Category talk:Freecycling

Generic term
"The term 'freecycle' is generally accepted to have been first used by Deron Beal, founder of The Freecycle Network. It quickly became a generic term, and freecyclers started freecycling around the world." As mentioned on Freecycle Network, TFN sees Freecycle as a trademark and "freecycler" and "freecycling" as attacks on this trademark. --Palnatoke 10:45, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

See the following Until the recent TM application, emails from The Freecycle Network regularly ended with "keep on freecyclin'". Many of the YahooGroups retain these terms in the group description and help documents, which were auto-generated by Freecycle's server
 * freecycling term used at freecycle.org
 * freecyclin term used at freecycle.org ("freecyclin" as a term dates back to Deron Beal's original mails and documents
 * freecycler term used at freecycle.org

What is certain is that there is a dispute of whether the term *should* be generic, and TFN as a corporation is trying very hard to make it so. What is equally evident is that the term has been used generically, both inside and outside the Freecycle organization for as long as the base term "freecycle" has been around.


 * Discuss it with TFN, if you want. There is no reason why Wikipedia should take part in that discussion. --Palnatoke 09:52, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

POV tag
I don't get it. What is the dispute over this article's neutrality? The writing may be a bit sloppy, but I can't see any issues with neutrality.

--Eloil 07:29, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Decontroversalizing this page
I'd like to update this category to remove it from ongoing controversy. The arguments on this page demonstrate both The Freecycle Networks strong desire to claim the term as their own and the justification of their detractors that freecycling was originally used as a generic term. Seems to me to be better to sidestep that whole minefield, whilst still recognizing that a page which covers the various ways people are doing this activity is useful (which I find preferable to the partisan approaches taken by original posts to this page)). From a little research on web and with TFN moderators, I've come across the non-controversial term regiving which fits neatly into the "reduce, reuse, recycle" environmental footprint mantra. Before redoing this page as the Regiving category, and taking the politics out, I'd like to get feedback from others involved in the discussions here. SagePose, 5th January 2006


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the category above. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the category's talk page (if any).  No further edits should be made to this page.  

The result of the debate was no response. The renaming of the category is now complete. Please move any discussions on the content to the Category talk:Regiving page. If you wish to contest the renaming, then the current page remains the appropriate place to do so. -- SagePose, 8th January 2006


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the category's talk page (if any). No further edits should be made to this page.