But a word about updating things:
Although this document was originally a collaboration of many people, for the last several years it has been a solo effort. The others moved on to other projects on craigslist or moved on entirely in their lives. So at this point it is up to me (NewOwl) to maintain the thing: research new material, remove obsolete or inaccurate material, keep it hosted ($$), etc. However in all of 2012 I made no updates. The last one was on Pearl Harbor Day, 2011 (sort of an in thing). There are a number of reasons for this. The two greatest are the type of effort involved and the simple fact that I can't use much of craigslist myself.
In order to keep this FAQ updated I need to stay on top of things and generally in the loop. Unfortunately this in turn requires that I involve myself with rather large amounts of sheer stupidity---mostly on the part of the people "helping" their peers in the Flaghelp Forum. They infest other forums as well and more fully demonstrate their ..um...abilities in their own company somewhat farther from the public eye. Putting up with a lot of stupidity, and I do mean a LOT is thoroughly unpleasant. And then craigslist itself has been doing some pretty dumb stuff. I know it doesn't look that way to them, on the inside, but they stopped talking about a "moral compass" a long while back (indeed, the entire mission statement vanished) and I knew then they were in trouble. I believe I mentioned it...and was ignored. Now more and more they are playing the 800 lb. gorilla and more and more they are losing sight of some pretty basic ethical principles. But they can afford to, they aren't in it for the money (despite making rather a lot of it). It seems strange for some pretty bright guys to go this way, but then Craig was the humanitarian and he has moved on. I can't blame him. The folks he left it to lack his heart. I can blame him for that. Matters not tho'.
Two years ago I moved cross country and I found the craigslist in my new town to be pretty dreary. It was a wasteland of dealers even before the universal ByDealer options. Private sellers seemed to have some very odd ideas of what their old junk was worth, there was a well entrenched cadre of flippers haunting the free boards (CL, FreeCycle and others) and buying anything that was cheap to keep their game going. (Those guys are second only to ticket scalpers in the pond scum dept.) Sales were depressed (unless you wanted to sell to a lowballin' flipper). And then CL wouldn't accept my new cheap cell phone carrier (Consumer Cellular) to verify an account. So I wasn't posting anymore. Add in the usual flakes....time for me to move on too.
I strongly believe in giving back and for a lot of years I did. Time to give back to somebody else.
Gradually this document will become more obsolete than it currently is and certainly sometime I won't have the money or inclination to keep hosting it. I'm leaving it as is for the moment for the few visitors that stop by. May it be of some help to you.
NewOwl.
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This link serves old posts. The W4M info has moved, go here.
As craigslist says, "sorry for the hassle"
The links have changed. The new link is: User Flag Examples.
As craigslist says: sorry for the hassle.
We would like to take a moment to correct an error on Wikkipedia's part (we got tired of trying to keep them straitened out directly). The Flag Help forum is very much an official craigslist forum--it is craigslist. It gets about the same support from craigslist as any other official forum, that is it is not directly moderated but user forum flagging is supported and staff removes flagged forum posts---or so they say. Posts do vanish to the infamous Isle Of Misfit Threads---or they are simply deleted. The people "helping" in the forum are indeed self appointed volunteers, are unsupervised, and are not infrequently trollish. But there are folks people genuinely trying to help people too.
Go to the Top of the Unofficial Flags FAQ
