Why is Freecycle a mailing list?

[andrewducker]

I know that setting up a mailing list is dead easy, but really - it's the ideal application for a website/database.  Having a database of items, each one of which can then be marked with a status.  People could subscribe to notifications if they wanted to know about everythng in their local area, but they could also just come to the website every so often and see the list of all untaken objects.

This seems like something that would be vastly easier to use than the current system - which I don't use because I don't want to be hit with dozens/hundreds of emails a day.

It doesn't seem like a vastly complicated thing to write - and I assume there are some competent web-coders who also like Freecycle, so I wonder why it hasn't happened...

Comments

[autopope.livejournal.com]

See also: gumtree.

[andrewducker]

Exactly!

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

The very thing that put me totally off Freecycle.

[a-pawson.livejournal.com]

Freecycle is quite tightly controlled from it's central hub by the people who founded it. Any change would have to come from there. From my experience with Freecycle, there isn't a lot of goodwill in the organisation.

Like many organisations it is now suffering from political manouvering and in-fighting. Yesterday most of the UK Freecycle groups left the official organisation and have set up their own organisation. The Guardian has some of the details.

[bemusedoutsider.livejournal.com]

Dunno if it would be easier to find stuff on a database, but I bet it would be harder to list stuff. You'd have to put a lot of structured input into structured boxes. Also you'd have to go to a website to do it.

Much easier just to stay in email, hit Reply, change the header, and write about your item in a big unstructured box.

Freecycle is designed for the givers, not the takers.

[red-phil.livejournal.com]

Really, how hard did you find it to post that comment?
That is how hard a free cycle website could be.

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

Simplicity and familiarity.

And also cost - mailing list facilities are widely available in free-to-use business models, even for very high traffic. Web hosting is not.

Not coincidentally, it's actually very hard to build a database like that which will scale - see e.g. Craigslist. You could do a toy Craigslist for a small, limited group in a day or so, but to build actual Craigslist, you need a shedload of extremely clever folk beavering away constantly, and a boatload of hardware.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that you don't have to have the email notification for Freecycle, but that does mean that for the really popular items, they are likely to have gone before you have a chance to check the site.

[rosathome.livejournal.com]

Yup, I checked. There's an option that says: Web Only - Don't get notified of the latest happenings. Read messages only on the web.

Then you can just check into the Yahoo group page whenever you feel like it.

[andrewducker]

Except that that doesn't just show you the items that are still outstanding. Actually, having looked into it, it looks like they've recently doing something more like what I wanted:
http://www.freecycle.org/group/United%20Kingdom/Scotland/Edinburgh/messages/offer

[the-locster.livejournal.com]

100% of everything worth anything is snapped up within about 100ms of the OFFERED email going out! I've had people knocking on my door within 10mins. One time someone dumped what looked like a brand new fridge in my alleyway, probably broken but I explained the situation in a freecycle email and said take it if you want it. 'twas gone when I got home :)

[andrewducker]

I've had varying success in Edinburgh. Sometimes things go massively quickly, other times stuff hangs around for a while.

Craigslist

[ephelba.livejournal.com]

Here in my town people have been using the Craigslist "Free" section in the manner you suggest, but the problem with using a database is that your average bear is, well, average at best, and never goes back to click the button that changes the status of the item. On our freecycle list, half the people can't follow the posted rules (don't list your phone number, etc) or even figure out how to reply to the post and not email everyone on the list.

On another note, I'm getting a piano off freecycle today! Yay!