Talk:Craigslist/Archive1

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Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Ownership

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

craigslist or Craigslist? (naming)

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

After browsing the pages at craigslist.org/about/, it appears that the site is consistently called craigslist but the new non-profit is called Craigslist Foundation. I'm going to change it back to craigslist here, and add the wrongtitle template. I know that some people have a big problem with starting sentences with a lowercase letter; I think that in the case of nouns which are explicitly lowercase it is acceptable. I also think it would also be reasonable to capitalize the word at the beginning of sentences, to be syntactically correct English, but I think the word should remain lowercase at the beginning of the first sentence at the least.
Other articles I've edited with the exact same issue include del.icio.us, qmail, and djbdns. ~leif ☺ HELO 00:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)

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

Agreed. I have capitalized instances at the beginning of sentences. It's a basic rule of written English: all sentences must begin with a capital letter. Nohat 06:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Per the newly-agreed guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (trademarks), I have capitalized all instances of Craigslist. Nohat 09:56, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Status of organization running craigslist

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

dead lnks

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

List of cities section in article

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

As no one objected, I've made the section significantly more maintainable and useful. — EncMstr 10:14, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I think that is a good idea. It was a good idea when there were fewer cities, but now it is quite unnecessary to duplicate that information here, and that kind of list is hard to maintain. -- Renesis (talk) 14:07, 28 November 2006 (UTC)
I edited the area about cities included. The first 14 seemed more interesting than 10. The list on CL is not up to date and is out of sync with another list somewhere on the site. Also they are not always "cities": 20% are countries, regions or towns. I'm adding a link to a google map of Craigslist cities. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.12.143.87 (talk) 05:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC).

proper etiquette

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

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

See WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:COI. In similar cases, it has been vehemently agreed best practice is that you don't directly edit either article. You're most welcome, however, to suggest changes on the corresponding talk pages and see what the community thinks. In your case, I'd be happy to incorporate any changes for which I can find a reliable published source, or remove material for which I can't find something you point out is in error. —EncMstr 04:46, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
It's a guideline, rather than a hard rule, not to edit your own articles, but this is primarily because people find it hard to be neutral when self-editing and when debating the merits of an article on the talk page. The guideline means that any edits you make may be viewed more skeptically than if they had been made by someone else. That said, if you do choose to edit your own articles, if you just stick to the facts (i.e., "Craigslist is headquartered in San Francisco") you should be OK.
Alternately, suggest edits on the talk page for the articles, and there's a very good chance someone else will consider them and make the changes. --Zippy 17:16, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Article errors

maybe some corrections:

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

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


I removed the items for which googling didn't turn up any claim the other way:
  • removed: Craig solicted business cards from everyone he would meet.
  • removed: The initial technology used did not work very well so Craig suspended postings while looking for better technology.
  • removed: So Craig looked around for people who could help him run the business aspects of Craigslist. This resulted in Craig hiring a business advisor and a business manager.
  • removed: it will ban users who are critical of the owners
I goggled for ten to fifteen minutes on each of these items, but couldn't find any useful sources:
  • Pine cc field filled up
  • I created the user interface myself, though a volunteer, Weezy Muth, made significant contributions
  • in late 1999, Craig rewrote the software, using Perl and MySQL running in an Apache and Linux environment
If you can provide a link to a reliable source asserting each of these, I'd be happy to add them.
Wasn't sure if this was a complete fact, so didn't check it:
  • before the SPARC, Paul Risenhoover contributed server space on a Linux system
—EncMstr 03:30, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

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

All you have to do is dig up a URL containing credible assertion of each item.
The Pine cc field filled up assertion, unless it was publicized somehow, seems the hardest of these. User:Jimbo Wales won't be of much use, at least not more than any other editor who can find reliable published facts. I'm usually pretty good at steering Google, but was confounded by some of these.
The basic principles of Wikipedia—which may be confusing to newcomers—is articles may contain only verifiable content. Just because it is "true" does not mean it can be included. We expect and hope the verifiable subset of facts is an agreeable truth. —EncMstr 04:12, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Well, my blog is listed as the founder's blog, authenticated, so should I just assert the facts there?

not complaining, just figuring it out. thanks!

Craig

Cnewmark 11:43, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Each external link may serve a different purpose. Often they are just for further subject exploration, as yours is. Other links could be for competitors, commentators, news, popular media—or cultural—uses of the article subject, etc. For examples, see Geneva#External links, Drywall#External links, Enron#External links and Holocaust denial#External links.
Blogs are poor reliable sources as no one checks their content before publishing, typically. In this (wikipedia) article, your blog is listed as an official site, meaning that it should be treated as biased toward the article subject. For a relatively uncontroversial subject such as Craigslist, there isn't likely to be "other points of view" URLs. For comparison, look at a hotly contested article like AIDS reappraisal: the external links are grouped by side. Also the edit history and talk pages are boisterous, to say the least.
If there were a published investigative article by Carl Bernstein called Craigslist Undermines the Fabric of the Universe (for example), it should—and probably would—be among the other links. More likely, the assertions would be in a controversy section of the article with Bernstein cited.
Did I elucidate or obfuscate? —EncMstr 17:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
thanks! appreciated... but how do I solve this?

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

Cnewmark 01:47, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

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

EncMstr said:

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

  • Pine cc field filled up
  • I created the user interface myself, though a volunteer, Weezy Muth, made significant contributions
  • in late 1999, Craig rewrote the software, using Perl and MySQL running in an Apache and Linux environment
If you can provide a link to a reliable source asserting each of these, I'd be happy to add them.<<

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

——Lumarine

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

I'm jumping into this conversation a little late but...Actually, (referring to the last two posts), Wikipedia cannot be a reference for itself and so these still need verifiable reliable sources. So we're back to square one. If any of the unreferenced statements above have been mentioned in the press somewhere, then all we need to do is link to it and we're done. I'm thinking that since Craig has probably done countless interviews about his company, he must have mentioned the above facts somewhere other than on this page? Katr67 18:42, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Couldn't Craig issue a press release stating these facts somewhere on craigslist.org? Would that be sufficient for facts if we were referring to them in regards to the company. Basically an official statement by the company. Strawberry Island 23:59, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Links to Cl foundation

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

Ok not "linkspam" in the strictest of definitions, but the CL foundation has its external link in the external links already. Its completely redundant to have it in the article proper. Carl.bunderson 19:13, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Adding them to the article proper feels more like it is trying to promote them in a commercial way, so I tend to remove external links when they are in the article rather than relegated to the external links section where they belong. Carl.bunderson 19:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
Ok, that seems fine to me. --Rocksanddirt 19:28, 14 August 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism might be true....

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

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

Why is Craig's List Popular?

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

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

Finnancial Information

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

The ownership and revenues on Craigslist have been subject to intense scrutiny and analysis, and are certainly a subject of public interest. Much of it is speculation, hearsay, estimates, or analysis at some level because like nearly every public company they do not announce these figures. When a company turns an industry upside down as this one has with classified ads, everyone is rightfully interested to know what is going on. That is information about a company's operations, not biographical information about its founders, so BLP does not apply. A whole realm of journalism and financial analysis is devoted to discerning non-public information about private companies. In the case of Craigslist, numbers vary widely as it is widely suspected that the company's public comments understate its revenues. I have provided some references. As you an see, Wall Street Journal, Fortune, and CNN get in the act. Wikidemo 21:23, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
as it is a private company and the first stab included listing the names of some of the people supposed to be owners....it gets close to the line. I agree that it's a valid topic for the article, we just need sources is my point. --Rocksanddirt 21:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Removal of a section

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

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

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

Some mention of this...

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

198.146.33.10 15:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

why remove erotic services?

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

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

Is there a reason why????.

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

00:00, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Ads beamed into space?

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

Be Careful

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think you make a great case for simply deleting the items—not creating a new article to contain them. It might be better to rework any good cites from those into a sentence or paragraph which says something to the effect of "craigslist is so popular, it now rivals newspaper classified ads for solicitation, and postal mail and telephone systems for furtherance of illegal activities." —EncMstr 21:47, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Wikidemo's idea seems fine, though like encmstr, I'm fine with deleting all the irrelevant stuff. --Rocksanddirt 21:49, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
Thanks. The only reason I suggest keeping the material in the form of a new article is to avoid objections. If you simply delete, someone may revert, or else the material creeps back in over time. If you have a separate list article it takes the pressure off because you can just tell people to go there. The list may end up getting deleted under AFD anyway, but at least nobody can say it was unfair. Another halfway solution is to create a "dead pile" on the talk pages for removed material, telling people to keep it there until and unless they can source it and demonstrate its relevance to the article. I have no strong opinion either way. I guess I'll wait a few days. If nobody objects we can just delete and point to this discussion as a consensus. If there is some objection or concern, or preference for a list, we can create a list article and let whoever likes that material take care of the list. Wikidemo 22:09, 29 October 2007 (UTC)
The problem with this idea is, if a certain fact isn't notable or encyclopaedic as part of the Craigslist article, spinning it off into its own article won't do anything to make it notable. I think we'd be better off if these minor stories were simply deleted rather than given their own article. However, if you disagree, feel free to create the list and see what happens - maybe an encyclopaedic list can be created of such events after all. (If not, AFD will handle it.) Terraxos 21:14, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
It might make some sense as a "List of things that happened on Craigslist." That's probably a notable subject, even though I'm not terribly interested or excited by it. Some people seem to be, and some newspapers as well. But I guess there's no policy on Wikipedia that you have to create an article for every notable subject under the sun, just one that you shouldn't delete them. I'm just not sure. I did think the "unencyclopedic events" header was pretty funny. Wikidemo 19:54, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I was surprized how long it lasted...as a clearly pov statement. I still might just delete it all. As news items they are not very encyclopedic, a whole list of them from cl would only be slightly more encyclopedic. --Rocksanddirt 21:59, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I won't stop you. But some people do think "what happens on craigslist" (or eBay, or facebook, etc) is a notable subject in itself. Hence the film, 24 hours on Craigslist. But anyway, it's fine by me to delete. If you do that we should leave some record (perhaps a visible notice or a comment on the article page) to please not list crimes or other news events unless there's actually some intersection between them and the article that sheds some light on its subject. I think a threshold is that there should be a reliable source not just that the event happened on Craigslist but that it sheds some light on the subject. If a user extrapolates to say that the event is "notable" or "significant", a "controversy" or a "criticism", that determination is a bit of original reasoning not supported by the source.Wikidemo 22:16, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Having awesomely prevailed in spearheading the deletion of all pages related to the "Craigslist murder" when that debacle occurred, I will bring a few words of advice in determining notability. It is not necessary to debate the notability of events themselves but their relation to the article topic itself. Consider that controversy and criticism is apparent in everything, in all matters and topics because people disagree. But does this criticism actually affect the subject? Has Craigslist done anything about child prostitution or unsuspecting murderers? And even if it has, has it fundamentally changed Craigslist in any way that is any different from our understanding of Craigslist before the year 2007? That is why Wikipedia avoids Trivia sections because otherwise the encyclopedia would become an assemblage of trivial facts which bear no true consequence on each other. Terrible events can occur anywhere, anytime, any place, crime is blind to who or what and such heinous acts do not always bolster the fame of any given topic. .:DavuMaya:. 21:36, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Screenshot is cropped

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