Cleveland OH Craigslist – Craigslist.com Pets, Cars, Apartments & More
Craigslist is an American website that is devoted to advertising. It has various sections for various visitors. Some of its sections are housing, jobs, community service, etc. What is now a major advertisement website started as an email distribution list in 1995. One year after being set up by Craig Newman, it grew to become a web-based system. Although Craigslist started in San Francisco, it is now a major site in lots of cities in the United States. One of these many cities is Cleveland. At the moment, Cleveland is on the list of top 50 cities in the United States with the most Craigslist visits. Also, Craigslist is now in up to 70 countries of the world.
While Craigslist is easily identified with the United States and with the English Language, it also supports other languages. Some of the languages supported by Craigslist are Portuguese, Spanish, German, French, Italian, etc.
What Led to the Establishment of Craigslist?
Haven just arrived in San Francisco and a little isolated, Craig Newmark made up his mind to develop something similar to MindVox, Usenet, and WELL basically for events taking place in the San Francisco. At the initial stages, Craig Newmark was the one in charge of email postings. These email postings were basically about social events that software developers had an interest in.
After being in operation for a while, there was a rapid increase in the number of subscribers. Soon, the mailing list which was basically for event-related postings started being used for other types of postings. People that were trying to recruit technical staff found Craigslist a perfect avenue to get people to fill vacant positions. As a result of this, the jobs category was created. As the demand for more categories increased, the list also grew. As craigslist grew, those it was serving began making requests for a web interface. After lots of requests for a web interface from community members, Craigslist went live. This happened in 1996.
Operations of Craigslist
Craigslist is the 72nd most visited website in the world and the 71st most visited website in the United States. From just the United States, it has over 49.4 million different visitors every month. Also, each month there are over 80 million fresh private adverts. This makes it the main private service in any mechanism. Every month, the job listings that Craigslist receives are up to 2 million. Due to this, it is the number one job platform in the world.
Furthermore, there are millions of listing on the housing section in Craigslist on a monthly basis.
Financial and Ownership Information
As it stands, there is no certainty about financial and ownership details concerning Craigslist. This is because the firm does not put out such information. Various analysts have come up with various figures of the annual revenue of this firm. Some of these figures are $150 million in 2007, $25 million in 2006, $20 million in 2005, and 410 million in 2004.
While Craigslist has a non-commercial policy and makes its money from ads in chosen cities in the United States. This policy has not changed significantly even though a 25% stake in the company was purchased by eBay. As of 2012, it was believed that Newmark, eBay, and Buckmaster were the board members in Craigslist. Of these three board members, Newmark had the biggest stake.
Craigslist Policy
Although Craigslist started as an email list and went on to become a forum for people looking to fill up technical positions, it has changed a lot. Over time, Craigslist has become a site for people that are looking to get personal. It is a major site for people that are looking to hookup. This is made possible because of the availability of the personals section of this site.
While Craigslist is used by various people for personal purposes, it is especially used by lesbians, as well as gay men. The reason for this is Craigslist has an open and free identity. Also, in more conservative environments, it might a little more difficult for gay men and lesbians to get partners. The craze for men seeking other men on craigslist is known to be a leading means through which syphilis is spread. Due to this, the San Francisco Department of Public Health officials have put Craigslist under a lot of pressure. Due to this mounting pressure, Jim Buckmaster has come out to make it known that members of the public have to protect themselves as this site does not have the right workforce to do so, That’s not all. Also, Craigslist has put up links to some STD forums and San Francisco City Clinic.
While the personal section of Craigslist was one of the sections with the biggest buzz, it was stopped in 2018. This was done because it was responding to the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA).
Controversies with Adult Services On Craigslist
Craigslist once made its site open to all types of people and included in these people were lovers of adult content. Prior to the shutdown of the section for adults content, Craigslist made allowances for individuals interested in adult content. This, however, ended in 2010. This happened after the state’s attorney general claimed that the advertisements in the adult section of Craigslist had a role to play in promoting prostitution.
The plans to close the erotic service section of Craigslist were made public in 2009. According to Craigslist, this section was to be replaced by the adult services section.
Some months after closing the erotic service section of this site, Craigslist went on to close the adult service section which replaced the erotic service section in the United States. While the adult service section was closed in the United States in 2010, in other parts of the world, it was still accessible.
Flagging
To ensure that all types of posts that are deemed illegal and inappropriate for the Craigslist website are not put up. Craigslist has come up with a flagging system. Apart from the employees of craigslist playing a role in identifying inappropriate posts and expressions, users of Craigslist are given the authority to flag any posts that are believed to be inappropriate. The amazing thing about the flagging system and why it is very effective is it can be executed by virtually anyone. You do not need to be logged in or have an account on craigslist to be able to flag a post that is a violation of regulations. Once a post gets flagged, it does not get removed immediately. It is only removed after it has been flagged by a certain number of people. While this has gone a long way to ensure that only posts that actually should be removed are taken down, apart from the Craigslist workforce being aware of the number of flags that are needed for a post to be taken down, the members of the public cannot tell what amount of flags a post needs before it is taken down.
Criticisms and Lawsuits
Craigslist is a very successful site. And like other successful sites, it is not free from criticisms. In 2005, Craigslist was criticized by the San Francisco Chronicle for letting dog breeders put up ads. Stating that allowing dog breeders to put up ads could lead to the excessive breeding of Pitbulls in the area.
Furthermore, in 2006, an editorial was published by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. This editorial claimed the presence and activities of Craigslist was a threat to the success of local newspapers.
Also, L. Gordon Crovitz criticized Craigslist of making use of lawsuits in preventing people from taking actions that they took with newspapers. He claimed this action by Craigslist was contrary to its claims of being on a public service mission and non-commercial. L. Gordon Crovitz put up this article on behalf of The Wall Street Journal in response to lawsuits put up by Craigslist which discouraged competition. One of these lawsuits was a lawsuit against a young Swedish website known as Jameslist.com. This lawsuit was put up by Craigslist on the 11th of July, 2012. Due to this lawsuit, Jameslist had to change its name to JamesEdition if it was going to go on with operations.
Craigslist dragged PadMapper and 3Taps to court. Its reason for suing PadMapper and 3Taps was 3Taps helped PadMapper have access to certain data that belonged to Craigslist. This action brought about a lot of criticisms because the service that was being offered by PadMapper was not to the detriment of Craigslist.
The Craigslist Foundation
The Craigslist foundation was set up by Craigslist in 2001. This foundation is a non-profit organization that was set up to make online resource and free events accessible in a bid to support community buildings at various levels. The Craigslist foundation gets some funding from Craigslist. However, in addition to the funding that it gets from Craigslist, it gets some funding from donations.
Although the Craigslist foundation began existing in 2001, it had to wait till 2004 before it started hosting Boot Camps. Since the Craigslist Foundation began hosting Boot Camps, it has had up to eight annual conferences.
In addition to all the events that this foundation has hosted, it has also sponsored other events organized by different groups. This foundation has sponsored “Our Good Work”. Our Good Work is an organization that is in charge of AllforGood.org,
How to Post on Craigslist
You can put up a post on Craigslist Cleveland without having an account. To post on Craigslist, simply visit your account homepage. Once this is done, chose the city you are resident in. If you are resident in Cleveland, you can simply visit Cleveland.craigslist.org and click on “create a posting”. Once done, click on the section you want to make a post on. The next thing to do is paste your post or type it into the space provided. When you are done with your post, click on “continue”.
The next thing to be done is to take time to go through your post all over again. Ensure that everything is done right. If you notice some errors, simply select “edit text” or “edit image”. As soon as you are satisfied with what your post looks like, select “publish”. Posting on Craigslist does not end at clicking the “publish” button, every post you make has to be confirmed via email. After clicking on the “publish” button, the system will notify you to carry out further action. Once you see this notification, look through your mail for a message from Craigslist.
Are Posts on Craigslist Free?
All things being equal, posts on Craigslist are not paid for. There are, however, certain posts that have to be paid for. Some of them include
- Gigs in the United States
- Services in the United States
- The sale of furniture by dealers in the United States
- Posts for available jobs in certain areas.
How Long Before a Post Expires
This is quite simple. Each type of posts has a lifespan. So, to be aware of how long your posts will stay active before expiring, you simply need to go through a list of the lifespan for various posts.
How to Delete a Post?
To delete a post made on a certain account, the first thing that needs to be done is to visit the homepage of that account. You can also make use of the link that was provided in the email you made use of in making a post.
How Often Can a Post Be Made?
There are restrictions to the number of times you can make a post. After making a post to a category in a city, you have to wait for 48 hours to elapse before you can make another post. An example is if you post in the job section in Cleveland. You will not be able to post in the job section in Cleveland until after 48 hours. You may, however, post in other sections in Cleveland.
While posting on Craigslist, it is important to note that not all forms of postings are allowed. Certain posts that were allowed in the past are now prohibited and will lead to flagging from other users if put up. To be certain of the types of posts allowed and those not allowed, simply go through Craigslist’s terms of use.
About Christian Reynolds
Christian is the chief reporter, editor, and webmaster at Cleveland Leader. An aspiring news anchor, his hobbies outside of investigative reporting are golf, martinis, and adventure travel. If you have a scoop on any developing story, please contact him on this page.
