A while ago we published an article on how local mailing classifieds list Dipleague was being imitated by other “Dipleagues.” These other versions, available on different platforms though mostly social media, have similar names while offering the same service as the first Dipleague.
After a lot of varied opinions on the subject were raised in the article comments, Dipleague founder and former ZOL CEO Samir Shasha, posted his own comment yesterday. In it he pointed out how he has no problem with “Deepleague” as the service has distinguished itself from Dipleague.
In acknowledging how Deepleague grabbed an opportunity Shasha also pointed out how Deepleague has 15,000 likes while his Dipleague has a growing list of 30,000 subscribers. This is double the number of subscribers the service had in 2011.
Shasha however castigated the “Dipleague” on Facebook calling the service an unethical imposter out to deceive audiences through the original Dipleague’s credibility. The Facebook page is not an extension of Shasha’s service or associated to it in any way despite the identical name and similar service.
In the same statement Shasha also spoke of the lack of resources to make additions that we are all interested in seeing such as a mobile and web platform. This is probably explained by the fact that Dipleague is not monetised in any way to this very day. Shasha invited anyone keen on “volunteering” time to improve the service, something that local developers and startups might be keen on exploring.
On the issue of spammers, Shasha explained how he has the task of moderating the service on his own and since this as a community mailing list he is willing to block spammers if they are reported. He also pointed out how the move to block membership to holders of free email addresses like Gmail was meant to act as part of the spam solution.
Looking at the challenges the classifieds service is facing it would seem that a move to monetise might offer some solutions. A cashflow can help cover costs involved with moderators, the development of a web interface and even an app.
With the creators of different “leagues” giving feedback regarding this issue we would love to get comments from the team behind the “Facebook Dipleague”. Samir Shasha’s comment can be read here.
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11 comments
i am not getting all this you say Sasha is founder of the original Dipleague
but then in one sentence he says “In it he pointed out how he has no problem with “Deepleague” as the service has distinguished itself from Dipleague”
and then he says “Shasha however castigated the “Dipleague” on Facebook calling the service an unethical imposter out to deceive audiences through the original Dipleague’s credibility.”
so the last quote he is castigating his own creation
#lostfordays
Samir Shasha, created the original dipleague mailing list – http://dipleague.zol.co.zw
The facebook Dipleague page was created afterwards and not by him
there is a difference
thanks for the clarity @anthony, an easy solution on the fake Facebook page of his company would be to report the page with Facebook and it will be deleted
needs a lot more than 1 report generally for it to flag up on facebook’s radar – perhaps techzim should call its readers to do so too?
I am on Dipleague – I joined with a gmail address years ago but somewhere down the line they said they were closing all free webmail accounts. No more gmail, yahoo, hotmail ant the like. Instead they offered “free” @zol.co.zw addresses for existing dipleague members. But now I’m getting messages telling me I have exceed my space quota and WILL BE BILLED for additional space. I agreed to nothing of the sort! The address is only used for dipleague – those are almost the only messages I get – well that and some additional spam which THEY seem to let through. Can somebody please address this?
Delete the emails. Is that so hard?
You’re getting the service for free. And they didn’t have to.
So why couldn’t they just stop receiving when it was full – or just auto delete the oldest. Is THAT so hard??? You have any idea how may dipleague emails come in per day – maybe you have time on your hands for that – I DON’T. And a free service, offered as a FREE SERVICE, can’t start talking about bills from out of nowhere when i never agreed to such terms. Maybe in your world that’s okay, but not in mine!
mark all and delete
You can set all those options up within the webmail interface for your zol.co.zw account, you just need to look around and see – also check emails in deleted items/trash and empty that folder too
Configure your email program to download AND delete emails from the server. Problem solved
Mr. Shasha is a bad moderator, I relinquish using the platform years ago because it was futile to continue being shackled. Khal was fatigued with Mr. Shasha denigrating other dipleague users. He (Samir) could squabble with other dipleague users and send the dialogue to everybody to see and most users end-up being indignant. Hats off to Lumbikani on the article “Dipleague unhappy about fake Dipleagues on Facebook” but I will NEVER concur Mr. Shasha bad moderation practices.