Kind of a mini side rant here, and by the way is this thing on? Mic Check, Check 1, Check 1, Check 1, 2. Check baby, check baby 1,2,3, 4, Check baby check baby 1... all I wanna do is a zoom zoom zoom and a boom boom? No? Okay.
So anyway, I kind of hesitate to write this because no doubt I'll use or at least try to use and maybe even need Craigslist's services at some point. I will also say what many others have. Craigslist as a concept was and is great. Obviously they have been very successful. At the same time, and kind of going back to my "too big to fail" post, when a business or a person has a good taste of success and it goes to their head(s) the results can be ugly.
What has me a bit riled up is the "ghosting" of ads and just the overall inconsistency that Craigslist seems to operate by in terms of enforcing their own terms of service. I'll admit it's been a little while since I've read them, but just based on what I've personally experienced and what others have written about in their own blogs, such as this little dandy paint a sordid tale. That link by the way has many different topics to the blog, all Craigslist related. I just happened to be reading on the ghosting subject since some of my posts there lately have been ghosted.
Whenever things such as these come up the old freedom of speech and censorship arguments are thrown out. It's a mixed bag, because to a certain extent a forum, an online community or site, even a place of employment to some extent can censor or punish you for things you say. That being said, these types of entities should always be held accountable to enforce standards and protocol fairly across the board, with little to no inconsistency, discrimination/favoritism, and in as considerate and respectful a way as possible. In reading another blog on Craigslist and their indiscretions, someone reported that their posts were flagged by competitors who did not like the fact that they titled their post "Cheapest prices in town!!" Did Craigslist investigate the issue or take the response that most reasonable people would in saying, "So what?" No, they allowed the flagging to take place and I take it removed the posts. When the author of those posts presented his case to the Craigslist staff they brushed him off. That story is in the same blog I linked above, under Craigslist Community.
Personally, I had problems with Craigslist when I was trying to use it on a regular basis several months back for business purposes. I would post ads that would never actually post or would disappear. When I inquired about this I received absolutely no response. It's not as if I was getting paid for posting these ads. I needed ads to appear so that hopefully people would see them, call me, be interested, and allow me to make some money. It wasn't an MLM or pyramid scam either. It was actually recruiting of truck drivers.
What gets me about all that is I tried to follow their terms of service and posting procedure to the letter. I was told beforehand too that had titles had to be different and ad bodies had to have some differences in them or your ad would get ghosted. This may have been part of the problem as perhaps Craigslist's programming felt some of the ads were too similar. At the same time, it goes back to a point of consistency. Even today I can see people who spam post in multiple categories all at one time in categories that have little to nothing to do with say the job they posted, for an example. It's the exact same ad too, copied and pasted. Maybe they've figured out how to game the Craigslist system. But again one person trying to promote their business should not be at the mercy of a program or even people who for whatever the reason have no consistency. Try to play by the rules and have your posts get ghosted. Flagrantly abuse the system and have your posts remain. Something is off there.
I just don't like the idea, which from personal experience I believe is very true, that Craigslist is just "picking" on certain people that for whatever the reason they don't like. People can scam and spam the heck out of that site and be okay. I understand there are disclaimers to the rants and raves section. But I can skim through that and find it loaded with posts titles and posts that are racist, vulgar, and posted by people who would probably get smoked on a show titled "Are You Smarter Than My Pet Rock?" Yet, make a post speaking your mind in an intelligent and fairly level headed manner and that post may not ever appear. What's even worse is the allegations and not even just allegations but apparent documentation that posts from hookers, drug peddlers, and the like have at times passed the Craigslist test, whatever that is.
I'm not saying policing or monitoring a thing like Craigslist is simple. But they either need to work hard to be what they were designed to be... i.e. an online "free classified" site and forum for people to conduct business freely and speak their mind in a fairly respectful manner, with all due diligence to monitoring and moderating in a responsible manner. Or, they need to die the death of a business/entity that gets too big for its britches and gets spanked either by competition or by the consumer or public just saying "enough is enough". Quite frankly, it's the American way.
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