Hey All,
I’m in the US and looking for an alternative to the Nextdoor app that allows me to connect with my neighbors, and possibly includes a marketplace. The current state of Nextdoor’s racism and transphobia makes it unusable. I even live in a relatively progressive part of the US. I would really love to have an app that lives up to the standards it claims to have. I know that’s a BIG ask though. Thanks!
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I have a pretty active email group with the 5 block radius around my home. It’s sooo much better than Nextdoor or using some sort of messaging platform.
Someone set it up, then they put stuff in mailboxes asking for email addresses, and now it kind of promotes itself.
The messages are hyperlocal and are only about stuff that our area cares about. Also, lots of people use it to give stuff to neighbors. Someone is always giving away furniture, fruit from a tree, etc.
Don’t overthink it. Keep it simple.
Everyone already uses email, and it’s super easy for the old folks to get engaged with. Once you have enough people using it, you can also probably get a local retiree to moderate it… just make sure they’re chill.
I got banned from nextdoor for saying the mugshot of a local pedophile looked like Vance without the guyliner lol
I had previously been temporarily banned for commenting “another white male” under ever news article because every criminal story with a black suspect had similar replies.
Hilarious considering the amount of truly inflammatory stuff I said on there about MAGA
Not really relevant but a few weeks ago I started getting emails from nextdoor related to a town in Alaska. I’m in Australia. I’ve never been to Alaska.
I get about 30 a day and the unsubscribe button doesn’t work. I don’t have access to the account using my email address so I can’t change it either. Had to just report as spam. Now my spam folder is hundreds of nextdoor emails per week. It’s wild.
So, could be fun to weaponise it against your enemies.
Why don’t you just try to log in and use the password reset option, the password reset email will be sent to your email address. Then cancel the account or something
Fair point. Counter argument, I’m an idiot and didn’t think of that.
Thanks, I’ll do that haha
If only you lived in close proximity to these people, which would make exchanging contact information and creating a group chat with literally any chat service really easy…
A chat will never have the reach Nextdoor has, not a fraction of a fraction.
Probably the closest fedi platform is fedihood
Is this a problem with the app or your neighbours?
Nextdoor hasn’t been about connecting actual neighbors for quite a while now. It’s mostly a regional feed that’s populated by many surrounding cities. The feed used to be the people who literally lived on the blocks around your home.
It’s also become a hot spot for MAGA trolls and elderly folks who’ve gone down the Fox News rabbit hole.
It’s particularly hilarious to look at a hot posts in a location like Berkeley, CA - a VERY liberal city. The comments are overwhelmingly right wing, and are from far outside the city. It’s no longer a tool that allows neighbors to chat about what their actual community cares about.
So the answer would be to make a Lemmy sub for dudes neighbourhood and advertise locally.
We found that we got the most engagement by sticking with a platform (email) that everyone was already using on a daily basis. Neighborhood messages aren’t super frequent. We get a thread or two a week, and people would forget to check a platform for neighborhood messages if it didn’t also have messages for other important things in their lives.
Email is actually a pretty good medium for this kind of thing. No need to over complicate it.
My problem is with the app more than my neighbors. There are plenty of a**holes everywhere, but the app lets their racism and transphobia fester. There are also plenty of people that have been banned from using the app because they list a preferred name as opposed to a legal name, which is definitely transphobic.
It’s also problematic because it prevents folks with non-European names from using a name that won’t draw a lot of attention they don’t want from said a**holes. I understand that is another much deeper issue in the US, but I can only do so much about that.
That’s weird, I didn’t use my full name when I signed up. It was my first initial and part of my last name
There are also plenty of people that have been banned from using the app because they list a preferred name as opposed to a legal name, which is definitely transphobic.
I got permabanned for that exact reason, I used my preferred name. I tried to appeal, but they said that because the name on the property record didn’t match (creepy that they went that far in the first place), that I’d have to upload photo ID. I told them to eat shit.
Crazy to think that’s when they suddenly start caring about property records again. But if it’s a MAGA bot that’s driving engagement, let ‘er rip!
To get Members started on Nextdoor, we use personal information to:
Confirm Member accounts using several techniques, including checking against third party data and public records, verification codes, or geo-verification. We also use public registries to block registered sex offenders in the United States (and other countries where permitted by law) from signing up for our Services. In some circumstances, we may ask for additional information (such as government-issued identification and business documentation) to confirm Member accounts.
That doesn’t sound trans phobic, if anything it’s protecting vulnerable people
Please consider that only applies for account verification during initial signup. While there can be some value in protecting vulnerable populations, actual use of their platform is a different story.
Its like that neighborhood bar that allowed Nazis to hang out there and before long turned into a Nazi bar.
It’s both.
Unusable!
I don’t have any good suggestions for you but I do agree, Nextdoor is trash. I removed it from my phone and usually avoid logging into the site at all. They seem to be in a competition with Facebook to figure out which of the two is the bigger dumpster fire.
re: marketplace, for now I just go back to Craigslist if I want to scan for anything interesting someone is selling, or giving away for free.
After last winter, every neighborhood in south Minneapolis has a dozen hyperlocal Signal groups, and a handful of broader ones.
For the most part it’s turned into a solar punk utopia version of NextDoor.
I don’t know how you achieve that without having to repel a few thousand nazis as its genesis, but maybe some flyers will do the trick?
For the most part it’s turned into a solar punk utopia version of NextDoor.
I have to ask. Is this a good thing? It sounds awesome.
I mean, yeah, it’s actually pretty great. Lotta little problems getting solved every day – lost dogs returned home, that sort of thing.
Try citizen (iPhones) for the local incident reports without the racism
