Streetlife / Nextdoor

elverson · 7 February 2017 at 9:18AM

Does anyone here use either of these websites? I've been a Streetlife member before and have now been asked to migrate my account to Nextdoor, but this seems to be poorly set up in privacy terms as you have to have a full name and your street name on your profile.

Boltonlass · 7 February 2017 at 10:20AM

I have done a Google search and apparently Nextdoor (USA originated) has taken over Streetlife (UK based). It's a pity they didn't just migrate all the ongoing conversations over but I think Nextdoor are slightly different in that they want to verify addresses to ensure that the local aspect of the forum is strengthened.
I was surprised that their password only allows 6 digits to be used. That has messed up my password system in afraid.
Many of our locals on Streetlife are waiting to see what happens before signing up for Nextdoor.

RumRat · 7 February 2017 at 10:34AM

Someone has started 'Nextdoor' along my road. I've not signed up I don't really want to share who I am with anyone except my immediate neighbours and I don't think they know my surname. We still have a Parish notice board for finding lost cats and dogs and local events.;)

cherylsurrey · 7 February 2017 at 1:09PM

I migrated my account over to Nextdoor and to my horror it displayed my full name and address to all the other people in my neighborhood group. I then clicked on the neighbors tab and saw all their full names and addresses. I was horrified and immediately deleted my account. I can see this being a big news story in the next few days, surely this is against data protection.

I have to add, on streetlife they did not publish your full name and address and that was kept private.

Undervalued · 7 February 2017 at 1:43PM

cherylsurrey wrote: »

I migrated my account over to Nextdoor and to my horror it displayed my full name and address to all the other people in my neighborhood group. I then clicked on the neighbors tab and saw all their full names and addresses. I was horrified and immediately deleted my account. I can see this being a big news story in the next few days, surely this is against data protection.

I have to add, on streetlife they did not publish your full name and address and that was kept private.

I know nothing about Streetlife or Nextdoor but surely that information is very easy for anybody to find out anyway if they want to? OK, this perhaps makes it easier still or maybe I am missing something?

shaun_from_Africa · 7 February 2017 at 2:02PM

Undervalued wrote: »

I know nothing about Streetlife or Nextdoor but surely that information is very easy for anybody to find out anyway if they want to? OK, this perhaps makes it easier still or maybe I am missing something?

Streetlife is often used to ask things such as "We are shortly going on holiday and was wondering if someone could recommend a good kennels" or "We have recently purchased a new TV and are having problems with tuning it and I am looking for advice"

On an anonymous forum this is fine but would you really want to publicise the fact that your house will be empty for a week or two or that you have got a nice shiny new TV if anyone fancied getting one without having to pay?

Money_maker · 7 February 2017 at 2:06PM

Exactly ^^^^^^^^^^^. That's what facebook is for.

Undervalued · 7 February 2017 at 2:06PM

shaun_from_Africa wrote: »

Streetlife is often used to ask things such as "We are shortly going on holiday and was wondering if someone could recommend a good kennels" or "We have recently purchased a new TV and are having problems with tuning it and I am looking for advice"

On an anonymous forum this is fine but would you really want to publicise the fact that your house will be empty for a week or two or that you have got a nice shiny new TV if anyone fancied getting one without having to pay?

Ah, OK I see what you mean.

I was referring to the ability to find out who lives at a particular address which is generally very easy.

chrismale · 7 February 2017 at 2:08PM

I, too, am horrified by this development. I am interested in a much bigger area than my immediate street - we can talk directly to our own neighbours about issues, but it was useful for getting recommendations for gardeners, events etc. but I don't want my full address details shown so I will probably not register.

psychic_teabag · 7 February 2017 at 2:34PM

Yeah, I was a bit shocked to see my full address shown, but there is an option to show just the street name. (Not that that helps much, since full name + street name + phone book gives address.)

Addiscomber · 7 February 2017 at 2:39PM

Similar experience here. You can go into Settings, Privacy to stop it showing your house number to all members, but your house is still coloured green on the map. Sigh. They claim that it is not visible to the wider world, only members and they do supposedly verify your address, but that doesn't stop someone with less than good intentions joining up. This development does explain the verification process that appeared on Streetlife a few weeks ago, though.

I used to get postings from a much wider area than the 9 neighbourhoods on Nextdoor, and I enjoyed several topics from there. I have written to support to ask if that is still possible but am not holding my breath.

Presumably the founder of Streetlife has made a good sized wodge of cash from selling out the members and their content, and the American buyer can only be expecting to make money , or else what was the point? He apparently borrowed heavily for the buyout, so needs to get that back.

I can see me deactivating my account in the next few days as I can't see me using a site that is a poor imitation of what we had before..

Streetlife / Nextdoor

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