Talk:Craigslist/Archive 1

Archive 1

Ownership

Who own's Craiglist? Craig? The article doesn't say. Sylvain1972 20:23, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

craigslist or Craigslist? (naming)

Is it craigslist or Craigslist? The article has multiple uses of each, which is correct? I'll go ahead and change everything to uppercase. If this is incorrect then please add the article to Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions) by using the boilerplate Template:Wrongtitle. See Special:Whatlinkshere/Template:Wrongtitle for more examples of articles with lowercase titles and how they are dealt with. Cacophony 22:52, Nov 21, 2004 (UTC)

After browsing the pages at craigslist.org/about/, it appears that the site is consistently called craigslist but the new non-profit is called Craigslist Foundation. I'm going to change it back to craigslist here, and add the wrongtitle template. I know that some people have a big problem with starting sentences with a lowercase letter; I think that in the case of nouns which are explicitly lowercase it is acceptable. I also think it would also be reasonable to capitalize the word at the beginning of sentences, to be syntactically correct English, but I think the word should remain lowercase at the beginning of the first sentence at the least.

Other articles I've edited with the exact same issue include del.icio.us, qmail, and djbdns. ~leif ☺ _HELO 00:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The "wrong title" template should be removed. Grammatically, even something that is not normally capitalized is capitalized when it begins a sentence, paragraph or article. Thus, "craigslist" should be rendered "Craigslist" at the top of the article and whenever it begins a sentence.

Agreed. I have capitalized instances at the beginning of sentences. It's a basic rule of written English: all sentences must begin with a capital letter. Nohat 06:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

Per the newly-agreed guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks), I have capitalized all instances of Craigslist. Nohat 09:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Status of organization running craigslist

The article is rather confusing and unclear. It talks about being incorporated and eBay buying a stake, but also discusses Craigslist Foundation as a non-profit. Does this foundation really have anything to do with craigslist, other than having some of the same people involved? Its website discusses helping "emerging nonprofit organizations" pretty generically, and doesn't indicate that the foundation actually helps fund or operate craigslist itself. However, someone could certainly walk away with that impression from this article. --Michael Snow 01:49, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

dead lnks

I've removed the former links 8 & 9, to stories of the controversy with Live 8. They seem to be dead. DGG 06:35, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

List of cities section in article

Does the section List of cities serve any purpose? An up-to-date version is always available at the official web site. Besides, this seems to be contrary to WP:NOT#Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. I propose the section be removed, and information about the first ten cities be rolled into the background and/or significant events sections. — EncMstr 02:27, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

As no one objected, I've made the section significantly more maintainable and useful. — EncMstr 10:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I think that is a good idea. It was a good idea when there were fewer cities, but now it is quite unnecessary to duplicate that information here, and that kind of list is hard to maintain. -- Renesis (talk) 14:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I edited the area about cities included. The first 14 seemed more interesting than 10. The list on CL is not up to date and is out of sync with another list somewhere on the site. Also they are not always "cities": 20% are countries, regions or towns. I'm adding a link to a google map of Craigslist cities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.143.87 (talk) 05:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

proper etiquette

I'd like to edit this page, and "Craig Newmark", for accuracy, and maybe the addition of other good external links. I've been asking in a few places as to the proper etiquette, and do appreciate feedback. thanks!

Craig (craig@craigslist.org)Cnewmark 21:38, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

See WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:COI. In similar cases, it has been vehemently agreed best practice is that you don't directly edit either article. You're most welcome, however, to suggest changes on the corresponding talk pages and see what the community thinks. In your case, I'd be happy to incorporate any changes for which I can find a reliable published source, or remove material for which I can't find something you point out is in error. —EncMstr 04:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

It's a guideline, rather than a hard rule, not to edit your own articles, but this is primarily because people find it hard to be neutral when self-editing and when debating the merits of an article on the talk page. The guideline means that any edits you make may be viewed more skeptically than if they had been made by someone else. That said, if you do choose to edit your own articles, if you just stick to the facts (i.e., "Craigslist is headquartered in San Francisco") you should be OK.

Alternately, suggest edits on the talk page for the articles, and there's a very good chance someone else will consider them and make the changes. --Zippy 17:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Article errors

maybe some corrections:

• "Craig solicted business cards from everyone he would meet." is not true
• "The initial technology used did not work very well so Craig suspended postings while looking for better technology." also not true, it's just that the Pine cc field filled up
• before the SPARC, Paul Risenhoover contributed server space on a Linux system
• I created the user interface myself, though a volunteer, Weezy Muth, made significant contributions
• in late 1999, Craig rewrote the software, using Perl and MySQL running in an Apache and Linux environment
• "So Craig looked around for people who could help him run the business aspects of Craigslist. This resulted in Craig hiring a business advisor and a business manager."not true
• "it will ban users who are critical of the owners" is false

... more to come, thanks!... Cnewmark 21:31, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

I removed the items for which googling didn't turn up any claim the other way:

• removed: Craig solicted business cards from everyone he would meet.
• removed: The initial technology used did not work very well so Craig suspended postings while looking for better technology.
• removed: So Craig looked around for people who could help him run the business aspects of Craigslist. This resulted in Craig hiring a business advisor and a business manager.
• removed: it will ban users who are critical of the owners

I goggled for ten to fifteen minutes on each of these items, but couldn't find any useful sources:

• Pine cc field filled up
• I created the user interface myself, though a volunteer, Weezy Muth, made significant contributions
• in late 1999, Craig rewrote the software, using Perl and MySQL running in an Apache and Linux environment

If you can provide a link to a reliable source asserting each of these, I'd be happy to add them.

Wasn't sure if this was a complete fact, so didn't check it:

• before the SPARC, Paul Risenhoover contributed server space on a Linux system

—EncMstr 03:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Um, regarding the last six items, I'm the guy behind all this, and am confused as to the current results. If it's a matter of authentication, how do I fix that? If it's expeditious, I can get help from Jimmy. thanks! Craig craig@craigslist.org Cnewmark 03:58, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

All you have to do is dig up a URL containing credible assertion of each item.

The Pine cc field filled up assertion, unless it was publicized somehow, seems the hardest of these. User:Jimbo Wales won't be of much use, at least not more than any other editor who can find reliable published facts. I'm usually pretty good at steering Google, but was confounded by some of these.

The basic principles of Wikipedia—which may be confusing to newcomers—is articles may contain only verifiable content. Just because it is "true" does not mean it can be included. We expect and hope the verifiable subset of facts is an agreeable truth. —EncMstr 04:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, my blog is listed as the founder's blog, authenticated, so should I just assert the facts there?

not complaining, just figuring it out. thanks!

Craig

Cnewmark 11:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Each external link may serve a different purpose. Often they are just for further subject exploration, as yours is. Other links could be for competitors, commentators, news, popular media—or cultural—uses of the article subject, etc. For examples, see Geneva#External links, Drywall#External links, Enron#External links and Holocaust denial#External links.

Blogs are poor reliable sources as no one checks their content before publishing, typically. In this (wikipedia) article, your blog is listed as an official site, meaning that it should be treated as biased toward the article subject. For a relatively uncontroversial subject such as Craigslist, there isn't likely to be "other points of view" URLs. For comparison, look at a hotly contested article like AIDS reappraisal: the external links are grouped by side. Also the edit history and talk pages are boisterous, to say the least.

If there were a published investigative article by Carl Bernstein called Craigslist Undermines the Fabric of the Universe (for example), it should—and probably would—be among the other links. More likely, the assertions would be in a controversy section of the article with Bernstein cited.

Did I elucidate or obfuscate? —EncMstr 17:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

thanks! appreciated... but how do I solve this?

fyi... this will probably get into the news, some interest today at big media event. this is a real interesting problem.

Cnewmark 01:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

(I've asked for volunteers to chime in here.) —EncMstr 08:07, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

EncMstr said:

>>:I goggled for ten to fifteen minutes on each of these items, but couldn't find any useful sources:

• Pine cc field filled up
• I created the user interface myself, though a volunteer, Weezy Muth, made significant contributions
• in late 1999, Craig rewrote the software, using Perl and MySQL running in an Apache and Linux environment

If you can provide a link to a reliable source asserting each of these, I'd be happy to add them.<<

THIS VERY PAGE is the reference for those items, EncMstr ^__^

——Lumarine

Lumarine, thanks! That's what I'd think. I'm not pushing on this, it's a big issue for everyone.Cnewmark 17:13, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm jumping into this conversation a little late but...Actually, (referring to the last two posts), Wikipedia cannot be a reference for itself and so these still need verifiable reliable sources. So we're back to square one. If any of the unreferenced statements above have been mentioned in the press somewhere, then all we need to do is link to it and we're done. I'm thinking that since Craig has probably done countless interviews about his company, he must have mentioned the above facts somewhere other than on this page? Katr67 18:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't Craig issue a press release stating these facts somewhere on craigslist.org? Would that be sufficient for facts if we were referring to them in regards to the company. Basically an official statement by the company. Strawberry Island 23:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Links to Cl foundation

Why are those considered "linkspam"? --Rocksanddirt 19:10, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok not "linkspam" in the strictest of definitions, but the CL foundation has its external link in the external links already. Its completely redundant to have it in the article proper. Carl.bunderson 19:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Adding them to the article proper feels more like it is trying to promote them in a commercial way, so I tend to remove external links when they are in the article rather than relegated to the external links section where they belong. Carl.bunderson 19:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Ok, that seems fine to me. --Rocksanddirt 19:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism might be true....

This bit of vandalism might actually be true (based on my cl experiences) though would need some sort of reference.... --Rocksanddirt 15:39, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure its true, but yeah, needs a source so until then its vandalism. Carl.bunderson 17:19, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Why is Craig's List Popular?

1990's technology skyrocketing to 2010. That's what the site looks like to me. It's difficult to navigate, the forms are poorley laid out and very clunky. Maybe we should all go back to writing CGI scripts. In 12 years of net searches I've never turned up a single link to Craig's List. Odd for such a popular site, don't you think? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.147.71.211 (talk)

it's due to the lack of advertising, nearly completely. In my opionion. And lots of more modern web sites could do a lot better by cutting back on the fancy graphics, and keeping it simple. The forums are the best thing I've seen anywhere. you can easily follow the threads, and keep the post you are looking at in context of the whole discussion. --Rocksanddirt 18:48, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Finnancial Information

The finnancial information (especially the ownership stuff) needs references! It's not negative, or defamatory, so I didn't remove it, but it comes close to crossing the line of WP:BLP in terms of unsourced hearsay on living people. --Rocksanddirt 15:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

The ownership and revenues on Craigslist have been subject to intense scrutiny and analysis, and are certainly a subject of public interest. Much of it is speculation, hearsay, estimates, or analysis at some level because like nearly every public company they do not announce these figures. When a company turns an industry upside down as this one has with classified ads, everyone is rightfully interested to know what is going on. That is information about a company's operations, not biographical information about its founders, so BLP does not apply. A whole realm of journalism and financial analysis is devoted to discerning non-public information about private companies. In the case of Craigslist, numbers vary widely as it is widely suspected that the company's public comments understate its revenues. I have provided some references. As you an see, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and CNN get in the act. Wikidemo 21:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

as it is a private company and the first stab included listing the names of some of the people supposed to be owners....it gets close to the line. I agree that it's a valid topic for the article, we just need sources is my point. --Rocksanddirt 21:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of a section

I don't believe Craigslist would want to advertise that a bunch of their userbase got pranked, and the links seem to check out. Plus, the guy said he got interviewed by the New York Times, so we'll have to see how that turns out. I don't want some lame-@## edit war to start, so I thought it'd be good to bring it up in the talk page first.--198.82.92.132 17:49, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

• This isn't a hoax, I know that for sure, because I know about it second-hand. There's sources out there, I think I have them somewhere. WIll be back soon. 66.231.130.102 17:59, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
• Don't you know? You're not allowed to mention Encyclopedia Dramatica on Wikipedia. It has several embarrassing pictures of Wikipedia admins <removed link to attack site> and as retribution, they won't let the article exist without meeting higher standards than John Seigenthaler's page. Even mentions of it in other pages aren't permitted, it goes against the Wikipedia hive-mind. Until this latest notable piece of internet drama turns up on the front page of the New York Times and the Washington Post (because anything on the internet is obviously "not verifiable", it has to be in a print newspaper or it's not good enough), Encyclopedia Dramatica is going to get the wilfully-ignorant "not notable" from the people who hate it. 195.173.23.111 08:22, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
• Something tells me Wikipedia would relish the note, given all the negative publicity. Also, added the specific Washington statute Fortuny willingly violated. Of note: the NYT article is reportedly coming tomorrow as per waxy.org's investigation. This definitely deserves to stay in the CL section, as it is a clear compromising of an entire section of their system, with or without direct links to ED.
  • Your legal interpretation is not really enough. Let any legal goings-on work their way out first. 66.231.130.102 10:34, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

ED certainly is notable enough to be mentioned. See this MSNBC video, which was originally from CNN. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Loopscaler (talk • contribs) 10:00, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Some mention of this...

eBay, it seems, is trying to compete with Craigslist with their own Kijiji service. It offers exactly the same layout and operation etc... This is odd because eBay owns a stake in Craigslist. Should there be some mention of this in the article?

198.146.33.10 15:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

why remove erotic services?

reverting the edit where someone removed "erotic services" on the list of ads that craigslist supplies until someone can give me a good reason not to have it. i'd say this is one of the more well known and infamous things that craigslist provides. 23:59, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Craigslist has been offline all day today (Feb. 11, 2006)

Is there a reason why????.

Answer: Yes, there were major power outages in San Fran.

00:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Ads beamed into space?

In July 2005, Craigslist beamed over 2 million classified ads into deep space (one light year) in the near future, Er, so were the messages beamed in July 2005 or not? Perhaps July 2005 is just when Craiglist won the rights, or announced their intentions to beam ads into space. This should be clarified, and if they didn't beam them into space until later, that date should be given. 00:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Be Careful

PETA is protesting Craiglist after an known animal abuser obtained a victim who was "Free to a Good Home", you better a careful eye on this article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hailey C. Shannon (talk • contribs) 19:03, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Significant events, controversies, criticism - propose to move some content to a new article

We just got a clean-up tag on this article from someone who considers this section unencyclopedic. Although I think "trivia" is a misnomer, this suffers from a similar problem as trivia so I won't remove the tag. It's a random assortment of events that are added as bullet points, without context, and that don't add to the understanding of Craigslist.

The main problem is the addition of crimes, scams, frauds, etc., in the list of significant events. I had divided a single "controversies" section into these three because a crime/misdeed committed involving Craigslist is not a controversy. A controversy about ab usienss is a dispute among people over something that casts a negative light on the business. There does not seem to be any dispute or disagreement over these events or their relation to Craigslist, and there is nothing in most of them to suggest that Craigslist had anything to do with them. They are simply events, not controversies.

I think most of these are not relevant events. Crime and business fraud are endemic to our entire society. Some people think that it's more prevalent on Craigslist, but others disagree. The fact that a crime is committed, and Craigslist is somehow an element in the crime, does not without more shed any light on Craigslist. It is clear that much of the reporting of Craigslist-related crimes is simple headline-promotion on the part of the media, which years ago when the Internet was new latched onto the public's unease about the Internet by sensationalizing every crime where the Internet was involved. Might as well report every incident of a screwdriver being involved in a crime, in an article about screwdrivers. If there is a reliable source that cites a statement that Craigslist fosters crime, now that is a controversy and deserves mention in the controversies section. Likewise, if there is a notable accusation (e.g. by PETA) that Craigslist is behaving improperly, then depending on how that plays out that may be an incident or a controversy. But simply pointing out that something happened, and Craigslist is mentioned, is not even news, much less encyclopedic.

Given all that, I am proposing to excise all of the historical incidents, controversies, and criticisms, that do not establish relevance to the subject of the article. Rather than deleting them, I will create a new list article, "Things that happened on Craigslist" (or some better title if I can think of one), with some reasonable standards for inclusion. People can then add crime reports on that article to their heart's content, although I don't plan on monitoring that article for quality. That gives everybody what they want. The Craigslist article stays clean and focused, and those who want a list of interesting things that happened on Craigslist will have a more welcoming place to put their info. If there's no great opposition I'll probably do this in a few days.Wikidemo 20:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

I think you make a great case for simply deleting the items—not creating a new article to contain them. It might be better to rework any good cites from those into a sentence or paragraph which says something to the effect of "craigslist is so popular, it now rivals newspaper classified ads for solicitation, and postal mail and telephone systems for furtherance of illegal activities." —EncMstr 21:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Wikidemo's idea seems fine, though like encmstr, I'm fine with deleting all the irrelevant stuff. --Rocksanddirt 21:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks. The only reason I suggest keeping the material in the form of a new article is to avoid objections. If you simply delete, someone may revert, or else the material creeps back in over time. If you have a separate list article it takes the pressure off because you can just tell people to go there. The list may end up getting deleted under AFD anyway, but at least nobody can say it was unfair. Another halfway solution is to create a "dead pile" on the talk pages for removed material, telling people to keep it there until and unless they can source it and demonstrate its relevance to the article. I have no strong opinion either way. I guess I'll wait a few days. If nobody objects we can just delete and point to this discussion as a consensus. If there is some objection or concern, or preference for a list, we can create a list article and let whoever likes that material take care of the list. Wikidemo 22:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this idea is, if a certain fact isn't notable or encyclopaedic as part of the Craigslist article, spinning it off into its own article won't do anything to make it notable. I think we'd be better off if these minor stories were simply deleted rather than given their own article. However, if you disagree, feel free to create the list and see what happens - maybe an encyclopaedic list can be created of such events after all. (If not, AFD will handle it.) Terraxos 21:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

It might make some sense as a "List of things that happened on Craigslist." That's probably a notable subject, even though I'm not terribly interested or excited by it. Some people seem to be, and some newspapers as well. But I guess there's no policy on Wikipedia that you have to create an article for every notable subject under the sun, just one that you shouldn't delete them. I'm just not sure. I did think the "unencyclopedic events" header was pretty funny. Wikidemo 19:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I was surprized how long it lasted...as a clearly pov statement. I still might just delete it all. As news items they are not very encyclopedic, a whole list of them from cl would only be slightly more encyclopedic. --Rocksanddirt 21:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I won't stop you. But some people do think "what happens on craigslist" (or eBay, or facebook, etc) is a notable subject in itself. Hence the film, 24 hours on Craigslist. But anyway, it's fine by me to delete. If you do that we should leave some record (perhaps a visible notice or a comment on the article page) to please not list crimes or other news events unless there's actually some intersection between them and the article that sheds some light on its subject. I think a threshold is that there should be a reliable source not just that the event happened on Craigslist but that it sheds some light on the subject. If a user extrapolates to say that the event is "notable" or "significant", a "controversy" or a "criticism", that determination is a bit of original reasoning not supported by the source.Wikidemo 22:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Having awesomely prevailed in spearheading the deletion of all pages related to the "Craigslist murder" when that debacle occurred, I will bring a few words of advice in determining notability. It is not necessary to debate the notability of events themselves but their relation to the article topic itself. Consider that controversy and criticism is apparent in everything, in all matters and topics because people disagree. But does this criticism actually affect the subject? Has Craigslist done anything about child prostitution or unsuspecting murderers? And even if it has, has it fundamentally changed Craigslist in any way that is any different from our understanding of Craigslist before the year 2007? That is why Wikipedia avoids Trivia sections because otherwise the encyclopedia would become an assemblage of trivial facts which bear no true consequence on each other. Terrible events can occur anywhere, anytime, any place, crime is blind to who or what and such heinous acts do not always bolster the fame of any given topic. .:DavuMaya:. 21:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Screenshot is cropped

The screenshot is cropped, and filters out services, including controversial "erotic services" implicated in child prostitution rings around the country. Could sombody capture a full screen shot instead of the current cropped screenshot? Ra2007 (talk) 18:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Schaffer the Darklord

Should we mention the song "Craig's List" by nerdcore rapper Schaffer the Darklord? Brand Eks (talk) 19:52, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't, for fear it will encourage a trivia section. Carl.bunderson (talk) 20:42, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking just adding a bullet point to the significant events section. After all, how many websites (and their owners) have songs about them? Brand Eks (talk) 18:14, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree it's cool, but is a bit to much like trivia. (IMO) --Rocksanddirt (talk) 21:56, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Using http://www.searchtheentirecraigslist.com turns up some very funny & weird ads.Try it,you'll see —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.233.149.193 (talk) 09:10, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

FBI: Craigslist Used In Murder-For-Hire Case

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22860988/ Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 14:55, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

interesting. Not relevant to the article I think, excpet possibly to point out Buckmaster's comment regarding users being the ones to report her. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 17:06, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't be averse to including it in the article. Seems interesting enough, and as long as the article is on the MSNBC site, I'd say it's notable. Carl.bunderson (talk) 04:23, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Job scams

Such a significant portion of Jobs listed on Craigslist here (Indianapolis, IN, US) are hoaxes or scams that I feel this phenomenon deserves mention in the article. Well over half of the ads are obvious scams, pyramid schemes, etc. The percent is even higher under Services. These two categories are essentially made not useful, in this city, due to the crud that is posted. Craigslist's allowance for changing font colors in job postings enables posters to embed random words and passages inside the post as lightyellow, I don't know what purpose this servers, maybe it bypasses a filter somehow.

Apartment rental listings are also made less than useful by the massive overposting. Today on 3/21/08, going into the weekend, there's about 100 rentals posted, and most have the same format in the title. These posts have an ID number embedded in the post, as in, the ID of the poster.

Take away Apartments, Jobs, and Services, and Craigslist here (ymmv) is severly limited in its reach. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.2.33.113 (talk) 19:12, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

While I don't disagree that some things are a problem, the encyclopedia article needs references to reliable sources. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Link demonstrating job scams: http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/search/jjj?addFour=part-time —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.136.15.34 (talk) 22:56, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

a link to a cl page with listings is not a reliable third party source discussing the prevelance of scam employment ads. I don't disagree that it's a problem at cl, but an encyclopedia needs references. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 00:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Craiglist Improperly Blocks Some Job Postings as Scams

There is more to this issue than just the scam postings. In an effort to control this problem, Craigslist has implemented some word restrictions that block ads from appearing on the site. Unfortunately this was done with insufficient process design, overview and management. This has resulted in Craigslist improperly restricting legitimate ads without providing posted help information, notification to the author, or any form of review and correction process.

Scope of the Issue: Blocked Ads are accepted and confirmed by Craigslist. They appear as current ads in an account list. Unlike flagging, these ads are actually blocked and simply never appear in the index. No information or notice is given to the author of the ad about the block.

If I had to guess, Craigslist just dumps these ads into a giant bit-bucket because someone had the idea that the ads would be reviewed by the handful of staff but the job was immense and now these ads land in an abyss (I admit no reliable sources for this assumption).

Ironic Ramifications: Legitimate jobs from non-profit organiztions are being blocked because the term Membership Recruitment is a resticted job posting. Members are to non-profit organizations as shareholders are to for-profit companies. And recruiting members is a very legitimate and necessary job function for non-profits. If non-profits are not supposed to recruit members to help with their mission, why should they even exist?

The irony of this discriminatory practice (some would use the word censorship) is that Craigslist promotes itself as being a strong proponent of non-profits and certainly touts its allowance for free speech. A reliable source for this issue is found at http://www.pressrelease365.com/pr/industry/non-profit/craigslist-org-non-profit-job-postings-2603.htm.

The issue is currently seen as being trivial to some, but this is likely because the group it most affects are often under-funded volunteer-based organizations that have few, if any, resources to combat the issue. Additional sources of affected organizations or the issue being raised by traditional media may alter that perspective.

MrISDN 17:20, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

...and some would call it something other than censorship. All user-submitted content sites employ some methodology to screen out improper submissions. All screening methods have false negatives and false positives, and some screening is better than others. Nothing remarkable about that. The nonprofits whose ads are rejected can simply resubmit without the wording that triggered the rejection or, if necessary, contact the company to ask it for advice. That kind of thing might belong in an article about user-submitted content and content screening, but as a feature common to all sites it's not really relevant here unless it were to rise to the level of being a major, defining incident in the history of the Craigslist.Wikidemo (talk) 17:37, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

...I do not disagree that the issue must rise to an adequate level of importance. Maybe a more likely issue of importance will be Craigslist's growth in reach without the appropriate human resources and the effect the lack of resources will ultimately have on the company, its mission and financials - especially given its legal fight with eBay. While it may only be considered a symptom of a bigger problem, one would expect the company founders to be considerably more sensitive to this issue than others. Also, your assumptions about rewording and resubmission are inaccurate because (1) there really is no other term that accurately reflects the job responsibilities of membership recruitment; (2) the cited source has had all their job postings blocked - apparently for repeated attempts due to the lack of ANY help information on the site about unappearing active postings - even after altering the ad content to avoid those terms; and (3) Craigslist has to date failed to respond to all requests for information, clarification and assistance. MrISDN 18:15, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

The Wikipedia article says it has a staff of 25, which is tiny in proportion to its prominence and site traffic - that's less than one per city. There is probably something in the business model or implementation that keeps management very thin, limits customer service, and automates lots of tasks. That's a big contrast with many dot com companies that use outside investment (Craigslist apparently has none) to hire lots of people to grow and attract new users, to the point where they're cash negative but hoping to expand. A single experience might be useful to illustrate it, but there's a bit of speculation in there and it's a press release. I wonder if anyone has written a more detailed article about this. Wikidemo (talk) 18:21, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

I would like to add warnings about renting. I just put up a post to rent out my apartment and I got contacted by 6 different fake people posing as people coming in from different countries wanting to pay me in full in advance for what they owe. They will ask detailed questions about the apartment and explain information about themselves-sometimes even what company they will be working for. After several emails back and fourth a third party is mentioned that is their american contact or financial advisior or travel agent. Somehow they end up sending you a check for more than they owe you and ask you to give the rest of the money to this contact. I assume that the check then bouces after the money is given to a third party. I think people should be warned of these emails. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ziggylion (talk • contribs) 17:40, 11 November 2008 (UTC)

random poor behavior

I removed a section on some hoax stuff. There needs to be reliable sources for that kind of thing. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 03:53, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

It also was in the wrong section, which is about craigslist itself and not things that happen in the wider world that happen to involve craigslist. Overall, the consensus here seems to be that we don't want to make a list, in this article at least, of everything that happens on craigslist. Wikidemo (talk) 14:14, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Murders are trivial???

I don't think the murder of someone using the subject of an article is unnotable, especially when it is not an intrinsic part of that subject. If we were talking about the Smith & Wesson .357 magnum, then it would be unmanageable to list all the murders. But last time I checked, Craigslist's primary goal wasn't illicit activity. Beyond that, in one instance (Michael John Anderson) the murder itself has been referred to since by the media in general as "The Craigslist Murder." That would seem to pretty much make it a given to be included. 24.24.211.239 (talk) 21:32, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

ABC News Article entitled "Teen Charged in Craigslist Killing" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.24.211.239 (talk) 21:35, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

If a phone were used to arrange a murder, should that then go in the telephone article? —EncMstr (talk) 00:46, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

The press has a fascination with the morbid dangers of technology. No doubt the first few murders that involved the telephone drew lots of news stories heralding the "telephone murders." Fortunately we are not the press. Wikidemo (talk) 00:51, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Flagging problem

I think Craigslist article needs a criticism section on what appears to be a rampant problem with flagging, which is sabotaging the utility of the site. Some basic research on the web has turned up descriptions such as this:

It is almost impossible to keep even the most innocent and non-commercial post online for more than a few hours before it is flagged off Craigslist. The sheer speed with which posts get flagged strongly suggests that some people are using automated flagging software.

There also appears seems to be some evidence that people are doing this to wipe competing ads from rotation. I think it may be worthwhile to try to find appropriate sources and work this into the article. -Rolypolyman (talk) 18:35, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

if you can find reliable sources that discuss the issue then the issues around flagging should be added in as a section. I don't like criticism sections on the whole, but a section discussing user problems would be a good idea. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 23:29, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Addition to section Controversies and illegal activities by users

A brazen crook apparently used a Craigslist ad to hire a dozen unsuspecting decoys to help him make his getaway following a robbery outside a bank. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.80.134.168 (talk) 12:29, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Link?

I may be an idiot, but there's no link to the site in question on the page... 193.13.139.29 (talk) 11:47, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Maybe it was added after your post, but it's available both in the infobox at the top right of the page and at Craigslist#Official_sites. Шизомби (talk) 19:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Craigslist_controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users AfD

The section Craigslist#Controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users was moved to Craigslist_controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users and is now in AfD Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Craigslist_controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users, should people care to contribute to the discussion. Should it be kept, it does need to be summarized in some way in this article rather than merely linked. Шизомби (talk) 19:21, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

The result of the AfD was keep. However, I would tend to favor remerging the material back into this article from where it was removed. Шизомби (talk) 19:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Merger proposal

Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users had been a subsection of this article, but was made into a new article, the timing of it apparently relating to the creation of and AfD of List of Craigslist killers and Internet homicide and perhaps some other related articles. Initially a subheader was left with a wikilink to the other article the only content below it; since, that has been changed to the article being listed as a "see also." I am uncertain of the reason for the creation of the new article. In the AfD Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users, a number of editors favored returning the material here to Craigslist, though some favored keeping it, and there was a little support for deleting it entirely. The closing admin noted that the merge proposal should take place at the talk page, so here it is. Шизомби (talk) 04:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Please don't merge. What users happen to do in, around, or with Craigslist is not a strong nexus with Craigslist as a service / company. Controversies and illegal activities by users of X, where X is a random website, business, medium of communication, classified ad site, is simply not an encyclopedic way to treat an article about X. Although there is some tabloid-ish coverage of this, it echoes technology phobias of the past. There used to be lots of stories about crimes over "the Internet", or AOL, or match.com, etc. It does make some sense as its own article, because the media frenzy / pop cultural phenomenon of heightened concern over a particular service is notable in itself. Even accepting that it is a notable subject in its own right (per the lack of consensus to delete), adding it here would be mixing apples and oranges, would make this article too long, and would require either severely pruning the extent of coverage or creating a WP:WEIGHT problem by implying that the illegal activities are a major part of what Craigslist is all about. Wikidemon (talk) 07:34 5 May 2009 (UTC)

• • • DO NOT ad it to the usual entry. The entry on beef should not diverge to recipes for hamburger patties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.208.63.253 (talk) 11:59, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It should absolutely be added into the section, because it is a Craigslist page. Wikipedia does not separate the good from the bad on any other business or service it has information on, from what I have seen. Information is information and it should be organized in a way that all of it is visible without hunting for the more controversial sections. If the two were to stay separated then there should be a page for praises and commendations. It only makes sense to combine the sections so all the pertinent information is easy accessible, do not hide the bad because some people are irresponsible and cannot use craigslist without sinister motives. Chris May 20, 2009

• Oppose merging as the content from Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users will unbalance this article, per WP:UNDUEWEIGHT and User:Wikidemon. The controversies article is a minority viewpoint and per the policy should not be in this article. Content about how a few people misuse a service, or about the real dangers of meeting via any online service, would unfairly unbalance people toward the minority view that Craigslist is nothing but a hunting ground for a bunch of perverts rather than a tremendously successful and useful classified advertising online service for housing, jobs, and for sale classifications. There is sufficient criticism (which needs to be rewritten as prose, rather than as a list of events) in the article. — Becksguy (talk) 21:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Since there has been very little discussion on this since May and consensus seems to point to keeping them separate, I've removed the merge tag. <>Multi-Xfer<> (talk) 07:36, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

This should be revisited The Craigslist article is not balanced. The fact that Craigslist is basically un-moderated has enabled people to take advantage of other users and has had dire consequences. The confusion and unspecified nature of Craigslist rules such as the avoidance of disallowing prostitution but prohibition on selling pets is an important point. The Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users article is probably appropriate posted separately since it is so BIG but some of the content should be added back to the main article. If some other website got as many people killed (Ebay for instance) there would be great public outcry. It is not balanced to treat Craigslist differently. I disagree that it is technological phobia or media hype. Craigslist is basically the wild west. You can do what ever you want until someone else shoots you down. So being community moderated (which is a strength) makes it susceptible to a few people making the experience bad for other users(which is its weakness). Are there not some references on this?Gsonwiki (talk) 04:20, 25 March 2010 (UTC)

Flakes and Pic Collectors

It is well known that Craigslist is rampant with "flakes" (fake people). Pic collectors are also well known. This is the negativity that comes with the territory. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.191.44.208 (talk) 12:30, 26 May 2009 UTC

source?--Auntieruth55 (talk) 19:27, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

This is pretty much common sense. There's ALWAYS going to be flakes and pic collectors all over the Net. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.172.130.146 (talk) 06:54, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

Craigslist should be capitalized in this article

Wikipedia is not bound by Craigslist's trademark usage rules. Our capitalization in this article is governed by the Wikipedia Manual of Style. The Manual of Style offers the web site Craigslist as one of the specific examples of trademarks that should be rendered using standard capitalization regardless of the trademark owner's own formatting:

Trademarks rendered without any capitals are always capitalized:

• avoid: thirtysomething is a television show that may have been sponsored by adidas, but not by craigslist, because the show was over before craigslist existed.
• instead, use: Thirtysomething is a television show that may have been sponsored by Adidas, but not by Craigslist, because the show was over before Craigslist existed.

I appreciate that you may disagree with the Manual of Style. If you believe there is a compelling reason we should sacrifice legibility and professionalism to more closely imitate the nonstandard capitalization used by trademark owners, please discuss the issue on the talk page for this section of the Manual of Style. This article is the flagship example of when not to use initial lowercase letters for proper nouns. There is no place in Wikipedia where our decision is clearer and easier: we render the name as "Craigslist". —BurnDownBabylon 00:25, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

More controversy

A women from the philadelphia area offered to do anything for Phillies World Series 2009 tickets (sex intended). This has been all over local news and even around the country. She was reported by a bensalem atea police and was not inprisioned becuase of how she worded her statement. She eventually received both tickets and a new car from a car dealer with no strings attacted.--Cooly123 17:23, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

If she had taken out a newspaper article, or produced and air television commercials to the same effect, should this be noted in newspaper or television? Craigslist is effectively a common carrier, so the messages it carries are not notable with respect to Craigslist, though some might be noteworthy in other respects—on other articles. —EncMstr (talk) 19:12, 30 October 2009 (UTC)

Criticism?

There is an uncited bulletpoint under Criticisms that appears to be a personal inconvinence rather than a true criticism. Since I have just started and do not know the system as well. I bring this forward for discussion.

Example:

• Certain areas that have gained their own city status, such as Long Island, NY- have an overlap of boards, as their original board (under NYC craiglist) was never removed. This leads to some users having to filter through two boards of different ads that cover the exact same geographic space. 161.225.129.111 (talk) 19:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Hi! and Welcome! generally something like the observed bullet can be removed without much question. If there is a reference to the observation, then it should not be removed, but discussed here to see if as a group editors think it should be in or out. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:04, 16 December 2009 (UTC)

Craigslist 'flag help forum' troll abusive behavior question

I recently used the craigslist 'flag help forum' for the first time; very quickly I was swarmed and attacked by some very hostile persons (trolls) who posted insults and abuse. I was completely surprised that such behavior could come out of the craigslist organization. I did some research and found out that such activity has been allowed to happen for at least two years.

I have two questions; and being 'new' I hope these are appropriate and that you might be able to provide some information.

1. Why does the 'craigslist' article not mention this little known, but very present and active abusive behavior of anonymous flaggings, and anonymous forum postings by trolls.

2. I would like to add to the article a mention of this misbehavior. And insert an 'External Link" to one one several internet sites that have written about flagging abuse and troll activity at craigslist.

My reason for this is; It is highly unusual for any business to allow such an negative and hostile activity to occur, and be associated with that business. For that reason alone, mention of anonymous flagging, and uncontrolled troll attacks is noteworthy article information that helps to fully describe this business.Wikirjd7 (talk) 19:18, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Those comments did not come from Craigslist employees. I've posted advertisements many times that were, as far as I could tell, in full accordance with the article guidelines, but were flagged off anyway. There is a peculiar underground of users with malice and hostility. Sometimes they rest though, so proper content tends to remain.

1. These aren't in the article because no one has written them, at least in an appropriate way. I recall there was something like that recently, but it was unsalvageable.

2. Please give your addition a try, though don't add an external link; instead add a citation. If that's too hard, just add the external link (after the addition) and someone will be along shortly to make it a proper citation.

Next time, speed things along by adding the source links here for review and discussion. Thanks, —EncMstr (talk) 00:50, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your words and advice EncMstr. In my first post of this topic, I mentioned wanting to use an External link and you suggested that I provide it for consideration, Here is that link,(I have the authors permission to use this), http://www.spectacle.org/1109/craig.html The content is from an article posted at that site, it may or may not be a blog...(being new here, I need to learn more whether blogs can be or are valid as sources)...it does give a personal account of what this person was subjected to on the CL Flag Help forum. His treatment and experience at the forum was the same as mine and the experiences of several other persons I read after Googling "Craigslist flag help forum troll abuse". I am currently seeking permission to use several other similar articles/blogs which possibly could be used for citations.

I haven't decided on how to use this source... I think the comments/statements my edit will make will require many citations...and I'm still wondering if this source can act as citations or if is better suited as an external link.

Would it be helpful to copy into this thread the Craigslist article paragraph I'm editing and show the additions I wish to make to it, prior to making them at the article? Wikirjd7 (talk) 17:40, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I edited the craigslist article today. I have added seven sentences, that relate to craigslist Classified Ad flagging and information about Craigslist Flag Help Forum. ((PLEASE NOTE THAT: All citations came from craigslist.org help and forum help pages...I used no blogs))

1. Classified ad flagging doesn't require account login or registration, and can be made anonymously by any visitor. 2. The number of required flaggings is variable and remains unknown to all but craigslist.org. 3. Flagging can occur as acts of disruptive vandalism and for the removal of competitors postings. 4. The Flag Help Forum is an unmoderated volunteer community, it is not staffed by craigslist.org employees, and it is not affiliated with craigslist.org. 5. The forum volunteers have no access to information about craigslist.org user accounts or ads, and must rely upon information supplied by the ad placer to try and piece together the reason an ad was flagged and removed. 6. The Flag Help Forum's unmoderated format allows anyone, including disruptive trolls, to post anonymously and without accountability. 7. The forums usefulness and effectiveness can be compromised by trolls who post malicious replies to help threads.Wikirjd7 (talk) 21:22, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Very interesting. Yelp has similar flagging rules. The flagability of a post can also be variable depending on who is doing the posting (a long-time, trusted, prolific user versus an unknown party) and who is doing the flagging, and in the case of discussion threads by how old and large the discussion is. Could you please explain what "eskimo.com" is, and how it is a reliable source? If it is we should probably add a hidden comment pointing to this discussion so that nobody will be tempted to remove it later. Also a couple style requests - can we get full citations and not just the link? I'm happy to do that using the "cite" template if/when I'm convinced these are good sources. Also, better to use more formal speech, not using contractions, i.e. "does not" instead of "doesn't". Thanks, - Wikidemon (talk) 22:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

"eskimo.com" is the address used solely for the "Unofficial Flagging FAQ"page (see: http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm). A Google search shows "Eskimo.com" to be a 'provider of internet access' and 'internet domain hosting'. The "unofficial flagging FAQ" page was created by Flag Help Forum members. The connection and association between craigslist.org and "eskimo.com Unofficial Flagging FAQ" link is explained in one of the FAQ question: (Q: Why is this FAQ linked on craigslist?) Craigslist.org provides a link to Unofficial Flagging FAQ as a courtesy.(NOTE: All other forums on craigslist use "craigslist.org" as their address). I used this "Unofficial Flagging FAQ" source for 7 citations, (7 links?) which pointed to 4 different/separate references.

Note: I had wanted to use this article > (http://www.spectacle.org/1109/craig.html) as a reference, but I thought it might be a blog. I have just been told by the author that the article and his site is not a blog, and that another of his articles, from this same web site has been used as a reference in a Wikipedia article. Would you please consider viewing his article, and evaluate it for use as a reference/citation source. (If his article proves to be acceptable, there are two other similar articles for possible use, if possible would you also check these out:)

1.(http://peckedbyducks.com/) and 2.(http://cyberstalkers.blogspot.com/)

This is my first edit, and I welcome you, and others, to make any changes to improve my edit. And yes, I would be very happy if you made my links into 'full citations'. I thank you for your interest and suggestions.Wikirjd7 (talk) 01:47, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on the citations later today if nobody has yet. Very interesting development. Flag trolls seem to be a new Internet phenomenon, I'll see if I can dig up any articles that connect the Craigslist cabals with something more universal about self-policing online forums that give their members flagging tools. - Wikidemon (talk) 17:43, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

Flagging abuse was present and mentioned in the Craig Newmark Blog of February 6, 2004, (http://www.cnewmark.com/2004/02/flagging_issues.html). Comments made by readers of that blog cover about 4 years of time and very clearly speak of the extent and nature of the flagging problem.

Good luck on your research, I spent one day Googling "craigslist and flagging and trolls", and one day using the Ann Arbor Library research "General Reference Center Gold" database for Magazines/Newspapers/Books, and found only one "2007 Denver Post" article. It seems the Newspapers/Magazine Media is unaware of the issue, (I suspect this is true for most people, until they visit the Flag Help Forum for help). Several, web blogs write of the problem, and the blog readers comments frequently mention having had the same experiences. These blogs and their comments are most likely unacceptable as reference and citations, but they show the problem does exist. Once again I would ask that you and others review Jonathan Wallace's article and his credentials at, (http://www.spectacle.org/1109/craig.html). It is possible that his article could be a good source and an additional reference. Wikirjd7 (talk) 18:42, 16 September 2010 (UTC)

I attempted to convert my edits links to full citations, but I was unable to do that. I ask that anyone interested in making proper full citations, to please do so. I thank you for your help. Below are the sentences I added and the details of their reference,

1. "Classified ad flagging does not require account log in or registration, and can be made anonymously by any visitor". ref name="faq000" http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#000 ) (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

2. "The number of flaggings required for a posting's removal is variable and remains unknown to all but craigslist.org". ref name="faq000" http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#000 (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

3. "Flaggings can also occur as acts of disruptive vandalism and for the removal of competitors postings". ref name="faq000" http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#000 (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

4. "The Flag Help Forum is an unmoderated volunteer community, it is not staffed by craigslist employees, and it is not affiliated with craigslist.org". http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#volunteers (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( article title = " Volunteers " )( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

5. "The forum volunteers have no access to information about craigslist.org user accounts or ads, and must rely upon information supplied by the ad poster to try and piece together the reason an ad was flagged and removed". ref name="faq001" http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#001 (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

6. "The Flag Help Forum's unmoderated format allows anyone, including disruptive trolls, to post anonymously and without accountability". http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#Unmoderated (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( article title = " Unmoderated " )( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

7. "The forums usefulness and effectiveness can be compromised by trolls who post malicious replies to help threads". ref name="faq001" http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/Flagged_FAQ.htm#001 (web site = " Unofficial Flag FAQ " ) ( name of authors = " craigslist users " or " Flag Help Forum Volunteers " ) ( Retreived on = 09/15/2010 )

Thank you very much for taking your time and effort to help me with these citations. Wikirjd7 (talk) 12:23, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I changed my article edit reference 'links' to 'full citations' today. The references appear to be correct.Wikirjd7 (talk) 14:31, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Erotic and Adult Services controversy

Being WP:BOLD, I created a new section entitled "Erotic and Adult Services controversy", and moved the three related events from the "Significant events" section, as those events were overpowering what should be just a timeline with event mentions. I think it makes the article better, but if you disagree, please feel free to revert and/or discuss. No content was deleted. At some point, this whole new section should be merged to Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users, leaving that section as a summary section in this article per WP:SUMMARY. But the controversies article needs a major restructuring and rewrite first, as it's just a list at this point. Thank you. — Becksguy (talk) 10:18, 13 September 2010 (UTC)

I have moved the bulk of the material to the child article Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users as suggested for organizational and WP:WEIGHT reasons. This had grown to be about 25% of the entire article, and was triply redundant as it is also mentioned in the "background" section describing different site features and three bullet points (which I combined to two) in the "significant events" section. The "flagging" section is also perhaps a little long, and may be flawed in that it discusses it solely in the context of craigslist, whereas the flagging feature and its inherent limitations is common to a number of sites. - Wikidemon (talk) 11:26, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Thank you, Wikidemon, and I agree it was UNDUE and had intended to move it. (As an aside, however, the move highlights the how badly the child article needs a restructuring, but that's a separate issue.) And merging the bullet items works. However, now there is no real indication in the body of this article that there is an Craigslist controversies article. We need a very short WP:SUMMARY section to so indicate. I'll whip up something, unless you would rather. The sentence about adult ads from the description could be moved there also. I agree with you about the flagging section. — Becksguy (talk) 23:18, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

"Flagging" paragraph discussion

(Related to the "Flagging" issue mentioned aboved:) I searched on Wikipedia the terms: 'flagging', 'forum flagging', and 'internet forum flaggings', and found nothing. A search of 'internet troll abuse' found three articles ('troll', 'abuse', 'internet forum 3.1 troll)' none of those articles specifically mentioned or discussed Flaggings or Help Forum Troll abuse. I must ask if the information in the Craigslist article about; "Unmoderated Forum Troll abuse", and "Flagging vandalism" is a proper and acceptable inclusion in an encyclopedia article? (It is negative behavior, and it is negative comment...but on the other hand, the article had originally provided only a lengthy and rosy, one sided account of Craigslist.org flagging system and flag help forum.) When I first visited and read the Wikipedia article "Craigslist", I was searching for information and an understanding about the abuse, I as a Craigslist user, had been subjected to at the Flag Help Forum. The Wikipedia article had been my first stop, and I was left wondering why the article painted only a rosy picture of the flagging system and Flag Help Forum, and made no mention of flag/forum abuse. If making a mention of 'Flagging' and 'Forum abuse' within the Craigslist article is considered poor or bad encyclopedic form, then it should be removed. I would then urge that the original/reverted paragraph (about 'User Flagging' and 'Flag Help Forum') be edited to a brief comment, sounding less like a Public Relations statement created by Craigslist. Or ideally remove the whole paragraph and make no mention of 'Flagging' and the 'Flag Help Forum'.Wikirjd7 (talk) 15:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

I have had a similar problem using the google search engine. That points to an issue that is at the heart of google and Wikipedia, if not information in general. As interesting and frustrating as flag trolls and forum abusers are, and as much of a threat to the integrity of user-generated content sites, few people in the mainstream of journalism, encyclopedia-writing, or scholarship seem to have a whole lot to say about it. Wikipedia's job isn't to warn people about things that other people are unaware of. As an encyclopedia we cover things that people are already informed about - we organize existing knowledge, we don't uncover it. You may be right that the whole subject, pro and con, should be condensed so as not to gush too much. On the other hand, the subject is rosy for the most part. There's a huge problem out there with forum abuse - dishonesty, spammers, (regular) trolls, racists, vandals, hackers, paid shills, jealous enemies, hoaxers, and people who are just plain nuts. Flagging is a system put in place to give the forum members power to police their own forum - party for idealistic or theoretical reasons, and partly because it's a lot cheaper and creates less legal liability to the forum owner. It does work. But it can be badly gamed - anything can be gamed. Whether the cure is worse than the disease or not depends on the forum, its users, and how well the system is designed. I think all these things are present on Craigslist, and Wikipedia. But so far we haven't had a whole lot of good sources on them. If we do, I think it may point to an article about the issue more generally, and not as an aside for each forum that uses flagging. - Wikidemon (talk) 03:49, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Background - Getting to bottom of WELL, MindVox, and Usenet as inspiration

From: "Background" section:

Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social and trusting communal ways on the Internet via the WELL, MindVox and Usenet, and feeling isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark decided to create something similar for local events.

cite web|accessdate=2008-05-08|url=http://www.craigslist.org/about/factsheet.html%7Ctitle=craigslist factsheet|publisher=Craigslist —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattsenate (talk • contribs) 22:01, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

The referenced article is claimed to have been accessed on May 8th, 2008. The current "fact sheet" page to which this refers does not include the words "WELL" "MindVox" or "Usenet." Further, A copy of the "fact sheet" closer or on the above date is not accessible from the Internet Archive. The closest I could find was from 2007: [1] which also did not include any of the history required above. If we permit a sort of "reference squeeze theorem" the 2008 version is bounded above and below, and since it doesn't seem the FactSheet has changed much between 2007 and 2010, it's unlikely the information it has claimed to contain was ever added.

On the other hand, Craig's The Faster Times post here [2] shares a claimed artifact from The WELL that explains and links to an early face of Craigslist being hosted on The Well's web servers.

No such source for MindVox or Usenet were easily located. Anyone have additional sources or info? Either way, this section needs to be updated. It might be best to look at the print literature, and deal with this once and for all.

Mattsenate (talk) 21:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

hookups

I added 5 sources stating that craigslist is a hookup site (that does not mean it is not a car buying site nor does the fact that it is a car site preclude it from being a personals site as well, just another one of its features.Hemanetwork (talk) 21:04, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

The category is misleading and pointless. In the new category you created, you characterize hookup sites as "websites that are used to facilitate hookups or casual sex encounters". Whether or not there is consensus to delete the entire category, it's clear that there is not a strong consensus either that it should exist at all and I doubt that people editing this article would have a consensus for Craigslist a hookup site. Calling it a hookup website suggests that this is a defining characteristic of the site when in fact the site is a general purpose site for personals, classified, want ads, events listings, and so on. If there were a reader who did not know what craigslist was, and they read it was a hookup website, they would get the wrong impression. For someone who does know, it sounds off. There are hundreds of thousands if not millions of reliable sources written about Craigslist, and one can source that anything under the sun happens there. That does not make it worth including in the article, which is supposed to describe what something is to the casual reader. If we were to shoehorn into the article a mention or a category for every single thing sourced to have happened on Craigslist it would be a vast article with thousands of categories, which isn't encyclopedic. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:08, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

A perusal of category:Hookup websites reveals that the constituent articles are websites primarily intended for hooking up. Craigslist does not belong in this category. —EncMstr (talk) 01:51, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

dating

the material on syphilis and dating should not be removed.THISBITES 19:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisbites (talk • contribs)

Why not? First, the content does not reflect the source. The source, a 5-year-old "summer sex issue" of an LGBT magazine, mentions a doctor in San Francisco as saying that CL is "the second most frequently mentioned Internet source in San Francisco for men who have contracted syphilis". It's not even clear what that means, but whatever it means it does not support the claim in the article that "craigslist's men seeking men section is attributed to facilitating sexual encounters that cause 50% of syphilis infections". Even if it were, it is an isolated, 5-year-old factoid relating to a single city among hundreds, supported by one professional's personal opinion rather than any kind of study or survey. Craigslist is simply a site with a dating and casual encounter section. There is nothing to suggest that Craigslist's dating section is different than any other dating section. To add this to the article there would have to be some significant sourcing that overcomes WP:WEIGHT concerns that STDs are particularly relevant to CL. I doubt that's the case. The older section I removed was added contentiously by an editor who wanted to add CL and a number of other sites to a new category they had created for "hookup websites". After this was removed they added a long section, since condensed to a bunch of references. The editor who was promoting this was indefinitely blocked and isn't likely to come back, so best to simply remove it. Although it is true that CL has a dating feature and people do use it for hookups, so do other sites. This does not deserve its own section, but instead could be listed along with personals, want ads, ride boards, and all of the other site features, worked into the article rather than in an out-of-context standalone section. In fact, it already is in the article. - Wikidemon (talk) 20:12, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Don't try and smear The Advocate by one issue's name, it is the leading gay community magazine worldwide and a respected source. The source clearly states that of the men getting syhpillis, half had met their partner through craigslist. Your personal opinion of the doctor is quite irrelevent. Perhaps we can expand the article to mention that public health agencies are increasingly targeting websites that facilitate the coordination of casual sex such as craigslist as the new battleground for fighting STDs much in the same way bath houses spread diseases in the 1980s before the government shut down most of the ones that were not promoting safe sex. I see no reason to remove the content simply because the editor has been blocked, craigslist is probably one of the largest dating websites in the United States and this is very worthy of mention in addition to its history of making casual sex and prostitution easy to access for the masses for free. I have personally talked with public health officials and they will say things like adam4adam is x% hiv+, why because they study, take notes, create figures and report them. The Advocate here is reporting this same sort of data. Think of it this way do you really think it is untrue or do you believe that the content smears craigslist? I love craigslist and I came across new content for the article and incorporated it, that is all. I would say the article is quite incomplete with regards to its amazing effect on the employment, sales, and dating sectors.THISBITES 22:23, 8 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisbites (talk • contribs)

It is the "summer sex issue" of a 5-year-old LGBT publication. Where's the smear in that? My point is that the piece is stale (a lot has happened on Craigslist and the Internet in 5 years, old statistics are not necessarily current), the focus is not on Craigslist, and it is a general purpose magazine rather than one about social media sites. The doctor's statement, which I quote, is a minor part of the article, and nowhere in that section does he say anything about 50%, attribute a cause, or claim to have authoritative information about Craigslist. Are you sure you're linking to the same article / page I'm reading? It's currently citation #20. Even if we do find a source, if the issue is broader than Craigslist (if it's all dating sites), bigger than San Francisco (numerous cities), bigger than Syphilis (other STDs?), and/or affects straights too, then we should generalize it, and perhaps put it in an article on a more general subject. Is the claim that Craigslist is more LGBT or gay-friendly than other dating sites? Or that it's one of the few that has diverse sexualities? Or is it that all dating sites are a good place for gay (or straight) people to find encounters that they wouldn't in the physical world? I think that's a useful part to bring out, and go into the sources' explanation for why, rather than just say it's a place to find sex and relationships. - Wikidemon (talk) 23:36, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

you are labeling it a sex issue as if to imply that it is not legitimate, mentioning that its an LGBT publication is also quite irrelevent, The Advocate is a reliable source. May I remind you that wikipedia is not news and a 5 year old citation is better than a recent one as encyclopedias catalogue history not just current events. To address your concerns however I edited it to clearly state that the figure/data was from 2005 and further that it was for the San Francisco craigslist by the San Francisco Dept. of public health. The point of the section is to disseminate the dating/sex aspect of the website, want to help me grow it? Oh and I made a mistake, I apologize it says 2nd most common not 50% half, I will fix the text.THISBITES 23:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Thisbites (talk • contribs)

I take it the issue is settled?Thisbites (talk) 20:06, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

If you wish to count my laziness in responding, yes :) Anyway, I do think it's important to work this little factoid into the larger context of disease + online / casual dating, and hookups + craigslist. Craig just turned 58 btw, and I'm sure he would be amused. - Wikidemon (talk) 01:37, 11 December 2010 (UTC)

Nah I wouldn't do that I have ADHD i get distracted and procrastinate even for things I really want to do!!!! So could never hold anyone at fault for laziness.Thisbites (talk) 05:33, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

so that it doesn't come off as OR or my own bias agenda i renamed the section "personals" since that is what the mother category for all things sex and dates is called on craigslist, sound good?Thisbites (talk) 18:00, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Craigslist Ghosting

At some point, perhaps a new section (a controversies section or a section just on this subject) should be added: Craigslist Ghosting. If you google it, you get a fair amount of results (although there are probably other names for it). It's when you post an ad on Craigslist, it publishes fine, you can click on the link to your ad (from the edit page) and see it fine, but it never shows up in the category or in searches.

Also, something about not being able to receive support for craigslist ads would be nice. There's the help desk, but it's only manned by users. You can email them, but apparently you can only get generic responses. 173.139.48.255 (talk) 07:24, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Reception section of page incredibly negative

The neutrality of the reception section is highly questionable. I understand how a site like Craigslist could receive criticism, but can we at least get some positive sources in? Ctrlaltdecimate (talk) 05:03, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

is KeyWebJobs.com a scam.

I saw an advertizement for this site and it looks legite. But they were asking for money up front right away. Is this a scam or is this a legite site. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.84.43.138 (talk) 05:39, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

the talk page is not for general discussion about similar websites. to answer your question, I have no proof, but would be very surprized if it were not a scam or had scam like results. --Rocksanddirt (talk) 22:41, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

"Incidents" should be removed

Popular media might want to over-simplify the "dangerous nature" of Craigslist, but that does not mean that wikipedia should do likewise. Mentioning all the "incidents", some of which are only tangentally related to Craigslist (some girl's boyfriend killed some guy she met on craigslist). If I read a craigslist ad, and then get in a car accident, does Craigslist cause car accidents? How about detailing all the "incidents" where people have died inside a McDonald's restaurant? How many former IBM employees have committed Domestic Violence? Is there a "Domestic Violence Incidents" section under the wikipedia article for IBM? Post Office worker "incidents" on the US Post Office wikipedia? Over the last 10,000 years, most of the people that have eaten carrots are now dead. Do carrots kill people? Does the "Carrot Wiki" have an "Incident" section for this?

````Jonny Quick — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jonny Quick (talk • contribs) 06:12, 5 August 2011 (UTC)

San Franciscans

In July 2005, the San Francisco Chronicle criticized Craigslist for allowing ads from dog breeders, and thereby allegedly encouraging the over breeding and irresponsible selling of pit bulls in the Bay Area.[47]

In January 2006, the San Francisco Bay Guardian published an editorial criticizing Craigslist for moving into local communities and "threatening to eviscerate" local alternative newspapers. Craigslist has been compared to Wal-Mart, a multinational corporation that some feel crushes small local businesses when they move into towns and offer a huge assortment of goods at lower prices.[48]

People from tha city can complain about anything! My god! Piratejosh85 (talk) 14:04, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Those aren't people. Those are traditional, long time businesses that have had their revenue base erode substantially by an upstart competitor which has a bigger service area, costs consumers less, is more timely, has richer media, and is better known. The other media regularly run stories designed to discredit Craigslist: how prostitution, murder, theft run amok on Craiglist, and how ordinary people get ripped off. (As though that couldn't happen from a newspaper classified ad.) —EncMstr (talk) 15:10, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Edit request on 27 December 2012

• Craigslist Joe 2012 documentary

Danotronxx (talk) 10:43, 27 December 2012 (UTC)

Not done: please make your request in a "change X to Y" format. ⋘HueSatLum ? ❢⋙ 02:34, 28 December 2012 (UTC)

I just added a link to an article about the documentary. Funcrunch (talk) 21:29, 4 February 2013 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 30 January 2014

Maybe edit dead link in references to an updated version? From this..

• {{cite web|url=http://www.craigslist.org/about/pr/factsheet|title=craigslist fact sheet|author=craigslist.org|accessdate=June 2, 2010}}{{dead link|date=July 2011}}

• craigslist.org. "craigslist fact sheet". Retrieved June 2, 2010.

to

• {{cite web|url=http://www.howtoselloncraigslistebook.com/craigslist-fact-sheet|title=craigslist fact sheet|author=howtoselloncraigslistebook.com|accessdate =January 30, 2014}}

• howtoselloncraigslistebook.com. "craigslist fact sheet". Retrieved January 30, 2014.

Nickg82 (talk) 05:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC) Nickg82 (talk) 05:03, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Partly done:. I have added an archived copy from the Wayback Machine. --Anon126 (talk - contribs) 22:19, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Flagging trolls

Why are you biased Wikipedia craigslist fanboys leaving out the years old complained about issues of flagging trolls? Get with it morons. Anyone can find such complaints all over the net including on craig's own personal blog. Get a clue already.71.22.177.70 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 20:28, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Are you here to discuss the article content or make any serious proposal for improving the article? If not, Wikipedia article talk pages are not the place to complain about Wikipedia or its editors. - Wikidemon (talk) 21:04, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Section removal: Violent crimes associated with Craigslist advertisements

The article contained a recently added section, which was just removed. Its content was

“ Although most transactions conducted with the Craigslist service are peaceful, there were notable instances of violent crimes committed against and by posters and respondents of the service.

In 2007 an autistic teenager Michael John Anderson from Savage, Minnesota placed an advertisement for a babysitting position posing as a mother named Amy. He lured 24 year old drama-art student Katherine Ann Olson to his home for a job interview and shot her with a .357 Handgun.

In 2011 medical student Philip Markoff dubbed the 'Craigslist Killer' murdered and robbed Julissa Brisman. Markoff robbed and assaulted Trisha Leffler and Corinne Stout. Although no clear evidence links Markam to using the service, all three victims posted erotic ads on Craigslist.

In 2013 Miranda Barbour and her husband Elyette Barbour arranged to rendezvous with Troy LaFerrara on Craigslist. During the meet Elyette strangled LaFerrara as Miranda stabbed him 20 times. They stated that they 'wanted to murder someone together'.

In 2014 Nevada resident, David Brown dissected five dogs he adopted from Craigslist. The hotel 8 manager reported the animal abuse when a maid found the dismembered limbs of the dogs in his motel room. He inflicted the abuse to suppress "urges of rage".

In 2014, Wyoming Michigan resident Brady Oestrike arranged to rendezvous with pregnant mother Brooke Slocum and her boyfriend Charles Oppennee in Gezon Park. Police discovered a Craigslist contact between Slocum and Oestrike. Oestrike allegedly decapitated Oppennee and strangled Slocum killing her and her unborn child. He murdered his victims after abducting them and holding them captive in his dungeon-like basement. Upon investigation of Oestrike's home, police discovered firearms and ammunition, melee weapons, medieval bondage restraints, and surveillance electronics.

Violent crimes references

”

The reasons given for its removal are not very relevant, undue weight, sensationalistic, and unencyclopedic.

I am not so sure it should be deleted. It is well sourced, broad in coverage, and obviously notable—therefore relevant to Craigslist's advertisements. I don't see how it could be called "sensationalistic" since it is written in neutral language. The undue weight I partially agree with. It should be condensed somewhat. Unencyclopedic? Probably not. Crime associated with Craigslist ads are frequently mentioned on television and radio news and part of the collective social consciousness. The proper way to balance it would be some source which indicates how many ads or transactions occur with no crime. —EncMstr (talk) 00:12, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Notability is a threshold standard for whether Wikipedia should have an article about a subject, not whether a matter should be discussed in an article. The problem is that the press jumps on the bandwagon of sensational but pointless angles about things, particularly popular things like online sites that people are interested in. The article cited for the proposition that Craigslist violence is a real phenomenon says quite the opposite: it reports on a shady Craigslist competitor that commissioned a "hyperbolic" article, "Mayhem on Craigslist", that falsely called Craigslist a "cesspool of crime", and reports Craigslist's response that crime is in fact less prevalent on Craigslist than society at large. Most of the other sources are strung together as WP:SYNTH because they happen to mention Craigslist. Only a few suggest that Craigslist is relevant to a particular crime, much less that the crime is relevant to Craigslist.

Even where there is some occasional news coverage, if we followed them down that hole than every article would be full of sections of impertinent material about scandals, controversies, criticism, etc. There's some discussion of that at WP:CRITS, and also in the history of this talk page.

With Craigslist there have been occasional sensational news about scams and frauds, hoaxes and practical jokes, spelling the end of print advertising and real estate listings, hookups and venereal disease, and prostitution. There is indeed an article on the dubious subject of Internet killers and another on the Lonely hearts killer meme, although I've noted in old deletion discussions Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Craigslist killers and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Craigslist controversies and illegal activities by users that the nexus of Craigslist and murder is more a question of public fascination with sensational subjects than anything encyclopedic about murder or about the various modalities and circumstances by which murder takes place. Incidentally, those articles were spun out and the content moved from this article following a discussion in 2007.[3] The first of those articles got merged into the second, which got merged back here in 2011[4] and then over time most of the content was rejected as impertinent to the subject of this article, which is about Craigslist as a business, web service, and social phenomenon, not so much about the subject of public perception of events involving Craigslist. I mentioned in some of those discussions that there are surely lots of murders, or sensational murders, involving taxis, hotel lobbies, kitchen knives and screwdrivers, nightclubs, cruise ships, match.com, camping trips, and an old favorite, Dungeons and Dragons clubs. User:Davumaya described this well in the 2007 discussion: "It is not necessary to debate the notability of events themselves but their relation to the article topic itself. Consider that controversy and criticism is apparent in everything...But does this criticism actually affect the subject?" If it did, we could have a criticism section in the article on screwdrivers, with a subsection about violence (which isn't really a criticism or controversy per se): "although most interpersonal interactions involving screwdrivers are peaceful, there were notable instances of violent crimes committed using or thwarted by the use of screwdrivers".

Vague phrasing

> In August 13, 2004, Newmark announced on his blog that auction giant eBay had purchased a 25% stake in the company... > [snip] As of April 2012, there have been no substantive changes to the usefulness or non-advertising nature of > the site—no banner ads, charges for a few services provided to businesses.

(1.) How "useful" a site is is quite subjective, isn't it? Did people anticipate that eBay would make the site more or less "useful"? What would that look like? I suspect the writer actually meant the site's functionality (design) hadn't been changed.

(2.) It's a bit awkward simply saying Craigslist has a "non-advertising nature", as it's intrinsically an ad site.

(3.) I assume the last part means that charges were imposed for a few business-related services. However, the sentence begins by describing ways CL has not been changed, so that should be clarified.

With these in mind, I suggest replacing the last sentence above with this (I haven't done it, as I'm guessing about a couple of things):

"However, as of April 2012, no substantive changes have been made to the site's functionality, and it remains free of third-party advertising. Charges have been imposed for a few services provided to businesses."

– AndyFielding (talk) 06:30, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Domain name registration date check on 20 October 2014

A whois for craigslist.org shows "Created on 1997-09-11" but the Wikipedia page says the domain was registered in 1996 and the web site launched then. Am I reading whois wrong, or is the page wrong? JustinHall (talk) 00:49, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

Good point. The statement about the registration date is not sourced. Unfortunately, looking at the whois registry is not reliable, that's raw data that needs to be interpreted by a reliable source, ideally as secondary one. So I've added a {{fact}} tag to encourage somebody to look this up. It's possible that our article is just wrong. It's also possible that Craig registered the domain 1996 as described, and then let it lapse, reregistered it, transferred it, etc., again in 1997, or that the whois records worked differently in those days. As a hint, anything on Wikipedia without a citation might be wrong. Anything with a citation might be wrong too, but at least you can check the citation to see if it' supports the information, and whether it's believable. Thanks for pointing that out. - Wikidemon (talk) 06:15, 21 October 2014 (UTC)

What happened to the "Criagslist and crime" article?

Back in 2010, during the Phillip Markoff murder case, an article was created that logged murders that were facilitated through a method whereby a criminal lured people with a Craigslist ad. There were many such cases at the time, and the data was online in Wikipedia. Then there was an editorial conflict, in which people (probably working for Craigslist) tried to get the material all removed. For a while, a much abbreviated form of the list was available online. Now, 5 years later, it is gone.

I am asking about it because yet another Craigslist-facilitated crime has occurred (a women beat and stabbed another woman who was 7 months pregnant in an attempt to steal her viable fetus, but the baby died; the victim is expected to recover, the suspect is in jail).

I had worked on the Markoff page and had been part of the unsuccessful attempt to maintain the "Crigslist crimes" page-list without engaging in "Craigslist shaming" but i see now that it has all been removed. I view this as yet another successful attempt by a corporate or governmental "editor" to astro-turf Wikipedia.

Meanwhile, a search at google shows other sites maintaining such historical lists with no trouble.

I am not only putting the focus on murder; see this 2011 article:

http://www.ibtimes.com/craigslist-cesspool-crime-study-270401

with this quote:

"Classifieds site Craigslist has been linked with 330 crimes, 12 murders and 105 robberies or assaults in the United States last year [2010] due to anonymous interactions on the site, says a new study."

Then we have this article from 2015:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/craigslist-killings/

with this quote:

"There Have Been At Least 45 'Craigslist Killings' Since 2009: Report"

And here is another article from 2015:

http://www.wsbtv.com/news/news/local/study-show-spike-metro-murders-linked-craigslist/nkZ7Y/

which includes this interesting quote:

"A Florida-based consulting firm's latest report linked 84 killings to Craigslist transactions"

and this:

"Police say conducting Craigslist transactions in law enforcement parking lots will also cut down on the number of other violent crimes they see, like robberies, linked to Craigslist."

Finally, here is a list with names, photos, and dates, as well as arrest, conviction, and sentencing reports; the data would need cross-crecking and verification, but it is a good place to start from.

http://lawstreetmedia.com/killers-craigslist/

"Law Street identified 58 murderers and 45 murder victims connected to Craigslist postings through last June [2014]. Twenty-two murder cases are still pending. The oldest pending case dates to 2012, and eight are from 2014, indications that the killings continue. Craigslist did not reply to multiple inquiries."

I think it is time to re-examine the idea of a "Caigslist and crime" article. I do not believe it should be part of the Craigslist article, but rather a "See also" It is a topic that has been consistently in the news, year after year for at least six years now, and as the number of murders mounts (not even counting the robberies, beatings, and attempted murders) it is something people are asking about online and in street life, hence there should be an article on it.

catherine yrnwode (not logged in) 75.101.104.17 (talk) 00:39, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

By the same logic, we would also need articles about Telephones and crime, Newspaper classified advertisements and crime, Door to door salesmen and crime, Fliers posted on telephone poles and crime, Telegraphs and crime, etc.

There is nothing unique or special about crime occurring through Craigslist. Crime occurs through any viable medium, including on subways, walking on the sidewalk, etc. Singling Craigslist out for this seems patently unfair.

No, I do not have any interest in Craigslist, personally, financially, etc. Though I do admire how such a tiny organization has such a profound effect on the way we do many ordinary everyday tasks, especially on the West Coast. —EncMstr (talk) 05:01, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Previous discussions of "Craigslist and crime"

These links lead to archived material from this talk page about "Craigslist and crime."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#Significant_events.2C_controversies.2C_criticism_-_propose_to_move_some_content_to_a_new_article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#FBI:_Craigslist_Used_In_Murder-For-Hire_Case

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#Murders_are_trivial.3F.3F.3F

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#Addition_to_section_Controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#Craigslist_controversies_and_illegal_activities_by_users_AfD

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#Merger_proposal

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Craigslist/Archive_1#.22Incidents.22_should_be_removed

During those earlier discussions, the most persuasiva argument against having such material in Wikipedia seems to have been that terms like "Craigslist killings" were part of a technophobic media circus and that we, as technophilics, know better than to fall for the hysteria. As time has gone on, however, it is quite obvious that this argument is baseless: Craigslist is still being used by killers, robbers, and other predtors as a way to lure victims into unprotected spaces. If we take only the murders (and i would not -- i think the entire range of crimes should be addressed), and the middle-of-the-road estimate of 45 Craigslist-facilitated murders from the beinning of 2009 through the first quarter of 2015, i think you will see why i believe that it is time that Wikipedia acknowledges the fact and creates an article on the phenomenon.

catherine yronwode (not logged in 75.101.104.17 (talk) 00:51, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

No thank you. It is an observation, not an argument BTW. The argument is that it is not relevant, noteworthy, or of due weight in relation to the subject matter. That media sources are always drawing a connection between X and rime, where X is almost anything but is often a new company, group of people, or innovation, is merely an observation as to why the subject gets a lot of media coverage despite being unencyclopedic. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't have an article or some other organizational method to connect people to all of the notable crimes that involved Craigslist, but rather arguing against the suggestion that there is a meaningful nexus. - Wikidemon (talk) 08:29, 20 March 2015 (UTC)

Needed changes to flagging

This section:

Items are flagged for three categories: miscategorized, prohibited, or spam/overpost. Users are given a short description of each category.

is no longer accurate. CL ads now just have a single "prohibited" link to record a flag against a given ad. (presumably since spam and mis-categorizing an ad are prohibited anyway)

This section:

Flagging also occurs as acts of vandalism by groups of individuals at different ISPs to trigger the automated removal process of postings.

is a popular myth (mostly among spammers who refuse to consider that their ads are being properly removed as a result of their OWN abuse of the site) and was never true, and should be removed. A close reading of this portion of the very citation that text uses ( http://www.eskimo.com/~newowl/pages/flagged.htm ) will find: One person cannot set multiple flags on one ad. Well, ok, they can. But because of the protections craigslist uses it is a LOT of work to do. Even those that know how are very unlikely to bother. It's easier to send a hate-o-gram from an anon. email if you think something is truly wretched. The case where an ad has been flagged off by someone using a script or something is SO rare that it is well worth considering absolutely everything else first. 208.82.103.103 (talk) 04:14, 21 May 2015 (UTC)

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External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 2 external links on Craigslist. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Corrected formatting/usage for http://gawker.com/valleywag/tech/mythbusting/craig-newmark-filthy-rich-on-ebays-millions-283002.php
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080222234437/http://www.playbill.com/news/article/111961.html to http://www.playbill.com/news/article/111961.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 21:57, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Correction needed.

This text:

Some users allege that flagging may also occur as acts of vandalism by groups of individuals at different ISPs, but no evidence of this has ever been produced. (Googling "craigslist flagging software" or "Craigslist flagging service" will quickly reveal the preceding sentence to be naive at best, if not fraudulently false.)

Should be revised to:

Some users allege that flagging may also occur as acts of vandalism by groups of individuals at different ISPs, but no evidence of this has ever been produced. While there are many sites on the Internet that claim to offer such software or services, none have ever been demonstrated to actually work. Most of them are scams intended to take money from fools.

Alternately, revert this vandal's edit:

23:25, 19 March 2018‎ Saskbill — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ohmega99 (talk • contribs)

Its true Sulaimonakeem484 (talk) 14:02, 24 August 2018 (UTC)

Privately held company

The text of this article fails to mention (other than in the info box) that craigslist is privately held. To the contrary, the article text indicates that craigslist is publicly held.

In addition, much of the information is outdated and has no mention of the bumpy ride craigslist has had since 2018 with nearly a 50% drop in revenue (to $566 million from about one billion dollars, though it has recovered to nearly $700 million since).

The business has become much different than that described in the article. — Neonorange (talk to Phil) (he, they) 00:01, 2 April 2023 (UTC)