Freecycle Nusiance

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On a more positive note I've had several good responses from our group recently - I offered up an old battered but still working mobile phone, a phone for use with Skype/PC, a bag of empty cd cases, and a bag of (obviously unused) tampons and towels (as I switched to the mooncup). All went to very polite, accomodating people. (The only bad apple was one of the replies for the skype phone which read (exactly copied from the email) 'still got skype'. No punctuation, no question mark, no name, no manners! It went straight in the delete box.

katyp

I am getting seriously fed up with our local Freecycle groups. I have just about got my head around the usual gripes - the people asking for cars and other expensive toys don't really bother me, and I have come to expect most people who who arrange to collect something don't bother to turn up, or don't bother to answer emails.
What is really starting to bug me is the (in my humble opinion) over-officious moderators and rules.
I live in the very corner of our county, so joined my county group about a year ago. I also joined our neighbouring county group (I live less than a mile from the boundry) and was accepted.
I then applied to join the other neighbouring group, and was turned down because Freecycle ethos states that you must stay local.
This annoyed me, because my the furthest point in my county group is a good 1.5 hour drive away, and the boundry with the second group I applied is less than two miles away.
Anyway, once I was honoured enough to be deemed worthy of giving my stuff away, I started posting . . .
In the meantime, a new group has started within the county, but only has about 200 members, so take-up is non-existant.
I posted an offered post on my new local site, and had no takers, so I posted on the county site the next day and was deluged with takers. I also re-posted the offer on my district site, just in case anyone had not seen it the day before. It seems I have commited a crime and have been threatened with suspension!
Today, I posted a voucher I received through the post, which is no use to me. Again, I have been deluged with replies, and again I have been threatened with suspension because it is against Freecycle rules to offer vouchers. Why?
I know the reson Freecycle came into being was to prevent stuff going to landfill, but surely saving someone £250 is a gesture that Freecycle should encourage?
I have also had snotty emails from my county group, asking me to post on my (new) local group first.
Honestly, it's getting to be so much fuss to give my stuff away, I'm wondering if I should bother at all!

Penelope_Penguin

Have you contacted the Moderators to express your views?

Do you have a Freecycle Cafe where you can debate these issues with other members?

Father_Jack_2

Not from Andover are you ? Their mods seem to think that they were put onto this planet to be awkward - the amount of rules emails that are sent out is ridiculous.

I take your point about being local - I joined 3 groups about 2 years ago but when I tried to sign my mother up it was like applying for a driving licence - they need so much information she gave up in the end, why do they need so much information ?

angelatgraceland

Regarding joining local groups it may be worth explaining exactly where on the map you are to the group who turned you away. When you live on a border its hard to know which group will work best for you. We have many members in this situation who join 3 or 4 local groups to start with and then later on, "adopt" the one which suits them best. We always let people on borders join-even if they are "just inside" another groups area-for the reasons you state yourself.
Regarding posting on more than one group there are lots of problems with this-its called "crossposting". If you offer on your local group and at the same time another group it is annoying for members to find the item taken by someone outside when they didnt even get chance to reply. Also, it sometimes happens that the "taken" post and the offer post get on the site at the same time which is again frustrating to other members. The way around this is to offer on one group on one day and another group maybe 3 or 4 days later if the item hasnt been taken. This rule is made for the members benefits not the moderators!
Again-this rule comes from freecycle.org and is not just your local mod-they are just obeying the rules they have to abide by.
Ive had a few people ask me about this-from a members point of view-telling me how annoyed they are that it was offered outside the local group-yet I couldnt stop it happening as another group had approved it.
They also ask how it has already been taken so soon-because of the timelapse between different mods on different groups approving the post.
For this reason-we dont alllow any "repeat" posts for 7 days-it gives people a chance to reply and also gives the member a chance to offer it elsewhere.