On Tue, 07 Mar 2006 20:29:16 +0000, Mary Fisher wrote:

Sadly the Leeds one was full of people wanting stuff free.

I have a huge amount of good things (not junk) for which I have no further
need but I was barred because I offended someone by suggesting that the
stated ethos of Freecycle was "changing the world one GIFT at a time", not
getting free stuff.
....
So because of one sensitive complainant and an over-enthusiastic
moderator
lots of people will miss out.

If you read the wikipedia article on freecycle it seems it's not just
particular moderators that are a bit draconian (the I managed not to
use the term "admin-nazi" :-)

Apart from the issues (of politics and/or competence) many folks have with
Yahoo, it seems to me there's nothing inherently wrong in asking for a bit
of dosh for more valuable stuff. Somehow Freecycle(tm) regard this as
anathema (though they themselves are happy to accept dosh from big
business). Seems to me there's a niche for grass-roots organised local
free/cash/whetever[1] trading posts: like Loot etc but without the
treeware and commercial organisation behind it, and unlike eBay in being
local and not handling money transactions. I may have to start one .... :-)


[1] e.g. LETS, barter ...