Freecycle (do people still use it)

Tricia W, thanks for the response. It is a good thing! I just think it got too big too fast and now I wonder how it has been doing. It is definitely a good thing that everyone wins, if everyone plays fair! LOL Oh the stories I could share, from when I was a moderator.

Scoriobabes, thanks for the response! I so agree with the rules thing. There were so many that we had to police, especially here in the Baltimore and Harford County group. I found the Baltimore group first and then was able to start the Harford County group with the blessings of the "man" (Deron). LOL Then I was asked to help step in with the Baltimore group with some other moderators from other local groups that surrounded the area. I know at one time they talked about breaking the bigger groups up by zipcode to make them more manageable but I don't think it ever happened. The group that I started is still covering our entire county. I too made some great friends but also did see a lot of greediness! Which was really sad!!!!

My group (SJFreecycle) encompassed 9 counties at least, which was the reason they asked me to downsize. I tried starting a MoorestownFreecycle, but I left once I moved out of town. And there were a lot of 'outsiders' attempting to get things for resale. Most groups didn't allow pet postings, but I know that I adopted three cats, 2 chinchillas and 2 dogs through Freecycle. The rules just kept getting more and more strict-and the person that was trying to police our group wasn't even from this coast-how can you make rules when you're not familiar with the area? It might have been nice to allow us to continue on with our groups as we started them-SJFreecycle had three active moderators and over 2200 members. Did you notice more greediness before or after the recession started? I started to notice it before, but only some areas. Once gas went up, people started to get picky about who was allowed to pick up!

Exactly Dorannmwin! That's when I was involved when it was on yahoo groups. When I saw the new website it didn't look as user friendly. The yahoo groups did take a lot to moderate and there were lots of rules with the groups that burnt out a lot of the moderators. The new website makes it look like a lot of people are not involved anymore. Very interesting. Thanks for the response.

Thanks for the response Dominique! I noticed the group that I use to belong to had a lot of activity but now it looks like it barely exists. That is why I threw the question out there. I don't know if the groups got too big too fast or what happened. It is such an awesome idea. I know when we lost my mom I was able to give away a lot of her stuff that I didn't want to try and sell. Keep checking - hopefully things will pick up.

Thanks for the response LovingMyBabies, I am wondering if our group just kind of went the wayside because it does not seem as active as it use to be. I am glad you are getting use out of it.

I agree the waste of some people in this world is a sin! I did hear of some of the closed groups being called very dictatorial, back when I was involved. Which is sad but unfortunately some of the things I saw you needed to be like that. Some days, I felt like I was running a day care center instead of trying to help the community. Thanks for the response.