Craigslist has a volunteer police force which is the site’s primary line of defense. One woman, Martha Bader, is one of the volunteers and when she finds deals on Craigslist that looks a bit too good to be true then she did the right thing and deleted the post. This way, the ad would not trick a person to think that it’s a legitimate offer when in fact it was just to trick them out of their money.
The volunteers would flag posts that looks like scams or inappropriate and when the post gets enough flags from the other volunteers then it gets removed from the site. With a huge site such as Craigslist, even if you set up rules for the posters to follow, it still becomes a never ending challenge as some would still break the rules and scam people.
It is inevitable to find scam posts or spams and inappropriate or vulgar posts being posted on Craigslist and this is when the volunteers come in and it is their job to flag those they see are inappropriate. Without the volunteers, Craigslist would find it hard to detect the legitimate posts from the inappropriate ones.
It was Jim Buckmaster who started the idea of a flagging system that utilizes people power. It became quite a success and now millions of volunteers are checking out the site and flagging the inappropriate posts which is very effective and does not cost the site too.
With the aide of the people-power volunteers, we get to enjoy Craigslist even more. Although there are still some inappropriate ads getting through every once in awhile but it’s already minimized. Without the volunteers, Craigslist could be a scam/spam haven.
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