Nexteritis – Opposition to FcNext

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.

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

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.

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

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Copyright 2008 by Nexteritis.  All rights reserved.  For permission to use, contact:
nexteritis-owner@yahoogroups.com
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FcNext, The Lost Generation of Freecycling

Nothing exciting here (although some Nexters sure seem excited about us … too bad we don’t get paid for writing our stuff … that would be too “Freesharing-like”).  Just some typical nexterisms and yahooisms to talk about  …

1. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24702
Nexter No_blip can’t tell the difference between copyright fair use and the TOS violation involved in swiping a post from a group’s private, restricted archive for publication in a public archive.  That’s okay.  Yahoo! knows the difference, and executed their Notice of Infringement and FcNext post deletions accordingly.

We look forward to the Nexteritis blog being quoted, legally and responsibly in a fair use context, with proper attribution (just a valid hyperlink to the source will do … just to keep things simple enough for Nexters).

We also appreciate the publicity we’re getting through their posting a link to us, beginning with thanks to Andy for that, since FcNext censorship wouldn’t allow us to post our views in their so-called “unmoderated” group under their limited (and twisted) notion of “free speech,” complicated by their inability to cope with dissent from people willing to put serious effort into it.  But they ARE mostly students of TFN, where they learned some things about how to run discussion groups and deal with controversy, though apparently little or nothing about moderating a discussion.

2. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24703
Paul Hurteau (proudly hailing from Auburn, MA) thinks it’s wrong for anti-Nexters to publish their writing under a nom de plume, but doesn’t accuse comrade “no_blip” of any such thing.  Honor among blips and all that.  Apparently he also subscribes to that school of thought saying, “If I say it, it must be true.”  And conversely, “If I say it ain’t true, it can’t be true.”  Most folks of that type also tend to think that if they say it often enough and loud enough, that makes it true.  George W. Bush got most Americans and Congress to buy into an illegal and immoral war that way, so I guess if it’s good enough for him, it might work among Nexters.  George is also famous for a line in a speech to the United Nations:  “You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists.”  That kind of polarized thinking works for Nexters, too.  No gray areas, no middle ground, no alternatives.  You either swallow their propaganda hook, line and sinker, or you are evil.  Drink the kool-aid and go to Nexter Heaven.  For each TFN group you kill, you get seventeen virgins in the afterlife.

3. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24704
Nexter moderator (only in word, not deed or skill) Judy is still harping on the silly notion of reporting something about Nexteritis to Yahoo!, presumably because she can’t decipher the TOS, or maybe she just thinks it’s fun to tell people to file unjustified and unsustainable complaints (or false ones).  I guess it does sting a little to know so many posts have been deleted from FcNext for TOS violations, and to dread the likelihood of it happening again.

4. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24705
“Kettle” No_blip, being the expert statistician, believes that a 14% random sample is insufficient to come to any reasonable conclusions in a survey of the type done on Freesharing.  Of course, the method of randomization was published, and anyone can verify that the report did contain a random sample, but no Nexter would do that much work about anything so intensive, even things they get so excited about.  It’s easier to just rant than do any serious investigation of facts.

Still, it is understandable that some folks of limited faculties might suspect that 14% isn’t a big enough random sample.  Some day we’ll double it by adding another 14% of the list to the survey.

Actually, we’ve already done that.  Some time ago, we surveyed about 300 of the entries in the Freesharing directory (more than a third of the directory size at the time), just starting at the top of the list and moving down through it.  The results were worse for Burke’s image.  But that’s outdated now, and it did not provide a proportionate cross-section of the entire country.

Following Andy’s psychology, criticizing Freesharing should be a positive thing, because criticism can help show the way to improvement.  He might be onto something there, but it takes someone capable of receiving and acting on constructive criticism in an honorable way.  We’re not expecting Burke to suddenly start applying anything like quality controls to his directory.  It would cut his link count in half, and maybe reduce his Google hit rating, and affect his income.  Money talks.

5.  King James English-speaking Statistician Kettle No-blip also writes about Nexteritis with a biblical twist, this matter being of religious-scale consequence to them.  Not surprising from a cult to invoke religious overtones on things.

6. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/fcnext/message/24707
Typical of Nexters, Hurteau reads words that are not there, referring to someone else having written the word “most” when they did not.  (The phrase he apparently refers to is, “the other 90% either ignoring it or long gone bouncing.”)  But it would be interesting to know how many FcNext member accounts are bouncing, if one could get an honest answer to such a question.  We hope it’s not many, because we do like our blog link being published to as many Nexters as possible.

Curious that serious dissidents and opponents to core Nexter attitudes and behaviors are not allowed to post in FcNext, but FcNext postings still give so much attention to the writings of those same dissidents and opponents, notwithstanding those vocal unmoderated Nexters’ lack of substance and cogency, as usual.

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