Vox Populi
Recently testified before the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs, as part of a public hearing on the sale of sensitive military equipment on the internet.
It was a great learning experience, and we look forward to working more closely with the experts to provide craigslist users with better information as to what is and is not allowed to be sold.
Intriguingly though, of the organizations represented in this hearing, including the Department of Defense (which sells military surplus online), Ebay, and craigslist, it seemed evident to the Members of Congress (and everyone else in the room), that craigslist was already doing the best job of keeping sale of the items in question at bay, despite our small staff.
Had occasion to touch on this during the opening statements:
“Contrary to what the GAO report implies, craigslist has more people actively engaged in its anti-fraud efforts than any web site on earth. In addition to our in-house anti-fraud team numbering a dozen or more staff members, and the automated blocking and screening routines we have developed, craigslist benefits from tens of millions of passionate users diligently reviewing every ad on the site, with each user having the power to delete inappropriate ads, which power they exercise to the tune of several million ads removed each month. To their credit, the GAO investigators did notice that questionable ads were actually being removed from craigslist as they searched the site, an observation they did not make about any other site in their report.”
When it comes to site moderation on a massive scale, it’s difficult for a centralized staff of any size to compete with the efforts of tens of millions of vigilant and empowered users.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
The opening statement contradicts to what you are proposing with the limitation of HTML on Craigslist postings. If you truly believe that the users of Craigslist is so passionate and diligently reviewing every ad, meaning that they are flagging the miscategorized and spams (which I personally believe they are), why don’t you leave it to them? Limitation to HTML codes might suppress some numbers of spammers on your site, but it is the matter of time that they find new ways to spam. Also, there are a lot of spams on your list that do not use htmls. This limitation is not only proving that you do not trust the so-called passionate empowered users but also punishing the ones who are actually following the terms. Because Craigslist is not a government, I have no say to your proposal and it is not my business that you limit the html or not. However, I am very confused about this statement contradicting your proposal.
April 17th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
Craigslist does better than other public site on a number of things. The users here trust other users which is uncommon. Only freecycle has as much physical transactions between online users.
The government might want Craigslist to be a role for how community site should be moderated.
April 18th, 2008 at 6:26 am
Jim Buckmaster is his own biggest fan…
Jim Buckmaster must have almost broken his arm patting himself on the back so much in this blog post.
He talks about how great craigslist was when it came to sensitive military items being sold on it.
What caught my eye was his opening quote to …
April 21st, 2008 at 3:21 am
“…it seemed evident to the Congressmen…”
Really?
The world: filled with much, many. YOU may be busy, oblivious –”longing” for the “good old days” or plain old misogynistic, but SURELY you CAN step into the 20Th –21St century. –NOTICE there are WOMEN IN CONGRESS? SHEESH! How dated/old man can you be.
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:14 pm
There were actually only 3 House Representatives in the room, all of whom were male, but you raise a valid point, and I’ve replaced “Congressmen” with “Members of Congress”, thanks
April 22nd, 2008 at 8:58 pm
I can tell you TONS of possibly sensitive stuff sells on Ebay because I used to be involved in it! Not in selling stuff that shouldn’t be sold, I hope! But there’s tons of military gear on Ebay, tons of military electronics, tons of stuff with no real regulation at all. Craig’s List is not the problem. Craig’s List actually discourages ID theft, fraud, scams, etc and screens ads very well.
Ebay sueing Craig’s List is like Hershey sueing Nestle because Nestle also makes candy bars, that some people like better!
May 3rd, 2008 at 12:51 am
I haven’t paid much attention to Jim here on Craigslist over the years, and but am very familiar with GAO and was interested to read Jim’s reply theretoo.
Kudo’s to Jim for a job well done. GAO is supposed to vet all facts and to provide balanced reporting, which Jim mentions was done to some extent, but many people who are not active on Craigslist do not understand how Craigslist works, that the ads are for the local area only, and only discussion forums are worldwide.
I am one of many people who has volunteered hundreds of hours in the past voluntarily and independently answering thousands of questions, flagging ads that violate Craigslist TOU including ads for weapons though I do not recall if any of these were military weapons.
I did this even though I am an individual who supports citizens rights to own and bear arms. I did this because Craigslist Terms of Use (TOU) does not allow the sale of guns/rifles so selling these items online violates Craig’s Terms of Use.
I don’t agree with all Craigs stances on sales, another area I don’t agree is with the selling of dogs for example, but I flag items that violate Craigslist terms of agreement.
I also flagged perhaps thousands of out of area ads that are posted in violation of Craigslist TOU. Each Craigslist Community Website is ONLY FOR local advertising, with the idea that the individuals wanting to sell items to other local individuals will be handled face to face, and person to person, sort of a replacement of the days of old when people had time to meet at a local gathering spot such as the Post Office. Anyone posting ads that are National Adverting in nature are flagged by people like myself.
I used to be extremely active answering queries in CL Feedback, providing advice on how to get Craigslist websites, and flagging spam ads, nonlocal ads, illegal ads, and ads that violate Craigslist TOU. I have been much less active over the last two or so years due to illnesses in the family and due to the realization that local officials appear to be spending our money with wild abandon with not a care that the debt they are building will sink us in the future.
I will say with hunderds of hours I spent on Craigslist were spent largely in relatively few of the discussion forums, where I was familiar with other “handles” or individuals who regularly volunteered answering questions and flagging, whom I personally saw working day in and out at all hours. And all those I saw were primarily in say a few forums, Feedback, Help, Cities/Site issues, etc. and visiting ad categories to help “tend” community gardens, and “weed out” ads that violate CL TOU. I am saying this to point out that in those areas there were likely hundreds of individuals providing help and flagging. There are similar people in other forums such as the Automotive forum etc that work to answer, and to help tend the garden.
Craigslist has on and ongoing basis over the years taken steps to educate newbies to Craigslist about fraud, scams, Terms of Use, that illegal items are not allowed, to the point of having links to Police Agencies on line so that the public may click to report suspicions of certain types of illegal activity on the website.
Craigslist websites each have their own uniqueness, as they are like gardens Craig has given local areas, to tend (pulling weeds or spam, flagging ads that violate terms of use or out of area, etc). Thereby local Craigslist website may reflect the the beliefs of the local populations, once well established in the area. The local populations that tend their Craigslist garden, by pulling the weeds, will have a website that will be a help to citizens in the local area by providing a place for the community to list groups, events, classes, need for volunteers, a place for the grass roots to fight the entrenched political system, and much more.
If the government has an issue with Craigslist, I feel it would be a fear that citizens have a way, via the World Wide discussion forums and the local political ads to discuss all types of issues.
As far as Ebay, it is an example of what is wrong with AMERICA, emphasis on GREED, MATERIALISM, without a care for the negative impacts on the lives of people, and ARROGANCE such as some government entities have that THEY SHOULD DECIDE FOR US ALL HOW WE SHOULD LIVE. Their frivolous lawsuits are evidence of of all of these, and those in power at Ebay should sit back and think of what they do, as they are on the wrong path in life, and are providing a BAD example for future generations.
Well, thanks for letting me stop by and . . .
PS
And to the person complaining about the phrase “Congressmen”, get over it, or at least first review your facts prior to arbitrarily complaining. In my writing (and hey yes I am not a wordsmith and will never be) I try to match the phrase used to the person or persons involved and may use words ending in man, woman, or person. But folks are going overboard in complaining about such things, particularly such as in this case where it was not merited, at least in my humble opinion.
March 22nd, 2009 at 10:01 pm
I don’t agree with all Craigs stances on sales, another area I don’t agree is with the selling of dogs for example, but I flag items that violate Craigslist terms of this agreement