A Few Suggested Posting Guidelines for Craigslist

Published by MaxBro on Tagged Features

Over the past few weeks I’ve been using Craigslist extensively to look for bargain furniture as well as sell a few items to raise money. For the longest time I stayed away from the site mainly because the spam became unmanageable. Try searching for a job in the sales or marketing categories in any city and you’ll see what I mean. Not only will you bear witness to the biggest assortment of scams and spams, but more than likely you’ll end up missing out on some of the legitimate opportunities due to the barrage of trash.

Now, obviously Craigslist is a hugely valuable site to millions of people everyday. But I can’t help wondering how much more useful and potentially profitable it could be to people if Craig Newmark simply raised the posting standards. Why create a website that caters to the lowest common denominator of posters? Why wouldn’t you want to create rules that encourage people to post coherently for the good of the community? Why allow so many to clutter up a website and get in the way of the people who truly do matter?

Here are a few suggestions I came up with that I think would cut down on the spam and the nonsense:

1.) Forbid the use of complicated HTML in the job posting board. Or, just eliminate the ability to post any pictures in the job boards at all. Why would employer need to add photos to a job listing anyway?  This will help eliminate all those smarmy-looking get-rich-quick schemes that always feature a photograph of some guy driving a convertible or a woman tossing hundred dollar bills in the air. Make it so it’s OK to use basic HTML like your paragraph breaks <p> and such, but not image <img> codes.

2.) Forbid the use of extensive capital letters. If there is one constant that has held up since the creation of the internet, it’s that the greater use of capital letters in a posting is equal to the stupidity and/or falsity of the post. Why can’t Craigslist implement a simple code to its site that makes using more than, say, five capital letters in a row illegal?

3.) Forbid the use of extensive exclamation points. More than just a grammar atrocity, heavy exclamation points are generally indicative of an absurdly hyped post about some scam or other. Get the rid of them and Craigslist would help rid itself of the reputation as “that site with all the spam.”

4.) Forbid the use of links in “for sale.” There are so many times I’ve clicked a headline only to be taken to a page with nothing more than a few words and a link to some dealer’s crappy website. If you’re letting people come in just to link out, you’re not letting your website stay the final destination. Craigslist should make itself the source, not the gateway to whatever awful dimensions await those not wary enough to identify a scam.

5.) Charge a small fee for job postings. Craigslist already charges for large markets like NY and LA, but why not add charges to other large cities? Even a mere dollar-a-post fee would help cut down the spam almost overnight. Fees wouldn’t even have to go entirely towards the profit, they could go towards some kind of monthly charity.

Craig Newmark seems to have this sentiment that it’s OK to profit some money, just not LOTS of money. That’s all well in good, but such thinking appears indicative of a live-and let-live mentality that, while noble, gives spammers a virtual license to inflict all manner of atrocity on Craigslist.org. How does that help the broader community? How does that help the people that actually use the site for its intended purpose?

It’ll never be perfect. Nothing ever is. But I think there’s a few easy, virtually cost-free ways that Craigslist could be made a haven for do-gooders and a nightmare for those otherwise.

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May 21st, 2008

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