Does your neighborhood have a Facebook group?

Our city population is around 3,000 so we have a community Facebook page. For the most part, it's used to promote things happening in the city and sharing information. But it's also used to create a $hitstorm of drama sometimes!

Because sometimes things come up that I feel should be private to the neighborhood.  I won't go into details here about specific situations because again, they should have been private to the neighborhood.  In one case, there were HUGE issues with a particular homeowner.  This homeowner was  not on FB or part of the FB neighborhood FB page.  The things that were posted about this situation should not have been out there for those who don't live here and were not affected by it, to see.  

No, but we have a group on nextdoor.com. I like that because I get an email digest daily so I don't have to keep checking back.

Mine uses Nextdoor.com as well instead of facebook. People use it to ask for recommendations on different types of home repair, advertise their businesses, discuss neighborhood watch types of things (stranger seen peering behind gates, etc) lost pets....

Yes, my neighborhood has one and I am one of 8 admins. It was started as part of our neighborhood watch program and most of the time it is cordial and informative. BUT, we have had several situations that got nasty. I mostly stay out of it unless they break the rules that were laid out when the page was set up. I have found out that several people that I thought I liked were nice neighbors, really aren't. Some are down right scary.

Yes. It's very useful. The HOA runs it. Membership is limited to HOA members in good standing.

we use nextdoor.com, it is a really neat website! You can share things with your neighborhood or expand things to include the subdivisions around you. The police also post weekly on there which is cool.

Yes, my neighborhood has one. I swear,its main purpose is report every fender bender and loud boom that occurs.
These frantic sounding posts that all basically say "DID YOU HEAR/SEE THAT?!!"

It's like a hysterical group of people with nothing better to do that try and be the first person to post anything close to news. Hmmmmm. Sounds familiar

There are nuggets of helpful posts, but mostly not. You open a forum up and you get everything that the community has to offer. Everything.

we have three tightly knit communities, so all three are included on a page that is for selling items/tickets and one page that is just freecycle for the three neighborhoods. it is always busy and fast paced on there - and people like knowing that strangers aren't coming over to buy their old bike or whatever. it is super successful.

then, there are separate pages for each community for block watch type activities. not specifically an endorsed block watch, but similar. as someone else mentioned, they are sort of a catch-all for lost dogs, solicitors in the area, business recommendations, etc. then you have the occasional car break in to mention.

what happens with all of these (5 I think) FB pages is that you have the same people posting the same things on EACH page. my dog is lost...1,2,3,4,5 times! it doesn't bother me, some of the audience is different, but not a lot.

anyway, last spring I saw a guy right outside my window getting ready to break into my neighbors car. my dog scared him off. I called the neighbor, posted the incident on my facebook page, on which several of my friends are my neighbors. right there I decided to start a page for just or little portion of the community. we had 100 people join within 10 days! I contacted our police liaison and our official block watch was born. since then, we've grown, had meetings, speakers, celebrated national night out last august, and I can say I've "formally" met a lot of neighbors who I already would wave to or whatever when walking the dogs or out with the kids. the page was just a way to cement what many of us were already doing, and to provide a place for everyone else to see items of concern quickly and easily.

not everyone is on facebook, so we also have an email list. the emails are usually very watered down information, though, because I don't include each and every comment made. I keep it to crime alerts and serious things like that.

I feel much more connected to my neighborhood than I ever did, and I've lived here almost 15 years. I knew tons of people in the neighborhood before but this is much much different. we've learned how to come together to get a landlord to evict suspected drug dealers, there is a connected effort to control speeding in the neighborhood, there are going to be neighborhood clean ups, events for kids, and a much better connection to our precinct officers.

it's a lot of work. I found help. I'm looking for more.

the facebook page does get very complain-y sometimes. there are a couple individuals in particular who "embellish" things and then I have to deal with panicked residents. there are opinions which may differ from yours. we get some "the police don't do anything about these break ins!" type people, along with unsubstantiated claims of crime on the rise in our neighborhood (it isn't.) people want guns. people want security. people want street lights. people don't like renters. bluntly, you have to deal with a lot of stupidity.

we have pretty loose rules (as of now) but we just began a discussion today about tightening things up a bit.

it can go for weeks and weeks very uneventfully but then something blows up, like ours did yesterday.

nextdoor.com was lobbying hard to get our business, but the facebook page was already well used I didn't see any reason to switch. I know the sheriff's department is involved with our nextdoor page. I have heard they were going to begin charging to use nextdoor in the future. the same stuff happens over there too, I have heard. and I don't see the need to have yet another app.

if you have any other questions, let me know!!

Honestly, I think it's pretty crappy to have a neighborhood facebook page and use it to post about situations with neighbors. That seems gossipy and mean, imo. I think a neighborhood fb group is a great idea  if it is used to post about events, neighborhood happenings, etc, but to use it to post about real problems or issues with a specific neighbor? Ick. If you have issues with a neighbor, they should be taken up with the HOA, not posted about on fb.

Nope. There is a buy/sell/trade page for our large community but a neighborhood Facebook page could easily have thousands on it.

No, it just seems like everybody gets along and doesn't post that kind of stuff.