[Totally OT] Freecycle

[Tim W]

Is a wonderful concept. Just off loaded some outgrown kids stuff to good homes very quickly, prior to our move next week. Sort of stuff you'd get 10 quid for if that after waiting a week on ebay and impractical to post...

Pity that the mailing list software is so crap though. Yahoo groups is the devil's rectum (what an awful signup procedure and then have to wait for moderator approval on each and every group which can take 48 hours...) and the emails are very bursty - eg many hours for a TAKEN message to appear if it ever does, so spend ages replying to loads of people that it's gone :(

The new web/email interface some of the other groups are using has potential, but the emails are totally erratic (yes I have emailed the admins). Anyone else noticed that?

Cheers

Tim

[mark]

I am a member of my local group, now called Freegle. I have set it up so that emails come direct into their own folder within Outlook Express. Filters dump 'Taken' and 'Wanted' messages into 'Deleted Items'. Works fine. Just remember that these groups are run by volunteers and don't really appreciate 'advice'.

I don't go to Yahoo Groups at all, and get the messages as soon as they are posted.

mark

[Tim W]

mark wibbled on Thursday 29 October 2009 22:56

I've done that before too (though TAKEN messages are useful IMO so I didn't dump those). But that only works if the server bothers to send the message!

These days, I have a generic exim filter that auto sorts by the List_ID header so folders are automagically created whenever I join a list.

Yes - I appreciate that. Breaks my heart though when people (like my missus) are put off joining because the procedures are so over complicated and unreliable. There must be a lot of people who tried to join who gave up, at least with a couple of my local ones...

[Jules]

My brain missed out "stuff" when I first read that :-)

I loathe ebay, I really do. It seems like such a huge hassle and they must make a bloody fortune off it.

The weird thing is, I never had any trouble with the Cambridge one I used to be on - messages were very quick. Users we clued up enough to stick to suggested formats, there was a sensible balance of offered/wanted posts etc.

My local one these days is an effin mess - same slow / bursty message delivery that you mention, lots of folk who don't use sensible subject lines (or even explain what it is they're talking about in the message etc.) . Oh and the ones who just post and say in the subject "taken 3452" or whatever so eveyone has to go look up the message in yahoo's archives to see wtf they're talking about. Oh and 90% of the offered posts are for bleedin' kittens.

ISTR that trying to use it with a non-Yahoo email addy was a bit of a fiddle, too.

OK, I feel better now :-)

cheers

Jules

[Bob Eager]

Yes - I belonged to two groups round here. One was (and still is) run in such a bureaucratic fashion that most people post to the other one. They have an online form that you are expected to use - it's actually a program that checks you've obeyed all their rules, very patronising. And they also send out countless emails to 'guide' ytou - far too frequently.

In contrast, the other one runs in a relaxed fashion and is very successful. A second good one has now started, although there's a lot of traffic overlap.

Well, that's the story in East Kent - locals will be able to work out which groups are which!

[Bruce]

It has very little to do with "the server". It has everything to do with the moderators, who are all volunteers. They aren't sitting poised at their PC waiting for your message to come through so it can be posted out to the group within seconds.

If you feel that the moderators are too slow, why don't you volunteer yourself? I guarantee you would be warmly welcomed.

Or perhaps you just want to moan and whine about a service that is provided entirely by volunteers, and is entirely free of charge.

[pete]

I agree about the mailing software. I find that most of the "good stuff" has been grabbed long before my email notification arrives. The frequency that emails are sent (and when items appear on the webite seems to be down to the whim of the administrators: when they log in to approve new postings. There are the occasional people who take the piss, f'r instance recently Wanted: Quad Core pc:

I've also got a few perl scripts that summarise the emails and there seem to be some professional "wanters" around. However, there are also a few "givers" who seem to post dozens of items a month, so I suppose it cancels out.

[Tim W]

Bruce wibbled on Friday 30 October 2009 08:49

I'm sure that each message is *not* moderated on the T Wells group. Messages posted on the web appear immediately. A percentage of messages posted on the web get emailed immediately. Some appear on the web and never get emailed. That *is* a crap server/software.

I've just read the modertor's FAQ. Only new member's posts should be moderated and I'm pretty sure I'm past that having been on one for a while and having previously posted. In fact the FAQ describes the way I'd run it pretty much to a tee. Approve the member, then either monitor or moderate the first few posts (personally I think the 1st post is sufficient) to ensure they are not a SPAMMER, then unmoderate that user and step back. Keep an eye on it as and when.

No, I'm saying why spoil a good idea by using Yahoo groups (which sucks in every way possible).

[Tim W]

pete wibbled on Friday 30 October 2009 09:13

I have 2 exim forward rules for those:

if $header_List-Id: contains "freecycle" and $header_Subject: contains "wanted" then seen finish endif

# Generic self organising list filter if $header_List-Id: matches "

[Bruce]

Some groups are fully moderated. Some others are unmoderated. The rest moderate new members, and allow them to post unmoderated after a trial period. All the groups can moderate a particular member's posts if there is some doubt about compliance with the rules.

Then stop moaning and whining, and volunteer as a moderator.

[Tim W]

Bruce wibbled on Friday 30 October 2009 10:09

I might do that in a few months. But why scupper the service with unnecessary work? IME one rarely needs to fully moderate a group. Once a poster is verified not to be a spammer, there's simply no need. If the poster turns out to be posting inappropriate material or acting in an inappropriate way, then ban them or switch moderation on for them alone. The very occasional bad post slipping in is better than running the whole system in a bursty fashion, especially as the timely delivery of TAKEN messages *is* important.

It would be more effective use of my skills to help them run the system in general seeing as that's my area, which I've already said I should offer in a few months.

[Theo Markettos]

I have similar (it's procmail not exim, but same difference). They're split into three streams which go to three local newsgroups: freecycle.offered, freecycle.taken and freecycle.wanted. There's about 14000 messages in the

4-month expiry. Then I just read them with the rest of my newsfeed.

I also have a rule to pull out articles of interest and email them to me so, when a friend needed a dishwasher, I had it email everything with the word 'dishwasher' it in.

I do wish they'd encode some geographic information though, a bit like eBay. So you can say 'please send me emails just in my village' rather than receiving everything from 20 miles away. You could set up a rule to search for the name of the village, but it doesn't work when there isn't a single name for the place (eg Walthamstow, E17, NE London, XYZ Estate etc etc)

Theo

[Tim W]

Tim W wibbled on Friday 30 October 2009 10:25

It looks like freecycle.org are running exim on *nix (linux probably) so there is *much* hope for them. I would definatley be interested in getting in on that.

[Tim Downie]

That last is that way that all groups should be run. It's specifically against Freecycle rules to run a fully moderated group. Of course this doesn't apply to non-Freecycle groups.

When I created and ran the local group in Ayr, I never felt the need to approve new members and never had reason to regret the decision. Unfortunately, a lot of Freecycle groups are run by people who are control freaks and find the thought of unmoderated members & unapproved sign-up scary.

Tim

[Bruce]

I'm sure there is a lot of truth in that, but at least one group in my area was 'anarchy in action' until the moderators took control. They did so only very reluctantly.

[Bill]

In message , Tim W writes

Does this mean that some are no longer Yahoo bound? Here, we seem to have migrated to freegle on Yahoo Groups, if I've understood what is going on.

I have never felt any affinity to Yahoo Groups, my initial sign in to Freecycle forced me into some obsolete user name that now means nothing and in the context makes me look as if I might be a bit of a weirdo. Add to this that other unmoderated Yahoo groups let through spam that is bounced by my ISP's filter and thus Yahoo keeps requiring me to confirm that I still exist, and it's almost unworkable.

I've recently pointed a young underpaid shop worker at Freecycle. His hours clash with the moderator's hours, so he has always been too late to take advantage of the pulses of postings. It's been a complete washout for him so far.

I've just given away 20+ AMD K6-based PC's to 9 takers. I delivered some, and 3 had old Land Rovers in the paths, so I feel they have gone to good homes.

[tim....]

problem is, making it better costs money and as there is no money involved in these transactions, who's going to pay?

tim

[Steve Firth]

But entirely ruined by the freetards who use it and moderate it. I'd rather throw my crap into a wastebin.

[Usenet Nutter]

The Glasgow Group is fully moderated and some things they do are really irksome like when I posted a "Wanted" message and said I could collect from all around the greater Glasgow area but didn't put in which part of Glasgow I stayed in and it got rejected and I had to edit it and resend ..Now why did that matter when I said I could collect .?

[Bolted]

That's a strange habit.