Please help me fire Yahoo!

October 17, 2007 10:35 PM

Are all Freecycle groups run as a Yahoo! group?

I'm a moderator for my local Freecycle group and like all Freecycle groups that I've ever known, our group's listserv is provided by Yahoo! groups. But Yahoo! groups is horrible and I want a better interface. I'm a programmer (currently VB but learning PHP), I have hosting, but what I would like to have is an open-source backbone for providing a bulletin-board-type site where members could post their wares (PHPBB?).

I've been to the main Freecycle site where listings for groups all across the country can be found, but so far all of the groups listed appear to be using Yahoo! groups.

Does anyone know of an open-source app that I could modify to meet my needs? PHP is preferred, but ASP would be good as well. Or if you happen to belong to a non-Yahoo!-based Freecycle group, please send me the group's information.

posted by mezzanayne to Computers & Internet (5 answers total)

All of the Freecycle locales I've seen rely on Yahoo groups. It baffles me, because it's really a terrible, terrible solution. I looked into my local Freecycle once, but the fact that it's a Y! group drove me off. I assume that your local craigslist's free / barter sections aren't sufficient to your needs, eh?

Off topic: at some point within the past year, I came across an alternative to Freecycle -- well, a stuff-exchange site at least -- with groovy ajaxy proximity mapping features and whatnot. On trying to re-find it recently, though, my Google-fu proved very weak. It may be out there, though, just waiting to be found again.
posted by mumkin at 11:35 PM on October 17, 2007

self-link alert: mumkin, I built something like that (without the ajax) for baby clothes a little while ago, but never promoted it so it's pretty dead.
posted by lowlife at 6:26 AM on October 18, 2007

All the ones I know of are also Y! based, which sucks. I like yahoo well enough, but not their groups. And not for this particular function.

HOWEVER, say you built a really spiffy new thing for your local freecycle. How would you encourage people to use that instead of yahoo groups? Would you shut down the group? If not, you'd end up having two separate groups that people would have to check, which would be annoying at the least.

I think you have a great idea of building something better, but I also think that you'd have a hard time getting people to use it who have been using the 'old' way for years.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 7:15 AM on October 18, 2007

Response by poster: misanthropicsarah, I've registered a domain by the same name as my Freecycle group (citynamefreecycle.org) and would work with the owner of the existing Yahoo! group to have the group deactivated and have the Yahoo! group page direct to the new location. Thank you for your concern; I agree that it would be irritating at best to have 2 separate groups for the name locale.
posted by mezzanayne at 8:00 AM on October 18, 2007

Any web BB solution isn't IMO. The freecycle system needs the fire and forget nature of email. If you've got hosting why not run your own list serve. MailMan is free (beer:speech) as is MajorDomo (beer:semi-speech). ListSERV has a free version for up to 500 clients.
posted by Mitheral at 6:29 PM on October 18, 2007