Nextdoor is replacing the small-town paper
onezero.medium.com
onezero.medium.com
However, one of my True Jokes is "NextDoor: Hate Your Neighbors" just as "Facebook: Hate Your Family & Friends" and "Twitter: Hate Your Heroes".
NextDoor sounds good, but it generally proves not. Everything from "suspicious teenagers on the sidewalk again" [meaning: local kids walking to their local home from the local school but Nosey Nancy is too busy "Taking Notes & Reporting To Police"] to "if public transit comes here so will the meth-head homeless pulling the rug out from under my overpriced house" [reality is baseless fears about recycling, commuting, and less cars on the road].
You also have the right to voice concerns about your neighborhood and community. I would assume you want others to respect your right to voice your concerns, just as they would expect you to respect their right to voice their concerns.
If the concern is something criminal, by all means voice it to the police. If the concern is with the maintenance of your building voice it to your landlord.
If your concern is you dont like the style of clothes your neighbour wears, please go back to high school.
I do live in the neighborhood NextDoor area where I speak of, and my experience is not uncommon. I have seen the online NextDoor and have in-person physically walked the lived reality as well.
"In Other News", where I live has an outdated reputation. That outdated reputation lives on despite reality and my personal efforts to tell and demonstrate otherwise. Folks on NextDoor tend to be those of long life and//or long memory. Psychohistorical math [albeit perhaps Asimov-in-Reverse a bit here] comes in to play.
Over the long run, the folks who really want to be listened to -- and have a legit and right to that -- have clocks in their perspectives to adjust. Their voice needs similar.
Why do you choose to live in this neighborhood? People can choose to live in less engaged neighborhood.
Eyeball-oriented media always algorithmically boosts sensational news, which simply doesn’t reflect reality.
Traditional print media, which would be owned by an independently wealthy elitist family, didn’t need those AdSense revenues and would instead lead with articles about the local school play and flower festival, and keep the crime in a police blotter, which does reflect the experience of living here.
NextDoor is Gladis Kravitz meets Archie Bunker, minus the humorous aspects.
i dont live in US and it's only ignorant people who walk their dog off leash in residential neighbourhoods.
Damn right I call the police on quality of life infractions, the difference is I don’t try to settle it amicably first, since that’s a one-way ticket to becoming an infamous viral sensation like “Dog Leash Dan” or “Leashy Larry.”
Hi mark, it's my car. I've delivered your newspaper every morning for 5 years now.
So I went inside and texted my neighbour and asked him for his video. At first he thought it was the perp but then on looking closely he said "Oh he's delivering newspapers".
I was absolutely mortified but he understood, having had his car broken into as well. Being a victim of crime really twists you. I was very angry for a while. But I'm through it now. When I was rushing out to confront the poor newspaper guy, I fantasized about blocking him in to the cul de sac and calling the police. Can you imagine if I'd done that? Ugh. The real complaint, I think I have about the whole incident is the damage it did to my psyche.
It’s safer because of the vigilant neighbors reporting crime and keeping community engaged. The increased safety increase house values, because people want to live in safe neighborhoods.
Ask yourself or your parents why they chose to move to the neighborhood and still live there? The safe neighborhood is likely the top reason.
It’s also safe because the police know everyone who lives here and keep close tabs on anyone who doesn’t.
Most of us got into the field we’d studied for and were immediately run out because we were (cheap) liberal 22 year olds that wanted to write about millennial social justice, our editors and owners wanted to run as many ads as possible at the lowest price point, and our readers were generally older than our parents and wanted to feel something that validated their feelings that the world was going to hell but wouldn’t pay even the cost of paper for a subscription.
Since this situation didn’t meet anyone’s needs at the price point they were willing to pay, what’s left for information sharing now that we’re all too far spread out for a pub is Nextdoor.
EDIT: Weird. The Pew revenue graph site (below the circulation graph) has the same shape as the Wikipedia revenue graph, but seems to be shifted later by 6+ years. The Wikipedia numbers are inflation adjusted, so I'm guessing the Pew graph isn't adjusted?
So very commonly now - let's say you have a bunch of kids ridding on the wrong side of the road, or someone with two off leash pitbulls bite someone, you get immediate claims of racism or similar if anyone suggests anything other than total understanding of the folks acting in what might be called an anti-social way.
The folks outraged and labeling others do drive down participation. I certainly no longer participate - despite being a significant donor to dem causes, a phone banker for what used to be traditional liberal issues etc.
Nextdoor: How fast can someone be offended by what someone else says - is probably the more correct title
My local paper used to publish Tom Tomorrow, which is the most toxic and vitriolic comic I've seen outside the internet.
I get the local newspaper analogy but am not sure it's quite right, at least where I am. Here it's more like a Facebook group for a specific location.
Federated systems always seemed to me to be a good match for the type of geographically localized communities Nextdoor us targeting.
But in Florida there's an additional rule: If it's big enough to eat your German Shepherd, it's a Burmese Python and you need to kill the unfortunate creature because it's invasive.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/09/18-9-foot-burmese-python-caugh...
Then some neighbors started talking about national events, and had their posts deleted.
This spawned a virus of censorship/free-speech/moderator-oppression posts that are self-fulfilling. Taking them down (discussing moderation in the "general" thread is not allowed) spawns more outrage. Leaving them up lets more people fester, foment and hivemind on what victims they are.
It's extra messy because there's a local development that has the ND community up in arms and they're using toxic emotion-based posts to get attention. Deleting them for being unneighborly ("lawmaker didn't acquiesce when I emailed him, so he's corrupt and ought to be locked in jail!") is mixed in with the above "oppression" discussions.
In the end, giving /everyone/ a voice back to /everyone/ creates a cacophony of outrage that has made me appreciate the curated content that we (used to?) get from newspapers.
The small town paper where I live sends someone to sit through city council meetings, which at times decide important things, but often debate relatively unimportant things in lengthly, excruciating detail. Like that time I went to comment about a housing issue that was important to me and had to sit through a discussion of the city sign code.
In any event, even people who care about one thing or the other are not going to report on the important goings-on of your city council or planning commission. If they happen to, it probably won't be anything like an unbiased account.
So while local newspapers may still be reporting on schoolboard meetings, those articles aren't necessarily being read by voters. Instead, many voters are now drawing their information from Nextdoor.
So it's replacing local newspapers in that sense -- as the source of information.
Your comment speaks to the reasons why it shouldn't replace a local newspaper. But the greater worry is: maybe it still is, anyways.
Again, could be a geographical thing or just my anecdata, so FWIW.
How much of that advertisement is based off of "Paranoid Paige" with too much time on their hands?
Not to necessarily rail against using metrics, but metrics can be tilted -- if everyone's Paranoid Paige, how deep and legit is that gold mine?
Probably the hot topic these days is lawn/porch theft.
What's that? People steal the actual lawn or things off the porch?
I doubt that Nextdoor corporate has any oversight into the performance of the local mods, and there's no mechanism in place to report such abuse. Nextdoor is far less open than any newspaper, which will usually at least have an editorial page.
I've found that since covid, the local papers have done some impressive longform deep dive stories (science, health, human interest). NextDoor is a social media platform which trades on emotional responses, I'm saddened to read that it may be the only news source for some localities.
So I rely more on FB. Follow all the local government agencies. Every one of them has an FB page. That gives a rough idea of what's going on. Comments on those pages are usually uncensored. Most of the comments are in agreement or cranks, but sometimes you get a nugget of truth that goes against whatever the agency said. That's been especially valuable in the pandemic. My local health agency hasn't behaved well, and the critics with inside knowledge frequently comment.
There's also local groups for my zip code that help piece together what happened. Another good, though often overlooked source, are pages from members of the opposition party. In my area, that's unsurprisingly the Democrats. They'll frequently highlight what's going wrong locally.
All of this doesn't replace the value created by a local paper that's willing to at least occasionally be critical or investigative. But it's much better than either nothing, or relying solely on the in-person gossip from neighbors. Pity it has to be on Facebook, but there isn't an alternative. Nextdoor in my area is pretty much worthless.
Oklahoma has a shortage of teachers and election after election, the population collectively shrugs.
I haven't ever heard someone openly oppose education. Privately, I have heard plenty of people say "kids can make do" and "I don't want to pay for other people's kids."
Teachers unions enable bad teachers by excusing their behavior. Doesn't do much to help good teachers.
What does teachers unions do to help good teachers become better teachers and helping students?
Teachers unions help bad teachers by preventing vast majority from being fired for being bad teachers. Everyone knows who the bad teachers are in the system.
Teachers unions make money by controlling the teachers and politicians in the system.
Not going to pursue this any further bc nothing pointlessly derails a thread like arguing about public education (see also: nextdoor), and nothing is more boring than arguing over how much money someone else “deserves”.
Whether that’s the case over there, I have no idea. But it’s not inconsistent.
In my hometown I don’t recall a single person beating against the teacher’s union. Sure on particular issues there would be occasional tension, especially with negotiations with private schools, but no one argued for their abolition.
In the meantime, they can create more focused discussion and topics than being open-ended. Lost pets, local handymen (and women), and new shops or dining seem to be the most harmonious.
Sadly, crime reports will get comments about legality of shooting one-another, and discussions end poorly. They should turn off comments for those reports.
a.) you confront them when you witness them doing it b.) nothing
At least every country I lived so far (not that I’m a vagrant criminal lol)
I confronted one woman whose dog was pooping in my yard when I got home a few years ago. She came back and keyed my S2000. Of course the police did nothing.
In the last month, on NextDoor, they doxxed and banded together to get the mentally-challenged skateboarder who’s been my neighborhood for years, and had him arrested because a user felt threatened by him standing around the neighborhood shouting obscenities during manic episodes. (He’s now in jail and this NextDoor thread is trying to make that permanent.)
And today there is a discussion and petition to end the Sanchez slow streets because they are “dangerous” to children and bikers due to cross-traffic and somehow “driving down property costs.”
I suppose all of that can be found on whatever social media site you choose - Twitter, Facebook, etc. But it seems extra pervasive on NextDoor, and I think the internet would be a little better off without the platform as a whole.
They have a different set of values, and are offended by different things. Calling out a person they find suspicious (who ends up not being suspicious) would get some eyerolling but not considered deeply offensive there, the same way that some antisocial behaviors here are not immediately banworthy.
It's not as clearly racist as much of nextdoor tends to be, but it's everything from "why are the christmas lights up already", to "if they build a hooters drunks will crash their car into my house", and "vote no to the bus route expansion, we have enough traffic"
It is a mixture of excessive empathy resulting in half measures that just enable destructive behaviors, and on the other side is those trying to start a pogrom against the visibly unhoused and mentally challenged!
There’s nothing in between!
Try to point out something from how any other city creates a functioning society and you’ll get reported, your post censored in that process, and booted off the platform! I don't have any suggestions for that city, in case you were looking for one to determine if I was someone you wanted to listen to or invalidate.
That place is Detroit West get out if you can. They always wanted you to leave, and artists will be able to afford it again just like they wished! Detroit has artists too.
The other day an elderly couple put up a post asking for help removing snow and ice from their sidewalk/driveway because they are disabled. About a half dozen people showed up to help them including a plow driver which I thought was very nice.
I don't go there expecting deep or thought provoking content but it's nice to see if neighbors can help each other or understanding what the general consensus of your area is.
It seems like racism and classicism are the biggest issues.
I guess my question is how do you weigh good outcome areas generating positive outcomes from using the platform vs. lower performing outcome areas generating negative outcomes (e.g. mentally-challenged skateboarder) in their area.
The platform isn't generating the content of the area. The content is just a reflection of the users in the geographical area.
But the specific issue with Next-door is that by design it serves a very limited population, so if that small population has any sort of bias, it is massively amplified.
If this is such an issue for you please describe how you think a platform which you describe as "fine." should moderate posts across a country as diverse as the US?
Neighbor: "There is a suspicious man walking around the neighborhood!!" (includes blurry picture)
Me: "What makes his suspicious?"
N: "He's black and wearing a hoodie! We don't have people like that around here"
M: "Being black doesn't make him suspicious. Would you say a white man in a hoodie is suspicious? Because we don't have a lot of those around here either"
Then I muted the thread.
Usually if he's there long enough to be "the screaming skateboard guy" it isn't happening.
The driver suspected of killing a pedestrian after causing an eight-car collision while intoxicated in S.F. on Thursday was facing charges in another DUI case. He was arrested at least seven times in the Bay Area since being released from prison in April.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/Suspect-in-fatal-S...
There is a lot of work that needs to be done - moderating, getting good data, presenting information well. That doesn't jibe with people doing it for free. At least on YouTube or Instagram you could personally strike it rich off being a successful enough contributor.
Is there a way to get good users paid from this? Can you tip moderators? Would people? Maybe, as the newspapers used to do, a subscription fee could be added once a certain growth point was reached. X dollars a month per user, some percentage goes to mods, some percentage goes to people whose comments you liked, some percentage goes to keeping the servers running.
Later they opened things up to maybe 5000 "nearby" neighbors, 1% of which I know. That totally changed the dynamic.
And yes, a few dozen who dominate every discussion. No thanks.
I split time between two places - one in Brooklyn and the other in a small coastal New Jersey town of 4000 (Atlantic Highlands).
I never bothered using Nextdoor in Brooklyn or Manhattan but I’ve found it pleasant and useful for things like plumber and handyman recommendations, awareness about what’s going on with large noises (naval exercises / dredging) etc. etc.
It’s definitely moderated heavily and I’ve seen political posts removed which I’m fine with - just not what I’m looking for out of it. But it has been generally pleasant enough that I find myself actually reading the email digests and interacting.
By contrast I’ve deleted and disabled Instagram and Facebook and am trying to wean myself off of ever looking for content on Twitter even though I’m purely readonly there.
Does ND acquire Patch/Hoodline for quality content? This would only work in metro areas they cover.
Or perhaps ND partners with local newspapers and pays them for content? This is more difficult to scale but offers a lifeline to local newspapers who’d otherwise continue to decline in the digital era.
I lament concentration of media, but one can’t deny there are economies of scale in digital media and algorithmic advertising on a national level. It has largely come to pass already in local TV news with Sinclair Broadcasting. I don’t know how these trends can be reversed.
We've been working on a platform reimagining how local news can operate -- taking whats good from social media (the format and distribution), but maintaining journalistic rigor.
We cannot lose journalism.
https://blog.nillium.com/defending-journalism-to-defend-the-...
I think the inclusive nature of Nextdoor is a net negative and both perpetuates fear having to do with home owners' security and separates the in-crowd from others in the neighborhood.
That being said, the comments section on Patch is borderline QAnon with conspiracy theories and tends to be extremely hateful of the local/state government, but the actual articles are solid and useful.
Hmm, NextDoor does have an older demographic. Maybe the organizations doing vaccine clinics should be on NextDoor. Some of the struggles I've heard about older folks struggling with apps and shitty websites suggest that the information needs to go where the audience already is, instead of trying to bring an audience to somewhere new.
What is quiet about it? This adjective is abused, especially in headlines. It’s a trigger for me.