Harrisburgia

I just started a new blog called Harrisburgia.  By Harrisburgia, I mean the weird little place a few stone-throws south of Sioux Falls, SD.  I hope to shed some light on the confusing situation which continues to develop here.  Step into my brain and experience first-hand the oddities that stare me in the face everyday.

Those of us not originally from Harrisburg have admittedly made a strange choice in now calling Harrisburg home.   I say "strange" choice, rather than "irrational," "regrettable," or "dumb," because I don't want to step on any local toes.  Perhaps it's been this fear of toe-squishing that has caused many of us to grow accustomed to doing and seeing things that, if we had not already taken them for granted in Harrisburg, would strike us as bizarre.

For those of you who have made the more common choice not to call Harrisburg your home, Harrisburgia may still be of interest.  Please check in from time to time to what kinds of weird, backwards, humiliating, and/or painful bullshit we Harrisburgians experience everyday.

One Month Old - Statistics

Sioux Falls Free Stuff is now one month old.

Thanks to everyone who has been posting, replying, or just taking a look at the forum.  It's been fun to watch our numbers go up and up. Over 10,000 views and growing!

Also thanks to everyone who has followed the forum on Facebook and Twitter, where I feed realtime updates.

If there's anyone out there with a geeky side like me, you can take a look at month one stats here...

Sioux Falls Free Stuff on Facebook & Twitter

Sioux Falls Free Stuff has now officially entered the matrix.

More specifically, the forum is involved in a 4-way with Nabble, Google's Blogger, Facebook, and Twitter.  The Nabble forum is embedded in the Blogger webpage.  Both Nabble and Blogger now feed their content (new posts) to Twitter, which in turn feeds them to Facebook.

Confused?  Don't be.  Just means you can follow Sioux Falls Free Stuff on Facebook and Twitter.  All the latest posts are sent to both sites for you to view.

The reason I chose to feed our new posts to Facebook and Twitter is simply because it's more convenient for a lot of people to check SFFS on social media that they already use.  I'm somewhat new to all this, but it was a fairly simple process and seems to be working smoothly.

I hope the additional options of following SFFS forum on Facebook and Twitter will make viewing and posting free stuff in Sioux Falls even faster, easier and more convenient for our free economy in Sioux Falls.

There are "Like" and "Follow" buttons below the forum on the right side.  Use them to follow SFFS forum's latest posts via the aforementioned social media sites.  Your other option is to click here for SFFS on Facebook or here for Twitter.

Don't dig social media?  That works.  Keep it parked right here.

Week 1 Stats - Sioux Falls Free Stuff

The first week of Sioux Falls Free Stuff forum is now in the books.

The forum had much more interest than I expected.  Your feedback has been much appreciated.  I've been tweaking the forum here and there to improve its appearance and functionality.

Continue to let me know what you think.  This is our free economy in Sioux Falls.

I wasn't naive going into this.  SFFS is, of course, competing against a giant of the online world.  Namely, Craigslist.  I do not expect CL to go away, but I do expect our online presence to grow.

What I hope is that with continued local support, SFFS will keep serving its users by offering a forum that is is scam-free and offers features that CL can't match.

If you haven't had a chance yet, take a look at SFFS vs. CL to see how our forum makes free transactions faster and easier in Sioux Falls.

Week 1 statistics tell the tale.  In seven days, the forum got over 5500 views, 28 topics posted, and 31 registered users.

We're out of the gates running.  Keep checking in and make us a daily stop!  Click to see more stats.

Craigslist Scammers

As I was posting a link to Sioux Falls Free Stuff on Craigslist tonight, I noticed a post titled, "Free Microwave."  Take a look on CL, it's listed in the "Free" section under today's date.

I thought I'd send the poster a friendly e-mail letting the poster know about SFFS.  The location was listed as "Sioux Falls, SD," so I figured our local community forum would be of interest.

I went through the tedious process of highlighting and copying the jumbled CL e-mail address from the posting, logging into my e-mail account, pasting the jumbled e-mail into the addressee, composing the e-mail, and finally sending it.

A few seconds later, I got a response from the poster.  It read as follows:

"Hi.  I am amazed at the amount of responses im getting. Im only able to contact the first few to set this up. To keep us both safe when dealing on craigslist, I have signed up for their service which verifies us before we contact or meet one another.  Just go here clphoneverify.org and verify through CL and I will call you to arrange things once you are added to my safelist.  Thanks!"

 CL strikes again!  Well, the CL Scammers, I suppose, although they seem to be so intertwined it's hard to separate the two.

Sioux Falls Free Stuff vs. Craigslist

So why use Sioux Falls Free Stuff rather than Craigslist?
Here are 6 perks that our local, community forum offers that CL can't.

1. It's easy to see how much traffic your post is getting. Next to your post, under "Views," you can clearly see exactly how many page views your post has gotten and what kind of interest it's getting.

2. When a user responds to your post, your post goes to the top of the list. This makes checking the status of your post that much faster and easier.

3. All users can see responses to posts. This eliminates tons of hassle when it comes to picking up free stuff (especially curb alerts). Everyone can see if the free item has been spoken for or if someone's already picked it off the curb. You don't have to waste time e-mailing back and forth just to figure out if the item's still available.

4.  You don't have to post personal information.  If you want to contact a user privately about a post, just click the user's name, then click "Send E-mail" to send a private e-mail right from the forum.  E-mail addresses are kept private and can only be seen if you respond to an e-mail.  You can also e-mail a user by clicking on "People" at the top of the forum to view all the registered users.  Click the user you want to contact, and you can send them a private e-mail right from the forum.  No need to post your address and phone number on the forum if you don't want everyone to see it.

5. Our forum is organized.  Just click "Sub-Forums" at the top of the forum to sort all posts into sub-folders.  It's easy to look at just the posts your interested in - or all of them.    There are 7 sub-folders, all of which are viewable on the main forum page. They include FREE STUFF, WANTED, FREE TRADE, FREE EVENTS, FREE GROUPS, FREE SERVICES, and SFFS DISCUSSION

6. This is our local forum! We live in Sioux Falls, we know our community. Why not develop our own Free community and see how it evolves!

7.  You can now follow Sioux Falls Free Stuff on Facebook and Twitter.  I feed the latest posts to both.  There are "Follow" and "Like" buttons below the forum on the right side of the page.  Makes SFFS even easier to follow if you prefer Facebook or Twitter to see our new posts!

Welcome to Sioux Falls Free Stuff Forum!

This is our Free Community!

The forum was started for one reason. To make free transactions easier and faster in Sioux Falls.

Take a look at my post Sioux Falls Free Stuff vs. Craigslist Free to better understand what this community offers.

We live here, we know the community. Imagine a community "Free" section without the scammers.

Let's keep Sioux Falls' free economy thriving.

Jordan

"Nothing, I mean nothing honey if it ain't free." - Janis Joplin