Maybe Freegle Should Change Their Name?
I help run a recycling network called Realcycle, based on Yahoo! Goups. I am only running my own local group and one other nowadays. The other group is located in the north of England where the stazi-like Freecycle moderators are legend. It seems that Freecycle’s rule-makers have infiltrated the up and coming Freegle. Confused? Don’t worry about it. They all know who they are.
Anyway… over recent months we have been contacted by Freegle moderators who seem to be overly concerned about the dreadful (not really) ‘problem’ of cross-posting. This is when a group member has the temerity to offer their item, or asks for an item, on more than one group. They have strict regulations about how you must only post to the group nearest your home first and then wait a certain length of time before posting to the next nearest. These moderators have been wanting to monitor *our* non-Freegle/Freecycle group for crossposting! Of course, they were told where to put their monitoring.
Realcycle only care that people have a place to offer or request items, thus keeping usable somethings out of landfill. We don’t care if people post to other groups. We don’t care if people ask for items more than once a month. We don’t care about cross-posting one little bit.
Yesterday, I was contacted by another Freegle moderator from the same area, asking me for information regarding an individual. She gave me his full name, email address and the groups he belongs to (surely breaking the Data Protection Act there, lovey?) and requested that I confirm if he is a member of our group and if we’ve ‘had any trouble with him’. Apparently he has contravened their ‘three groups only’ rule. What?
Yep, the Freegle police have decreed that you can only belong to three recycling groups, whether they be Freegle, Freecycle or Realcycle. So it doesn’t matter if you live in one area and work in another. Or if you have family who are not on the internet in a different group catchment. If your email name/Yahoo ID is spotted in more than three groups (bear in mind that these groups are free of charge because they are hosted by Yahoo, not by the organisations concerned) then you will be told to choose only three and remove yourself forthwith from the others.
Bloody nonsense.
So yeah, Freegle, from now on you are named RULEGLE!
Of course it is up to you what rules and/or guidlines you have but the impression I get is you don’t care about keeping stuff local and reducing CO2 in regards to reusing which is surely the intent of the crossposting guidelines.
I run a Freegle group and try and encourage members to keep it local and not pepper the 10 or so local reuse groups with the same message as we get complaints from members when this happens
I do agree advising members is better than enforcing rules and explaining why crossposting is not helpful and may be better for their local community is the way to go.
And note that Freegle is an umbrella organisation so it is up to local mods which rules they have and how they enforce them so if you have a problem with any local Freegle Groups policies why don’t you communicate this with them and work together on a compromise.
In fact you could join Freegle and not have any crossposting rules as the only mandatory rules for Freegle Groups is to keep it free and legal
No of groups and crossposting is totally up to local groups
Anyway good luck with your group.
David, I believe that it is up to individuals to decide how green they want to be, not the moderators. Encouragement should be kept to the occasional ‘admin’ reminding members that ‘keeping it local’ is good. However, if someone wants to travel 50 miles for a hard-to-find or otherwise expensive item, then shouldn’t it be their choice, not yours?
Cross-posting is not a Bad Thing. The more people who read messages (esp Wanteds) the better. Members complain very, very infrequently. I should know as I did a few months stint as a Freecycle Interim Moderator, running groups and training mods throughout the UK and US. Mods are using that same old chestnut over and over again. So what if one member complains but many items are kept out of landfill as a result of the relaxing of cross-posting rules? Think about it. I bet you get more complaints as a result of an over-zealous, restricting moderating style than about cross-posting. The particular moderator that started this off sounded quite miffed that the member had replied to her ’3 groups rule’ in a sarcastic way…LOL!
A moderator’s job is to encourage posting and keep spam off the list, not prevent people from using the groups as they should be used. Too many are on a mini power trip – rejecting messages and rebuking people is their favourite thing to do.
I don’t have a problem with any Freegle group… as long as they don’t interfere in the way that we run ours. Insisting on monitoring a Realcycle group for cross-posting is interfering. Asking us to provide confidential information on a member is interfering.
Thanks for your response. It is good to discuss these issues.
Stuff and nonsense. Freegle don’t have *any* rules about how many groups you can join – only that an item is free and legal. Sounds like a moderator/group owner being overly zealous. Please don’t tar the whole organisation because of one or two groups activities.
Stuff and nonsense? Really? So I made up the email from the group concerned then? I can assure you that this collection of Freegle groups DO operate a ‘three groups only’ rule. Go check it out. You’ll find them all just north-west of Manchester. And they don’t restrict the rule to only Freegle groups, obviously, or they wouldn’t have been contacting us.
Its rules like this that is killing Freecycle. When something gets to big, the egos follow and the initial grassroots message gets lost in the whole fiasco.
These members that complain are obviously in a few groups themselves. Moderators can be so heavy handed and without reason.
Shame that these community groups can’t have the communities best interest in mind.