Figure 1
Friendship network of the freecycling group in Facebook (blue points – females; green points – males).
Figure 2
Number of members in the freecycling Facebook group by date.
Table 1:
Descriptive statistics.
| N = 64,625 (multiple obs per individual) | Mean/% | SD | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dependent variable | |||
| Posting behavior | 0.005 | 0.07 | 0–1 |
| Independent variables | |||
| Commenting behavior (past 3 days) | 0.090 | 0.63 | 0/18 |
| Length of stay | 23.864 | 6.89 | 1/33 |
| Total posts observed (past 3 days) | 39.186 | 15.49 | 0/87 |
| Controls | |||
| Total number of comments (past 3 days) | 411.377 | 81.41 | 0/529 |
| Degree centrality | 5.046 | 5.78 | 0/58 |
| Local clustering coefficient | 0.134 | 0.225 | 0/1 |
| Day 1 | 0.008 | 0–1 | |
| Newcomer (N = 4910) | 0.105 | 0–1 | |
| Female (N = 4910) | 0.738 | 0–1 |
Figure 3
An example of a typical item offer (children’s clothing) and item requests (comments) in the group. The highlighted text above the picture reads, translated from Dutch: “Only for people who really need it! No response = trash! Multiple responses = lottery! No desperate private messages please, I’m not sensitive to that! Pick up in Overvecht!”. The three comments read “yes please”, “I’d like to participate in the lottery please ϑ ”and “I’d like to come and pick it up,” respectively.
Figure 4
Number of posts in the group by date.
Table 2:
Multilevel logistic regression on posting behavior in the freecycling group.
| B (S.E.) | Odds ratio | B (S.E.) | Odds ratio | B (S.E.) | Odds ratio | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intercept | −15.691 (1.53) | −15.153 (1.37) | −15.837 (1.42) | |||
| Length of stay | 0.047** (0.01) | 1.049 | 0.029 (0.01) | 1.029 | 0.037* (0.01) | 1.038 |
| Commenting behavior (past 3 days) | 0.301** (0.10) | 1.351 | 0.304** (0.10) | 1.355 | ||
| Total posts observed (past 3 days) | 0.009* (0.00) | 1.009 | ||||
| Total comments (past 3 days) | 0.001 (0.00) | 1.001 | 0.002 (0.00) | 1.002 | ||
| Log(Degree) | −0.308 (0.20) | 0.734 | −0.310 (0.19) | 0.732 | −0.319 (0.19) | 0.726 |
| Clustering coefficient | −0.802 (0.83) | 0.447 | −0.777 (0.81) | 0.459 | −0.759 (0.81) | 0.467 |
| Day 1 | 0.819 (0.74) | 2.269 | 1.502* (0.74) | 4.494 | 1.955* (0.79) | 7.069 |
| Newcomer | 1.929** (0.70) | 6.886 | 1.636* (0.70) | 5.135 | 1.873* (0.72) | 6.510 |
| Female | 1.007* (0.42) | 2.737 | 0.998* (0.41) | 2.713 | 0.998* (0.41) | 2.713 |
| Variance (intercept) | 22.361 (5.07) | 19.219 (4.03) | 19.220 (4.03) | |||
| Log likelihood | −1227.917 | −1220.148 | −1218.197 |
*− significant at p < 0.05.
**− significant at p < 0.01.
Statistically significant coefficients provided in bold.