In May City wrote about The Freecycle Network (www.freecycle.org), an online forum where members can ask for or offer items they no longer want and other members can arrange to pick them up or give them, free of charge. In July the moderators of the Rochester Freecycle Network informed its more than 5000 members that they were no longer associated with The Freecycle Network and were now working through the similar but unaffiliated ReUseIt Network. The moderators explained that the change came as a result of their increasing dissatisfaction with the direction of Freecycle and what they view as the organization's heavy-handedness and secrecy.

The main issue is Freecycle's new website, currently under construction, that the ReUseIt moderators claim will aggregate the thousands of local Freecycle groups around the world into one site. Rochester co-moderator Kristin "Kat" Wiggall explains, "A lot of moderators don't want that, mostly because once you do that it gives the [Freecycle founders] complete power over your list. Right now [the moderators] have control over our lists and can create the rules that we feel are appropriate for this area."

The fear is that Freecycle will become similar to Craigslist - a community-moderated classifieds forum that serves 450 cities worldwide - without the selling, but also without the "blind" mailbox system Craigslist has set up. Co-moderator Jennifer Zarpentine says she's apprehensive that, "as far as the new site [Freecycle has], they would have your e-mail address, they would have your information," and someone from another part of the world could ask that an item be mailed to them. "The group is about local community. That's opening things to selling because collectors are going to be haunting the list for things like LPs and things that are really worth money."

On July 18 The ReUseIt Network launched its site, www.reuseitnetwork.com. "TRN," Zarpentine says, "was started by a whole bunch of moderators and other higher-ups that were in Freecycle." To date more than 40 local groups have joined ReUseIt, including most of the Western New York Freecycle groups. The moderators say only three Rochester Freecycle members declined to make the move to ReUseIt.

Both Wiggall and Zarpentine agree that Freecycle was a fantastic idea. "It was all about empowering the local communities, and that to me is what grassroots is: it's done by the volunteers, for the community, by the community," Zarpentine says. "But, now it has become a conglomeration."

The Freecycle Network disagrees with that assessment, and the allegations of secrecy. The group's worldwide hub coordinator wrote to City in an e-mail, "Nothing has been done without moderator input. In fact, the site is being developed based on the specs they requested."

As to the concerns that the new site is turning Freecycle into a business or leaving its members' information up for grabs, the coordinator wrote: "If anything, the member info will be more secure." She also says that, "Our goal is to have sponsors, not unlike NPR. Our goal is to fill the to-date relatively empty reuse part of the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle triad."