Nextdoor

[hatler]

Has anyone else got sucked in to nextdoor.co.uk ?

What a bizarre mix of cat lovers and only half-concealed Daily Heil below-the-line contributors.

[robgul]

Not bloody likely - but we do have a WhatsApp group for the immediate vicinity with about 10 households and that's great.

Examples:
One neighbour orders a beer delivery for those interested every week - 4 pint container, choice of beers, for £10 - order from him each Tuesday
I needed the use of an electric drill that had a chuck that would take quite a large drill bit - message and response, success.
Neighbour had a party and asked if they could park cars on drives - offers - no problem
We had our driveway paved - put a post up about possible disrutption - neighbours volunteered parking for our cars for 4 days

Works for us without being intrusive

[pcolbeck]

Nope. We have a closed Facebook group for the village. That works quite well.

[Cudzoziemiec]

We've had leaflets about it but I've never been quite sure what it is. A community thing or another way of monetising data?

At the start of lockdown, someone a couple of streets away set up a neighbourhood Whatsapp group, which I considered but in the end didn't join. In too many of those as it is!

JBB otp told a good story about her husband subverting their Nextdoor group (not sure whether it was Nextdoor or something similar). Someone sent a message "Just had a young couple knock on my door asking for water for their car radiator [or something similar]. Everyone be careful!" implying they were scouting for burglaries, to which he replied "Same happened to my wife last week in a village in France. They were ever so helpful and gave her a meal as well!" (I might be inventing the bit about the meal... )

[mrcharly-YHT]

There is a village facebook group. I stay in it because there are sometimes useful updates about events or planning.

Mostly it is full of racist, classist ranting.  Very common to see "Suspicious van driving round village. They looked like gypsies so I followed them in my car."

[ian]

For some reason that I don't remember (as I don't normally do social networks) I seem to have signed up. I sort of like reading it, but yeah, it's a curious mash-up of cats and Daily Mail. I haven't signed off yet, as you might remember, I have a project to peer into the minds of people-who-aren't-me. This is why I peruse a forum of American Conservative Ladies (that one is truly bonkers). I'm tempted to slowly subvert them in an alt.bigfoot stylee.

[CAMRAMan]

I'm on my local one, for now. Mainly it's a tedious series of posts asking for recommendations for plumbers, electricians, etc. There's an obvious search box that would give them an instant answer, but no, the easiest way is to clog the board up. I did sell my Brompton on there, which surprised me, but I've also encountered entitled drivers complaining about cycle paths. Mostly useless.

[Mr Larrington]

My grate frend Mr Woolrich lives in Egham.  He must have done something terrible in a previous life.  Anyway, it seems Egham is big enough to support two (2) Farcebok froups for local people, because one is run by people who take Stalin's Politburo circa 1936 as a model of good governance, hence he got purged for failing to toe the party line/transgressing the unwritten law/asking people to keep an eye out for his missing cat.

[phantasmagoriana]

I'm on it (it's more active than the local Facebook groups).

Mostly a mix of lost pets and people wanting recommendations for tradespeople. With a smattering of cyclist-hating, of course (and, since lockdown began, jogger-hating!).

I haven't signed off yet, as you might remember, I have a project to peer into the minds of people-who-aren't-me. This is why I peruse a forum of American Conservative Ladies (that one is truly bonkers).

I have a Mumsnet account for similar reasons (I'm not a mum, and have never had any intention to be). It truly boggles my mind sometimes.

[ian]

I'm on it (it's more active than the local Facebook groups).

Mostly a mix of lost pets and people wanting recommendations for tradespeople. With a smattering of cyclist-hating, of course (and, since lockdown began, jogger-hating!).

I haven't signed off yet, as you might remember, I have a project to peer into the minds of people-who-aren't-me. This is why I peruse a forum of American Conservative Ladies (that one is truly bonkers).

I have a Mumsnet account for similar reasons (I'm not a mum, and have never had any intention to be). It truly boggles my mind sometimes.

I find these kinds of things interesting. Like, I suspect, many people here, I live that sort of educated middle-class life, where everyone I know has broadly similar liberal political perspectives (the notable exception of my parents). So it's a window into somewhere else. I was reading an hilarious thread about People Frightened by Croydon (it might be shit, but it's not exactly horrormovie). OK, it's a bit milder than American Conservative Ladies, who are worried about liberal abortion viruses.

[Chris S]

I follow the local Facebook group for the village because fboab cannot handle the hideous levels of illiteracy there, which I'm (mostly) able to just see past.

Most activity is about missing dogs, "Is this anyone's dog (picture attached)" and intermittent rants about the levels of dog shit within the CSZ¹

The recent stabbing and subsequent assault of an attending paramedic at a meth party in Logan Street² fired up a decent level of neighbourly indignation, right enough.



¹ Chip Shop Zone

² The dodgy end.

[Kim]

As a Kim^[1], I'm supposed to have a Nextdoor account purely for keeping track of missing pets.  Unfortunately, I've been scared away by reports of the bottom-half-of-the-internet shenanigans^[2] therein by my Lincolnshire correspondent, and stick to monitoring the neighbourhood cats by analogue methods.


_{[1] The middle-aged white woman opposite of 'Karen'.
[2] The one where they arranged to import wholesale quantities of bogroll from China, which arrived - predictably - well after the shortages had been resolved, was amusing.}

[Wowbagger]

We have a Whatsapp group organised by a very public-spirited guy who is in the "transition" movement - as in, transition to a low-carbon economy. He set it up in response to the Covid pandemic and it's been good for us as a couple of times neighbours have run errands for us (we've been shielding since the start).

It seems a bit less active than it used to be, but we've shared some veg/garden plants and we have launched a street-wide petition to the council to reduce the speed limit to 20mph, with enforcement. It's been signed by almost everyone, it seems. It's a busy, narrow road with some houses opening their front doors onto pavements so narrow in places that when lorries go by, you are worried that their wing mirrors will take your head off.

[grams]

Ours is 99% boring tradespeople requests and people trying to sell junky furniture.

Today it's surfaced a post from June, which reads, in full, "Has anyone visited their second home yet? Any thoughts on when this might be allowed?". People mocked the shit out of it, which warms my heart.

People are horrified that there's a new mobile phone mast going up. How do they think the things work?

The only curtain twitching is someone reposting a letter from the council that says a "male" has been reported approaching kids in the local park. No further info, but some enthusiastic thank yous for this apparently useful information.

[mrcharly-YHT]

oh yes, the ever-reliable 'pedo hunters'.

A recentish news article identified that there was a person charged with having dodgy images on their computer.

So the local pedo-hunters promptly doxed the person, including identifying their car make, type and colour. Immediate calls to 'sort them out', 'do something about them'.

We had to very carefully point out to our landlords that they drove the same make, colour etc of car identified by the pedo-hunters. So might want to avoid parking in the village for a few weeks.

[MikeFromLFE]

Nextdoor is an anamerican thing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nextdoor
that doesn't (in my limited experience) translate very well into the British type of community.
As others have noted it seems to be - on our group - lost pets, people looking for tradesmen, and traders looking for clients. I don't think I've ever seen any kind of debate.
I really can't see how Nextdoor makes any money.

This is opposed to the Facebook group for our wider 'community' which has people offloading old toys, offering slabs for collection, and people who'll come round and thread my eyeballs (is that correct?). Also no debate - unless it's about parking outside the GP surgery, and having to walk more than 20 metres.

[ian]

Ours mostly seems to be anodyne. There's a smattering of those individuals who are perpetually Angry About Something (and that something seems to be everything). I never understand that one, you live in a first-world country with everything that entails, have access to a computer, the internet, and from the looks of it, live somewhere where the house prices mean only people like you can live there, but you're still angry about petty little shit* that will have no impact on your life.

*insert as necessary: the local council, cyclists, other car drivers, young people, immigrants, transgenders in the toilets, Jeremy Corbyn, etc.

[Cudzoziemiec]

people who'll come round and thread my eyeballs (is that correct?).

Yes.

Apart from the eyes.

[grams]

People are horrified that there's a new mobile phone mast going up. How do they think the things work?

I've done some looking into this and the mast is going here in a space where many moons ago there was a phonebox. People are getting very excited about it narrowing the pavement, except, there's a fence there that already does to the same extend, and no angry villagers demanding it be torn down.

(And yes, that is the Spaced house in the distance)

[Basil]

Just had a look (So I had to join).
Two posts from 2019. That's it. 

The local faceache group is very active, and is where anything concerning the locality is announced.  I don't have a faceache account so had to rely on the pub to find anything out.
Now I don't go to the pub, I haven't a clue.
Every month I remind the local street clean and litter picking volunteer group that I'm not on faceache and every month I get "Well the date was on faceache" 
Receiving a text at 8am on a Sunday morning is not a great compromise.
Yes, that's why I was late. Again.

[perpetual dan]

Our town has a long running forum. Always worth a look when I’m short on trolling and throwaway aliases, eg

“In town today and saw a illegally large group of bike thugs riding around recklessly causing large traffic jams of around 9-10 cars - one of which included my unfortunate self returning from the weekly shop at Aldi. The group were ethnically diverse with some shaven heads obviously designed to intimidate. One of the jokers even had a ginger beard! If anyone has any info as to their identities or their addresses it would be much appreciated.”

I’m in a smaller WhatsApp group of close neighbours, started when lockdown was in its early stages. It went rather quiet when a query on how everyone was celebrating VE Day was met with tumbleweed.

[citoyen]

I signed up to my local nextdoor group some time ago, though I hardly ever look at it unless something in the email digest tickles me - my favourite was the where someone posted a pic of a caterpillar with the question 'Is this a baby snake?'

https://nextdoor.co.uk/post/17592191744459

[ian]

There's a big fear of giant hogweed and Japanese knotweed so lots of pictures with 'IS THIS...?' (short answer is usually no, that's an elderflower or bamboo). I want to start an 'I found this in my garden' thread about triffids.

[Mr Larrington]

There's a big fear of giant hogweed and Japanese knotweed so lots of pictures with 'IS THIS...?' (short answer is usually no, that's an elderflower or bamboo). I want to start an 'I found this in my garden' thread about triffids.

The contents of your garden, ian, would have them forming a torch-wielding lynch mob in very short order.  “Yetis?  They’re FOREIGN!!1!  Won't anyone think of the house prices?!?!?”

[ian]

I genetically engineer my own triffids with CRISPR. Admittedly, at this point, they're only one centimetre tall, but I'm working on it. I may expose them to 5G radiation.