I got some weird email acknowledging my unsubscription from my local FreeCycle group. Wha? I enquired what this was about, and got this reply:
Today you posted to the entire group a personal aside/request, violating the most basic rule that nothing but OFFERs/WANTEDs/TAKENs/RECEIVEDs can be posted by members. You have been a long-time member and of course know this rule.
We are extraordinarily serious when it comes to keeping “discussions” out of the FreecycleSeattle group – with 15,000 members this is simply not a place we can go, nor is it a thing 99% of our members want to see. Numerous places in the FAQ and the group rules point out that you need to email the moderators with concerns, not the whole group. You chose to ignore these rules.
You have two choices at this point:
A) recognize your mistake, don’t argue about it, read the group FAQ again. If you choose this option, feel free rejoin the group after five (5) days have past, with the understanding that you will abide by the group’s policies and rules in the future.
or
B) argue about this, waste our time defending your yourself, and/or rejoin the group under your original id (or an alias) before five (5) days have past. If you choose this
option, you will be immediately be banned from the group for at least one (1) full year.Your call. We’re very serious about this.
Well, then. What’s that about? No copy of the offending message, no trace of in the list archives or in the email from the list.
Either this message was a figment of someone’s imagination or all posts are being moderated. What do the FreeCycle rules say about that?
*** DON’T FULLY MODERATE YOUR GROUP.
And what else?
*** DON’T BE A DICTATOR.
[From FC Moderators Manual – Do’s and Don’ts for Freecycleâ„¢ Moderators .]
My reply:
Maybe this is just catching me at a bad time but I am very disappointed in this expulsion from FreeCycle Seattle. I guess I expected better than to be told I have committed some offense with no effort at verifying it. I have checked the archives and asked other list members I know and can’t find any postings from my account today.
This suggests that either the message did not come from me (since I haven’t seen it, I have no idea) or that the messages are moderated and no one saw it anyway. If it was so shocking and beyond the pale, I’m not sure why it is so hard to locate. And if messages are moderated, I find it very irritating that someone would make an issue of the list FAQ when this practice violates at least one of the FreeCycle charter: *** DON’T FULLY MODERATE YOUR GROUP.
I have never understood the need for full moderation, especially of TAKENs and RECEIVEDs. Why a volunteer group would create work for themselves is a mystery.
As for the general tone of the communications I received, I would refer you to this rule: *** DON’T BE A DICTATOR. I wouldn’t talk to someone I was paying as I have been addressed, and I wouldn’t expect a volunteer to put up with it. I have been on “special messages” for months now so I could get rid of stuff w/o seeing all the tempting OFFEREDs. I guess I’ll just be throwing out more stuff.
The rules as set up by the original FreeCycle organizers seem designed to facilitate the transfer of stuff without a lot of work on anyone’s part. Changing the rules doesn’t make sense, especially if the changes violate the spirit of the originators. To change the rules and then complain about overwork is just silly.
But I won’t be hearing any more of that, it seems. So there is an upside.
And the last word:
I’m quite chagrined here. After some checking, we can’t actually
figure out what our part-time moderator (Morris) saw that led to his
writing and removing you, and since he deleted the message(s) in
question from the archives (which is our common practice), there’s
unfortunately no actual evidence of you having done anything wrong.Without that, we of course need to err on the side of believing you’re
completely right, and assume there were no against-the-rules postings
by you anytime in the recent past.So: we’d like very much to apologize for the trouble, and to welcome
you to rejoin the group at any time.
Not much as apologies go. If the original moderator had seen fit to explain himself, I would have been interested to hear what he thinks he saw. But not only am I denied a chance to face my accuser, he stays as a moderator.
I’m done.