but we are confident we can
make it work and be a significant contributor to helping to keep stuff
out of landfill and to serving local communities.

We don't believe you need a trademark to give your stuff away. We do
believe in keeping it local.

A café group has been formed where you are free to chat and swap
ideas. This can be found at8
Intentional deletion* (previous
members of the Nottinghamshire Freecycle Cafe will need to rejoin).

I hope you understand our reasons for this move. If anyone disagrees,
then of course you are free to unsubscribe, though we hope you won't.
Shortly a replacement Freecycle group will be formed to take the
place of this one; and that's okay too, there's no competition in
this; the more people take part in free recycling the better.

Happy Recycling!


Realcycle Nottingham Moderators

I have posted this as an information post and not as a grievance - I hope it is of use to other readers..

Ken68

I wouldn't mind knowing about the Defra invitation , Mr Proctalgia and the support from the toxic company is a bit alarming.
Danger tho of diluting Freecycle ethos in changing the name.

beebearshouse

frugalpam wrote: »

- giving out our addresses to total strangers carries its risks. Yes, it would nice to be trusting, but not everyone can be trusted, unfortunately.

Pam

In the past I have met people at the top of the road and at the local park. I also drop a lot of stuff off with "I have to go that way anyway".

As a single female I would rather put myself out slightly than risk some nutter knowing where I live.

Mistyang

They do say what comes around goes around

frugalpam

beebearshouse wrote: »

In the past I have met people at the top of the road and at the local park. I also drop a lot of stuff off with "I have to go that way anyway".

As a single female I would rather put myself out slightly than risk some nutter knowing where I live.

Good idea. I never give out personal details online either - there are some weirdo's around !!

Pam

DenBo_4

TBH I think that people who post "Wanteds" on Freecycle won't have any luck anyway! I have posted "wanteds" twice, can't remember what for but they were not for anything big or valuable, and I was totally ignored! So these people who ask for PS2's, wide screen tvs, dishwashers etc probably don't have any luck anyway.

On the other hand, the church I attend sends good, as new, baby clothes to an orphanage in Africa and I have several times asked for good condition baby clothes, most of the time I have received absolutey gorgeous stuff (and lots of it) from people, apart from one lady. She delivered to my door carrier bags full of baby clothes (for which I was very grateful), but unfortunately they stank of cigarette smoke so I washed everything. Have you ever tried to peg dozens of babygros, tiny vests etc on the line? I nearly lost the will to live!:eek: Took me hours. Then I had to fold them up.:o

Edinburghlass_2

frugalpam wrote: »

Good idea. I never give out personal details online either - there are some weirdo's around !!

Pam

I generally take any freecycle items to the office and ask that they are collected during office hours then it means no-one need have my home details.

frugalpam

Good idea!

Pam

Edinburghlass wrote: »

I generally take any freecycle items to the office and ask that they are collected during office hours then it means no-one need have my home details.