LoveJunk

First stage - February 2021

A partnership with LoveJunk [[1]] was announced by the Board on Central on 4.2.21 - https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/paid-collections-in-london-via-lovejunk-com/2820. Full details are in the announcement, but the basics are:

• If you have something you want removing, you list it on lovejunk.com.
• Businesses or reuse organisations who are licensed to take stuff legally reply, in a kind of bidding process.
• You choose your preferred bid - this is a paid collection.
• They come and take it away.
• Depending on who they are, they may reuse it or recycle it. 95% of stuff is recycled.

LoveJunk was London-only at first, but was highly likely to expand and form partnerships with major furniture retailers in the UK. It built significant momentum - typical response time to a listing became under a minute, with something like an 80% success rate from listing to pickup.

The Board agreed a partnership with LoveJunk on this basis:

• If an OFFER can't be freegled after some time, freeglers in London are offered the option of booking a collection via LoveJunk.
• This kicks in at the point where we'd normally send a chaseup/autorepost mail, and also via a button on My Posts - so it doesn't compete with normal successful freegling, and only comes into play when an item isn't shifting quickly.
• A pop-up explains the process (see below).
• If someone chooses to go ahead, it takes them over to LoveJunk with some of the details already filled in.
• All arrangements between the person and the collector are entirely LoveJunk's responsibility, not Freegle's.

In effect, it's a bit like offering people an easy way to organise a bulky waste collection, with Freegle getting a small payment for doing so.

Second stage - October 2023

An integration similar to the one with Trash Nothing was implemented on the Freegle website. Edward explained this in an announcement on Discourse (sent to all volunteers) - https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/announcing-integration-with-lovejunk/6810 - and in a discussion thread on Central - https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/lovejunk-integration/5925.

Adjustments - September 2024

Messages from Freegle volunteers to LoveJunk members are handled as follows:

• They get sent to LoveJunk's support team.
• The support team can then contact the member and/or reply.
• This helps with cases where the LoveJunk member has already been removed on LoveJunk's side.

Initially these replies come to Edward, who passes them on to the mods. Later this will probably be set up so replies land directly in chat and come back to volunteers as normal.

Discussion on Discourse - https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/lovejunk-members/7508

Outline of the change

What happens?

Offer posts from Freegle are sent to LoveJunk. LoveJunk shows some of them (the larger items) to their users as free items. Those users can reply and communicate back and forth with freeglers (and indirectly, with Trash Nothing users). All of this goes into Chat as normal, so freeglers won't see much difference - they view the messages on the site, app or by email as usual.

What do these users look like in ModTools?

You'll see LoveJunk users in ModTools as members of your groups. You can see their name and their LoveJunk user ID. They don't have email addresses, but messages you send will reach them, just as when messaging a Trash Nothing user.

All the usual spam checks, chat review, and remove/ban actions apply as normal.

Can this be turned off?

It's on by default for all groups (turned on for all groups on 16th November 2023). There's an off switch in ModTools under Settings -> Community -> Status, so you can turn it off for your community - but please don't switch it off before giving it a proper chance.

Why do this?

It makes more freegling happen. Some posts get plenty of replies, but many - especially bulky items - don't. LoveJunk users are more used to dealing with bulky items.

LoveJunk have also paid Freegle to do this - an upfront fee to cover development, plus an ongoing monthly fee that's split with Trash Nothing (since they provide some of the original posts). This helps keep Freegle going.

It's also good strategically, positioning Freegle as the central "hub" for reuse. Not every reuse system wants to integrate, but it's good for Freegle to be at the heart of this.

Future

In future, the other side of the integration is planned: free posts on LoveJunk coming through to Freegle as OFFERs. LoveJunk doesn't have WANTEDs, and the number of OFFERs is fairly low - which is why this side is being done second - but it will be a good addition.

Q&A

Does LoveJunk deal with member disputes? Yes, they can. See https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/lovejunk-members-not-receiving-modmails-plus-potential-breach-of-gdpr/8169

Can we turn off LoveJunk for our community? Yes, but please don't. See https://discourse.ilovefreegle.org/t/lovejunk-members-not-receiving-modmails-plus-potential-breach-of-gdpr/8169/17

Should we ban LoveJunk members for joining multiple communities? Please don't, unless there's other clear evidence of abuse. Our system makes them a member of local communities when they respond to an Offer, but they can't see Freegle communities through their LoveJunk interface. Messages sent to them are read by LoveJunk moderators rather than the members themselves. If they're remote from your location and you don't want to keep them as a member, consider adding a note such as "LoveJunk member, so not aware of local communities on Freegle. OK to remove after local interactions on Freegle - no need to ban" and then removing them.

Link: Other sites/interfaces