Freecycle
Freecycle seems a great idea and has been getting a lot of good press, so I thought I'd try it out. There's nothing I hate more than throwing things in the bin, which, although of little monetary value, are still in perfect working order. Hence the idea of Freecycle, whereby you offer them for free to local people is a brilliant idea.
So, yesterday I added an unopened Soundblaster soundcard and my old Aten 4 port KVM up for grabs. Within no more than ten minutes they were taken. Within an hour the guy's knocking on my door. He ended up going away with a whole PC and assorted RAM. A weight off my mind as the last thing I want to do with this stuff is bin it all. Apparently he want his kid to learn to build a PC, so he can get his own back off him. Personally I got another impression about his motives for getting free stuff, but I won't dwell on that.
The thing that strikes me about Freecycle is the poor way in which it's being run. The whole thing operates via Yahoo! Groups. It must have started out this way and grown fast. It's now at the point where to move to any other system must be a nightmare idea.
There are many shortcomings of using this message-board-style system. Firstly, you can't add a photo to your post. Secondly, you have to post a separate message to say the item is taken and wait for moderator approval before the item is marked as gone. This delay and the fact that not everybody must look for the "taken" message means that I've had a further twenty-odd emails asking about the soundcard. In the end I had to stop replying to them.
For the Freecycle movement to really work well it needs a centralised website, purpose built for the task. Each item should have one page, on which it is clear whether it's still available or not, including photos etc. If I had the time I'd love to take this on. It's got Ruby on Rails written all over it and would be a fun project, if not a little daunting — 3,000+ groups with some 2.5 million registered members.
There should be a way to rate users (ala eBay). The guy who came yesterday seemed like a real lurker to me, simply after anything for free. I'm pretty sure he's off to the car boot with it all. Not that it matters I suppose. I've got rid of the stuff that's been sat on the office floor for months. Whether it's to a good home or not I don't know.
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It's the sort of thing that ebay should offer as a service. enhances their cred, and they could support it by adding links from relevent items to items in auction in case people wanted a better one, or accessory.
How does the 'don't meet people you've met on the web' fit in with this. What if the guy was trawling through all the free offers to find a woman at home alone?
The county council here (Dublin) offer a similar service through their website {Link} . There hasn't been a huge volume of postings yet but it has been received well.
There also seems to be no consistency between the groups, I was subscribed to two, one required approval for each message the other didn't.
Having said that they do seem to work at this level, the problem with having a central website is that you then have to wade through all the stuff that is not located anywhere near you. Also with Freecycle the notifications can be sent to your e-mail so you don't have to go to a website to check every day. However I do agree that being able to put a picture up could be useful.
Graham. Any site that replaces the groups would need to tailor your experience and only show you what's near you. At the moment I can be registered for the Nottingham group but miss offers in the Mansfield group, which is only 14 miles away. The site should let you specify how many miles radius you will go from your home. Your home would have to be something you tell the site so it can work out coords etc.
Email notifications wouldn't be a problem from a central website either.
what's wrong with RSS?
What really bugs me about freecycle is the number of cheapskates on there. Like you mention there are people who obviously lurk looking for a quick profit.. Anything free they can then bung on ebay or carboot they'll snap up.
Then there are the people who are so cheap its unbelievable.. ie those who want something for free that they could easily buy for a few pence eg " Wanted: I desperately need a small plastic flower pot. Urgently." Well blimmin well go buy one then.
Going back to my previous comment about people who'll take anything, try this little experiment - think of the most useless piece of rubbish you can think of. Offer it on freecycle and someone will want it. I guarantee it. I mean, I had 4 people wanting a "four times life size plaster cast of my backside". True. Which I have to admit I don't actually have. It turned into a mini obsession - making fake posts for total and utter rubbish and seeing how many people wanted the items. unbelievable.
Here's what is bothering me. Some shady character now knows where you live Jake, that you throw out perfectly good PC hardware, that your house is fairly nice, what you look like (so as to know on sight if you are not at home when he spys you out and about).
Free stuff - good. People who are all fired eager for free stuff - not always good. I have no problem with free, or asking for free to cheap. But as has been said, many are in it for less than upfront reasons, and when you take the identity theft aspect of criminality with this now physical marker... the mind reels. I hope whatever HD you might have given away was thoroughly scrambled.
Not to put a scare in you, but I never let strangers come calling on unofficial busines... too many wacko's in todays world.
Jake, not sure if you're familiar with www.craigslist.org but they have a free stuff section that gets good use over here in the US.
LOL Chad!! Doesn't everyone have a four times life size plaster cast of their backside laying around just taking up space?
To prove a point, my neighbour went down to the flea market, picked up a toaster for $2 and put it on eBay. He was contending that he could sell almost anything and make a buck. He sold the toaster for $10 and proved his point.
Take a picture of the person when they pick up the stuff and request some handwriting, DNA and a voice sample for the cops.
@ Jeff - I turned mine into a bird bath. Oddly enough, no birds ever use it.
Try calling it freeBay.
Jerry, not only does the lurker know where jake live, but if he reads this blog and the 'Money Pit' exactly what's in the house and where, and when he's on holiday ! That's scary! Seroiusly, we use freecycle a lot and it's pretty easy to spot the people wanting to re-sell on Ebay - our local moderator is aware of them and so are most of the group.
Paul. Any one of you could work out where I live quite easily. Life's is but full of risks.
Work it out? I've got you bookwarked on Google Earth. Didn't take much effort. ;-)
well jake, you obviously don't vote. I'll find you soon though ;-)
Now might be a good a good time for Jake to mention that state-of-the-art security system of his, along with the well-trained 70kg guard dog. :)
I worked for a month as a Notes developer at our local school district. One of the tasks they had me do is develop a freecycle-like database to use on their county wide intranet.
It took me about two weeks to create a nice simple Notes/web system where people could post their school related surplus items. The full text search capability in Notes made the whole thing a snap.
Rob:-]
I fully agree the freecyle being on yahoo groups is hidious ! and email notification = receive ALL or NONE. Lucky we can use filters/rules in our emails since I won't visit the freecycle site of each region I am interested into every day.
re : rating users on freecycle.
Refurbishing my flat like Jake I gave lots of things on freecycle and this week I was looking for old VHS to use as stands in a cupboard.. anyway : I received an offer quickly.
But also received this :
"I can make you a deal,, I have an more than 10+ VHS tapes
See what you can offer"
I replied to the guy explaining that in "freecycle" there is "free" and thanks to other users it remains like this.
It's amazing isn't it ?
Should he receive a negative rate if we could rate users then ?