[tor-talk] Craigslist...

grarpamp grarpamp@gmail.com
Tue Mar 11 12:09:26 PDT 2014


> Based on my experiences with the (terrible) Craigslist spam ghosting
> algo, attempting to get help for that over the random junk I was
> legitimately trying to sell which got me ghosted, and then doing a lot
> of research on similar problems had by other users...
>
> ...which led me to reading about Craigslist's history of "litigation
> over innovation" and the (inevitable and correct) complaining about
> how terrible every /other/ part of the site is...
>
> ...and the attempts to talk to Craigslist about such problems by users
> and litigation targets, all lead me to believe that attempting to
> communicate with Craigslist in any way is like talking to a
> particularly recalcitrant wall.  They do not care.  Sadly their US
> monopoly position makes it easy for them to act like bad netizens, and
> they do.  Since the classified market is basically free under them,
> they're like the Windows monopoly.  Nobody else can get a fair shake
> to take them down, even though a lot of people dream of it.
>
> Best of luck.  :(

I actually think there's lots of oppurtunity here, with many online
services actually... to win by doing things better in a way that
serves the users, not primarily the company. There's money in that.

re CL: Afaik there's no patent or trademark on classifieds or 'community'
moderation. You could win simply by doing that, not pissing off your
users by ghosting (aka stating why your rejection happened), and
say umm not silently dropping in/out bound mail, and not trying to play
nanny mail relay. Non agnostic or faulty delivery liability anyone?

By the way, did you know CL has and does archive every post (and
quite probably every image and email) since inception in MongoDB?
Want to know their reason? Supposed regulatory compliance and
'Oh, our users might want to repost an ad'. Really? From a month
ago, a year ago, ten years ago? Bullshit. They're needless data
whores acting against you.

Anyway, that's off Tor topic. But I will restate my request for
blocking policy/implementation info, rationale, and discussion,
for any internet service really, whether on or off list.



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