Hurteauvian Admiration

          B.H.A. (Before Hurteauvian Admiration) – before the Internet made it possible to get ordained and become a “man of the cloth” instantly by signing up for it at a website, before God invented dime-a-dozen computer “experts,” before the web turned lame hacks into self-appointed gurus and devas of cyberspace – things like knowledge, literacy, and analytical thought still had some respect.  Now the web is so full of profound gibberish it takes special effort to sort through it for kernels of reasonableness. 

          What is “Hurteauvian Admiration?”  It is FcNextercultist Paul Hurteau  (proprietor of FreeCycleEarth.org and FreeCycleAmerica.org) extolling the virtues of Nexteritis in his recent FcNext post, for our supposedly “putting together a nice looking site that is easy to navigate,” and for our being “some REALLY talented people.”

          In the same stinking breath, he declares us “sheep” working for TFN (The Freecycle Network, Inc.).

          Bah.  Bah.  Bah.  He’s not pulling the wool over our eyes, or those of anyone else knowing from whence they speak or write of Nexteritis; i.e., those who actually read what we write.

          TFN sheep don’t independently create voluminous blogs slamming the bejezus out of men of the cloth like Paul Hurteau, “Pastor” Ken Hedden, and Deacon of the Erisian Way a.k.a. “Freecycling for Dollars“ Freesharing.org proprietor Eric Burke, among other FcNext cultists.

          Sheep don’t do serious investigation and analysis of corrupt operations like SharingIsGiving.org and Freesharing.org, presenting irrefutable evidence of damning conclusions about them.

          TFN sheep don’t publicly condemn TFN’s nepotism and cronyism driving the constitution of their corporate board of directors, among other improprieties of that sick outfit.  Not independently, the way Nexteritis does it, unlike the cranks huddled in each other’s cultic warmth in the dark of FcNext’s cave.

          If Nexteritis is sheep, we are the black ones of the freecycling flock; ones with canine-type teeth in our assessments of freecycling idiocy disguised as “leadership,” and toothless watchdogs of TFN like FcNext.

          Nexteritis is not in any way allied, affiliated, or associated with ANY freecycling group or organization.  We are completely independent black sheep.  Nobody tells us what to think, do, or say.  We have no allegiance to TFN or any other freecycling entity.  We dislike TFN and FcNext on our own initiative, arising from our own experience and analysis of them.  We don’t need Paul’s help to get the word out about us, because the blogosphere is doing that for us automatically, but we appreciate Paul’s effort just the same.

          What does Hurteau really admire about Nexteritis?  He admires the layout of our blog, which we did not design.  It is The Journalist blog format provided by WordPress.com.  We gratefully acknowledge the work of Lucian E. Marin for the design of The Journalist blog presentation format provided through WordPress.

          Paul also admires our being “REALLY talented people.”  Maybe he refers to our work in having investigated and cogently reported the true nature of FcNext (The Lost Generation of Freecycling), SharingIsGiving.org and Freesharing.org?  In any case, we won’t argue with him about whether we have talent.

          We appreciate Paul’s plug for Nexteritis in his recent FcNext post, since all we really want to do is get the word out about the sickness of FcNext and its leading cultists.  Thanks for the link, Paul.  We would send you a pre-approved invitation to join the Nexteritis Yahoo! Group, but in your ignorance you’d probably call it spam.  So here’s the link:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nexteritis

          We assume you can find your way there out of the dark.

- – - – - – - – - – -

Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permissions, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

 

Freecycling for God

          FcNext moderator “Pastor” Ken Hedden’s SharingIsGiving.org junk site About Us Page says, “Above all let it be know [sic] that we ‘Give God All The Glory.’”

          So much for keeping religion and politics out of freecycling.

          And so much for literacy.  Let’s see how long it takes Kenny to fix the known error given God’s glory.

About SIG

          FcNext moderator “Pastor” Ken Hedden’s junk site SharingIsGiving.org About Us page sports an advertisement for a selling site called freecycle.ws.

          Misleading and disingenuous are the nice words for this ad that says, “FreeCycle.ws – Reuse – Regive – Freecycling,” and connects to a site whose primary purpose is selling, and linking to other junk sites like “free money” and “free gold.”

          Hedden calls it the “About Us” page.  “About Us?”  Is that what you are about?

          How trashy can you get, Ken?  It’s not enough to have a couple hundred bogus groups listed in your lame directory, you have to also promote a money-making gimmickry site like freecycle.ws?

          What’s it all about, Kenny?  Really?

Empire of their own

All FcNext wants for Christmas is an empire of its own, or at least a name for one, as a balloon pumped with hot air to send up in delusional hope that the world (and Yahoo!) will notice, or care.

In the aftermath of Yahoo!’s recent investment in promoting TFN-affiliated groups as an Earth Day stunt for racking up more Yahoo! Groups membership activity to boost their sagging bottom line, the usually vocal tiny cadre of core FcNexters are rallying around the idea of some kind of centralized global directory of all non-TFN freecycling group links.  We say group LINKS, not real, functioning , legitimate freecycling GROUPS, because that’s the majority of what they have in their existing junk directories.

Besides the fact that a form of it has been done already at http://finder.overcycle.com/ (but not the form they want that will generate search engine hits on their link parades, under their own empire name identity, though Overcycle may be on its way to that, too), for at least three reasons their global central directory idea will not work and cannot work any better than senselessly junk-padded directories like freesharing.org (Freecycling for Dollars), sharingisgiving.org (SIG Links R Us) and recycle4free.com (Lame is the Name of the Game), among so many other delusional “alternatives” to The Freecycle Network, Inc. (TFN).

1.  They have no reason or motivation to do it except the silly dream of taking over dominance of the freecycling world from TFN.  (At least Overcycle had the ambition to provide a mapping service, a real and unique alternative to anything done by TFN, and it includes links to TFN groups, unlike FcNext’s empty hope of erasing TFN from the map.)  With that impossibility as a reason, they might as well try to impose American-style hypercapitalistic, market-driven “democracy” on the Middle East, Iraq-style.   (Odd that SIG hasn’t “created” a Baghdad SIG zombie group yet, run from Schroon Lake, NY.)  It is a lost cause from its inception, pursued the wrong way for the wrong reasons.

2.  They have no organizational structure and cannot form one, because they don’t have what it takes to do something like that.  Without that, the best they can do is create just another clickable empire of junk links.  In doing that, they will make the difference between themselves and TFN or RIN (ReuseItNetwork.org) even more obvious.  Then Nexteritis can retire, after FcNexters finally shoot themselves in both feet, both kneecaps, both hands and both elbows all at once on one central website.  (Besides, the other goofy website directories won’t shut down anyway, because none of them will join this lost cause and give up their own delusional empires in the process.)

3.  They cannot agree on the principles for operating such a thing, or standards for how to do it, and they never will, except for some anarchistic kind of unprincipled web link soup, in the kind of wanton disregard for quality and integrity already represented by so many of the existing directory services they so love now.

All they can do in this kind of quest is amplify their current and past failures.  They will not attain their goal of overwhelming or undoing TFN by building a foundationless, unprincipled, undisciplined house of cards.  But we’ll have fun watching them try, like watching the Keystone Cops, Three Stooges, or Wiley Coyote’s cartoon antics.

When you have no reason for being as a group except to fight against something you can never overcome, against something you have nothing better on offer to supercede or replace it, in a quest where you have no support except from an undisciplined, unprincipled, tiny ragtag rabble that has become worse than the thing it hates, the best you can hope to accomplish is to build a bigger illusion, this time in a new website to deify, dance and chant around in delusional rapture.

The only way FcNext can compete effectively with TFN (the sole purpose behind this “umbrella directory” idea) is to create another TFN.  Eventually they may try that, but their complete lack of wherewithal for such an undertaking makes that impossible, too.

Six months from now, we’ll post a link back to this post and say, “See?”  After all, they’ve been at this for about four years now, groping in the dark for “the future of freecycling” in the vain name of nothing more than toothless TFN watchdog, having nothing to offer as anything like a true “next generation of freecycling” that is any improvement over the current one.  There are some things that some people can never learn.  FcNext is the Lost Generation of Freecycling.

FcNext should change its name to “School of Hypocritical Opportunistic Directories and Dopey Yammering” (SHODDY).  That’s the empire they own now.

We are amused to see that they are taking increasing amounts of their cult deliberations underground, knowing that they now have a watchdog reviewing their public antics, and populating the web every day with increasing numbers of search engine hits on criticisms of them.  Underground is where they belong, since they can’t function in the open for any significantly meaningful purpose in the public interest.

Here’s a name for their new empire of junk links: FcNext Umbrella Directory (FUD).

- – - – - – - – - – -
Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permissions write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

FcNext Netiquette

Quoting from the home page of the FcNext Yahoo! Group:

“This is a place where freecycling friends can discuss the future of freecycling — where freecycling should go and how. [...] IMPORTANT: Intelligent, thoughtful, and positive discussion is encouraged.”

          Someone should check the FcNext activity log to see what happened to message #24528, posted by Eric Burke on 3/13/08, subject line, “Re: Personal Attacks – Get Real.”  We have reason to believe that it may have been deleted by Yahoo! pursuant to a TOS violation report for content unsuitable for a public, non-age-restricted group, because of its harassing nature and the use of language the same as just used today by FcNext Moderator Karen Welliver in her message #24824.

          One would think moderators would know better.  The use of the expletive, TOS violation or not, may be the lesser of any problem with her post, the rest being what it says about its author as a moderator encouraging that kind of senseless posting activity, setting that kind of example for other members, and for the reputation of the group in the public eye.

          This is the future of freecycling, FcNext-style: when you have nothing else to talk about, talk trash.

          We suggest that every time an FcNext member gets ready to post anything, they first review the content of the group home page, refreshing their memory of these phrases written there:

“freecycling friends”
“the future of freecycling”
“honest discussion”
“experiences and insights”
“all are welcome to join in our discussions”
“intelligent, thoughtful, and positive discussion.”
“stay on topic”
“no personal attacks” 

          They might even make that list a biweekly auto-send file, to keep everyone focused on it.

          We take no exception to whether a post like Karen’s latest fits the characterization described on the home page as “members regularly sharing their experiences and insights,” as such posts do tend to reflect the quality of their experience and degree of insight.

          We wonder if FcNexters let their children read their work as “freecycling friends” in their publicly accessible message archive, and how those children fare in vocabulary, netiquette, and writing style.

- – - – - – - – - -

Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

Oh My Aching Andy

FcNexter Andy Swarbrick is frustrated.

          He tried to announce that someone at Yahoo! said that they would no longer delete groups on the basis of trademark infringement claims from The Freecycle Network, Inc.(TFN).  This aroused joyful tears on Andy’s part, as indicated in the subject line of his FcNext post announcing his blog post about it, that FcNext subject line being, “Wiping tears was never so enjoyable.”

          They are something like crocodile tears.

          His blog offered the unsubstantiated announcement, “It is with great pleasure I have the most important announcement to make to this freecycling globe. … YAHOO WILL NO LONGER DELETE YAHOO GROUPS BASED ON SPURIOUS TRADEMARK CLAIMS BY TFN.”

          He was unwilling (or unable) to provide evidence that this is now an official policy or position of Yahoo!, or to identify the person at Yahoo! making the declaration.  Later, when challenged about it, he back-peddled to say, “If Yahoo on their blog stated unequivically [sic] by the Director, Leonard that they would not delete non-TFN groups, what would that mean? It would mean nothing.”

          In his own words, Andy is in tears of joy about a revelation that means nothing.  Things like that often occur in cults: emotional fervor (or torment) over phantasms.

          From the outset, we saw nothing of substance in Andy’s tearful announcement.  He said that Yahoo! would no longer delete groups based on “spurious” trademark infringement claims by TFN.  One might call this a truism, whereas obviously a corporation’s defenses of its trademark are not “spurious” when they genuinely believe that they have a real interest in a trademark they own, and Yahoo! did not deem them spurious when they acted on TFN’s infringement claims.  Andy, we suppose, thinks himself in possession of a better understanding of U.S. intellectual property law and practice than Yahoo!’s corporate legal counsel.

          FcNext cultists call the infringement claims spurious, illegal, unenforceable, etc. because they don’t understand the difference between an unregistered trademark (using the TM symbol) and a registered trademark (circle-R symbol).  They keep saying that TFN “has no trademark” because the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has not yet granted a registration.  In typically cultic fashion, this ignores reality, in that anyone can establish a trademark without USPTO registration.

          FcNexters also attribute their denial of the existence of a TFN trademark to the fact that TFN’s existing trademark is pending a court challenge (also the reason the USPTO has put the registration application on hold).  There is no guarantee that the pending litigation will result in the USPTO ultimately denying registration.  Maybe it will; maybe it won’t.  Meanwhile, TFN has a trademark, and Yahoo! is within its rights to choose to acknowledge it, as they have.

          We agree that TFN may have damaged its ability to successfully defend its trademark, because of defects in its approach to establishing that trademark, but that is still a matter under litigation.  Nexters put themselves above the law by declaring things decided that are still pending a court verdict or settlement.  Such are the foundations of cults: revelations of “truths” not substantiated in reality.

          We really don’t care whether TFN has an existing trademark or secures a registered one.  We just want to point out the nonsensical behavior of FcNext cultists on the matter, such as Andy’s tears of joy over an unproved Yahoo! policy decision that he says means nothing anyway.  If it means nothing, what is he crying about?

          In that same FcNext post, Andy asserts, “Words are cheap – just read any post from nexteritis.”

          Cheapened words are such as those self-contradictory and delusional ones making tear-filled “most important announcements” deemed one day later by the same speaker to “mean nothing“.

          It is fitting that Andy feels the sting of words published by Nexteritis.  After all, “Nexteritis” means “inflammation of the Nexter,” intended to goad them into action to amend behavior they have not the strength of conscience or initiative to correct on their own without being prodded like cattle.  Inflammation is often the factor driving an organism to change its diet, seek treatment, or stop shooting itself in the foot and banging its head against the wall.

          We find it noteworthy that nobody in FcNext has any substantive response to anything said in the Nexteritis blog.  This is not surprising.  Neither is it surprising that they have gagged themselves on our words so much that they won’t let themselves speak on what we say (perhaps for fear of puking on each other as they choke on our “cheap” words).  We render them speechless with our “cheap” words.

          FcNext will never hold its own accountable for their behaviors in a forthright, responsible way.  They will not take a stand against deceptive, trashy directories like freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.  Their moderators will not act against their TOS violators, personal attacks, foul language, and character assassinations.  Neither will they act in favor of free speech and freedom to dissent.  To them, to clean their own house would mean creating disunity within the cult.  Instead, they prefer that all live in filth and sling their mud at any resister to its cultic brainwashing in slime.
 
          All we can do is expose them for what they are, for the public benefit and for the edification of those capable of seeing beyond the ends of their noses.

          Andy adds, “Yes, I am positive. I will not be swamped by the negativity that seems to drown some. Negativisim [sic] is not realism. This group [fcnext] started as ‘the future of freecycling,’ and that’s what drives me.”

          Wishful thinking is not positivity.  It can be delusional, like the belief that FcNext has anything to do with a positive future for freecycling.  Realism may necessarily sometimes include some negativity.  Exposure of hypocrisy and irresponsible, unethical behavior can be called “negativity.”  If Andy can’t take the heat, he should get out of the kitchen.

          FcNext is not capable of a solution to their problem.  Their only “solution” to what they dislike about TFN is hate-baiting cultism.  Their heads are bruised all around from banging against the brick wall of trying to take TFN down.  No wonder Andy is frustrated to tears.

          We don’t know what drives Andy.  Realistic approaches to the future of freecycling seem to be no part of it, when he flies into tears over something he says means nothing, has no cogent response to anything said by opponents of FcNext, and will not take a stand for accountability regarding the fallacies and improprieties of FcNext cult favorites like freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.

          Speaking of wishful thinking and delusion, Andy also says, “There are possibly 10m people freecycling out there on Y!G, depending on how you do the stats. Which means that DB holds less around [sic] 40% of the marketplace at best. That can be your future.”

          Oh, brother!  We’ve got to see the math behind that fiction.  Ten million members of Yahoo! freecycling groups?  His use of the qualifier “possibly” veers sharply away from possibility; more like delusion.  It’s certainly not realism.

          Setting aside the relatively small number of non-Yahoo-based freecyclers (since Andy referred to ten million only within Yahoo! Groups), it is probably impossible even for Yahoo! to establish an accurate estimate, given the reality that so many people hold membership in multiple groups, cross-posting among them, and hold multiple accounts within the same groups, move around from one group to another, go inactive or bouncing, etc.

          We know of a group that once sent a message to its 800 members saying that they had to reply to the message in order to stay in the group.  The moderator repeated the notice two more times, carefully making sure that none of the members were in “no email” delivery status.  After three notifications, 500 of them did not reply or ask questions about it.  Careful records were kept about who was terminated for not replying.  Over time, about 100 of them came back puzzled that their membership had terminated, meaning that they did not read the three notices from management.  The other 400 were never heard from again.  They were not really “members” at all.  Not even “lurkers,” really.

          Such is the nature of freecycle “membership.”  Most of the “members” are not really “members” at all, just inattentive subscribers to a service they do not use.  In smaller groups, it is easy to see how the majority of all postings come from the same people repeatedly, those few true members actually participating.  Then there are in every group those greedy consumerists only there to see what balls and chains they can add to their enslavements to possessions, or what they might make a buck on selling in their next yard sale or Ebay auction.

          Even if we counted every subscribed email address as a “member,” TFN and other number-touting people rely on the member count shown on Yahoo! Groups home pages.  They have no way of knowing how many of those “members” are really members at all (i.e., non-participating, bouncing, etc.) and how many of them hold membership in multiple groups, and how many of them hold membership under multiple email addresses within any given group.

          Thus, TFN’s claim to about 4.7 million members (as of the moment) is by necessity somewhat inflated, though it is the best estimate they have.  In any case, that’s 47% of ten million, not Andy’s 40%, so we’re suspicious of any math he may have used to arrive at his ten million figure, given his roughly 15% degree of error in simply calculating the percentage of ten million represented by 4.7 million.  A remedial math course is in order for our tearfully frustrated Andy.

          Another factor complicating any possibility of an accurate estimate is the absolute unreliability of figures provided by people like Eric Burke, who claim that the freesharing.org directory represents “897 groups listed serving over 389,000 members.”  We know already that 60% or more of those “groups” are not truly active, viable, legitimate freecycling groups.  At best, Burke’s directory represents maybe about 156,000 legitimate freecycling group member email accounts … ACCOUNTS, not necessarily unique people … and, among the freesharing directory listings there are some TFN-affiliated groups already counted in TFN’s number.

          We would not count the content of the SharingIsGiving.org directory at all, knowing that it is padded with so many bogus groups and so many duplicates of the entries in the freesharing.org directory.  If we count the legitimate groups listed there that are not already counted among those listed in freesharing.org, they might amount to a few thousand members at most.  We doubt that there are even one quarter million real members among all the listings combined at freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.

          We have never tried to estimate the memberships represented by ReUseItNetwork.org, RealCycle.co.uk, FullCircles.org, and other such network directories.  We doubt that they represent more than a million real people, all combined, and many of them are listed at freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org, too.

          This ridiculous ten million figure is just more evidence that Andy and fellow FcNextercultists (who let his estimate go unchallenged) are not known for realism (or arithmetic).

          Andy’s market share prognostication is unrealistic, and foolish.  FcNext-aligned groups can never aspire to his estimated 40% share of the freecycling population.  (For the moment, we’ll set aside notice that his assertion indicates his ultimate desire to completely undo TFN, the only real goal of FcNext.)  Right now, groups moderated by FcNext members would be lucky to realistically claim 1% of the global freecycling population, and only a tiny bit of those groups are run by vocally loyal core Nextercultists rather than other FcNext members who are only there out of curiosity or to keep the enemy close, including TFN affiliated moderators among them.

          The notion that FcNext offers a viable alternative to TFN, or ever will, is something like Eric Burke hitching his wagon for “saving this country” to a star like Ron Paul, except that Ron Paul actually has some good ideas and the ability to express them cogently, respectably, honorably and professionally, and is a bona-fide authority on matters within his purview.

          In that same FcNext post, Andy announced, “Oh, and I have just been accepted as a member of nexteritis – aren’t I lucky!”

          When he learned that we would not allow the Nexteritis Yahoo! Group message archive to be abused in typical core FcNexter TOS-violating fashion, he came back whining about it, “Nexteritis hides message archive and yets [sic] wants posts … What a waste. Time to leave the nexteritis.“

          Where is the sign saying, “Posts Wanted from Rabid Wolves?”

          The group home page says plainly enough what we are about.  The group certainly does not exist for Andy’s pleasure, and he does not get to make the rules there about archive access, though it has no bearing on his ability to post messages there, or to engage in dialog with members there through posting activity.

          The information we want made public or retrievable from anything like an archive is here in the Nexteritis blog.  Andy knows about this blog (and it is linked on our Yahoo! group’s home page).  If he has something to say to Nexteritis Yahoo! Group members, he can join and post it.  If he has something to say publicly about what we write, he can do it on his own blog, and as he so often does, post a link to that in FcNext and elsewhere, or in our Yahoo! Group.  He can also post his flimsy arguments in FcNext postings, though we understand that Nexters are now afraid to do that, knowing that we hold their feet to the fire for what they say.  (How curious of FcNext to give such control over their posting activity to Nexteritis, FcNext supposedly being such advocates of “free speech,” now denied even to their own loyal insiders.)

          We suspect that Andy really has nothing of substance to say to or about Nexteritis, but only joined the Nexteritis Yahoo! Group to mine its archive for information he does not deserve to have.  If he joined to say something to its members, he could have done that, and still can, if he re-subscribes.

          We did not expect Andy to last long as a Nexteritis member, anyway, given that we already know one truth a day keeps the Nexter away.

          The Nexteritis blog contains all our significant material.  FcNext members already holding membership in our Yahoo! group can confirm that.  The Nexteritis Yahoo! Group is for private discussion among its members, and to notify them of new blog posts as they come online.  Andy is welcome to contribute to such a discussion, but having nothing to say, we doubt he will.

          Too bad about the fear-based gag order FcNext imposes on its frustrated members like Andy so aching to whine about Nexteritis.  That’s Andy’s problem, not ours.  He’ll just have to live with the way those birds built their Fc Nest.

- – - – - – - – - -
Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

Freecycling for Dollars

Quoting from:
http://freesharing.org/faq.php …

————–
Is FreeSharing.org registered as a non-profit organization?
No.
The operating expences [sic] of FreeSharing.org are minimal and paid for by the webmaster. It would actually cost more to file for non-profit status than it currently costs to run this website. There are also additional reporting requirements and restrictions placed upon non-profit organizations that would greatly complicate the operation of this directory.
————–

Translation for the real world:

     Freesharing proprietor Eric Burke missed the lesson on spell-check, or doesn’t care enough to bother.  Why should he?  He doesn’t care enough to remove the 60% junk listings, dead links, dead groups, and selling groups that people report finding in his freecycling “directory.”  For Eric (and, as reported earlier about Ken Hedden’s sharingisgiving.org junk site), it’s all about quantity, never about quality.  For Burke, it is a quantity of junk to collect eyeballs and clicks for advertising affiliate programs.  (We don’t know what motivates Hedden, but any casual observer can easily speculate close enough to the realities involved.)

     The operating expenses of Burke’s “Freecycling for Dollars” site are some portion of $10 per month.  He reported a long time ago that he’s using the 1and1.com $10/month “business package,” and that he got it discounted down to $6/month.  Since that hosting fee also goes to other purposes, it’s not all spent on freesharing.org.  One might say that he is using the revenue from freesharing.org to fund those other purposes, including campaigning for Discordianism, Libertarianism and partisan political candidates.

     The expenses are NOT “paid for by the webmaster.”  They are funded by revenue-generating ads on the site that bring in multiple times more than the cost of the site.  That is, he’s turning a personal profit on freecycling, or, “freecycling for dollars.”

     Recently he said in FcNext that he’s bringing in about $21/month from SOME of the ads (if you can believe that figure; research on his advertising affiliate programs tends to indicate higher income likelihood, especially if there’s any truth to the incredibly – and we mean “likely not credible” – high number on his site hit counter).

     He neglected to mention what he received in donations over the years (when he had a donation button on the site and was begging for money in group postings).  He also did not mention what he’s getting from the Cell for Cash ad left out of his flighty “income statement” to FcNext.  He also did not say what the current costs of the site are, but anyone can look at 1and1.com to see what they charge for site hosting.  And remember that he uses that hosting service for more than just freesharing.org.  So the portion attributable to that one URL is only some fraction of $10/month.

     He did say that the site ad revenue is enough profit to take his wife out to dinner now and then.  For a video store clerk, we’d guess that means pizza, befitting a Deacon of the Erisian Way, subscriber to a parody religion that encourages everyone and anyone to ordain themselves infallible Pope, “including retroactively,” and whose “Law of Fives” says that “all phenomena are directly or indirectly related to the number five, and this relationship can always be demonstrated given enough ingenuity on the part of the demonstrator.”  We suspect that this is because to a Deacon of the Erisian Way, the fingers on one hand are enough counting to attempt to undertake competently.

     We know that he has panhandled fellow TFN demonizers for money to help run his junk site.  For example, on August 3, 2005, Burke wrote to the clan, “I’d like to ask for donations up to maybe $350 total to get a new PC to keep everything updated, and keep myself online. … [and later added] I work for a living, and generally have about $50 left at the end of the week when the next paycheck comes in. I’m just like every other lower middle class working stiff out there when it comes to paying the bills, and being able to buy the ‘extras’ … All I was asking for was a way to ask some of the folks who support what I’m trying to accomplish for a very small amount of cash to replace a dying PC so that FreeSharing.org doesn’t go unattended should this one finally bite the dust. I even said that I’d cap it at $350 which is all it would take to buy a complete PC.”

     Someone replied, “Isn’t this the same person that bragged about how he’d NEVER ask for money? That it only took a few dollars to run the website and he just couldn’t understand how Freecycle could dare to ask for sponsorship or funds from it’s members?”

     To this, “man of the cloth” FcNexter and Burke defender Paul Hurteau replied: “Shut up, Bitch … [and later added] Are you not a little to far from your Pagan God’s side? Go back under the bridge where good TROLLS belong … [and he could not resist this further revelation] As a man of the cloth, All I can really say is that If I knew a woman like [this person objecting to Burke's begging] I would rather be associated with Judas than her, at least he killed himself when he found out he was wrong.”

     There are so many kinds of cloth.  Here is one inclined to say that a person should commit suicide rather than hold a fellow cult insider accountable.  Though we’re certain nobody would take that dose of Kool-Aid for the sake of defending Burke, the dialog reflects the nature of the cloth from which some of the most rabid Nexters’ behaviors were cut.

     It would indeed cost more than Burke makes from his Freecycling for Dollars site to incorporate and go legal as a bona-fide registered charitable organization.  The cost is not the only obstacle, or the primary one.  The primary obstacle is that to be a registered charity, you have to do something for the public benefit.

     We agree, only technically speaking, with Burke’s statement, “There are also additional reporting requirements and restrictions placed upon non-profit organizations that would greatly complicate the operation of this directory.”

     The legal requirements involved in running a charitable organization are beyond the scope of his capabilities, and contrary to his profit motive.  Even so, his so-called “org” does not qualify as a public benefit service anyway, and never will.  It is a disservice to the public when you fabricate a directory of freecycling groups that is 60% junk.  Nevertheless, it’s not a disservice to his personal cash bottom line, as long as he avoids the kinds of scrutiny and transparency involved in doing the job professionally as a legitimate public service, registered non-profit or not.

     Of course, none of this means he’s not required to report his income to the Internal Revenue Service, but we’re sure the IRS has much bigger fish to fry.

—–

The greater tragedy here is more about FcNext than about Burke’s Freecycling for Dollars escapade.  They appoint themselves watchdog over TFN while willfully ignoring the malfeasance of their own insiders Burke (freesharing.org) and Hedden (sharingisgiving.org).

     Worse than ignoring it, they defend and praise their cult insiders, not for doing anything right, but for building artificial empires of junk web links to create the false image of alternatives to TFN.  Rabid wolf packs never did make good watchdogs.

     If FcNext had any moral ground to stand on as watchdogs over anybody, they’d watch their own.  Under that kind of rubric, they’d welcome posts (and write some of their own; or just link to ours) documenting and denouncing the fallacies of freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org.  It is never going to happen.  That would be too much for FcNext to swallow about itself.  They must avoid mirrors, which would spontaneously crack under their gaze.

—————————–
Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

FcNext is not the answer to TFN trouble

Our text below is too long to post as a comment on the blog post titled “The freecycle controversy” at:
http://sunnydale47.livejournal.com/880220.html
… so instead we will only post there a link to THIS blog entry.

FcNext is not the answer to TFN trouble.

In it’s group home page description, FcNext (formerly FreecycleNext) calls itself “the next generation of freecycling” and says that they are about “the future of freecycling.”  Anyone examining their activity (they have a publicly accessible message archive) will find that it’s more about the past, about their hatred of The Freecycle Network, Inc. (TFN) and its founder and chief, Deron Beal, and about sniping and cultish rage against anyone who speaks seriously against FcNext hate-baiting practices, including slanderous character assassinations and other kinds of violations of the Yahoo! Groups Guidelines and Terms of Service (TOS).  Recently about half a dozen FcNexters were slapped with TOS violation notices by Yahoo! and Yahoo deleted a bunch of their posts because of it … most notably recent three-time-TOS-violator foul-mouthed money-grubbing ”Deacon of the Erisian Way“ Eric Burke, who can’t keep a civil tongue in his head.  (For a good laugh, take a look at his razmear.us Erisian Deacon web site, where, like other places you find him on the web, he’s begging for personal financial support, this time in, “Buy some cool Erisian Stuff and help me pay my bills, take a look at my shop for an assortment of Sacred Chao merchandise.”  There IS no such thing as cool Erisian stuff, because it’s an idiotic pseudo-philosophy.  But it’s not surprising that Deacon Burke, like other FcNexters, goes by a self-ordained spiritual title, such things being common among cultists.)

There is nothing new in the behavior of FcNext.  They’ve been doing it in multiple online venues for about four years, coalesced into FcNext as their favorite cult cave.

Exploring FcNext one will also find that it’s only a dozen or so vocal snipers doing most of the trash-talking in FcNext, sometimes up to about two dozen, yet they deign to represent themselves as speaking for the truth held by a majority that does not exist.  FcNext membership is a miniscule minority of worldwide (or even just U.S.) freecycling group moderators.  And it’s always the same intent and tone: taking down TFN  (as if there will ever be any chance of their ever accomplishing any bit of that).  If they were honest, they’d rename their group “Death to TFN,” which is all they are really about, under the cloaks and masks they put over that mission.

Realistically, FcNext has accomplished nothing to stop the hegemony of TFN in the freecycling world it created.  Now, FcNexters face Yahoo!’s active promotion of TFN’s freecycle groups, even to the extent of Yahoo!’s seeding free gifts into TFN groups for the purpose of recruiting new members … talk about consumerism … freecycling for dollars, really, in that Yahoo! is taking commercialization of freecycling to a new level it never knew before.  FcNext is absolutely helpless and hopeless in fighting that.  Not that they shouldn’t.  They simply cannot, because they don’t have the means or the minds for such an undertaking.  They have not a gram of the wherewithal needed to begin such a campaign.  All they can do is rant about it, and Yahoo! and TFN will laugh at them all the way to the bank.

I call FcNext the “Lost Generation of Freecycling.”  They are TFN rejects who can’t get over it and move on, like some of the best of former TFN activists did in the creation of ReUseItNetwork.org, the best real alternative to TFN in the U.S., aside from some completely independent groups and maybe RealCycle.co.uk in the U.K. , possibly FullCircles.org in Canada.

FcNext brags about being big on free speech and welcoming cogent expression of dissent, in response to their experience of being censored and squelched in the Freecycle ModSquad and OIDG groups when they objected to certain things about TFN corporate behavior.  But when someone comes along and offers any serious dissent to FcNext ways, or seriously opposes the behavior of a core FcNext insider or cult leader, after allowing their cult followers to harass and attack the dissenter on a personal level (blatantly ignoring the FcNext home page policy statement, “No personal attacks,” in lip-servicing hypocrisy to the extent of being slapped with Yahoo! TOS violations for it) with no cogent response to the actual content of the opposition’s writings, they then invoke censorship just like OIDG and MS, preventing the dissenter from answering the FcNext rabid wolf pack postings, and worse, with the hypocrisy of saying that they stand for freedom to speak in dissent.  So they have become the thing they hate in TFN’s OIDG and MS groups: using censorship (and worse, personal attacks) to shut down posting by people who raise objections to the group’s behavior, even from non-TFN-affiliated people who don’t like TFN any better than FcNexters do.

This is not a defense of TFN’s policies, practices or behaviors.  However, one must consider that as a corporate entity TFN has a duty to protect its proprietary interests and reputation from attacks from its own insiders.  What they are protecting may be corrupt in some ways (and, in at least the constitution of its “not-for-profit” board of directors built on cronyism and nepotism, it is corrupt), but no corporation is going to sit still for its own staff, volunteers, and members ripping it apart from the inside, corrupt or not.

FcNext, on the other hand, has no such proprietary duty.  On the contrary, they claim (deceptively and hypocritically) to be all about free speech and the right to dissent.  They lie in that.  I’ve caught Deron Beal in lies, too (most notably about the former freecyclefinder.org activity shut down indirectly because of Yahoo! declaring its behavior a TOS violation), but that does not justify or warrant deception, rampant hypocrisy, and cultic hate-baiting among Beal’s opponents.

Lately, FcNext moderators (chieftains among the hate-baiting cult) have gone so far as to squelch even their own loyal cultists from posting about writings of people taking a stand against FcNext outside of FcNext.  No surprise there, really.  This is the only answer they can offer to dissent against their ways; hiding from it like children holding hands over ears and yelling “La la la la la la la la la – I can’t hear you! – La la la la la la la!”  But they had not ears, hearts or minds to hear cogent criticism against their own corruption and moral hazard anyway.

In addition to this kind of folly, they actively support and praise the perpetuation of so-called alternative networks or directories of supposed freecycling groups.  The two most popular ones among FcNexters are Eric Burke’s freesharing.org and FcNext moderator “Pastor” (a.k.a.: PK) Ken Hedden’s SharingIsGiving.org (SIG).  BOTH are loaded with garbage “freecycling group” links (and they don’t even bother to try to deny it, knowing they have no defense to offer for it).  Freesharing.org directory links are at least 60% garbage, proved through documented research published at:
http://nexteritis.wordpress.com/freesharing-survey-march-2008/

Pastor, indeed; cult-style, that is.

Hedden fattens the SIG directory by going around the country via cyberspace from his desk in Schroon Lake, NY, creating zombie groups — groups that are dead or inactive and never were and never will be active (proved by the fact that many of them are now dead two and three years since he created them) — “groups” that he puts up apparently only to fatten his directory and increase his silly empire of links — all in the hypocritical and deceptive name of providing an alternative to TFN.  Three quarters of Hedden’s SIG-brand-name groups are zombies, never truly operational freecycling groups.  The rest are largely just duplicates of links from Burke’s
directory, proved 60% junk.  The true nature of the SIG “network” has been carefully researched and documented at:
http://nexteritis.wordpress.com/sig-survey-overview/

Freesharing and SIG are no alternative at all to TFN except in a deceptive, illegitimate, corrupt way.  This is “the future of freecycling” by FcNext standards.

If any person stumbling upon freesharing or SIG uses them to look for a local group to join, more likely than not they will not find a legitimate, viable, real freecycling group there, but they can find groups that promote buying and selling, the antithesis of freecycling, and they can find Eric Burke’s personal profit generating ads.

For several months, Burke used freesharing.org to promote his favorite partisan political campaign (Ron Paul) in addition to always using the site to raise a personal profit for himself (and for his partisan political cause during the also-ran campaign of Ron Paul).  I call freesharing.org “Freecycling for Dollars.”  He also refused to remove groups that asked to be removed from his directory of links for sites that his FAQ says is for “sites that wish to be listed,” a statement we expect him to eventually remove so that he can no longer be held accountable for it, just as he recently removed his “No Politics” rule for groups listed in his “directory.”

After being publicly exposed and condemned for using freesharing.org for partisan political activism on the backs of apolitical freecycling groups, he removed the freesharing FAQ policy statement about “no politics,” a policy almost universally accepted as standard throughout the freecycling world, but no longer in freesharing.org or in the conscience of vocal FcNexters who praise, support and defend Burke (thus we say “almost” universally accepted).  FcNextercultists will never stand on principle against one of their own core cult insiders.  The few wimpy mentions among them about defects in Burke’s behavior amount to nothing more than feigned shots at empty self-righteousness, painting pictures on their own mirrors to hide what they would otherwise see if viewed with open and honest eyes.

If they had any guts at all, those Nexters who recognize the errors in Burke’s ways would firmly and resolutely take a stand against them, and publicly divest themselves of involvement and support of freesharing.org unless and until he makes amends.  But in a cultish environment like FcNext, that would only earn them the ire of the dominant FcNextercult rabid wolf pack, where all thrive on mindless fear, not just of outsiders, but of themselves, having become what they most hate as a group and unable to see it, much less admit it or do anything about it.   Even the smarter ones among them like moderator (and former Deron Beal right-hand-woman) Nancy Castleman and FcNext founder Tim Oey won’t do it, probably because they know it would be the end of their idiot brainchild FcNext.

After waiting three and half months for Burke to live up to his promises to accommodate their requests to be removed from his directory, when a group undertook a membership letter-writing civil campaign to him about it, he responded to some of them with foul-mouthed (including the usual proverbial drunken sailor type expletives) abusive emails, and undertook a raging personal attack (calling it a declaration of “war”) on the group’s owner in FcNext posts (posts that were subsequently deleted by Yahoo! for TOS violations).  He accused the group’s members of sending him abusive emails, but when challenged on that lie, he never produced a copy of a single one.

Burke was also caught red-handed adding groups to his directory that never asked to be there, despite his site’s FAQ stated policy that the directory is for “sites that wish to be listed.”  Freesharing.org (not an org at all, but just the personal profiteering activity of Eric Burke) is more corrupt than the TFN he hates.

What did FcNexters have to say about this?  Most of them who said anything, especially the usually most vocal ones, defended Burke, and even praised his corrupt
behaviors.  They joined in the personal attacks against Burke’s opponents, without any cogent defense offering any reasoning for their hateful behavior.  They cheered him on and encouraged him to continue his foul-mouthed personal attacks and abuses, adding their own slanderous rhetoric to the fray, and rallied for Burke to continue his corrupt activity at freesharing.org.

FcNext, if it had any conscience as a group, or even if just one of its leading members had an active conscience, would take a stand against the kind of “future of freecycling” represented by Burke’s and Hedden’s garbage directories.  Instead, FcNexters defend their right to practice deception in the creation and publicizing of junk directory entries, politicizing of the freecycling movement, and profiteering on it.  This is the future of freecycling in the hands and small minds of leading, core FcNext cultists and their most vocal trash-talking blindly brainwashed minions energized by hatred.

For more about this, including carefully documented research into the true nature of freesharing.org and sharingisgiving.org (which always was a silly name), and for a cogently expressed dissenting perspective (something not allowed in FcNext) on the cultic mindset of FcNext, see the Nexteritis blog at:
http://nexteritis.wordpress.com

Nexteritis is NOT associated, affiliated, or allied with The Freecycle Network or any other freecycling network or directory service in any manner whatsoever.  The purpose of Nexteritis is to expose the corrupt nature of FcNext and its minions.

—————————–

Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to:

nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

Why we call FcNext a cult

Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to:
Nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

——————————

Why We Call FcNext a Cult

Paul Hurteau, operator of FreeCycleEarth.org (FCE) and one of the longtime leading Nextercultists, says about us, “And to call fcnexters a ‘CULT’ just goes to show they have no idea what constitues [sic] a cult!”

This deserves some explanation, and we’ll enjoy adding some commentary.

First, a note of appreciation to Paul for using his unmoderated status to post in FcNext a link to our Nexteritis blog, especially given that FcNext moderators normally censor out any strong, genuine, consistently cogent opposition to their cultic mindset.

Quoting with gratitude from our favorite dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s:

————————————–
CULT

Etymology: French & Latin; French culte, from Latin cultus care, adoration, from colere to cultivate

5  – a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad  – b: the object of such devotion  – c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
————————————–

We note with interest that the other definitions of “cult” typically involve religion or religious-type behavior and thought.  Some of the leading core Nexters have distinctly religious mindsets, even calling themselves “of the cloth,” (Paul Hurteau, for example) “pastor” (Ken Hedden, for example), “evangelist” (Andy Swarbrick, for example, in this case in his activism for Grouply.com throughout the freecycling group world), etc., or have otherwise demonstrated that they are adherents (or at least lip-servants) of religious convictions of types whose best founders, avatars and inspired writings have always opposed the general trend of FcNext-type cultish behavior and attitude.  The hypocrisy typical of a radically religious mindset is a common type of human stupidity.  It has a strong hold on multiple leading, core Nextercultists.

It is typical of radically religious-minded people to be virtually incompetent of anything but cultic thinking, especially those who glorify themselves for their self-appointed roles in religious activism outside the mainstream of responsible spiritual institutions having internal systems of holding their activists and adherents accountable for their behaviors.  Irresponsible, hypocritical, radical religious fervency is a common type of human stupidity having a grip on the mindset of some leading core Nextercultists.

(It is easy to sympathize somewhat with atheism activist Sam Harris, who said that if he could magically rid the world of either religion or rape, he would eliminate religion because it does more damage to civilization.)

FcNext is not by design or definition a religious cult, but it has a cultic mindset similar to radical religion in some ways.  In the hypocrisy typical of religious fanatics, they violate the principles of their own personal religions (and pseudo-religions) in their aberrant and deviant behaviors, and abrogate the purported principles and policies of their own FcNext group, not just now in recent FcNext activity, but consistently for years in a variety of online venues that have fed into establishment and cultivation of the FcNext cult, like tributaries into a river.

In the case of FcNext, the cultic trend is grounded not only in devotion to their pseudo-intellectual (harebrained) hypocrisy in lip-service to themes such as free speech, respect for cogent dissent, and lightly moderated discussion and debate, but more significantly, their cultism derives from, focuses upon, and actively cultivates abject hatred of Deron Beal, The Freecycle Network, Inc. (TFN), and anyone who resists the FcNext cultish group-think, calling them “deronites,” servants or aspirants of favor with the “emperor,” etc. , even when such FcNext resisters have no relationship or connection with Beal or TFN, and do not participate in TFN or support it.

Basically, if it does not support hatred of TFN, core Nexters despise it and attack it, reflexively, reactively, irrationally, like mad dogs.  The devotional aspect of their cult is less a matter of devotion to a movement of their own (a deceptive shell masking corruption; something like what Jesus called a “whited sepulchre”), more a devotion to hatred and condemnation of anyone who does not agree with or opposes their style, beliefs, tactics, and hate-based dogma.  This is typical of a cult that has nothing to offer but opposition to something else, and cultivation of hatred as its primary strategy.  Devoid of substance of its own, it derives its being from the labor of demonizing others.  It is part of the same kind of human stupidity typical of radical religion.

We note with care that this is not likely true of everyone holding membership in the FcNext group.  Their membership count varies between about 450 and 500, but only a few dozen of them actively advocate the cultish mentality of the much smaller cadre of highly vocal cult leaders and advocates.

It is hard to estimate accurately how many freecycling-type groups there are in the world.  This is partly because so many “groups” listed in directories like Freesharing.org (Eric Burke) and SharingIsGiving.org (Ken Hedden) are not really viable or active groups at all, or are not true freecycling groups, along with dead/inactive links, etc.  Many listed there never were real groups of real people in local communities joining the freecycling movement.  They were just empire-building zombie groups created by Ken Hedden to fatten his directory, like others pursuing that kind of decptive activity to perpetuate a false notion that there are many groups offering an alternative to TFN, making SIG just another pretty and petty shell devoid of substance (or honesty).

By educated guess, there could be as many as five thousand legitimate freecycling groups worldwide, with millions of members.  Many of the groups have multiple moderators.  There may be ten thousand or more moderators in freecycling groups.  Among them, less than five hundred hold membership in FcNext.  Among those five hundred, not more than a few dozen are active FcNext cultists.  Among those, only about a dozen or so are highly vocal in their cultic behaviors and attitudes.

Yet this tiny sick band of cultish miscreants make more noise about their hate-filled agenda than all the other freecycling moderators combined, and attack like rabid wolves anyone who takes a position contrary to their warped cultic hypocritical notions of truth, decency, civility, honesty and honor.  Their tactics are akin to terrorists, having no other means to impose and perpetuate their cultic will.

They have become worse than the worst characterizations they issue about TFN.  They are the things they hate.  It is inevitable that if you immerse yourself in such cultic devotion to a hate-based agenda long enough, you become blind to your own image, which is nothing more than a dark and dismal reflection of your own hatred and the character sustaining it.

Does Nexteritis hate FcNext?  Yes, in the way that one hates violence, corruption, hypocrisy, slanderous rhetoric, unconscionable behavior, and cultic blindness to realities beyond a cult’s closed worldview and narcissistic self-view, and the damage these things do to a positive civic movement like freecycling.

Unlike FcNext, the Nexteritis group has no need to stay active indefinitely.  We seek to expose FcNext hypocrisy, corruption, and cultism, propagate the information widely to the public, and let it serve as a red flag to anyone inclined to fall into the style of the FcNext cult.  We also hold some small hope that some current cult members or fringe members will see that there is more to reality and available perspective than the FcNext hate-based agenda, propaganda and tactics.  Still, there is only so much one needs to prove about what FcNext really is before the job is done.

We are not done.

We appreciate the support and assistance coming in quietly from people who have dealt with FcNexters (in the FcNext group and elsewhere since 2004) and have shared information and insights.  Thank you.

There was a time when leading Nexter-types embarked on a movement for “truth and reconciliation” regarding their troubled past with TFN and even with each other as individuals.  That has been drowned out, dismissed, and driven into extinction by the current cultic way of FcNext.

There may be room still for certain kinds of reconciliation effort.  We may propose a safe ground for such an opportunity soon, but not before we finish documenting some things that need to be known by interested parties, and need to be exposed for the sake of uprooting trends antithetical to civility, decency and honesty in the freecycling movement.

Nexteritis is not affiliated or associated in any manner with The Freecycle Network, Inc. or any of its leaders, servants, activists, moderators or members, but we welcome their involvement in our mission to cogently answer the cultic stupidity of FcNext.

—————————

Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, write to:
Nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com

Altamonte Springs Goes Green

We received a note from someone in Florida expressing disappointment that the ReUseItNetwork (RIN) affiliated group, Altamonte Springs Goes Green (ASGG), is listed in the freesharing.org directory.  They noticed it showing up in our Freesharing.org March 2008 Survey.

In early February 2008, RIN co-founder and ASGG owner Robin reported in a post to FcNext that she (and several other groups found in the freesharing directory) never asked to be listed at freesharing.org, and asked to be removed when she learned of the listing.

We don’t know whether Robin has changed her mind about it, but we sympathize with the Florida resident who expressed misgivings about the freesharing listing.

——————–
Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, contact:
nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
———————