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Comment by goles | Hacker News Reader

This is contrary to my Nextdoor experience in middle America suburbs. Most of the posting is fairly benign posting of lost/found dogs or cats, craigslist like sales, asking for HVAC/contracting referrals, or suggesting people support certain small businesses during COVID.

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.

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This is my experience (greater Raleigh, NC). It's people asking for referrals for painters or experiences with various Internet service providers. Or lost dogs; so many lost/found dogs.

I see dozens of people losing their dog/cat every day in my small pop area. How are so many people losing track of their pets? just an aside...

Out of curiosity, are these neighborhoods mostly one race and one socioeconomic class?

It seems like racism and classicism are the biggest issues.

Sure those could certainly be exacerbating factors. I'm a pretty private person so I'll just say the area is majority white and and a high median income area.

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.

The platform is fine. Like any social media, it amplifies existing biases that the population it serves already has.

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.

Ok so what is your solution to this problem?

Nextdoor needs to do a better job of monitoring their moderators.

Okay so if Nextdoor serves content to local communities which have cultural norms varying from the bay area to so called fly over states how should they monitor their moderators?

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?

Make posts visible only to those within 2 blocks, or around 150 households who are close neighbors. Why 150 and not 1500 or 15000? Dunbar's number. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number

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