Jim is "evaluating suggestions"? [my emphasis] 9th paragraph from bottom; nobody should need to give them any suggestions! it's their for-profit company... and they are making huge profits year after year after year... by spending close to nothing -- how long can this keep going on? when are people going to wake up?
Delia
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Monday, November 26, 2007
yahoo wizens up...
if I may say so myself:)
Delia
P.S. they got my blog back in the top position (and moved down the craigslist half-truth) D.
Delia
P.S. they got my blog back in the top position (and moved down the craigslist half-truth) D.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Sounds like turkey...
Hi, Rachel!
Sounds like turkey to me :)… Just think about it: how many customer service people does craigslist employ? How many links would need to be sent it (especially when you consider all the bad stuff going on on the site)? — craigslist can’t possibly address more than a minute portion of that and it doesn’t… it also appears to have no intention to hire an adequate number of people (it’s been severely understaffed while walking away with ridiculously large profits for years). Yet all sorts of people keep talking Craig’s word as gospel and continue to sing him praises — go figure…
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
Sounds like turkey to me :)… Just think about it: how many customer service people does craigslist employ? How many links would need to be sent it (especially when you consider all the bad stuff going on on the site)? — craigslist can’t possibly address more than a minute portion of that and it doesn’t… it also appears to have no intention to hire an adequate number of people (it’s been severely understaffed while walking away with ridiculously large profits for years). Yet all sorts of people keep talking Craig’s word as gospel and continue to sing him praises — go figure…
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
the perils of believing craigslist...
yahoo got fooled! big time...:they are currently listing a half-truth as their top hit for "craigslist criticism"... (giving craigslist as the source)
Delia
P.S. and what's the truth? it's been appealed ("the complaint was dismissed but is on appeal" -- Newspaper Association of America; 7th line)... just don't count on craigslist telling you that... D.
Delia
P.S. and what's the truth? it's been appealed ("the complaint was dismissed but is on appeal" -- Newspaper Association of America; 7th line)... just don't count on craigslist telling you that... D.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
insights into craigslist...
Hi, Greg!
I think you'd get a much better insight into craigslist if you wait a little until The Arizona Republic is going to have to PAY Craig for that ad... and an even better idea when the initial "reasonable fee" will start creeping up (the number of places where craigslist charges for posting jobs has increased dramatically and gives no sign of easing up...)
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
I think you'd get a much better insight into craigslist if you wait a little until The Arizona Republic is going to have to PAY Craig for that ad... and an even better idea when the initial "reasonable fee" will start creeping up (the number of places where craigslist charges for posting jobs has increased dramatically and gives no sign of easing up...)
Delia
P.S. take care! D.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
prostitution moving in: effect on the local communities
the broken window theory:" along with prostitution comes guns, along with prostitution comes drugs, along with prostitution comes exploitation of minors" (Robert James , Dekalb County Solicitor, GA via Fox 5, Craigslist.com and Prostitution; towards the end of the video)
(prostitution) so much for the claim that craigslist makes it easier for cops...
Robert James, Dekalb County Solicitor, GA: "On the actual street corner one officer can make dozens of arrests, on the virtual street corner it may take 10 to 15 or 24 or 48 man hours to make one arrest" (second half of the video) D.
(more on) what would a non-profit competitor look like?
MORE: (11th comment)
Seth,
It doesn't seem to have much to do with being in the right place at the right time, as far as I can see. New craigslist local sites are added all the time and in very different places -- it appears that all you have to do is give it time and wait for the site to grow...
As long as you have no real competition. Most people are really frustrated at the point when they need help -- there is just nobody to help most of the users in need of help (way too many users per customer service employee and it's getting worse every day). But as long as they can't go elsewhere... they are stuck with craigslist, however badly treated!
In some foreign places, there are local options that have done quite well. As far as I'm aware none of these were non-profits. So given enough time, they couldn't compete with a non-profit alternative either...
Delia
........
OK, Seth... show me! (9th comment)
How much money did Craig spend on PR *before* craigslist turned for profit? How much money did he spend up to that point, period? Apparently, not much at all... -- he got the people to pitch in and help and the media to sing him praises.
Did he plan it all out? may well be... but he didn't have to spend any money on PR to get the good press (and free publicity) and see the site grow enormously as a result.
Why couldn't someone else do this and NEVER turn for profit? Use all profits to further the mission like it was supposed to be: start out *and remain* a community service with a philanthropic mindset. The for profit models (such as the current craigslist) couldn't possibly compete.
Delia
Seth,
It doesn't seem to have much to do with being in the right place at the right time, as far as I can see. New craigslist local sites are added all the time and in very different places -- it appears that all you have to do is give it time and wait for the site to grow...
As long as you have no real competition. Most people are really frustrated at the point when they need help -- there is just nobody to help most of the users in need of help (way too many users per customer service employee and it's getting worse every day). But as long as they can't go elsewhere... they are stuck with craigslist, however badly treated!
In some foreign places, there are local options that have done quite well. As far as I'm aware none of these were non-profits. So given enough time, they couldn't compete with a non-profit alternative either...
Delia
........
OK, Seth... show me! (9th comment)
How much money did Craig spend on PR *before* craigslist turned for profit? How much money did he spend up to that point, period? Apparently, not much at all... -- he got the people to pitch in and help and the media to sing him praises.
Did he plan it all out? may well be... but he didn't have to spend any money on PR to get the good press (and free publicity) and see the site grow enormously as a result.
Why couldn't someone else do this and NEVER turn for profit? Use all profits to further the mission like it was supposed to be: start out *and remain* a community service with a philanthropic mindset. The for profit models (such as the current craigslist) couldn't possibly compete.
Delia
Thursday, November 15, 2007
(Net Neutrality) the reason Craig "forgot"...
... to mention
Barack Obama is for "Net Neutrality" --> which would mean craigslist (and other for-profits) would NOT have to share in the long term costs of making more and more internet capabilities available to the public (the telcos would end up just charging you and me and the other "little guys" across the board, whether or not we use those expensive capabilities or not...) D.
Barack Obama is for "Net Neutrality" --> which would mean craigslist (and other for-profits) would NOT have to share in the long term costs of making more and more internet capabilities available to the public (the telcos would end up just charging you and me and the other "little guys" across the board, whether or not we use those expensive capabilities or not...) D.
what would a non-profit competitor look like?
MORE: (6th comment)
Seth, I don't think people would have to think those things right away for the non-profit to eventually be a big success (and put its for profit alternatives out of business). The non-profit would just have to do right by its users... and keep doing it!
For instance, if it charges for ads or allows ads on the site to get revenue --> just tell the users what that money would be used for and *do* that! as long as it goes towards serving them, great! if it keeps doing that... the word is gotta get out at some point!
I find it hard to believe that none of the effective media outlets (in terms of publicity) would report on the uniqueness of it: "little people$list has spent the 20K -- or whatever amount they were able to raise through ads -- on developing a sophisticated way of protecting the users' information against unreasonable government searches."
This is how craigslist got all that great and free publicity early on (and still gets it, 'cause reporters continue to be taken for a ride, as far as I can tell): by being UNIQUE (by being something the media wrote about *without* having to spend money on PR).
Delia
P.S. What I'm basically saying: the way to beat Craig (and his equivalents) at his own game is to DO what he *says*! BE the community service with a philanthropic mindset...
The for profit craigslist (or other similar entreprises) would eventually become irrelevant: who would put up with the retarded development of the site if they HAD an alternative? Who would choose NOT to have their information as protected against unreasonable government searches as possible... if they HAD an alternative? etc. etc. D.
.........
I'm not sure what you mean, Seth. (third comment, followed by Seth's answer)
What burden? what people? Why would people working for non-profits that are paid the market salary etc. get any more tired or distracted or sloppy as far as researching things, if that's what you mean...
PR is not the end and all of everything: I don't think a non-profit would need to outspend the for profits, PRwise (that should be the least of their concerns since they wouldn't have anything to cover up).
Imagine craigslist would have stayed NON-profit. Would have done *exactly what it does*, EXCEPT *much much* better by spending huge net profits on figuring out how to best safeguard users info, among a host of other things important to the users. It could spend millions and millions on it! --> that would put the for profit alternative, that would just pocket all those profits (like the for profit craigslist appears to do) out of competition, as far as I can see...
Delia
Seth, I don't think people would have to think those things right away for the non-profit to eventually be a big success (and put its for profit alternatives out of business). The non-profit would just have to do right by its users... and keep doing it!
For instance, if it charges for ads or allows ads on the site to get revenue --> just tell the users what that money would be used for and *do* that! as long as it goes towards serving them, great! if it keeps doing that... the word is gotta get out at some point!
I find it hard to believe that none of the effective media outlets (in terms of publicity) would report on the uniqueness of it: "little people$list has spent the 20K -- or whatever amount they were able to raise through ads -- on developing a sophisticated way of protecting the users' information against unreasonable government searches."
This is how craigslist got all that great and free publicity early on (and still gets it, 'cause reporters continue to be taken for a ride, as far as I can tell): by being UNIQUE (by being something the media wrote about *without* having to spend money on PR).
Delia
P.S. What I'm basically saying: the way to beat Craig (and his equivalents) at his own game is to DO what he *says*! BE the community service with a philanthropic mindset...
The for profit craigslist (or other similar entreprises) would eventually become irrelevant: who would put up with the retarded development of the site if they HAD an alternative? Who would choose NOT to have their information as protected against unreasonable government searches as possible... if they HAD an alternative? etc. etc. D.
.........
I'm not sure what you mean, Seth. (third comment, followed by Seth's answer)
What burden? what people? Why would people working for non-profits that are paid the market salary etc. get any more tired or distracted or sloppy as far as researching things, if that's what you mean...
PR is not the end and all of everything: I don't think a non-profit would need to outspend the for profits, PRwise (that should be the least of their concerns since they wouldn't have anything to cover up).
Imagine craigslist would have stayed NON-profit. Would have done *exactly what it does*, EXCEPT *much much* better by spending huge net profits on figuring out how to best safeguard users info, among a host of other things important to the users. It could spend millions and millions on it! --> that would put the for profit alternative, that would just pocket all those profits (like the for profit craigslist appears to do) out of competition, as far as I can see...
Delia
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
comic relief: bummer! there goes my hope...
... that I had a "secret admirer" at Google who just got in there and fixed it! 'cause I said so.../joke D.
Ah -- I should have clarified the main issue...
Seth's answer (9th comment) and mine (10th comment)
EVEN MORE: the link to the entry had been the hit that was at the bottom of the first page of hits, pretty much uniformly across search engines...
MORE: the link that Google moved up was not exactly the link I gave in my post: I linked to the relevant comment, Google linked to the entry... [part of Seth's explanation was that Google was taking into consideration the phrase and the link, in an automatic fashion, I assume]
Correction: re: results for "craigslist criticism"
Sorry, Seth! you actually said "quite a few," not "most" (I guess I'm sensitive to the topic since I thought I did a pretty good job of not bringing up my blog unless necessary...) D.
....
Thanks, Seth!
Ah -- I should have better clarified the main issue. Of course, I appreciate you looked at it in general but here was what really puzzled me:
after I mentioned it on my blog, that link JUMPED from the bottom to the third (I would say that's pretty significant) AND is *staying* there -- which makes me think it wasn't something explained by normal variations in time -- AND that ONLY happened for Google...(not for the other search engines I checked -- those showed no significant change)
Delia
P.S. Again, I'm not at all familiar with these things -- that's why I asked you:)... I'm not sure what you mean when you are saying that most of the 140 pages when you search for "craigslist criticism" are spam? I hope you are not referring to *my* posts:), which do make up the bulk of it (I've been hoping somebody would take this topic out of my hands for a long time).
Although the topic of my blog is "craigslist criticism" I use this phrase very rarely. It's usually when I post a comment on a site and after a long discussion I just need to go... so I might suggest the person check out the blog *if* they need more information on this.
The vast majority of times when I make comments I don't even mention my blog (I enter it in the URL box if that's an option, just in case people want to check it out... but I'm just posting relevant comments to their post).
I do feel that I need to tag almost all the posts on my blog as "craigslist criticism" since this is the topic of my blog and I do try to stay on topic. I don't see how this could be regarded as "spam," if this is what you meant. They do not *all* show up when you do a search -- there is only one hit for my blog -- (if you want more you have to click for similar results).
There is relatively little spam among the results as far as I see... just some adult sites, that I suppose grab all key words they can get and possibly some innocents that list "craigslist" and "criticism" separately (I see that as an imperfection of the search engine, not as "spamming" by those people). D.
EVEN MORE: the link to the entry had been the hit that was at the bottom of the first page of hits, pretty much uniformly across search engines...
MORE: the link that Google moved up was not exactly the link I gave in my post: I linked to the relevant comment, Google linked to the entry... [part of Seth's explanation was that Google was taking into consideration the phrase and the link, in an automatic fashion, I assume]
Correction: re: results for "craigslist criticism"
Sorry, Seth! you actually said "quite a few," not "most" (I guess I'm sensitive to the topic since I thought I did a pretty good job of not bringing up my blog unless necessary...) D.
....
Thanks, Seth!
Ah -- I should have better clarified the main issue. Of course, I appreciate you looked at it in general but here was what really puzzled me:
after I mentioned it on my blog, that link JUMPED from the bottom to the third (I would say that's pretty significant) AND is *staying* there -- which makes me think it wasn't something explained by normal variations in time -- AND that ONLY happened for Google...(not for the other search engines I checked -- those showed no significant change)
Delia
P.S. Again, I'm not at all familiar with these things -- that's why I asked you:)... I'm not sure what you mean when you are saying that most of the 140 pages when you search for "craigslist criticism" are spam? I hope you are not referring to *my* posts:), which do make up the bulk of it (I've been hoping somebody would take this topic out of my hands for a long time).
Although the topic of my blog is "craigslist criticism" I use this phrase very rarely. It's usually when I post a comment on a site and after a long discussion I just need to go... so I might suggest the person check out the blog *if* they need more information on this.
The vast majority of times when I make comments I don't even mention my blog (I enter it in the URL box if that's an option, just in case people want to check it out... but I'm just posting relevant comments to their post).
I do feel that I need to tag almost all the posts on my blog as "craigslist criticism" since this is the topic of my blog and I do try to stay on topic. I don't see how this could be regarded as "spam," if this is what you meant. They do not *all* show up when you do a search -- there is only one hit for my blog -- (if you want more you have to click for similar results).
There is relatively little spam among the results as far as I see... just some adult sites, that I suppose grab all key words they can get and possibly some innocents that list "craigslist" and "criticism" separately (I see that as an imperfection of the search engine, not as "spamming" by those people). D.
Friday, November 9, 2007
How did Google do it?
EVEN MORE: we'll see if Seth comes up with something... (3rd comment)
MORE: thanks for the comment, Seth! sorry for the delay... I didn't expect you to answer here but this is good!
here's the page
here's my comment
here's my thank-you-note-to-Google when I noticed the change (it may have happened earlier)
that page is still the third Google hit for "craigslist criticism"
that page is still at the bottom of the fist page of yahoo hits for "craigslist criticism" (well... worse than that, it's currently only the second hit on the second page of top hits -- it actually went down)
Thanks, Seth!
...
let's see if Seth has an idea... D.
Seth,
here's another one for you:
-- there was a page -- not mine -- that I thought should have a higher rank than it did (it was barely on the bottom of the first page of results)
-- I *said so* on my blog...
-- a couple of days later, I noticed that the rank for that result increased significantly (got to third) and continues to stay the same
-- I just checked and "craigslist criticism" is NOT on Google's Open Directory (the article you linked to said that was the "human component" to Google search)
-- other search engines, such as yahoo and altavista kept the old (flawed, as far as I see it) order
Delia
P.S. I don't really NEED to know how it all happened but it would be interesting... if you have an idea. I just thought it was *way* cool!:) and made me love Google web search even more... D.
MORE: thanks for the comment, Seth! sorry for the delay... I didn't expect you to answer here but this is good!
here's the page
here's my comment
here's my thank-you-note-to-Google when I noticed the change (it may have happened earlier)
that page is still the third Google hit for "craigslist criticism"
that page is still at the bottom of the fist page of yahoo hits for "craigslist criticism" (well... worse than that, it's currently only the second hit on the second page of top hits -- it actually went down)
Thanks, Seth!
...
let's see if Seth has an idea... D.
Seth,
here's another one for you:
-- there was a page -- not mine -- that I thought should have a higher rank than it did (it was barely on the bottom of the first page of results)
-- I *said so* on my blog...
-- a couple of days later, I noticed that the rank for that result increased significantly (got to third) and continues to stay the same
-- I just checked and "craigslist criticism" is NOT on Google's Open Directory (the article you linked to said that was the "human component" to Google search)
-- other search engines, such as yahoo and altavista kept the old (flawed, as far as I see it) order
Delia
P.S. I don't really NEED to know how it all happened but it would be interesting... if you have an idea. I just thought it was *way* cool!:) and made me love Google web search even more... D.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Right, Susan! and... what do you *do* about it?
talk is cheap... and it's getting very old...re: "And, let me be clear," Best wrote. "We don't want illegal activity on our site. It is not welcome". (last paragraph)
Delia
P.S. unless you are brain dead, you know it's going to continue to happen if you don't figure out how to solve the problem -- if you keep treating it like it's NOT your problem, the laws are going to clarify it for you! (they are due for a huge update) D.
Delia
P.S. unless you are brain dead, you know it's going to continue to happen if you don't figure out how to solve the problem -- if you keep treating it like it's NOT your problem, the laws are going to clarify it for you! (they are due for a huge update) D.
(prostitution) "craigslist is working with the police to get the bad guys" -- says *who*?
MORE: corrected the mistake...
ERRATA! ok, ok... I tried to clarify it and ended up introducing error... sorry!: it WASN'T the police that was ignored (at least not as far as we know) but the reporters who needed more detailed information from Craig&Co... (and that's consitently the case) ; you'd think giving info needed to clarify serious issues with the site would take precendence over shooting the breeze as far as Craig's email time was concerned...
hints as far as the reaction of police to the way craigslist handles such situations are much more subtle and understandably so... e.g. "Craigslist says that its 24 staff members cannot possibly flag all objectionable ads, but that hasn't stopped law enforcement officials from accusing them of enabling prostitution".[my emphasis] (Prostitution 2.0 through craigslist, downloadsquad, begining of last paragraph)
--> why would police say that? they may well have good reasons based on their experince with craigslist in such situations
and anyways, why does craigslist continue to be severely understaffed? the resources are certainly there... they have been for a long long time... so are they not enabling the horrible things that keep happening on the site by willingly handicapping their ability to adequately address such problems? ... and what of all that moral compass and philanthropic mindset they claim to have? -- what a sad joke! D.
...
Craig, of course... and journalists keep repeating that without checking with the police... as to craigslist's help in terms of providing needed info in such situation, just look at a good number of these cases -- there is usually no response from craigslist ("We tried to contact officials with Craigslist, but none of our phone calls or emails were returned"; last paragraph)
Delia
P.S. You'd think Craig should have no difficulty answering these emails since he seems to be answering any random person emailing for any reason whatsoever... (it's good he's answering them! it's definitely made him popular -- P.S. to response to Diane -- but that makes ignoring serious issues even more of problem...) D.
ERRATA! ok, ok... I tried to clarify it and ended up introducing error... sorry!: it WASN'T the police that was ignored (at least not as far as we know) but the reporters who needed more detailed information from Craig&Co... (and that's consitently the case) ; you'd think giving info needed to clarify serious issues with the site would take precendence over shooting the breeze as far as Craig's email time was concerned...
hints as far as the reaction of police to the way craigslist handles such situations are much more subtle and understandably so... e.g. "Craigslist says that its 24 staff members cannot possibly flag all objectionable ads, but that hasn't stopped law enforcement officials from accusing them of enabling prostitution".[my emphasis] (Prostitution 2.0 through craigslist, downloadsquad, begining of last paragraph)
--> why would police say that? they may well have good reasons based on their experince with craigslist in such situations
and anyways, why does craigslist continue to be severely understaffed? the resources are certainly there... they have been for a long long time... so are they not enabling the horrible things that keep happening on the site by willingly handicapping their ability to adequately address such problems? ... and what of all that moral compass and philanthropic mindset they claim to have? -- what a sad joke! D.
...
Craig, of course... and journalists keep repeating that without checking with the police... as to craigslist's help in terms of providing needed info in such situation, just look at a good number of these cases -- there is usually no response from craigslist ("We tried to contact officials with Craigslist, but none of our phone calls or emails were returned"; last paragraph)
Delia
P.S. You'd think Craig should have no difficulty answering these emails since he seems to be answering any random person emailing for any reason whatsoever... (it's good he's answering them! it's definitely made him popular -- P.S. to response to Diane -- but that makes ignoring serious issues even more of problem...) D.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
(fee increases) right! they are just not going to do it *right away* -- they'll wait a while...
craigslist, via Salem News: "the price won't be changing any time soon". [my emphasis]
(last sentence)
Delia
P.S. what was I saying? D.
(last sentence)
Delia
P.S. what was I saying? D.
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Thanks, Google! :)
MORE
(looks like they got that comment re: "craigslist criticism" on Craig's blog much higher on the list of top hits, as I think it should be.... -- it's currently lower than only two hits: my blog, and a link on The New York Time site Eileen helped with...)
Delia
P.S. and no, I haven't done anything to cause that... (aside from mentioning it on this blog)
P.P.S. looks like yahoo kept the old, flawed, order... D.
(looks like they got that comment re: "craigslist criticism" on Craig's blog much higher on the list of top hits, as I think it should be.... -- it's currently lower than only two hits: my blog, and a link on The New York Time site Eileen helped with...)
Delia
P.S. and no, I haven't done anything to cause that... (aside from mentioning it on this blog)
P.P.S. looks like yahoo kept the old, flawed, order... D.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
same old, same old...
the one good thing about this podcast is that he calls Eileen, "my girlfriend" (not "the gf") -- she deserves at least that much respect -- , otherwise... same old, same old... -- if you've been following this blog you can probably spot all the tricks by now: vagueness, ambiguity, leading into confusing traps etc.
Delia
Delia
P.S. disappointed with the Berkeley audience: a couple of decent questions but they appear to have eaten up his BS answers... (poor framing and weak follow-ups) D.
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