Comment by irrational
4 years ago
I feel like, in some ways, Nextdoor has stepped into this void. I’ve even noticed that the local city government uses Nextdoor to try to get messages out. However, most of the content on Nextdoor is a dumpster fire: what were those police sirens for? What was that loud noise? Look at this ring doorbell video of this person that was trying my doorknob at 3am! Our car was stolen at 5am! These homeless camps are really driving down our property values! I saw coyotes walking down the street! These fireworks are upsetting Snookums!
>Look at this ring doorbell video of this person that was trying my doorknob at 3am! Our car was stolen at 5am!
Both of those seem relevant to me if they're in my neighborhood or nearby. Crime is low where I live but when it happens, it tends to happen in sprees when one person or a small group of people get away with one thing and suddenly decide they can get away with it repeatedly. If there's a pattern of activity going on, I'd like to know about.
Yeah, we used nextdoor to get back some stuff taken from our car. Apparently they walked across our small city and took/left stuff as they went along.
Attempted entry at 3am, grand theft auto, homeless camps, and coyotes? These are your examples of NextDoor toxicity?
These are downright useful things to know. I’ve seen comical behavior on NextDoor. If it was just people warming me about coyotes I’d still have the app installed.
I don’t understand why whose types of nextdoor posts are a dumpster fire? Those seem like exactly the kind of things people actually care about. If I hear a car crash down the street I’m gonna go take a look.
Well for one thing, all of the things GP mentioned are fear-based posts. Furthermore, they attract the worst types of responses, which then sucks in empathetic posters who unwittingly respond to trolls and leads pretty directly to arguments. At least that’s what I’ve witnessed the few times I’ve logged in to check on things of local interest.
I agree those examples are bad. I usually see something like "weird car I don't recognize is in the neighborhood!!!!", And ofc the explanation cant be something simple, like visiting friends or family, someone checking out homes for sale, someone got a new car, etc. It's obviously a cunning criminal staking out the place in broad daylight.
I can't imagine having the level of paranoia as Nextdoor posters, that shit would break me.
On the other hand ,I find myself not doing certain things I'd like to do, like evening walks around the neighborhood because some shut in might call the cops on me.
Nextdoor posts about crime almost always contain a reaction that normalizes it in one horrific way or another. Like if people complain about their car being broken into, someone always says that they should just leave their doors unlocked.
If someone complains about their political signs being stolen it results in someone condemning the content of their stolen sign or complaints like, "yeah but signs on (opposite side of issue) get stolen all the time and you don't see us complaining about it!" So even on the local level it turns into neighbor versus neighbor easily despite careful moderation.