Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => The Knowledge => OT Knowledge => Topic started by: giropaul on 23 April, 2021, 09:19:54 am
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Our village has recently been targeted by Nextdoor. Invitations are hand delivered , printed but from. Named person. The name is, indeed, someone who lives locally ( although I never knew his surname). It claims to be a way to share local security information, news etc.
We already have two ( don’t ask me why) village Facebook sites, and an active neighbourhood watch.
The person named in the invitation is also, I think, part of a WhatsApp group that I gather is shared by people from the newer development, added on a spur from the close I live in. That’s a “ private” road ( in reality unadopted). Our next door neighbours ( last house in original road), joined but quickly left as they reported that it was full of sniping and conflict.
Has anyone any experience of Nextdoor? My initial thoughts, based on some research on line, are to avoid it, as it can all become confrontational too easily. Apparently the company behind it has record numbers of complaints about other users. There also seem to be some issues around security of personal data.
All thoughts welcome please.
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There's a missing cat, a shifty bloke outside number 37, does someone know anyone who can fix my pipes, the man who really hates the council, parking, parking, parking, and does anyone know why those cyclists...
I'm not sure how it differs from local groups on FB, but I don't really read them either.
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Here is full of people promoting their partner's businesses and nonsense being spouted by people who don't know better.
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We had a letter too. I started looking at it (with appropriate concerns alluded to above) and stopped when it asked for blood type, sexuality and what newspaper I read... (actually it didn't ask for those, but it asked for a lot of info, which I'm not happy giving to a self-appointed internet thing that is looking to monetise in a few years time.)
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It's a numbers game really, more users, more dollars when they float or get acquired, which is the end game, of course.
I'm waiting for Bebo to come back.
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Let's have a scroll:
- Someone complaining an elephant stomped on their child's birthday cake. Can't tell if humour or veiled complaint about... something.
- Someone complaining their aunt is being moved to alternative housing so they can sell her building
- "A cat I drew"
- A (different) cat that's died of maybe eating poison *vet shrug*, so don't put out poison.
- Photo of a tree
- Bike stolen with nestcam footage
- Photo of different bike thief (or possibly same bike thief with different trousers)
- Knackered sofa to give away
- Landlady wants to keep £1800 security deposit because flat has mould and a bathroom tile is cracked
- Lost cat
- Found cat
- "A semi-naked drunkard rang our bell"
- Someone complaining about SUVs, and at least some people being brave enough to agree*
I suppose Islington is different.
(* though someone else says if you can afford one you must pay a lot of income tax, so you've earned the right to be a douche)
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We have two FB groups locally which overlap in our village. they are well moderated and sensible. There is at least one more GB group which is known as the home of the loonies and haters. My wife has to be on it to know what is said, I couldnt stay quiet so left.
We did join Nextdoor at the start of the pandemic and left after 24 hours. It is like the worst moderated, unhinged version of a FB group you ever saw. Imagine the worst thread on yacf and multiply by 10k and you might be close.
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Our is very southern London fringe (the bit of Croydon that people insist is still Surrey even though it isn't), I glance occasionally for giggles. It doesn't seem too unhinged (be more fun if it was), just the usual suburban stuff.
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We have a local FB page that used to have all sorts of gossipy stuff until Law Threats. Now it is
Lost Cats
WATCH OUT DOG/METAL THEEVES ABUT IN WHIT VAN
Happy (insert saint) Day
Delete if not aloud
What time Xxxx shop open?
The Admin on it doesn't allow pseudonyms if he can help it, but has three himself...
It is a closed group and he blocks anyone he doesn't like.
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I have a policy of not responding to any discussion and (usually) not reading the comments. It's a mildly useful barometer of what people outside your personal FB/Twitter/forum echo chamber are worked up about. A bit like overhearing people on the tube / in the pub / etc back in the days when that was a thing.
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I have a policy of not responding to any discussion and (usually) not reading the comments. It's a mildly useful barometer of what people outside your personal FB/Twitter/forum echo chamber are worked up about. A bit like overhearing people on the tube / in the pub / etc back in the days when that was a thing.
Yes, except that on a bus or in the pub only a few people hear you. On FaceAche everyone gets to hear the shouty rant and doesn't see that the person delivering it is dribbling and has their trousers tied up with string.
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My Lincolnshire correspondent finds it a genuinely useful source of local information. Plus last year there was the saga of a group of locals clubbing together to import a consignment of bogroll, which - predictably - arrived long after any concerns of a bogroll shortage had abated. But in general it's a bottom-half-of-the-internet full of ranty, barely literate paranoia and entitlement.
Obviously as a Kim (https://twitter.com/MilesKlee/status/1260720167174066176), I'm allowed to monitor Nextdoor for news about missing pets, but I haven't bothered.
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I'm on nextdoor but only as a spectator. I find it occasionally entertaining, rarely useful.
The all-time highlight for me was when someone posted a picture of a caterpillar they'd seen in their garden, captioned with the question "Is this a baby snake?"
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51133978864_db07edd280.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kUx1rf)
Baby snake (https://flic.kr/p/2kUx1rf) by citoyen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/103760266@N08/), on Flickr
(I mentioned this last time we had a thread on nextdoor (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=116748.0))
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Those kind of gems aside, the majority of the posts on nextdoor are repeating urban myths about scams, eg people leaving chalk marks on the pavement outside your house to indicate targets for dog thieves, or local handymen, mobile hairdressers or dog walkers advertising their services.
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Dang, I forgot an honorary mention for the clearly signposted closed-to-traffic street in Croydon that everyone drives down and then goes to NextDoor to complain about the fine. I dunno, maybe if you didn't ignore the fucking sign you'd be less surprised to receive a fine in the post, twatmaggots.
I reckon, despite the lax regulation, my potty mouth could get me banned in minutes.
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I don't mind Next Door.
Here in West London it's used for:
- Sticking up photos of door to door con people. There's a horrible repeat post where a local drug addict, that everyone knows by name, goes door to door collecting money for "charity", she's well known, and her mother has posted messages apologising for her daughter's behaviour. The police pop up and say take this post down, but it comes back every few months.
- Missing cat
- Stolen bike
- Why is there a police helicopter above us?
- Video from ring doorbells of people stealing amazon packages off door steps
- Local yoof stole my son's iphone/airpods while walking across the park
- The most popular thread at present is a call for volunteers for people to dig a great escape style tunnel to replace Hammersmith Bridge. It's been going for a few weeks, with hundreds if not thousands of posts
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Next Door...probably the quickest way of finding out that most of the people who live within 100 yards of your house are total psychopaths.
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I joined sometime BC1, but it doesn't seem to be very popular around here. Not many members and the most recent post being over a year old. (Missing dog)
After several months of nothing, I deleted my account.
1 Before Covid.
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I'm on nextdoor but only as a spectator. I find it occasionally entertaining, rarely useful.
The all-time highlight for me was when someone posted a picture of a caterpillar they'd seen in their garden, captioned with the question "Is this a baby snake?"
(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/51133978864_db07edd280.jpg) (https://flic.kr/p/2kUx1rf)
Baby snake (https://flic.kr/p/2kUx1rf) by citoyen (https://www.flickr.com/photos/103760266@N08/), on Flickr
(I mentioned this last time we had a thread on nextdoor (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=116748.0))
That's given me the biggest laugh of the day. Thank you!
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A note came round at the start of the Current Era inviting us to join a local Nextdoor group so we could all support each other through Covid etc. Or maybe it was a local WhatsApp group, I can't remember cos, obviously, I didn't join. I have heard that local WhatsApp groups can be helpful for things like dropped keys but apart from that, nothing to say. Wasn't this useful?
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I think my favourite was the person who posted a picture of a plant with the caption IS THIS GIANT HOGWEED IN MY GARDEN!!!????? to which someone correctly responded 'no, that's an elderflower bush.'
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I think I've posted this in a different thread, but one of the best FB posts of last year went along the lines of:
"I went into Morrisons and there was only one packet of toilet rolls left. I've got plenty, but I bought it in case someone else wanted it. Does anyone else want it?"
I popped that one into the mental receptacle with the one who asked for the opening hours of a shop. Was asked why they didn't google it and said that they didn't use the internet, they found what they needed on Facebook as it was quicker.
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DO YOU KNOW WHEN OUR BINS WILL BE EMPTIED?
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I don't mind Next Door.
I don't, either. Ours is (sometimes) used for stuff like organising local litter picks and guerilla gardening, which can be fun. I do have a few people on "mute", though, mainly of the all-cyclists-are-evil variety. Most of it's asking for recommendations for tradespeople, lost pets, found keys (people seem to drop lots of keys) and rants about the council.
I posted a rant about some stolen plants (I was genuinely annoyed: I bought and planted some plants in some neglected containers on a public bit of land, and they were pinched within 24 hours). I have become one of those people. :demon:
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My group has moved on from cyclists. Current hate target is e-scooters.
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Given the gems we have in Wor Village Chit Chat on Facebook (I can't do the illiteracy- Mr Smith Takes that For The Team) I don't even want to look to see if we have a Next Door.
My personal favourite in the rich seam of the baby snake was along the lines of Why have all the trees in Guisborough Forest gone brown. In Autumn. Snigger.
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Our local council, and the police, have said that statements and updates will be posted via next door. However it's a very one way conversation. The only way the police or council see what you say is by replying to them. I'm sure they have fake accounts where they can see what people post in neighbourhood groups, but it seems very inefficient. I should test it, by offering to sell drugs on Next door, and see if the police come knocking. I don't know what I can do to upset the council as a test, maybe offer to sign off planning applications without any official capacity.
This is the header to local police's nextdoor page
"Hammersmith & Fulham Police
252 Uxbridge Rd, London
We endeavour to check in here as often as possible, but do not report crime here. Nextdoor does not allow us to view residents posts. "
The council
"Your local public services on Nextdoor
Nextdoor also provides a platform for local public services. H&F Council, the local police, Sobus (the community development agency) and a number of other organisations have all signed up to keep you in touch, get feedback from you, and help us to work with you better. Public services cannot see anything that you post on your neighbourhood site – that is completely private for you and your neighbours."
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I looked at Next Door - full of crap and it turns out the leading light is a bearded weirdo standing for the council as some sort of fringe candidate.
We do have a WhatsApp group for our immediate cluster of about 15 houses and that works fine for all sorts of social interaction and the odd bit of useful information as well as helping each other.
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I joined Next door eons ago, and got a pack of postcards to put through my neighbour's doors to invite them to join. Naturally, the cards went in the bin.
Our nextdoor seems to be exclusively ads for builders and tutoring services.
Maybe that's my fault for binning the cards (but I doubt it).
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I joined Next door eons ago, and got a pack of postcards to put through my neighbour's doors to invite them to join. Naturally, the cards went in the bin.
Our nextdoor seems to be exclusively ads for builders and tutoring services.
Maybe that's my fault for binning the cards (but I doubt it).
My local Nextdoor group is pretty lively and provides some useful stuff.
Anyone using it for spam advertising gets short shrift.
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Actually, I was surprised to click on 'police busy-bodies with speed camera on...' link (I know, I know) to find the vast majority of responses were, I paraphrase, "fuck off."
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I was in our local one for a few days, I expressed suprise that someone had called 999 because a car with with two coloured people had driven past their house, no more than that.
I was given a load of crap for being insensitive etc etc, I was assured that the police sent a car out but christ knows
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I dunno, if I saw a car with two purple people in it, I'd call the police.