Talk:Nextdoor

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rachelkramer. Peer reviewers: Evanmgold, Tyohann.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 April 2020 and 20 June 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Villa0439. Peer reviewers: Deanapol.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 01:36, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Nearby neighborhoods
My Google-fu is weak, so I can't find a source other than Nextdoor's own documentation, but posts by people are visible by people in nearby neighborhoods, in most cases. In addition, local governments have the ability to make announcements. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:29, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

COI tag (March 2021)
Obvious sockpuppet editing by paid editors serving interests of Nextdoor.com. Dennis Bratland (talk) 01:25, 13 March 2021 (UTC)

Founding of Nextdoor
It looks like there is some dispute about the founding of Nextdoor, with plenty of references mentioning this controversy.

For example: The name and patents Nextdoor is based on were invented by someone named Raj Abhyanker in 2006 ( https://patents.google.com/patent/US20070218900A1/en?oq=2007-0218900+ ) who was the CEO of a company named "Fatdoor" (oddly similar name to Nextdoor): https://www.computerworld.com/article/2541377/tech-heavyweights-launch-social-network-for-real-neighborhoods.html.

Abhyanker pitched Benchmark Capital on Nextdoor in 2007: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204531404577050870334864882.

Nextdoor founder Narav Tolia also worked at Benchmark Capital in 2007: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB118852440374814215.

Tolia then founded Nextdoor in 2010: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/nextdoor.

Benchmark, which had been pitched on the Nextdoor concept by Abhyanker in 2007 and where Tolia was Entrepreneur in Residence, was involved in the funding of Nextdoor: https://venturebeat.com/2019/05/14/neighborhood-social-network-nextdoor-raises-123-million-at-2-1-billion-valuation/.

According to this document https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/14149495, "Tolia admitted that an entrepreneur like Abhyanker should go in and just expect a venture capitalist to take intellectual property from others and that it has happened so many times in the past".

Maybe this might be worth including? I don't really know much about this dispute, but am currently reading more. Atlanticatticus (talk) 03:05, 29 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I think it's worth mentioning. Dolphinseas922 (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 May 2021

 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: The second paragraph is not adequately sourced. 15 (talk) 22:19, 28 May 2021 (UTC)

Racial profiling & controversies
Starting in 2015, media outlets have reported that Nextdoor users have been racially profiling people of color in neighborhoods across the United States. In 2016, Nextdoor announced that users would be asked to submit identifying characteristics other than race when posting warnings about individuals or events in the neighborhood.

According to the company member agreement, any registered sex offender or sharing a household with a registrant is cause for immediate termination of services. https://legal.nextdoor.com/us-member-agreement-2020/. In some cases, a former address of a registrant has created mixups where new household members are excluded from the application because lack of authentication that the registrant no longer lives at the address. Nextdoor support claims that registered sex offenders are banned from its application because a no exceptions policy with regard to registered sex offenders is a necessary precondition for partnerships with over 500 police departments. Dwaynedaughtry (talk) 14:50, 28 May 2021 (UTC) |answered=

Apps like Nextdoor, Citizen, and Amazon Ring’s Neighbors — all of which allow users to view local crime in real time and discuss it with people nearby. But can fuel a vicious cycle of fear and violence.

This wikipedia article reads like a hit piece
I have no affiliation with this company, and didn't in fact know who they were. This is why I came to wikipedia, as I frequently do for relatively objective info. Unfortunately, this article reads like a hit piece. In the 2nd paragraph of the intro, it brings up a subjective controversy (I moved this to a "controversy" section as an edit), and the rest of the article is even worse. It consists of little more than a tirade against the CEO and company, masquerading as a wikipedia article. I found almost nothing about what the company actually is or how its service operates. I've seen plenty of articles which were thinly-veiled PR pieces for companies, but I've never seen a hit piece like this. Disturbing trend, if trend it is. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.119.234.107 (talk • contribs) 00:24, July 7, 2021 (UTC)
 * I'd suggest carefully reading Neutral point of view. Wikipedia articles are not bound by an obligation to cast topics in a positive light, outside of the extreme care we take on WP:Biographies of living persons. If the subject is not a living person, we aim to give proportionate weight to whatever we find in reliable sources. See WP:WEIGHT. The simple fact is that the majority of coverage about Nextdoor.com has been about the websites role in racial profiling, hysteria over crime, and spreading false conspiracy theories. You do not find a significant amount of coverage about what the company actually is or how it operates. Other than the aspects of its operations that have fostered the ongoing problems discussed by reliable sources.You describe the controversies as "subjective", but this is incorrect. This is not merely a laundry list of bad things someone said about Nextdoor. Most of these incidents had concrete real-world, consequences, like the cancellation of police collaboration with Nextdoor over public records statutes, or people who were real victims of racial profiling incidents, or the notorious effects of false information about the US Presidential election. This is all documented with citations here in the article.If you scroll up here, and look at the article history, there have been employees of Nextdoor who have watched over this article and advocated to tone down criticism of their employer. What you're seeing is a sanitized version of the article, with the original tone of the criticisms softened to placate the COI advocates for the company.If you feel that more emphasis should be given to other subjects, you should cite reliable sources demonstrating that those subjects have significant coverage. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:03, 7 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I could not agree more with the comments about this reading like a hit piece. The statements that were cited all came from the media which does NOT make it accurate.  It means that the comments are based on sensationalism designed to capitalize on the current trend of “everyone is racist”.  The media is rarely going to put out a boring story on the every day accounts of Nextdoor.  It won’t shock anyone and it won’t sell.  I don’t think my own community is unique but I see no evidence of what was stated in the racial profiling section.  I do see complaints and bickering which is annoying but normal and doesn’t scare me.  But I see posts FROM all races ABOUT all races and no racial profiling hysteria.  I saw a post this week about a suspicious white guy.  Oh no! A month earlier a white guy on video running from police.  Oh well.  A black family recently moved to town and their post received hundreds of welcome responses.  Anecdotal yes.  But just a snapshot of what is REALLY happening, not what the media says.  I see all races and religions on Nextdoor and don’t think twice about until the media tells us that we’re all racist.  Again, the media will only report facts when it sells.  Otherwise they sensationalize and then people quote them here.  Ridiculous.  Wikipedia can do better.  It should not jump on trends and sensationalism.  It needs to stick to the facts and leave it at that.  And this is by no means specific to Nextdoor.  I’ve seen it all over Wikipedia but this one really caught my attention. Dcook314 (talk) 19:22, 28 August 2021 (UTC)


 * You want us to rewire a whole article and ignore what our sources say because of your personal experience on Nextdoor? If it didn't happen to you personally, it didn't happen? Guess what? No. See WP:NOR and never speak of it again. It an absolute waste of our time to go on like that. Really.Wikipedia is nothing more than a summary of what we find in our sources. Wikipedia does not fix "the media". Wikipedia reflects the media. Read WP:V, WP:NPOV, WP:RS. There's no mechanism for some editors to get together and second-guess what our sources tell us. See WP:RGW and WP:NOTLEAD.That doesn't mean sources can't be superseded by better sources. If it is a verifiable fact that news media has been unfair to Nextdoor, and that they sensationalize for the sake of attracting an audience, then cite a source that says so. Demonstrate that this source has greater expertise, is more objective, is using better quality data, and there you go. That's how it works.As it stands, the tone and content of this article reflects the best sources we have. If you can cite better sources, that would be a great help to all of us. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 00:04, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * Did you happen to notice that one third of the article is about racial profiling? 580 words. Doesn’t that seem odd to you? Doesn’t it seem that someone spent an awful lot of time writing and sourcing that? And for what purpose? And how much is too much? Where’s the rule on that? And it stands because there are no better sources? That’s it? Where are we going to find an article that focuses on how something is not racist? Nowhere.  No one would write that.  Typically it’s assumed unless otherwise stated.  You WILL find articles that discuss Nextdoor without mentioning racism.  But how do you cite what wasn’t said? I’m pretty sure there isn’t much clarity here on what makes something a good source.  I do see someone quoted AOC from a comment she made on Twitter.  Really? How does that help? I’m always happy to contribute but it appears Wikipedia has been taken over by people with an agenda.  I am glad Wikipedia survived the early years of being criticized for historical inaccuracies.  I never bought into that criticism because I understand how it works and what it can be.  But becoming a reflection of divisive societal trends does not seem like a good path forward.  I will continue to support Wikipedia for what it is and what it can be.  But the stuff we’re discussing here needs to stop. Dcook314 (talk) 01:52, 29 August 2021 (UTC)


 * The rule is WP:WEIGHT. Please stop casting aspersions, and assume good faith. If you want to yell about what's wrong with Wikipedia please find a more appropriate venue so we can focus on this article.You're saying there is more high quality coverage of Nextdoor that does not mention racism or other negative issues. Great. By all means, cite those sources. Show us the sources and that will be what determines what proportion of the article should be devoted to a topic. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 04:42, 29 August 2021 (UTC)

I happened to notice that there is no longer an entire section titled “Racial Profiling.” The racial profiling accusations are now just part of a “crime and safety” section and make up a smaller percentage of the article. Why? Did history change? Or are the editors of Wikipedia starting to realize that they were abusing their position to impose their political beliefs rather than sticking to the relevant details? Just curious. Dcook314 (talk) 07:49, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

Missing user stats
How many users does the site have, and has it had over time? I would expect this to be disclosed to investors now that the company is publicly traded. Beland (talk) 18:27, 6 April 2022 (UTC)

Removed Possible Promotion
Removed the sentence "Nextdoor has been caught aggressively removing all posts referring to PublicSq.com - a competitor." I didn't see a source for who caught them, who determined how aggressive it was, or if it happened at all. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:640:C102:8910:C451:DB0:735E:C2DA (talk) 00:33, 22 August 2022 (UTC)

The Hoodline redirect
Hoodline was created as a redirect to this article in September 2020. There's an organization called Hoodline that has been attracting negative commentary in RS as of June 2024: [https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/06/whats-in-a-byline-for-hoodlines-ai-generated-local-news-everything-and-nothing/ What’s in a byline? For Hoodline’s AI-generated local news, everything — and nothing]. It appears to be an ongoing, operating company that is likely to continue. Here's their company URL. I don't think there should be an article about Hoodline on WP, but if there is going to be a redirect from Hoodline to any article on WP, it might better go here: Pink-slime journalism. For the folks who edit Nextdoor, I am suggesting removing Hoodline as a redirect to Nextdoor, which I will do if there is no disagreement. Novellasyes (talk) 13:24, 19 June 2024 (UTC)