I guess what gets me about requesting a Pomeranian is that the person requesting probably expected it to be a purebred animal, up to date with all its shots, and of a sterling temperament. For free. Presumably if you’re asking on Freecycle, you can’t afford to buy or adopt one, and how does that speak for the dog’s future?
It just seems like it would take brass balls to ask for a specific breed of dog on a Freecycle list.
My local Freecycle definitely has moochers, but they limit Wanted: requests to one day a week (Wednesdays) and requires that you post an offer first. This is handy for cutting the clutter. Some people do have very high expectations, but I generally don’t read the wanted posts anyway – I just post what I have.
Weird thing about the pom. Today there was an offer for a two year old pom to a ‘forever home’.
Irks me a little that they signed on to be this little guy’s ‘forever home’ and are giving him up.
I counted the offers, wanted, and received today.
Offers-4
Wanted-17
Received-2
Now I know why my local Freecycle group is so strongly moderated, after hearing about others. :eek: I had thought our moderators were, umm, a bit anal. You have to make an offer of something (anything) before asking for or accepting anything. Wanted postings are only allowed once a week, I think, sob stories are strictly forbidden and no animal postings are allowed. Even the subject lines are strictly specified.
There were a whole lot of WANTED posts on my freecycle (Chicago) in the couple of months before Christmas - people looking for gifts, I expect.
Today we’re back to normal, or even slightly more OFFERs than normal. Probably people getting rid of stuff they’ve replaced with new clearance sale stuff, or getting rid of Christmas gifts they don’t want.
In fact, I just scored a wrought iron-look fourposter queen sized bedframe! Woot! Off to go pick it up now! 
I’ve switched to getting posts in digest form, so I can’t do this anymore, but when I was getting Toronto Freecycle as individual posts, I had two different mail filters set. Offer/Taken got put in one folder specifically for them. Wanted got put in the trash.
I’ve only received a couple of things from Freecycle, I mainly joined to get rid of stuff, but I occasionally glance through the offers for interesting things.
I’ve looked wistfully at the Chicago Freecycle, If only I was in that area!
I do check out the Chicago area’s Craig’s List though. I think driving a little over an hour to score cheap stuff isn’t too bad, depending on what it is.
I’m jealous about the bedframe though. 
Oops. It wasn’t a Pomeranian. It was a “Pekinese” [sic].
In looking that up, I found that it was the same person who wanted the tires and a triplet stroller and a chainsaw and a deep well pump. These posts were back to back:
“is there anyone that knows of anyone or place that helps getting christmas for teenage children? i have 2 teenage sons and on a very fixed income and need help. if you know of anything let me know you can email me”
“LOOKING FOR A PEKINESE DOG, WE WILL GIVE IT A NICE PLACE TO LIVE. IF YOU HAVE ONE PLEASE EMAIL”
Someone gave them the dog, it appears.
I agree. I read too much into your OP. Usually charities use the tax angle as an incentive, and I assumed that the ads that mentioned tax deductions were charities. See what happens when you, er I assume. 
I read the DFW Freecycler digest (hi, MizQuirk!) and while it has some moochers, I’d say that there’s a pretty good mix of offerings and wanteds. Every so often, one of the FAQs is posted (rules, disclaimers, and such). The group doesn’t allow pets offerings or wanteds to be posted, though pet items (fish tanks, mostly, it seems) are allowed. I THINK that there’s a limit of 1 wanted post per time period (week? month? I forgot). Members can post as many offerings as they want. People are not allowed to resell items they’ve received unless they make it clear in their wanted ad that they will resell.
Personally, I think that a running car or computer is asking for a bit much, but I do see some people posting wanteds for those items. Many more people, however, post wanteds for packing peanuts, moving boxes, or video games that are a generation or two old (asking for Super Nintendo games, for instance). Since one person’s trash IS another person’s treasure, I think that generally, it’s a good system.
As Acid Lamp had said, our local Freecycle is pretty good. We’ve only put up one request so far, and that was for old rags/sheets for his Halloween costume from last year; we got more stuff than we could actually use, but it’ll be useful for us later on for other things.
However, I have seen the horrors of other areas’ Freecycle requests. Some people ask for a lot of different stuff, and some people request that things be both brand new and trademarked of some sort-- the most specific one I can remember is that a lady wanted a Disney Princess bedroom set for her daughter, but it had to be brand new.
Yep, I definitely read “pom” as “porn”. Very confused. Carry on.
I also thought mine was a nit heavily moderated - now I am happy! No pets, every message is reviewed for format and space limits.
No sob stories, limited WANTEDs and no pets.
It’s a good group- actually
I gave up on my local Freecycle. There weren’t that many requests, but I expected there to be none. I quickly set up a filter to trash them. I gave away a few things, and I received a few things. In the end, I realized that I was spending a lot of time reading the regular emails to get a few not-that-expensive items. I tried going to the digest mode, but I found that the vast majority of people were giving things to the first respondent (I always asked for a story, or a gimmick, or something, and waited a few days), so I’d never get anything good with the digest.
I now just take things to Goodwill or post on the free section of Craigslist.
Our Freecycle specifically has a rule against sob stories. They are edited out and/or the post is rejected. Thank god.
There was some discussion about a person’s request for an XBox 360, but it was let through on the rationale that no one would give it to him anyway. I found that annoying, but in digest form it’s easy enough to ignore.
I wish our group didn’t allow pet posts. You get to know the posters who always have puppies or kittens and grow irritated with them but can’t say anything, of course.
I found homes for kittens born in my apartment’s courtyard. I was as careful as I could be and talked with potential takers before I handed them over, but I figured it couldn’t be worse than the pound, which is where my landlord would have taken them. There were no available no-kill spots open at the shelters.
What bugs me about our local group (maybe they’re all like this?) is you have to make an offer before you are allowed to make a request. In theory it’s a great idea but what actually happens is there will be dozens of offers that aren’t real. I have replied to offers almost immediately after they appeared, and I mean I’ve done it many many times, and very rarely do I ever get anything for my quickdraw. I’ve tested this with other members and we agree something isn’t right.
And moochy? Oh heck yes. Computer requests almost daily. Full houses of furniture. Large appliances. Trustworthy offers? Formula coupons and a single pair of ladies jeans.
I just unsubscribed to my local freecycle group. I joined a couple years ago and put up dozens of offers which were snapped up immediately (a working fax machine, a box of exercise DVDs, books, movies, an aerobics step, hand weights…) I only posted a wanted once, for children’s books. I got not one reply.
My reason for unsubscribing though is because I find Kijiji to be much simpler. No moderation so no waiting for something to post (sometimes messages would be over a week before they were “approved” on FC). I can post pictures with the text. And frankly, now I can sell some things I previously would have given away. I made $700 on various stuff around my apartment just before I moved. The reason I gave everything away before was largely because I wasn’t interested in paying for advertising or receiving phone calls. Now that’s not an issue.
The second reason? Although the group is officially moderated, she obviously just approves every message. There seem to be no rules. Pet postings all the time. People begging for free pets because the Humane Society is “too expensive.” If you can’t afford the nominal adoption fee that includes their shots and spaying or neutering, you can’t afford to properly care for a pet. Some people are constantly offering up animals. Freaking annoying.
Anyway, I’m done with freecycle. If I have something I can’t or don’t want to sell, I post it in the free section of Kijiji, or I drop it off at Salvation Army.
Are you talking no word from email or that your site is empty? If it’s email, it may have to do with your settings. When I first joined, my Yahoo account would cease every few weeks unless I had some sort of activity in the forum. I had the same impression you described–like the site had just stopped, or something.
Also, I wouldn’t be afraid to re-offer something that had no bites the first time around.