Help Me Understand the Nextdoor App & Community

[Gman]

I've been poking around with the Nextdoor app on my phone. I've heard about how it can be useful in finding out what's going on in my community.

As with most things "social media", I find them to be a cesspool of the worst of human nature that's difficult to stomach. Dr. Grey mentioned some tips & tricks to improve the signal-to-noise ratio, so I figured I'd start a thread to figure out how to make this something useful.

I did see a notice from Dougco Sheriff's Office that Stage 1 Fire Restrictions were lifted. I also can get an idea of what's going on with the "Crime & Safety" category. The information about what's going on with South Metro Fire protecting our neighborhoods is good to know.

Some recommendations of local fencing and deck companies has given me some options to research.

The rest of it...seems to be a hot mess. A guy looking for seasonal labor to do exterior painting at $10-15/hour gets some yahoo immediately complaining "That is NOT a living wage. You must be looking for high school kids..." If you're not interested, STFU, but there's always some SJW yahoo waiting to jump into every discussion. That kind of garbage I don't have any tolerance for.

I also don't need to be bombarded by old crap that you're trying to sell rather than donate to ARC or Goodwill.

Is there any hope of making this a useful tool, or do I need to uninstall it and get my info via something like Twitter where the DCSO puts up info?

[Ramsker]

My wife uses it down here, too . . . and she seems to find that it's much like you described. Some useful information but a high degree of unproductive noise. Based on that, I haven't really wanted to check it out myself. But if someone has some clues on making it more appealing, I'd be interested too.

[electronman1729]

Nextdoor is pretty weak. If you want real drama go to citydataforum.com

[Gman]

Nextdoor is pretty weak. If you want real drama go to citydataforum.com

Looking for data, not drama.

[Irving]

Some useful information but a high degree of unproductive noise.

It's exactly like posting on here, but your neighbors and people in the surrounding neighborhoods. The difference is here people build relationships and a lot of stuff gets over looked. On Nextdoor, everything is very public so everyone is guarded and you aren't really developing relationships like you might here.

[CS1983]

I almost never see anything useful on Nextdoor. Mainly people complaining about HOA, wondering what the random booming noises are (uhhh Fort Carson duh?), alerts about their "baby Snickerdoodles McFluffFace got out. If you see a roid-raging pit bull, he's soooo friendly please bring him back kthxbye!", the turkey flock on X road and then an argument erupts after someone makes a hunting comment, etc.

I did have some luck w/ getting rid of scrap wood on there. I got some free river rock off there too. Intel gathering/data/localized situational awareness has not been its strong suit.

[OtterbatHellcat]

I was linked into that for my area for over a year, and I turned it off. I did score a decent used dresser from another user at a fair price, but that's about all the positive I got from it.

Most messages to my phone were about mundane shit that I could care less about. YMMV.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

In Golden it is mostly to rant against fish and wildlife for shooting bears.

My all-time favorite thread went something like this:

Idiot 1: Did you hear gunshots last night?
Idiot 2: I heard about 7
Idiot 3: It wasn't gunshots
Idiot 1: It was definitely gunshots. I know gunshots.
Idiot 2: It sounded like it came from the park.
Idiot 3: Well, I found these spent fireworks at the park (insert pic of spent fireworks)
Troll 1: I'll shoot my gun tonight so you know what it sounds like

[JohnnyEgo]

Up here, it is used mostly to sell things that won't fit into garbage cans, and to complain about the waste burners on the local fracking rigs.

[TheGrey]

There's a good deal of nformation that you can get from Nextdoor, but you should look at it as a place to start, not as a self-contained tool.

You're right; there's a massive amount of nattering drama to be found in every neighborhood. Ours is filled with hand-wringers and wrist-flailers that still haven't gotten over the fact that an actual HOOTERS took over the TGIFriday's, three years ago. There will be the ever-present political differences raised in the guise of guns, children, taxes, and education; there will be massive amouts of unneccessary coyote warnings, there will be the incessant discussions of outdoor/indoor cats, and the egging of houses by no-good punks.

If you can reset the baseline to filter out the nonstop noise, you can use Nextdoor to learn things that are actually helpful. I've managed to find some excellent handymen, found a local cat-sitter, discovered a procedure for cutting through red tape when filling out some unpleasant paperwork, and of course the county sheriff department's information is always good. You can get quite a decent list of contractors set up for yourself, so when you need a plumber immediately, you don't have to sift through the posts when it's too late.

Of course, the thing I think I like best is the Crime Watch portion- I don't know about your neighborhood, but mine is pretty tight and filled with Nosy Parkers. We had some petty thugs make the poor decision to try and steal cars in the neighborhood, and not only did we have neighbors call the DCSD, they posted the theives' progress right down to which street they were on, and which yards they were crossing.

You can also block especially exacerbating idiots, so you no longer see their drama.