Craigslist Sucks

© 2010 G.N. Jacobs

I really hate Craigslist for many reasons (spamming, flagging, unrealistic expectations, etc), but the one that really gets me is the amount of people who post jobs or gigs in the writing section who are basically cheating their college educations. Some are either willing to pay for it the rest are even more delusional by not paying for their cheating.

Every week, I run into someone who posts a variation of  – “Help! I’m in this class and I need a term paper on ________ done yesterday!”

In my search for writing and editing jobs, I don’t even respond to this type of desperate, delusional and stupid post. I’m not going to take your money by giving you copyrightable material that you can then pass off as your own. Whatever skills I have at writing came because I do my own work and I lived my life instead of paying someone else to live it for me. I tend to put my name on things with a copyright symbol, because it’s my brain at work not yours.

It was my brain and my drive to communicate that allowed me to find my niche despite completely screwing up getting a degree. I’m the guy without the degree who can do the work. And I’m not going to give someone who clearly doesn’t want to be in the classes they’re in any quarter.

The most recent and hilarious example is something from the Houston page where a student took a Fundamentals of Music course and now must write a composition as his or her final exam. The post claimed that the class was a General Education elective and help is needed now. A set of requirements is given and no pay is offered.

I’m multitalented listing writing/editing at the top, with photography somewhat below that but still a worthy skill set and I do have pretensions to music. I can hear composition in the completely untrained way a record producer might speak to musicians in English when saying things like – “Speed up the strings” or “Slow down the kettle drums.” What little music comes from me is completely improvisational and I couldn’t help this student if I wanted to. Trust me I don’t.

Because of undiagnosed ADD and a complete mistrust of the cookie cutter mentality in my higher education, I blew plenty of classes. My stories are a little better because of this overt failure, so did I really fail? Then I left school and taught myself the things I truly needed to know. So, why when I have a healthy distrust of college because I couldn’t fit the mold do I get annoyed enough at Craigslist cheaters to blog about them as one small part of not liking Craigslist in general?

The Ds received in Introduction to Film (Yes, I got a D in a film class, those that know me are shocked, shocked!) and Music Appreciation taught me to get out of classes for which I had no feeling. If I didn’t know I was going to write prose and poetry for the rest of my life, I would fight to retake classes to even out my bad grades. At no time then or now would I pass someone else’s work of as my own, because I learn as much from tanking classes I had to take because the form has to be obeyed. I want other people to man up and take responsibility the truth that a college’s Art Studies requirement can be filled with painting, or basket weaving and drop classes they might not complete. Paying (or not) me to do your work for you to maintain your GPA to get into the better graduate school doesn’t fly.

And a whole segment of Craigslist exists to feed off and enable such cheating. I found services ads for writers promising that their papers are “100-percent not plagiarized.” I will rob banks before I sell out to help another human being fail at being the best people their skills, talents and fortunes can make them. I would rather deal with any A minus or B student who missed being valedictorian because of that film class instead of the fast burners who skated the system and left school with a sense of entitlement. Cheating is not compartmentalized the cheater will make a move on your spouse because he or she can.

Meanwhile, back on Craigslist I see plenty of repeated services posts from people continuously reposting to keep their ads fresh in the public mind. I do the same, because trying to make money as an editor I have to expand beyond my home site of Los Angeles. Even I check the Los Angeles jobs and gigs pages out before trying New York or Chicago, so if I want national reach I have to bend the rules. I have written decent ads that are just beginning to show fruit after six weeks or so. I repost them as is because if I write ads every time some flagger thinks I should I wouldn’t have time to do my work.

I repost my ads when they expire, but I see ads slightly changed and reposted every two days. I know the ads are substantially the same because the headers are the same. I post three pages at a time using one email account. I bend the rules a little and others bend it a lot. Yet, in all this process I am currently being picked on by a flagger who doesn’t like that I repeat my ads and told me to “Burn in Hell, moron.”

Flagging is a huge joke anyways; I had a Chicago ad flagged by someone who didn’t bother to email his or her aspersions to my character. I go back to an earlier version of the same post and repost it with no changes. Three weeks later, no one cares. I intend to do the same with the Burn in Hell lady. I will repost until Craigslist actually follows through with a suspension. It must help that all I’m doing is advertising my services as an editor and not intending to cheat anyone.

False suspension notices from Craigslist are one small part of the spam that comes in when you post an ad. Craigslist themselves warns people against account phishing, so when I get the threatening suspension note I log into Craigslist. If I am suspended my password shouldn’t work, two weeks later my account is still active. Somehow, I think the bar to get booted off Craigslist is much higher than certain spammers and flaggers realize, because the site wants the truly offensive off but realize that some people are just angry and looking for a fight, explaining why I’m still posting.

The other Craigslist spam is equally silly. I wish I could collect money for everyone sending me a link to the Digg page promising that I can increase my hit rate and make thousands of dollars from home. Getting hits has to do with three things: new content, aggressively posting links everywhere on the web and sliding money to Google, Yahoo and MSN to get to the top of the page. Besides, the “Google” or “Craigslist” kit are the same scam where you read the fine print and discover that you will pay $170/month until you say stop. Eventually, the Federal Trade Commission will catch up.

Yes, I have a lot of reasons to hate Craigslist but I am getting work. But the good news is that Facebook has a better model where I develop a circle and hit them up for work, just as I would when I hit an in person mixer. Burn in Hell? Ha!

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