MeFi Swap

September 6, 2004 4:44 AM

Mefiswap! Much as I love the swap, I have to ask what is the purpose of having two MefiSwap sites?
posted by asok to MetaFilter-Related at 4:44 AM (8 comments total)

I understand that this came about after Dreama expressed some misgivings over the running of the original MefiSwap site, but she is still running it as usual.
cmonkey has also taken the time to put together a swap site, which is great.
Considering we only usually get a couple of hundred swappers from Metafilter, we should have just about enough swappers to support two simultaneous swaps.
BUT...
Two competing swaps makes no sense to me.
Do I sign up for both? Are other people going to do that?
If I do that and find that I am in the same group as someone else in both swaps, I would choose to send them one CD, rather than two, but this would then mean that my 'behaviour record' on one of the sites would show that I didn't send out CDs to all my group. Which could mean that I would not be allowed to participate in the future. Unless I constructed two mefiswap CDs, one for each group, which is a *solution*.

I could sort all this out via email with cmonkey and Dreama, but if I am not alone in signing up for both swaps, this is going to create more work for both of them, sorting out the 'double swappers' redundancies. Having more swappers should mean having a wider range of locations, which might cut down on postage for the swappers, as well as a wider range of music possibly. Having two *half* swaps doesn't seem to have any advantage, unless they are staggered, or something.
posted by asok at 5:00 AM on September 6, 2004

After this I assumed the original was dead.
I'm confused now (although cmonkey's swapsets are out, so the first thing is to follow through on that one...).
posted by monkey closet at 5:06 AM on September 6, 2004

I assumed it was dead as well. So I started a new one.

I don't see why it would be a bad thing for you to send one CD to anyone who happens to be in both of your sets, I'll even add something in the survey to cover that possibility.

As for the likelihood of there continuing to be two in the future, I have no idea. It depends on the feedback I get.
posted by cmonkey at 9:47 AM on September 6, 2004

I'm glad Dreama is doing it again, as I missed the sign-up for cmonkey's on account of being moderately homeless and at a Pixie's concert...
posted by kaibutsu at 10:56 AM on September 6, 2004

Surely if you have a duplicate swapper in both swap lists you could e-mail that swapper and agree that both of you would only send one CD. Because this is mutually beneficial there's no reason to rat on each other on the survey.

Personally I'd offer to send a second disc but would understand if the other swapper didn't want to.

Seems unlikely this will happen in any significant numbers though...
posted by dodgygeezer at 11:26 AM on September 6, 2004

Make that three (password: eyebrows)
posted by holloway at 4:03 PM on September 6, 2004

I wish there were only one. Since it's likely that nobody on the cmonkey sets have mailed CDs yet...would it be feasible to consolidate the various swaps?
posted by dejah420 at 10:13 PM on September 7, 2004

The original swap was never dead, just comatose, and I said as much. Signups have been slow, no doubt because of the competition. But it will continue, regardless. After all the infrastructure put into place now, it'd be a stinking awful shame to let to go. Signups, btw, will continue through this month -- I leave for Poland this weekend and will be allowing things to do as they please while I'm away. The mailing deadline for this swap session looks to be the same as Monkey's. Perhaps earlier. Go figger. This session is all drawn out weirdly too. I should say that next year I foresee no reason why the usual quarterly schedule cannot be resumed.

Um, all that said to say that given the way that the infrastructure has been designed, so that I could find some, erm, satisfaction in reviving the beast from its slumbers, and given the lack of time I have to devote to swap business before early October, at the earliest, I don't see that it'd be feasible to try to combine anything now. The various swaps will have to stand or fall on their own merits, I think.
posted by Dreama at 2:26 AM on September 8, 2004