Craigslist? Forget it!
September 10th 2009 08:36
I had an interesting experience this last week. I'm always on the lookout for ways to 'monetize' my blogs and writing on the Net - it's what I'd be doing if I was publishing in the old hard copy magazine/newspaper world, so I can't see that it's any different. (I've got a book on my shelves with a title along the lines of how to sell more than 75% of your freelance writing , and the basic premise is that you don't spend time writing lots and lots of new material; you spend time writing something good and repackaging it for other outlets....which is basically what people who make money on the Net do all the time.)
Anyway, back to my 'interesting experience.' I'd read in an article on the Triond site about using the Craigslist forums as a place to link back to blogs and articles you already have on the Net. Well, I thought I'd give it a try. What a place!
I started a couple of brief discussions on the Religion forum relating to book reviews I'd done of Christian titles. Wham! within minutes I got email responses that were venomous and full of garbage. (I'd noticed that many of the threads on this particular part of the forum seemed to be full of foul language, but had assumed that must have been a particular thread.)
Fortunately the garbage makers burned themselves out very quickly and presumably went off somewhere else. There was a moment there when I thought I might have to apply for social security disability the heat seemed to be on so high! Fortunately, the one discussion I left on the reading section proved less stressful, but after the experience of the other site I thought, I can't be bothered with this, and have given it away. In fact, I've gone back to MyLot, where the discussions in general are a lot more reasonable, and people get black marks against them (from other users) if they use too much foul language, or if they flame people for no great reason.
I'd read up on Craigslist before I went there, and pretty much everything that the article said was true: the site looks amateurish; hasn't been updated since about 1982; is cluttered, and pretty much unmoderated.
Anyway, back to my 'interesting experience.' I'd read in an article on the Triond site about using the Craigslist forums as a place to link back to blogs and articles you already have on the Net. Well, I thought I'd give it a try. What a place!
I started a couple of brief discussions on the Religion forum relating to book reviews I'd done of Christian titles. Wham! within minutes I got email responses that were venomous and full of garbage. (I'd noticed that many of the threads on this particular part of the forum seemed to be full of foul language, but had assumed that must have been a particular thread.)
Fortunately the garbage makers burned themselves out very quickly and presumably went off somewhere else. There was a moment there when I thought I might have to apply for social security disability the heat seemed to be on so high! Fortunately, the one discussion I left on the reading section proved less stressful, but after the experience of the other site I thought, I can't be bothered with this, and have given it away. In fact, I've gone back to MyLot, where the discussions in general are a lot more reasonable, and people get black marks against them (from other users) if they use too much foul language, or if they flame people for no great reason.
I'd read up on Craigslist before I went there, and pretty much everything that the article said was true: the site looks amateurish; hasn't been updated since about 1982; is cluttered, and pretty much unmoderated.
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