Freecycling for Dollars
Quoting from:
http://freesharing.org/faq.php …
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis. All rights reserved. For permission to use, write to: nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
