A lot of people are fed up with Freecycle™ these days. This group, which has three Cincinnati-area chapters - inside city limits, east suburbs, and west suburbs - went against the founding idea of "one simple, brilliant idea that's changing the world one gift at a time" and changed it into some sort of bartering system where you had to post an offer in order to post a request. While this particular rule was changed last month thanks to a poll of the membership, the damage had been done. Numerous poor people were kicked out simply because they had nothing to offer. "We're not a charity," was the response from one moderator. No, they're a "recycling group" with the goal of keeping things out of the Rumpke landfill. Well I recently tried contacting the national Freecycle™ movement to discuss starting a branch for the northern suburbs of Cincinnati. Much to my surprise, they were just as rude as our current local moderator! I missed an email from them (God forbid I have a job and a family that takes up a lot of my time) and next thing you know they forbade me from using the Freecycle™ name in this new northern group, chastised me for not being overly thorough in my response to their generic questions (half of which were answered in my original group application, which they were too lazy to read), and denied the group from being a part of their network. They even managed to throw in some Google hating since I wanted to use Google Groups instead of the inferior Yahoo Groups they currently use. If you take a step back you realize that this is an entirely volunteer movement, every post made in any Freecycle™ group is out of charity or convenience, and no one gets paid. Moderators in particularly busy groups could spend an hour or more moderating messages each day. If I'm signing up to put in so much of my own time to help my fellow neighbor, why should I be treated so terribly? A look into their trademark - after all, who trademarks a green movement? - shows why. Freecycle™ is in the business of making money: "Providing a website which features advertisements for giving and receiving of free property of others on a global computer network." That's why they were so pissy about me using ad-free Google Groups - they make money off of the advertising on those Yahoo Groups. And since each chapter is run by local volunteers and the hosting is provided for free by Yahoo, this is a potential gravy train for Arizona's Deron Beal and his "nonprofit" organization. And if I thought we were just having trouble with Freecycle™ in our neck of the woods, a quick Google search shows that people with heart saw the national organization was going in the wrong direction over five years ago. The former Eugene, Oregon moderator was "chastised or threatened for speaking up."
I, like most Freecycle™ members, feel that the original idea behind the movement was golden. Sure, there's the Craigslist free section or any number of other "classifieds" sites out there, but a recycling group powered by and moderated by a humans means something. It's where a green movement meets Christian ideals. And that is why today I started a Google Group for those of us in the northern suburbs of Cincinnati, or anywhere in the Cincinnati Metro area who are fed up with the existing Freecycle™ groups, where we can post our item offers and requests for our neighbors to see: The Hamilton County Freercycle Google Group. Please join with me to keep the idea going - it's like Cincinnati's Share Some Sugar but you get to keep things instead of just borrowing them! (Of course, if you can't find it on Freercycle, you should still consider checking Share Some Sugar before going out and buying it!)
And unlike Mr. Beal, I will not be trademarking the term 'Freercycle'. This is a volunteer movement to reduce waste, promote recycling, and help our neighbors. I encourage any of you who are fed up with Freecycle™ to create your own Freercycle Google Group for your own town.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Freercycle: Hamilton County's Response to Freecycle™
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Maybe you should start a ReUseIt group in the Cincinnati area. It's a free sharing network sort of like freecycle but rhere is no rule with ReUseIt groups that you have to offer in order to receive. If there isn't one in your area, it's very easy to start one. http://www.reuseitnetwork.org/us.htm or contact helpdesk@reuseitnetwork.org
ReplyDeleteJenny
Freecycle does not allow Google groups. Be prepared to receive a cease and desist letter from Mr. Beal or one of his cronies a/or lawyers. They will not allow you to use the word freecycle in anyway shape or form in your group because they "think" it's trademarked. Unless you are prepared for a court battle, I wouldn't do it. I would go with a network who isn't trademarked and is owned by you and not the network. ReUseIt it just that. That is why we switched our 10,000+ member group to ReUseIt. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteJenny
Yeah, that's the point of starting my own group, completely unrelated to Freecycle™. FreeRcycle is not trademarked, while their Freecycle™ name is. But I hadn't heard of ReUseIt, thanks for the tip! Another one I came across in researching this article was Freegle, but that looks like it's only in the UK. My big thing is that as the volunteer running the group, I should be able to set the rules. Not some rude inflexible organization hundreds of miles away. It's funny if you look at their Moderator Manual, you can see very quickly how they want to make money off of the term Freecycle™. They give guidelines of how to NOT use it as a noun or verb, only as an adjective. That's because if it becomes commonplace to use your company name (think Band-Aid™) as a verb or noun, thanks to common law you lose the trademark. Google is the next company to have to deal with this (notice how I used 'Google search' instead of just 'Googled' in my post).
ReplyDeleteThere's a certain ideology behind the recycle/reuse concept, and that ideaology doesn't jive with "the man" micromanaging the volunteers that make the concept work. We're here to help each other out, not feed some Arizonian.