Tuesday, June 6, 2017

Craigslist Postings Wrongly Flagged For Removal

I sell a variety of items on Craigslist, and generally the free service works very well. However, the other day I saw this message when trying to renew one of my posts:


The question mark contains a link to the Flags and Community Moderation page. Here are the contents of that page:
  • craigslist users self-publish tens of millions of free postings each month, subject to the CL terms of use (TOU).
  • CL users flag postings they find to be in violation via the "prohibited" link at the top of each posting.
  • Free classified ads sufficiently flagged are subject to automated removal.
  • Postings may also be flagged for removal by CL staff or CL automated systems.
  • Millions of ads are removed by flagging monthly, nearly all of which violate the CL terms of use.
  • Of course no moderation system is perfect, and a small percentage of ads removed are compliant.
  • Flagged postings that comply with the TOU may be reposted, reworded as necessary.
  • For help from CL users regarding flagging, visit flag help forum, and follow the instructions there.
  • Funny or memorable postings may be nominated for "best of craigslist" via the "best-of" link.
My ad was for an iPad dock and had no offensive language, no links, or anything that I would interpret as "prohibited" according to Craigslist terms of use. You be the judge (the map and home address on the right have been obscured):






I can only conclude that either there is an error in Craigslist's automated system for flagging posts as inappropriate or someone manually flagged my post as inappropriate. In either case, I suppose there are opportunities to improve. If the automated system flagged my post as inappropriate, it would be interesting to know how that happened to such an innocuous post. If it was an individual who manually flagged my post as inappropriate, it would be nice if the owner of the post was notified and perhaps given a chance to dispute the feedback. If a 2nd or 3rd person flagged the post as inappropriate, then maybe at that point the user would have no recourse but to revise and repost. Overall, I still find Craigslist to be very valuable and still recommend it to others.

And by the way, does anyone want to buy an iPad 2 Dock for $10? ðŸ˜€

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