Wednesday, 28th February 2007.

Paperback Bible

For those of you not familiar with Freecycle, it's a web / email-based newsgroup service that helps you get rid of unwanted junk, as well as acquire more of it. The facility is community-centred, and the idea is that you join the Freecycle group for your local area - Oxfordshire, in our case.

It works like this: unwanted articles are posted on a web board, with an optional email containing the corresponding text arriving a few moments later if you'd rather use Outlook. Almost anything can be given away, with the obvious exception of animals or anything tasteless or illegal (which would explain why I got a warning when I tried to fob off those Barbara Dickson albums). Anyone who's interested in what you're offering then contacts you, and then a pickup is organised and the item exchanges hands.

Emily and I originally joined Freecycle to get rid of the junk we had lying around the house, and while it's proved useful in that respect we do seem to have accumulated more than we've given away. Part of this is the fact that it's often more hassle to try and sell something than it is to simply give it away, and because of this you do find some good stuff on there. We've got a large selection of garden and house toys for Josh, the leather office chair where I'm sitting typing this, a rooftop TV aerial that's currently rusting in our garage and all manner of other items, the details of which escape me just now. It's also let me really get to know Oxfordshire, and the little pockets of life and village centres and awkward one-way systems, as Em and I amble over to another suburban destination for another pickup.

The official line is a first-come-first-served arrangement, but in truth it doesn't work like this - or it shouldn't, anyway. This ties in to the other half of Freecycle, which is the 'Wanted' bit: put simply, you can ask for stuff. And here's where I've seen the selfish side of Oxfordshire, because some people post Wanted request after Wanted request, and nothing much else. The rules state that your first post to Freecycle must be an offer instead of a request, but given the number of requests we get on there I'm not sure how hotly this is moderated.

It's not just the quantity - it's what they're asking for. I'm fine with requests for old clothes, for example, or unused, unwanted paint. Books are also OK - the smaller items that don't tend to sell online, and which would otherwise be doomed to the jumble sale or the charity shop run. But it's when people start asking for computers and mobile phones that I get uneasy. And when someone asked for a motocross bike a few months ago, I nearly shrieked at his audacity. "All my friends have got one," he begged, "and I really want one too. Please please please can someone give me a motocross bike?". Sure, kid, I've got one hanging around in my garage, along with the boxed Playstation 3 and the widescreen television (26-28 inches) that someone asked for last week, "because ours is broke and our daughters love there dora and peppa pig cartoons". Note: it wasn't just a TV they wanted - that I could stomach - but a 26-28 inch widescreen one.

What irks me about this is that it's not as if people are actually paying for the stuff - if it were we'd be in Exchange & Mart territory, and the system would become nearly impossible to administer in its present form. Freecycle works on the basis that what you give away is going to be actually given away. This is why, for example, there was a furore the other week when a woman visited someone who was getting rid of a box of vinyl records only to find out when she got there that he wanted money for them. They compromised with a charity donation but it generated quite a lot of bad feeling. If you start introducing money into the equation, you just end up with a second-rate Free Ads.

This is why Emily's quite selective when deciding who to give things to when she's offering. Some people have a genuine need for what's being offered, but others, we're quite sure, are just going to sell it on Ebay. You can spot this sort - they're often the first to reply. Many of them do not, I suspect, have jobs, and instead linger around a PC all day, refreshing the board every thirty seconds, and making a living by snapping up everything they think is worth a few quid before flogging it. Choosing the people you think have genuine needs for your unwanted clutter involves a little detective work (i.e. seeing if they've made any 'Wanted' posts recently) and, of course, a large number of value judgements. But if there's one area in which I can trust my wife (actually there are lots, but let's concentrate on this one for the moment), it's that nine times out of ten she'll be right on a hunch. Yesterday saw the birth of another discussion, after the following post:

I KNOW THIS IS A LONG SHOT BUT I HAVE RECENTLY ASKED MY GIRLFRIEND TO MARRY ME
AND I HAVE GONE A LOST THE RING IF ANY ONE HAS ANY ENGAGEMENT TYE RINGS
THEY DONT MIND PARTING WITH AS IM A STUDENT AND I CANT AFFORD TO GET ANOTHER
ONE AS THE ONE I LOST CLEANED ME OUT SO IF ANY ONE CAN HELP ME

Let's try and ignore the appalling spelling and grammar and the fact that he's shouting, and look at the actual content. An engagement ring is such a personal thing that I can't understand why anyone would want to give their other half a second hand ring that they'd been given free, however hard up they were. But then someone pointed out that there was a history with this chap, and we had a look at his other posts. Let's start with this one, from 20th February. I've left in the typos, but I dropped it into sentence case to make it easier to read:

WANTED MOTORBIKE / SCOOTER

I have recently had to bin my GS125 because it failed the mot and is un economical to repair if any one has an old bike they dont use or dont
have time to fix I would be most greatful rob

Just a few minutes later, he posted this:

WANTED SLR CAMERA

Hi I am in my 2nd year of uni and I managed to drop my slr when photogtraphing for my end of year project and have smached the ense and
prysm and being a studentIi am on a very tight budget they say bad things come in three's .I broke my laptop recently also.
If any one has either they dont use any more or would like to get rid I will be most greatful
regards
rob

And later still...

WANTED ANY P A EQUIPP FOR BAND

My band and I are trying to land gigs however we dont have even semi professional amps or eq's so if any one has any going for an up and
coming rock group please please please drop me a line
regards
rob

Right.so, in the space of a couple of weeks, this bloke

- broke his laptop
- dropped his SLR, smashing the lens and prism
- saw his bike fail its MOT, thus requiring a new one
- lost an engagement ring

According to an old email that we no longer have, he also left his guitar on a train - an act of carelessness which makes me question his ability to lead a band. We're either talking about the unluckiest student in the world here, or there's something shifty going on. If I sound self-righteous about this, it's because Freecycle serves a genuine purpose - primarily that of reducing landfill - and when it works it's great. Any system run by human beings is always going to have its fair share of problems, but it irritates me that some people think this is acceptable behaviour. Hovering like vultures and picking at the hoards is annoying but bearable - making up sob stories to get what you want is quite a lot worse. I'd hope that the rest of the Oxfordshire Freecycle community would be sensible enough to spot this and see through the patterns...but judging by the standard of a lot of the other emails we get from the group - not merely in terms of S.P.G. but also the general content - I'm starting to think that I live in a county full of morons...