Talk:Nextdoor/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

CEO

Removing the CEO hit-and-run per WP:UNDUE. Found Forbes & Fortune. Let me know if these need to be added. Jppcap (talk) 15:45, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

Still think CEO is WP:UNDUE. Cleaning up section title, removing quote. Glad to discuss on talk. Thx. Jppcap (talk) 01:24, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

The CEO is currently in jail. I don't see why this fact isn't worthy of being in article about the company he heads. Chisme (talk) 03:03, 14 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:UNDUE deals with minority viewpoints like flat earthism, or consipriacy theories. The fact of this hit and run, the fact of the arrest, and the sentence are not "minority viewpoints". Nobody disputes that these are facts. This is not a relevant policy to try to remove this material. The character and behavior of corporate officers is well known to reflect on the company and is of course of interest -- hence the coverage in the business press. I deleted the hyperbolic rhetoric of the car accident victim's lawyer, which is obviously intended to be inflammatory and untethered from facts. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 23:10, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

No, WP:FRINGE deals with flat-earthism and conspiracy theories. WP:UNDUE deals with any out-of-balance treatment of a sub-topic within the context of an article, any out-of-balance treatment of a source over other reliable sources, any out-of-balance treatment of a quotation, opinion, event, date, name, or other fact in comparison to the other facts in the article. Try reading it some time.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:14, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

A company's CEO is involved in a serious breach of the law and you truly believe that this is information not worth including in an article about the company? In every publicly listed company that such a thing happens, its stock takes a hit, no two ways about it. The news is important and, by definition, notable. -The Gnome (talk) 22:16, 13 May 2018 (UTC)

This is a private company, not the publicly listed company that you surmise in your hypothetical. And at the time this happened in 2014, it was a lot smaller than it is as of this writing, in 2018. And as fun as though experiments are, you don't cite any sources. I have no idea if a public CEO's no-contest traffic misdemeanor resulting in weekend community service would cause its stock to "take a hit." I do know with this private company, the valuation (the private equivalent of the stock price), skyrocketed between 2014 and 2018, to $1.5 billion, Talk:Nextdoor#Finances, which is the exact opposite of what you're speculating. BC1278 (talk) 23:57, 13 May 2018 (UTC)BC1278

We're discussing notability, here. The example of the publicly listed company was provided to throw into sharp relief the issue of notability. Can something be considered notable if it involves a publicly listed company, and not notable when we're talking about a non-publicly listed one? That would be absurd to even consider. As to sources, I have no idea what you're seeking; Nextdoor CEO's breach of the law was reported quite widely. If you're asking for sources about a CEO's shenanigans or malappropisms, let alone law breaking, affecting their company's stock price, I won't even entertain such a request: These things happen so often, it's silly to ask for evidence.

Yes, you're right, your employer's valuation has never being done in any kind of robust manner, let alone a public one. Thank you for reminding us of that. Nextdoor's "value" has always been a matter of speculation. (You keep reminding us of this, in fact, as if it's something positive. Interesting viewpoint.) In any case, allow us to maintain our skepticism about "valuations of internet companies," especially ones that are not publicly traded. As a self-described veteran in the field, surely you're aware of the myriads of busts and belly ups of big and small units, alike. And I won't bring up the dot com disaster. Oops, I just did, sorry. -The Gnome (talk) 10:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

P.S. Are you certain that all these public and quite loud discussions about Nextdoor's entrails, and all the pond stirring, are viewed positively by your employers? I'd not think so but I'm not the one getting paid for the gig. What you may see as hard work may be viewed by the people upstairs as detrimental overzealousness. Just a thought. -The Gnome (talk) 10:05, 14 May 2018 (UTC)

This topic was the subject of an RfC, archived here Talk:Nextdoor/Archive_1#RfC_on_Founder_section and the consensus, as summarized by an independent editor, was to not include the topic as coatracking.BC1278 (talk) 19:47, 2 June 2018 (UTC)BC1278

The CEO is non-notable and not a public figure in WP's sense of the term (see WP:BLP). In particular, he's subject to WP:BLP1E, so this crime-related information should not be in the article because the crime does not relate in any way to the company. If a company executive or boardmember had been convicted of using company resources to embezzle millions of dollars from customers, or of a pattern of sexual or racist harassment of employees of the company, then it might merit a mention in the company article. But see also WP:COATRACK; an organization article is not a place to dwell on details about a person.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  23:14, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Request Edit

I have a COI, as declared above in the header.

Please remove sub-section in section "Controversy:

Denial of service to sex offenders and members of their households

As per their member agreement "Registered sex offenders and their households are not eligible for Nextdoor accounts". Nextdoor claims that this strict policy is a condition of the public entities (law enforcement, municipalities, etc.) that it partners with. It has been suggested that this ban could be unconstitutional, especially in light of the decision by the Supreme Court of the US that deems unconstitutional a North Carolina state statute prohibiting registered sex offenders from accessing "commercial social networking Web site[s]".

Comment: There is no Reliable Source cited to support this sub-section. The first source is primary; the second source is a self-published letter on the website of a Florida advocacy group for sex offenders; the third source does not mention Nextdoor. No reliable published sources exists, therefore this is original research, in violation of WP: NOR.

References

-BC1278 (talk) 18:40, 10 June 2018 (UTC)BC1278

There’s no problem with citing the TOS this was. Primary sources are acceptable as long as there is no expert interpretation required, such a interpretation of a legal document. I’ll fix the editorializing per wp:claim. —Dennis Bratland (talk) 19:26, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

If you think these TOS are worth putting in the article, it makes sense in Functions or History. The T.O.S. by themselves are not a controversy. Here is a secondary source for just the terms of service, which is always preferable to primary: "The service also involves a number of trust and safety buffers like preventing people who live at the last known addresses of registered sex offenders from joining."BC1278 (talk) 19:39, 10 June 2018 (UTC)BC1278

I'm fine with this being rewritten Denis. This is not original research. Nextdoor denies service to sex offenders and those living in their houshold: fact backed up the nextdoor web site. An association has written to Nextdoor asking that this policy be reconsidered in the light of a supreme court decision as this policy may be unconstitutional as restricting 1st amendment rights: fact backed up by the association's letter and Harvard law review website. I wrote that this has been suggested. This is not original research the only things that may be doubtful is whether there will be any consequences or whether this issue is important enough to be mentioned here. As you removed the original edit (in contradiction with WP:PAID good practice) by erroneously claiming this was unsourced and WP:VANDALISM I replaced it and added extra sources. I honestly am not sure one way or the other but you should not have removed it as it was sourced (poorly) and was not vandalism. Dom from Paris (talk) 19:47, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

• that is completely trash content and has no place in WP based on the P&G. Just because a paid editor calls our attention to it and asks it to be removed, is no reason to not remove obviously shitty content from the encyclopedia. If I had noticed this myself I would have removed it in a heartbeat. If anybody has secondary sources about this, fine but that kind of assemblage of primary sources is classic SYN and obvious ax-grinding. Jytdog (talk) 20:35, 10 June 2018 (UTC) (redact, with my apologies. Should not have written that here. Jytdog (talk) 21:24, 10 June 2018 (UTC))
  • I'll ignore Jytog's failure to assume good faith here, in the hopes we can put their ill-considered accusations behind us. I find it hard to square the idea that on the one hand this content is "indefensible" "trash" that egregiously violates policy, yet on the other hand it sat there for several days and and this experienced editor took no notice at all of this supposedly heinous problem. But hey, it happens.

    I agree the details of the TOS aren't inherently a controversy, and I don't mind merely having one sentence in some other section saying registered sex offenders are excluded in some other part of the article. I don't have any special concern one way or the other over the Harvard Review's opinions about the constitutionality of these kinds of exclusions. I think it's kind of interesting, and harmless to mention it, as long as there is an in-text citation saying whose opinion it is. But if we would rather leave that out, that's fine too.

    More broadly, this article and virtually any article you could name, is better off without a controversy section at all. Pretty much anything you find in end-of-article dumping grounds like controversy or popular culture or trivia belongs up in one of the main sections of the article. The history section should be a straightforward chronology. Mr. Clancy joined the company in 2014. In 2015, there were complaints about racial profiling in the Bay Area. In 2016, the site was working to combat the problem, in 2017 they were still dealing with the issue, also in 2017 they bought Streetlife. Simply tell the reader what happened, without having to tell the reader how they should feel about any of it.

    Please read WP:CSECTION and WP:POVFORK for more discussion of why controversy or other garbage dump sections at the bottom of articles are bad. --Dennis Bratland (talk) 21:10, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

    • If there is any independent, secondary source that talks about this, fine. Hingeing this around the letter from the advocacy organization (which is about the terms of use and cites the case) cited tothe advocacy organization's website, is completely UNDUE and blatantly promotional for their perspective. Other sections of the page can be discussed in different talk sections here. This thread is about the topic raised in the OP. I agree that the remaining content should be incorporated into the history and will do that. Jytdog (talk) 21:22, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I just went hunting and found two refs ABC news and and ABC affilate station that talk about nextdoor excluding sex offenders; the second has more than the first, but is also more press-releasey. I have not found any independent source talking about their sex offender policy being problematic in light of Packingham. At this time. Jytdog (talk) 21:57, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

As i said on my talk page this is not a SYN problem. I believe it is more of whether this information should be here as part of this article or as a separate article. I have found literally dozens of references to this decision in RS. here is an example. This decision could have far reaching consequences for social media sites that refuse access to sex offenders (from personal experience I have a much more radical solution in mind but this is not personal). If there were a WP article about this case and a mention that an advocacy group has written to Nextdoor asking them to change their TOS in light of this decision would that be acceptable content? Dom from Paris (talk) 04:57, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

The first sentence is what it is. Primary source and essentially UNDUE. The second sentence is sourced only to the website of an activist group, also primary source and a highly motivated one at that. The third sentence is sourced only to the court decision, which does not mention this company. The three sentences as they stand are a textbook example of WP:SYN. You should study it as such. If this whole paragraph were sourced only to the letter from the activist group (one ref at the end) it would not be SYN. But then it fails - and very clearly so - WP:SOAP. I looked and there are no secondary sources about this. This content is completely unsustainable under the P&G. I would remove this from any article, on sight. Jytdog (talk) 13:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes there could be an article about the court case, btw. The question is applying that here. What independent RS makes that connection? (real question) Jytdog (talk) 13:40, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

If we did have an article about that, a "see also" would be appropriate. That would be a way to bring it in mention of it. Jytdog (talk) 13:42, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

• I've declined the excessive edit (i.e. wholesale deletion) request. However, the requester may have some valid points. (I have no connection to this article or topic other than having responded to two RfCs here via WP:FRS. My interest is just in facilitating consensus-based resolution.)
  There is substantial related discussion on another page: Please see User talk:Domdeparis#WP:SYN. I believe that OR-free coverage of this matter can be written rather easily, which should resolve the CoI editor's concern and (more importantly) the potential policy problems with the wording under question.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  00:36, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Process for additional updates

@Jytdog: As discussed above by you (taking the proposed updates on in sections, instead of all at once) seems like the time may be right to move on to discussion of proposed updates for another section. History seems most significant. Since you set up the process, wondering if you think it is better to de-archive this discussion or if I should just start a new section/discussion, with a smaller set of distinct Request Edits. The latter might be better as I could set it up according to the preferred "Request Edit" format for review, with lots of very distinct requests, rather than having an overly broad discussion about too many items at once. BC1278 (talk) 17:18, 19 June 2018 (UTC)BC1278

OK I have closed the RfC and manually archived both RfCs on the racial profiling stuff, so we are ready for the next thing. The archived history section is kind of a mess to pull back here. How about making a new proposal based on the feedback that was given there, with just a link back there if anybody wants to check that? Jytdog (talk) 17:47, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

Closing, archiving

I just reviewed everything that was going on here, and it is clear that BC1278 was trying to do too much at once. I asked if he would be willing to withdraw everything but one issue, get that handled and then handle the rest, again one by one. He said the racial profiling this was the highest priority. Discussion was here. So I boldly closed all but that, as you can see above.

Assuming folks are OK with slowing down the pace here (and I would be surprised -- really -- if anybody objected, but i am asking because you never know... ) does anybody object if I move the closed sections to the Talk:Nextdoor/Archive_1 for now, so that folks can concentrate on the open issue? Once that has been resolved, sections can be de-archived and re-opened one by one. Jytdog (talk) 20:42, 23 May 2018 (UTC)

Whilst waiting for replies could we not collapse the closed discussions? I'm trying to edit from my phone and it is a nightmare finding the latest edits. Dom from Paris (talk) 17:39, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine either way.BC1278 (talk) 18:26, 24 May 2018 (UTC)BC1278

• I'll just do it. if anybody objects, I will gladly self revert. Jytdog (talk) 18:53, 24 May 2018 (UTC)
•  Done Jytdog (talk) 18:57, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

• Post-event opinion: I'm fine with suggestiosn as above by both Jytdog Dom from Paris. -The Gnome (talk) 11:54, 5 June 2018 (UTC)

• @The Gnome: To belatedly answer your implied question ("I do hope there is no WP:COI with you, too, DocWatson42. One is more than a handful. -The Gnome (talk) 16:33, 15 May 2018 (UTC)"):

Other than having worked on a article with BC1278 in the past, I have no conflict of interest here. (The COIs I have that I can think of are related to anime—I've worked on two editions of an anime book as a contributor, for which I was paid, and am an editor of the ANN Encyclopedia in the same sort of capacity as I am here (i.e., as a volunteer). I also have a couple of rather distant relatives who are notable—Harry Ferguson, and the captain of the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower who was in command of the when she collided with the Spanish coal ship.) I have no significant investments nor am I or have I been employed by any notable companies or any other entities. Did I overlook anything? —DocWatson42 (talk) 07:40, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Request Review of Expanded History Section

As disclosed above, I have a WP:COI here as a paid consultant to Nextdoor. Nonetheless, I am an experienced Wikipedia editor and have taken the time to read the many dozens of articles about Nextdoor. The current History section is incomplete, given the extensive sourcing, and in some instances, incorrect. I am proposing the following edits. There were discussions of this previously in this archived section: Talk:Nextdoor/Archive_1#Improve_Section_on_History? and Talk:Nextdoor/Archive_1#RfC:_Improve_description_of_Finances. These discussions were closed and archived by User:Jytdog so the conversation about various sections previously labelled as "Controversies" could be concluded first. The full archives are here: Talk:Nextdoor/Archive_1 BC1278 (talk) 17:41, 31 July 2018 (UTC)BC1278

For those not familiar, I am presenting this in the style the Request Edit reviewers ask for when reviewing requests by an editor with a COI. The sentence or section to be changed is identified, followed by the proposal. To clarify, I am not proposing that any sentences or paragraphs not mentioned here be removed or altered.

1) Please replace first two sentences of first paragraph of the History section with the following and leave the other sentences in the paragraph as they are:

Delete: "Nextdoor was co-founded by Sarah Leary, Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen in 2011. Tolia had previously helped start Epinions."

Replace: "The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans, pivoting to become Nextdoor in the summer of 2010. The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen. Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions.

2) Please delete second paragraph of History (the first two sentences are inaccurate and unsourced; the third sentence is superfluous) and the third paragraph ("As of March 2015,.." The source does not support this statement, which talks about revenue, not profit.) and replace it with what follows.

Delete: The company, funded by venture capital, did not initially expect to make money, but planned eventually to run advertising and connect people to deals with local businesses, and be "a nice substitution [for] Craigslist". Recommendations of area resources are also provided, thus making it a competitor with TaskRabbit, another local services provider. Chenda Ngak of CBS News has compared Nextdoor to a "College Bulletin Board".

As of March 2015, Nextdoor had not earned a profit.

Replace: It introduced advertising in 2017, its first efforts at revenue. Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products. Toila said the company ad revenue in 2017 would be in the "tens of millions," but declined to comment as to whether the company was profitable. The company said it would be offering targeted advertising based on the verifiable personal data provided by users. But it has refused political advertising, as of 2017. The platform introduced paid real estate advertising in 2017.

3) Please insert the following as the new paragraphs 3 of History:

The platform partnered with local public agencies to provide voter information for the 2018 election cycle as part of a broader effort to assist in voter education. It also began testing new forums for "civil debates" about politics, to separate the rise in political discussions since the 2016 presidential election from the usual content of neighborhood feeds. Nextdoor was in wide use by neighbors during natural disasters Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, as well as the string of bombings in Austin, Texas. The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency uses the platform to provide emergency alerts about natural disasters, such as flooding, hurricanes and major snowstorms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also sends out emergency hyperlocal weather alerts via the platform.

4) Following the current paragraph 4 in History ("Starting around 2015.."), please insert:

By 2014, the company said about 25% of America was represented on Nextdoor. By 2017, the company said that about 75% of the United States was represented as neighborhoods on the platform. There were about 170,000 neighborhoods recognized on the platform, as of April 2018. and each neighborhood had an average of 1,200 households as members. If a new registrant's address is within an existing neighborhood, they are automatically put in that neighborhood. To set up a new neighborhood, outside existing boundaries, a member needs to define the neighborhood's boundaries and sign up at least 10 other households inside it. In July 2018, the company said about 85% of the United States was covered by the service.

5) Please add the following as a new sentence at the end of the current paragraph six in History ("The service became available in the Netherlands...)

The platform was introduced in Germany in June 2017.

6) Please insert the following as the new last paragraph of the History section:

Nextdoor had raised $285 million in financing, as of December, 2017. A $75 million round announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion in 2017. A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017.

References

Reply 30-JUL-2018

" To clarify, I am not proposing that any sentences or paragraphs not mentioned here be removed or altered. " You then make a request to delete sentences which are not mentioned by you: "Please delete second paragraph of History (the first two sentences are inaccurate and unsourced; the third sentence is superfluous) and the third paragraph" or, are only partially mentioned by you: As of March 2015,... The source does not support this statement, which talks about revenue". Owing to your own proposed rule, sentences which are to be deleted in their entirety ought to be proposed here in their entirety. Please clarify what goes and what stays.  spintendo  19:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

@Spintendo: Sorry about the confusion. I have updated the request above so the exact sentences I propose deleting and replacing are in the request. Thanks! BC1278 (talk) 20:22, 31 July 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Reply to edit request 02-AUG-2018

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Be sure to read the enclosed notes for information on each request. Please note that this review does not speak for information already existing in the article.  spintendo  03:47, 3 August 2018 (UTC)

Review of Edit Request 02-AUG-2018

Delete: "Nextdoor was co-founded by Sarah Leary, Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen in 2011. Tolia had previously helped start Epinions." Replace: The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans, pivoting to become Nextdoor in the summer of 2010. The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen. Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions. ? Clarification needed. ___________ Delete: The company, funded by venture capital, did not initially expect to make money, but planned eventually to run advertising and connect people to deals with local businesses, and be "a nice substitution [for] Craigslist". Recommendations of area resources are also provided, thus making it a competitor with TaskRabbit, another local services provider. Chenda Ngak of CBS News has compared Nextdoor to a "College Bulletin Board".  Approved. ___________ It introduced advertising in 2017, its first efforts at revenue.  Approved. ___________ Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products. Toila said the company ad revenue in 2017 would be in the "tens of millions," but declined to comment as to whether the company was profitable. The company said it would be offering targeted advertising based on the verifiable personal data provided by users. But it has refused political advertising, as of 2017.  Not approved. ___________ The platform introduced paid real estate advertising in 2017.  Approved. ___________ The platform partnered with local public agencies to provide voter information for the 2018 election cycle as part of a broader effort to assist in voter education.  Not approved. ___________ It also began testing new forums for "civil debates" about politics, to separate the rise in political discussions since the 2016 presidential election from the usual content of neighborhood feeds.  Not approved. ___________ Nextdoor was in wide use by neighbors during natural disasters Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma, as well as the string of bombings in Austin, Texas.  Not approved. ___________ The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency uses the platform to provide emergency alerts about natural disasters, such as flooding, hurricanes and major snowstorms. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also sends out emergency hyperlocal weather alerts via the platform.  Not approved. ___________ By 2014, the company said about 25% of America was represented on Nextdoor. By 2017, the company said that about 75% of the United States was represented as neighborhoods on the platform.  Not approved. ___________ There were about 170,000 neighborhoods recognized on the platform, as of April 2018 and each neighborhood had an average of 1,200 households as members.  Not approved. ___________ If a new registrant's address is within an existing neighborhood, they are automatically put in that neighborhood.  Not approved. ___________ To set up a new neighborhood, outside existing boundaries, a member needs to define the neighborhood's boundaries and sign up at least 10 other households inside it.  Not approved. ___________ In July 2018, the company said about 85% of the United States was covered by the service.  Not approved. ___________ The platform was introduced in Germany in June 2017.  Approved. ___________ Nextdoor had raised $285 million in financing, as of December, 2017. A $75 million round announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion in 2017. A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017. ? Clarification needed. ___________

Clarifications and proposed fixes

@Spintendo: Please consider these responses to the notes above. I think I have clarified or fixed issues, where possible:

Revision as per Note 1:

Delete: "Nextdoor was co-founded by Sarah Leary, Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen in 2011. Tolia had previously helped start Epinions."

Replace: "The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans. Despite reaching 15 million monthly users, the founders reached the conclusion that the sports fan website would not be successful and considered returning the remaining company funds to their main investor, Greylock Partners. Instead, the staff began daily brainstorming and testing of new ideas, before deciding upon a neighborhood-based social network. They launched Nextdoor in the summer of 2010. The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen. Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions.

Revision as per Note 4: Revised to address Crystal Ball.

Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products. Toila declined to comment in 2017 as to whether the company was profitable.

Revision as per Note 5: The platform does not accept political advertising,. But it partners with about 3,000 public agencies, such as the office of the California secretary of state and the District of Columbia Board of Elections, to distribute voter and community information via the platform. A similar pattern was seen during Hurricane Irma in Florida.

Note 8: A May 2017 partnership with Federal Emergency Management Agency allows the federal agency to send localized emergency and disaster preparedness alerts through the platform. Nextdoor is part of the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides hyperlocal weather information, especially during severe weather.

Notes 9 and 13: The company said there were about 170,000 neighborhoods defined on the platform, as of April 2018. The neighborhoods are member-defined and new neighborhoods must be outside existing neighborhoods on the platform and have at least 10 households. The company said that most platform neighborhoods have between 500 and 2000 household addresses. In July 2018, the company said that nationwide, about 85% of the United States was covered by the service.

I admire your persistence, but we already went around and around and around about this. There can be no mention of the number of neighborhoods in an encyclopedia article since there is no definition of what constitutes a "neighborhood." I'm tired of schooling you on this matter. Drop it. Chisme (talk) 17:25, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Note 14: Nextdoor had raised $285 million in financing, as of December 2017. About $75 million in new funding announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion. A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017.

BC1278 (talk) 20:08, 3 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

References

A general statement of how much investors has put into the company will suffice. We also went around and around and around about this one. And "a German magazine said" such and such about a "German media conglomerate" is too detailed for an encyclopedia. Chisme (talk) 17:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but looking below this section I see that there is nothing written there at all. There is the older, already reviewed request above, and then below that text there is the COI editor saying "I have fixed issues", then there is this comment I'm typing right now, and below that there is.... nothing. So you've hidden your new edit request very well. I mean you would had to have hidden it, because talk page entries progress from top to bottom, as far as I know, and there is nothing underneath my post. Things didn't change overnight, I don't think. Now normally I would wait for a response to appear below my statement here. But should I be doing that? It would be prudent to look for it there — but then again — it might not. No one has said anything, so nobody knows. All of these variables can be quite dizzying, and I must admit to being a very poor WP:MINDREADER. In the end, anything you can do to expedite this request by placing it where it belongs would be appreciated. I stand ready and willing to help!  spintendo  19:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

⬎ Where is the revised request?

Edit request

@Spintendo: Sorry for the confusion. See below. The request note numbers correspond to the notes in the first reviewer explanation. BC1278 (talk) 22:09, 5 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Revision as per Note 1, more detail about connection to original platform:

Delete: "Nextdoor was co-founded by Sarah Leary, Nirav Tolia, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen in 2011. Tolia had previously helped start Epinions."

Replace: "The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans. Despite reaching 15 million monthly users, the founders reached the conclusion that the sports fan website would not be successful and considered returning the remaining company funds to their main investor, Greylock Partners. Instead, the staff began daily brainstorming and testing of new ideas, before deciding upon a neighborhood-based social network. The company closed Fanbase and the same founding team launched Nextdoor in the summer of 2010. The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen. Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions.

Delete (inaccurate representation of sources, which do not say this): "As of March 2015, Nextdoor had not earned a profit."

Revision as per Note 4, revised to remove Crystal Ball. Please insert in History after the current paragraph four, first sentence, ending: "including real estate advertising, in 2017." Please move the new paragraph (including the sentence already in the article: "Nextdoor introduced advertising...") to be the second paragraph of the History section, instead of the fourth.

Replace: "Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products. Toila declined to comment in 2017 as to whether the company was profitable."

Move to end of paragraph 6, after " in France in February 2018."

"The service began in Germany in 2017.[12]"

Revision as per Note 5. Specifies participating agencies, with examples. (please place directly after advertising paragraph, wherever that ends up):

"The platform does not accept political advertising,. But it partners with about 3,000 public agencies, such as the office of the California secretary of state and the District of Columbia Board of Elections, to distribute voter and community information via the platform."

Revision as per Note 7. Removed the words "wide use." (please make this the new paragraph four, after "...whether engagement complied with open meeting laws.":

"The platform sees heightened activity during disasters. During ]]Hurricane Harvey]], Houston had about 3,000 urgent alerts each day, compared the usual dozen, and tens of thousands of new users joined in the region. A similar pattern was seen during Hurricane Irma in Florida."

Revision as per Note 8. More precise language describing how these alerts work on the platform: (insert as new paragraph five)

"A May 2017 partnership with Federal Emergency Management Agency allows the federal agency to send localized emergency and disaster preparedness alerts through the platform. Nextdoor is part of the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides hyperlocal weather information, especially during severe weather.

Revision as per Notes 9 and 13 (insert as new paragraph 6). This explains how neighborhoods are defined in the platform, their minimum and typical size, as well as how widespread the service is. Improves the article by putting the size of the platform into perspective. Please insert as the new paragraph three, after advertising paragraph, if it becomes paragraph two:

"The company said there were about 170,000 neighborhoods defined on the platform, as of April 2018. The neighborhoods are member-defined and new neighborhoods must be outside existing neighborhoods on the platform and have at least 10 households. The company said that most platform neighborhoods have between 500 and 2000 household addresses. In July 2018, the company said that nationwide, about 85% of the United States was covered by the service."

Revision as per Note 14. Removes the word "round." (insert of last paragraph of History)

"Nextdoor raised $285 million in financing, as of December 2017. About $75 million in new funding announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion. A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017. " — Preceding unsigned comment added by BC1278 (talk • contribs) 17:04, 6 August 2018 (UTC)

References

Reply to edit request 06-AUG-2018

Below you will see where proposals from your request have been quoted with reviewer decisions and feedback inserted underneath, either accepting, declining or otherwise commenting upon your proposal(s). Please read the enclosed notes for information on each request.  spintendo  06:25, 7 August 2018 (UTC)

Edit Request Review section 06-AUG-2018

The company started out in 2008 as Fanbase, a social network for sports fans. Despite reaching 15 million monthly users, the founders reached the conclusion that the sports fan website would not be successful and considered returning the remaining company funds to their main investor, Greylock Partners. Instead, the staff began daily brainstorming and testing of new ideas, before deciding upon a neighborhood-based social network. The company closed Fanbase and the same founding team launched Nextdoor in the summer of 2010.  Not approved. ___________ The Nextdoor founding team was Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, Prakash Janakiraman and David Wiesen. Tolia, who became CEO, had previously helped start Epinions.  Already done. ___________ As of March 2015, Nextdoor had not earned a profit.  Approved. ___________ The service began in Germany in 2017. Move to end of paragraph 6, after " in France in February 2018." Advertising includes posts inside of user's feeds about business services and products.  Approved. ___________ Toila declined to comment in 2017 as to whether the company was profitable.  Not approved. ___________ The platform does not accept political advertising. But it partners with about 3,000 public agencies, such as the office of the California secretary of state and the District of Columbia Board of Elections, to distribute voter and community information via the platform  Not approved. ___________ The platform sees heightened activity during disasters. During Hurricane Harvey, Houston had about 3,000 urgent alerts each day, compared the usual dozen, and tens of thousands of new users joined in the region. A similar pattern was seen during Hurricane Irma in Florida.  Approved. ___________ A May 2017 partnership with Federal Emergency Management Agency allows the federal agency to send localized emergency and disaster preparedness alerts through the platform. Nextdoor is part of the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which provides hyperlocal weather information, especially during severe weather.  Not approved. ___________ The company said there were about 170,000 neighborhoods defined on the platform, as of April 2018. The neighborhoods are member-defined and new neighborhoods must be outside existing neighborhoods on the platform and have at least 10 households. ? Clarification needed. ___________ The company said that most platform neighborhoods have between 500 and 2000 household addresses.  Not approved. ___________ In July 2018, the company said that nationwide, about 85% of the United States was covered by the service.  Not approved. ___________ Nextdoor raised $285 million in financing, as of December 2017. About $75 million in new funding announced that month put its valuation at $1.5 billion.  Approved. ___________ A German magazine said German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017.  Declined. ___________

Reply to Notes and a New Request

@Spintendo: Thanks for your careful review. Please see below. BC1278 (talk) 17:18, 9 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Note 5: I agree with your observation that the language should not imply that Nextdoor accepts political advertising. As very recent New York Times article describes, the company is encouraging local public agencies to use the platform for voter education and information (e.g. voter registration, polling places) and it has created new political discussion forums. How about this:

"The company does not accept political advertising, but it partners with local public agencies to disseminate voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. Examples of participating agencies include the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. Platform policy discourage discussion of national politics or canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums. After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018.".

Note 7: Paraphrased more substantially, as requested:

"In May 2017, the company partnered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to facilitate the agency delivering geo-targeted "emergency and disaster preparedness" alerts through the platform. The company is a member of the Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador program of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which enables the platform to send out local community alerts during extreme weather incidents .

Notes 8 and 9: I changed the number of neighborhoods source to the New York Times, which is more authoritative. I also added a separate New York Times source for the origin of the neighborhood boundaries. Please see Note 10 for my take on info that reliable sources publish which comes from private companies. In essence: ""News reporting" from well-established news outlets is generally considered to be reliable for statements of fact (though even the most reputable reporting sometimes contains errors)." WP:Newsorg. For the info about the creating neighborhoods and the size of neighborhoods, I've added CNET and San Francisco Chronicle (more relaible than the previous small local press), plus primary sources, which lets the Wikipedia reader judge credibility for themselves.

"The company said there were about 175,000 neighborhoods using the platform, as of July 2018. Neighborhood borders were initially established with Maponics, a provider of geographical information. New members whose addresses fall outside the boundaries of existing neighborhoods can establish their own neighborhoods. Neighborhoods have between 100 and 3000 households, Nextdoor reported, with an average size, in 2018, of 700 households.

Note 10: The New York Times is reporting the 85% number because they find it credible. There are no qualifiers in their reporting, such using the word "claimed.". I don't see think this is particularly controversial -- after all, if the company wanted to, they could divide up 100% of the United States into neighborhoods and just report their reach is nationwide. The reason they don't do so is because they decided that on Nextdoor, neighborhoods need a minimum number of households for users to have a good experience. So they omit from their count regions of the country where there isn't enough member density. As to the point about 3rd party verification, that's what the reliable source is (we can accept facts as stated by news organizations WP:Newsorg). Unless there's some good reason to doubt the information (like a reliable source quoting someone who contradicts the statement), it being reported by a highly reliable news organization is all that Wikipedia requires. There's no 3rd party review requirement that goes beyond the reporting by a high quality news organization like The New York Times.

Almost all private (and public!) company information is initially provided to news organizations by a company itself, whether it's their revenue or profit, the sources of their funding, the number of user accounts on their website in a month or, the number of customers for their products or services. There is no external audit of the vast majority of company information reported by the press. But it is the job of the reporters and editors to gauge the credibility of the information before they publish it, withholding anything they don't find credible, or at least expressing doubt. With a very credible source, like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal, one can expect their evaluation of facts presented to them by companies to be especially good. Company supplied information, reported through reliable sources, makes up the bulk of most company information on Wikipedia. Take for example Uber, a large private company: Uber#Number_of_users None of the Uber user information is independently verified because the company is private, but reliable sources have reported what the company tells them, after gauging the credibility of the information and the source. Or look at the massive amounts of information provided by the company to reliable sources in the article about Dell computers, post the 2013 buyout which brought the company private. While companies do sometimes lie, of course, those which raise large amounts of investment money, like Nextdoor (or are public), do so at very great legal peril. For example, Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos has been criminally charged with fraud for making false public statements about her company's success that misled investors. Elizabeth_Holmes#Criminal_charges. Not only is the New York Times highly credible, but Nextdoor is very credible precisely because issuing a material factual statements that mislead investors with $300 million invested into the company would be such a serious issue.

That said, if you think it's necessary to introduce a level of skepticism into the statement, then we can change the language here to "stated" instead of "said". WP: SAID By adding "The company stated" instead of just presenting the statement by itself ("About 85% of the United States..._,) we are already introducing a level of skepticism. "Stated" make it even plainer. Thus, please insert this sentence:

"In July 2018, the company stated that nationwide, about 85% of the United States was covered by the service.

Note 11: I have added a professional investment database as a source. It's paid database that offers a limited amount of free information. While the companies did not confirm the report, originally reported by a German magazine, I have searched and found no denials from either company. I think it's highly unlikely either company would let the report go uncorrected if it was untrue. So my request is to insert this sentence with the additional source.

"It was reported that German media conglomerate Axel Springer SE became an investor in October 2017.

Thanks for the evaluation! BC1278 (talk) 17:18, 9 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Comment: I happened to see the recent activity on Talk pop up on my watchlist. Regarding point #1, the historical connection to Fanbase, I think it might be of interest since the same founding team was kept. In my own experience as an occasional user of Nextdoor, it is often unclear whether to think of it as a regular profit-making venture (funded by venture capital) or a public-spirited endeavor. It's possible there are elements of both. The Fanbase connection might be a hint as to what the objectives of Nextdoor management might be, and how they might be defining success. EdJohnston (talk) 17:53, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

References

1. Notes 8-10: NYT: It is unlikely that the New York times came up with this data on their own. They say so in their report: "The company was founded in 2010 and said it is active in 175,000 neighborhoods, or about 85 percent nationwide." This as well as the quote you provided both use the words "said", indicating that it is not the New York Times saying this in their own voice, but rather, they are ascribing it to be said by the company. There is a distinction there. It may be that there is no accurate gauge at the moment of the company's reach. If that is the case, then Wikipedia should not be unilaterally making this claim.
2. Note 5 In an example which highlights the above mentioned issue, if this could be reworded to say that the company says is does not accept political advertising, this would be acceptable.
3. Note 7 This rewording is acceptable. The usage of the phrase "is a member of the "Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador Program" can be omitted.
4. Note 11 The AIM source states that "Neither side confirmed the report." when AIM tried to verify it. This would seem to preclude its usage.

The prior template was for the prior request. Turning the same template on and off is ok when there is minimal text, but the large portions of text that you and I tend to add can make this reuse impractical. Please create a new template under a new level 2 heading for your next request, to keep the page flowing. Thank you! spintendo  01:07, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply to Edit Request Response / Additional Requests

@Spintendo: Revisions as per the notes immediately above.

Note 5: "The company says it does not accept political advertising, but it partners with local public agencies to disseminate voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. Examples of participating agencies include the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. Platform policy discourage discussion of national politics or canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums. After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018."."

Note: 7: Sees to have been implemented already.

Notes 8-10 I think you're adding a requirement to WP: Newsorg that just isn't there. News organizations report based just on what sources tell them most of the time. They use their judgment to determine whether it's credible and dispute what official sources tell them if they doubt the information. They only occasionally get to analyze raw data or witness events themselves. That's not what WP: Newsorg sets as the the standard. That said, I can instead user another, earlier source that doesn't use the language "the company said" if that qualifier is the big problem. (Architectural Digest is a tier-one Conde Nast magazine. Conde Nast magazines are even more careful than daily newspapers because they employ fact checkers to do an independent review of the facts in every article.)

"The platform was in use by 170,000 neighborhoods, as of April 2018. Neighborhood borders were initially established with Maponics, a provider of geographical information. New members whose addresses fall outside the boundaries of existing neighborhoods can establish their own neighborhoods. Neighborhoods have between 100 and 3000 households, Nextdoor reported, with an average size, in 2018, of 700 households.

Insert as paragraph two of section "Use":

"Nextdoor is organized into separate websites for each neighborhood. A map for each community enables members to see where their neighbors live."

Insert image in "Use": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nextdoor_IPhone_Map.png

Insert as paragraph three of section "Use": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nextdoor_IPhone_Map.png

"Members can post messages about their neighborhood, such as local service provider recommendations, real estate issues, and crime and safety updates. Local police departments are allowed to post notices in neighborhoods, such as closed roads, a spike in burglaries, warnings about a suspect or requests for help solving a crime. Platform features include tools for organizing events; official city government pages to make announcements and answer questions; and real estate listings. The platform is in use by about 3000 public agencies to provide information to their communities."

References

BC1278 (talk) 18:48, 11 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Response to Request Edit

@Spintendo: Note 5: "The company said in 2018 it "has no plans" to accept political advertising, but it partners with local public agencies to enable them to set up pages disseminating voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. Examples of participating agencies include the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. The platform prohibits canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums, although it allows for "civil debate." After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018."."

Please see the two new requests (about the "Use" section, with image) in the section immediately above. I inserted these requests probably after the reviewer was in the midst of responding to the initial request. Many thanks. BC1278 (talk) 20:21, 11 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Reply 11-AUG-2018

Partially implemented

1. Y The information under note 7 above was largely implemented.
2. N The information under note 5 still requires clarification. Each issue where concerns are noted is shown below in the left-hand column. The NYTimes article section's germane to this paragraph are quoted and shown in the right-hand column.  spintendo  19:59, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Comparison of Claims

The claim as it appears in the proposed Edit Request	The claim as it appears in the Source Material
The company says it does not accept political advertising.	Mr. Wymer said ... the company has no plans to sell political ads.
but it partners with local public agencies to disseminate voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines.	Instead, Nextdoor wants to help public agencies reach their constituents. Agencies that partner with the company set up a special page, and access to information — like where to vote or when to register for a primary — is targeted to the relevant area where a person lives.
Platform policy discourage [sic?] discussion of national politics or canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums.	Nextdoor has strict guidelines about what can be discussed. Public service announcements, postings about events and “civil debate” are allowed. Telling neighbors how to vote or offensive comments are not.
After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018.	To address this, the company has begun testing a new service in 12 markets, including the Bay Area and Dallas, to offer users a political forum separate from their neighborhood feeds.

Notes

References

Response to Request Edit

@Spintendo: Note 5: "The company said in 2018 it "has no plans" to accept political advertising, but it partners with local public agencies to enable them to set up pages disseminating voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. Examples of participating agencies include the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. The platform prohibits canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums, although it allows for "civil debate." After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018."."

Please see the two new requests (about the "Use" section, with image) in the section immediately above. I inserted these requests probably after the reviewer was in the midst of responding to the initial request. Many thanks. BC1278 (talk) 20:23, 11 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

References

Reply 11-AUG-2018

   Clarification needed  

1. The above text does not add the differentiation's I suggested. "The company said in 2018 it "has no plans" to accept political advertising, but it partners with ..." The use of the word "but" implies these two items are linked. I had said earlier that the two might be linked in the minds of some readers. Making this statement in this way, would serve to clarify any concerns in those readers, but now the other percentage of readers who wouldn't necessarily have been confused by these two elements may now be confused in seeing these two elements linked together through the word "but". Am I reading this wrong? Please advise.
2. The information concerning 170,000 neighborhoods needs one final point of clarification (I promise! ). Namely, when a neighborhood is designated as being "signed up", how many individuals in the neighborhood exactly are signed up for this designation to occur? Does this happen only when all the neighbors are signed up, or only one? A set number based on neighborhood size? I think it would be relevant to know what the threshold is for the counting of "neighborhoods." Please note if you agree here, and maybe we can find out the answer to this. That would be my final concern with that statement.
3. The final paragraph describes how to operate the platform "Members can post messages about their neighborhood, such as local service provider recommendations,[9][10] real estate issues,[11] and crime and safety updates", what tools can be used "Platform features include tools for organizing events; official city government pages to make announcements and answer questions; and real estate listings" and even details on how to use a map "A map for each community enables members to see where their neighbors live." I'm afraid this level of minutiae is a bit too promotional of the app and its services, if not a bit strange (the map part). We should be seeking unique and important information about the platform here, presented in WP:SS. Merely being true, or even verifiable, does not automatically make something suitable for inclusion in Wikipedia. Articles should not become a complete exposition of all possible details, but rather, a summary of accepted knowledge regarding their subjects.

Regards,  spintendo  21:07, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

References

Reply August 11

@Spintendo:

Note 5: How's this?

"The company partners with local public agencies to enable them to set up pages disseminating voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. Examples of participating agencies include the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. The platform prohibits canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums, although it allows for "civil debate." After seeing an uptick in debates about politics on neighborhood forums, the company established separate forums just for political discussions, initially rolled out in 12 markets in 2018. The company said in 2018 it "has no plans" to accept political advertising."

Note 8-10: That final requested information does exist in a news organization source, although a local market one. To be fair, though, a local market news source would be the most likely to find this specific information relevant to their readers.

"To set up a new neighborhood, a member needs to propose the neighborhood's boundaries and sign up at least 10 other households inside it."

Insert: As the article stands now, there's not too much that actually describes how the platform is commonly used. So there's info about it being a local social network as a general statement, it being used for emergency alerts, and it having had a problem with racial profiling posts, but nothing about more typical usages. I think what I suggested before can be shortened to include just the basics and it will make the article much stronger. So, for example, the Criticism section will make much more sense when the reader knows that a primary use of the platform is posting suspected crime reports directly to the police.

"Common platforms uses include neighbors reporting on news and events in their neighborhood, crime and safety reports to local authorities and members asking each other for local service provider recommendations. Police departments use the platform to post notices such as closed roads, a spike in burglaries, or warnings about a crime suspect. The platform is used by about 3000 public agencies, as of 2018."

Move sentence: I'd request moving the sentence about Germany in History to directly after the sentence about France in the same paragraph. These are related items.

Move paragraph: I'd request moving the paragraph about the CEO stepping down so it's the last paragraph in History. That will put it in chronological order.

References

BC1278 (talk) 00:31, 12 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Reply 12-AUG-2018

I would suggest the following phrasing:

1. "The company has partnered with agencies such as the California secretary of state's office and the District of Columbia Board of Elections. These public agencies collect and present voter education information, such as voting locations and voter registration deadlines. This is alternately presented as a link in the Nextdoor platform for members in those neighborhoods to easily access, obviating a need to navigate through unfamiliar, labyrinthine government portals in order to access the information."
2. "While allowing for "civil debate", the platform prohibits canvassing for votes on neighborhood forums. The service does allow separate forums just for political discussions. According to the New York Times, these discussions are "separated from their neighborhood feeds". The company has established these separate forums in 12 markets in 2018. The company said in 2018 that it "has no plans" to accept political advertising."
3. "To set up a new neighborhood, a member needs to propose the neighborhood's boundaries and sign up at least 10 other households inside it." Does this mean that the initial setup neighbor needs to enter the 10 additional households, or do the 10 other households need to set up this information separately, for a neighborhood to be established? Also, it says that the initiating neighbor proposes the boundaries of the neighborhood. Is this changeable moving forward, or is the neighborhood then limited to this initial boundary setting? I think it would be helpful to view the terms of service, as this would help to see how the neighborhoods are created. Based on the terms of service, I think we'll be able to see how to word the sentence explaining how neighborhoods are created, which ought to be placed in front of the claim of 170,000 members. In this manner, we'll have ensured that the proper context for the claim is laid out. Let me know what you think about this. Thanks!  spintendo  12:20, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply

@Spintendo:

Number 1. looks good.

Number 2. looks good.

Number 3. This is the most recent info I found on the Nextdoor website about creating neighborhoods: here. It says the "Founding" member of a neighborhood gets to propose the name and borderss, but Nextdoor can change it if they want. There are no doubt more steps that need to be taken before the neighborhood of the "Founding Member" becomes permanent, but it's probably a process the member gets taken through on the app, including inviting neighbors to join. That instruction page just says about the process: "Or, you will be asked to be the Founding Member of a new Nextdoor neighborhood. (Don't worry. We'll tell you how to do that.)" The information about 10 household minimum was current as of the November 2016 date of that article from Sonoma -- but I can't be sure what the policy is now. This isn't the kind of policy that would be in the Terms of Service because it isn't a legal matter. here. New members need to sign up for themselves - you can't designate other households as members. here. And then there are a variety of ways for the members to get verified as neighborhood residents: here.

4. Also, requesting you review a much shortened version of the insert for "Uses". There is a longer explanation above about why it makes the article better, but in short, it's just a basic explanation of what the platform actually is. I don't think it's anywhere else in the article:

"Common platforms uses include neighbors reporting on news and events in their neighborhood, crime and safety reports to local authorities and members asking each other for local service provider recommendations. Police departments use the platform to post notices such as closed roads, a spike in burglaries, or warnings about a crime suspect.

BC1278 (talk) 18:14, 12 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

References

Reply 12-AUG-2018

Thank you for this information. It's much appreciated. I will implement 1 and 2 shortly. My issues with 3 are laid out in detail below. Long story short, I believe that if these neighborhoods are going to be mentioned, then mentioning their quantities should be fine as long as the text takes time to explain how these labels are applied and under what criteria. Let me know what you think about this.  spintendo  23:32, 12 August 2018 (UTC)

Expanded section on "neighborhoods"

"The Founding Member has the ability to define the neighborhood boundary and choose the neighborhood name." This is not how neighborhoods are defined by the public presently. The first person in a neighborhood in a rural or suburban area would not expect to know the boundaries for the future. The first persons in urban areas who had a hand in founding them would have been dead for many many years. According to Nextdoor, the people who make up these boundaries (the founding members) are alive. This gives that person a lot of power to shape a neighborhood. "Nextdoor reserves the right to make corrections to names and boundaries based on feedback from other neighbors" This is somewhat better, since neighborhoods occur not only by geography, but by consensus. This would resolve issues where you have two "founding members" both claiming the same area but with different boundaries. If that did happen, then you would have overlapping, competing neighborhoods such as one which said that the boundary is market street while another says the boundary is mission street. Whose neighborhood is accepted and promoted by the system? One drawback to the idea of consensus forming a neighborhood's boundaries. The system for designating boundaries is always open to being reformulated, as the company reserves unto itself the ability to redraw these boundaries based on the feedback of their members. But this count cannot be seen as authoritative, seeing as how it is based purely on information Nextdoor is given by members who have signed up for the service. This would not take into account the views and beliefs of people living in the neighborhood who have not signed up for the service, and thus, would not be lending their voices to the discussion. It goes without saying that Nextdoor is not likely sending people to these neighborhoods and conducting door to door polls. In terms of determining neighborhood boundaries by consensus, this is a huge blind spot. "Nextdoor boundaries and names should, to the extent possible, reflect the traditionally accepted boundaries and names for a neighborhood." This does not take into account newer neighborhoods, where the time needed to come upon a "traditionally" used term has not yet occurred. It also ignores situations where two or more ideas of what a neighborhood boundaries are, both equally backed by a sense of tradition but with two divergent boundaries, occurs. What to do then? Tradition is always changing, so there may be areas where a traditional sense of neighborhood is difficult to set into one version. This difficulty makes quantifying their existence problematic. Yet the figure in the claim proposal asks us to quantify how many are signed up. In terms of raw numbers, this may be achievable with great guesstimation. In terms of a percentage of American neighborhoods signed up, since any percentage requires the total number to calculate, I would say that this is an impossible claim to make.

Reply

@Spintendo: Here's what I would request, reacting to your analysis -- "There are 170,000 neighborhoods defined by the platform, as of April 2018." Citation to Architectural Digest above. That language makes it clear that the neighborhoods are defined by the platform in some way, and not defined by an outside authority. Then, additional information about how neighborhoods are determined can be added, as per my request above and your reading of the sources.

As to the percentage, we can drop it, but as I read it, the claim in the New York Times is just that 85% of the geographic territory of the United States is included in these 175,000 neighborhoods. That's very easy to determine objectively. The company has been tracking how much of the geographic U.S. they cover since they started. As it has grown it's been reported in many sources. It's not a claim that 85% of neighborhoods are covered, as there's no tally by Nextdoor of neighborhoods in places it doesn't cover. Therefore, a percentage of total neighborhoods would be impossible to tally.

Thanks for reading the sources so carefully! BC1278 (talk) 04:02, 13 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

I would agree with you that the number could be added along with three accompanying qualifications:

1. the qualification on how neighborhoods are determined, as supplied by Nextdoor's FAQ's
2. the qualification that the number of 170K was determined by Amanda Sims of Architectural Digest (" a private social network used by over 170,000 American neighborhoods")
3. the qualification that the number of 170K was supplied to the New York Times by Nextdoor ("...and said it is active in 175,000 neighborhoods")  spintendo  10:27, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply August 13

@Spintendo:

1. Trying to incorporate all requested modifications. Might be time for you to edit or rewrite anything you think isn't suitable, as I think all the research has been provided and discussed:

"The platform was in use by 170,000 neighborhoods, as of April 2018, according to Amanda Sims of Architectural Digest. Neighborhood borders were initially established with Maponics, a provider of geographical information. New members whose addresses fall outside the boundaries of existing neighborhoods can establish their own neighborhoods. "Founding" members of neighborhoods determine the name of the neighborhood and its boundaries, although the company may change either of these and other members can also request they be changed. A member must attract a minimum of 10 households to establish a new neighborhood, as of November 2016. Neighborhoods usually have between 100 and 3000 households, Nextdoor reports, with an average size, in 2018, of 700 households."

2. Request insert of just one sentence as first sentence of paragraph two of "Uses." This just explains the bare minimum basics of how the platform is typically used. Trimmed this down from a long paragraph.

"Typical platform uses include neighbors reporting on news and events in their neighborhood, crime and safety reports to local authorities and members asking each other for local service provider recommendations."

BC1278 (talk) 17:39, 13 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Reply 13-AUG-2018

   Edit request implemented    spintendo  18:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Request edit

1. Request that the words in bold be added to the following sentence in "Criticism" to reflect the specific information provided by the source.

"Law enforcement officials in Oakland, California, who had generally embraced the forum as a means to connect with local residents, were wary of being seen as endorsing or associating with a website that enables racial profiling."

2. Request the following words, in bold be added to this sentence in "Criticism.":

Nextdoor changed its user interface, after three-months of A/B testing of six different variations, in order to make it harder for users to create race-based posts.

3. Request these sentence be added to "Criticism" section, after the sentence ending "...to make it harder for users to create race-based posts."

"After the update, the Oakland police department said the platform's new mandate requiring increased specificity to file a crime report made the service more useful for policing." The company's response to the problem was the subject of an article in the Harvard Business Review, discussing the company's ""agile" reaction.

BC1278 (talk) 18:11, 13 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

References

Reply 13-AUG-2018

   Clarification needed  

1. Bold font is not used in articles to highlight items within the text.
2. Its not clear what "more useful" means. Please elaborate.
3. The Simon article — where the author waits only until the 7th sentence to advertise his own published book — might be more appropriate for the racial profiling article. In any event, his conclusions appear to be based on his own research into the problem, which might be difficult to implement here.

 spintendo  18:36, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply

Hi. I only used bold to highlight the requested words to be added, not to suggest the bold be inserted into the article. Sorry for the confusion. Here's a modified request:

1) Insert in "Criticism", after "Law enforcement officials....":

"in Oakland, California..."

2) Insert in "Criticism", after "Nextdoor changed its user interface,":

"after three-months of A/B testing of six different user flow variations,.."

3) "After the update, the Oakland police department said the platform's new mandate requiring increased specificity to file a crime report made the service "more, not less, helpful for real police work.""

4) The HBR sentence isn't that important. I just found the study interesting. That said, HBR is an academic journal where primary research is written about by researchers. Scholars and authors present their findings. Sometimes that involves summarizing a bigger research project like a book. There is an intense level of review before publication -- they are very selective. It's the business equivalent of the New England Journal of Medicine. It isn't like a Contributor column in Forbes, where promotional material appears all the time.

BC1278 (talk) 19:43, 13 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

References

Reply 13-AUG-2018

   Edit request implemented  

• "after three-months of A/B testing of six different user flow variations" was not added. Expectations that readers will automatically comprehend "A/B testing" and "flow variations" need to be lowered.  spintendo  20:07, 13 August 2018 (UTC)

Reply

@Spintendo: That makes sense.

1. A correction: you inserted with quotation marks around my summary of "more, not less, helpful for real police work." Either the quotation marks need to be removed for "more useful for policing" or the words need to be replaced with the actual direct quotation.

2. Insert:

"After three months of testing six different possible redesigns of the platform..."

....Nextdoor changed its user interface.....

BC1278 (talk) 20:13, 13 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

170,000 Neighborhoods

Throughout his paid-for attempts to influence this article, user BC1278 has attempted to insert the notion that Nextdoor is in "170,000 neighborhoods" in the United States. This figure comes from Nextdoor's PR Department, which states it at every opportunity. It is occasionally parroted by lazy news organizations, including Architectural Digest, which is cited in the article. If you read through the discussions above, you will see that myself and other editors vehemently opposed including the 170,000 figure because 1)it comes from Nextdoor, not an objective third-party source; 2)it is blatant PR on the part of Nextdoor, which has an interest in inflating the number of its users; 3)there is no objective definition of what constitutes a "neighborhood," so saying 170,000 neighborhoods in the U.S. are with Nextdoor is meaningless. On these three grounds, I'm taking the 170,000 figure out of this article. Respectfully, Chisme (talk) 17:18, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• @Spintendo: As the above referenced statement was crafted based on your independent review during a prolonged Request Edit, I thought I'd see if you want to weigh in on how to proceed.BC1278 (talk) 17:30, 31 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

The "prolonged edit request" amounted to a prolonged WP:BLUDGEON. Therefore, I'd like to invite users who adjudicated the "170,000 neighborhoods" in the past to have a say here, too:

@Domdeparis:

@The Gnome:

Chisme (talk) 17:48, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

A Request Edit, which is how this request was addressed, does not go out to specific editors whose opinions are already known, whereas Chisme have just cherry picked editors who they already know support their position, while ignoring many other editors. This is improper. If User:Chisme want to open this up as a general discussion, then it must be done so neutrally, not by selecting known allies.BC1278 (talk) 18:16, 31 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Go ahead and do it right, then. -The Gnome (talk) 19:26, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

• As far as I know, Wikipedia's aversion towards the use of primary sources as evidence is still on. And as I recall that Wikipedia is still not a place to advocate or promote ideas, corporations, or products. Have I missed something? Did something change over the summer? -The Gnome (talk) 18:22, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Any further substantive discussion in this section is now pointless because Chisme cherry-picked known allies, blatantly violating Wikipedia policy.BC1278 (talk) 18:27, 31 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Allies? I brought people back to this discussion who decided this matter months ago before you renewed your paid assault on this article. Chisme (talk) 18:37, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

This matter was specifically not decided. User:Jytdog tabled the entire pending RfC (without objection by other editors) so we could proceed by addressing issues one at a time, instead of all at once. Talk:Nextdoor#Closing,_archivingBC1278 (talk) 19:22, 31 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

And that's exactly what's being done here, i.e. one issue at a time. And the issue of the hour is the number of neighborhoods served and editor Chisme is trivially correct to defenestrate the prose based on the company's own verbiage. -The Gnome (talk) 19:29, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Nope, BC1278, you are not annulling legitimate criticism of your use of primary sources to support the promotion of your employer. It does not work like this. Of course, if you feel the editors here are biased in favor of Wikipedia policy, you're spot on. And you're free to trumpet this discussion to everyone under the sun if you want more people to pile on. Take care. -The Gnome (talk) 19:26, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Please see WP: CANVASSING; User:Chisme has corrupted the possibility of any decision being reached in this section by selective notification. BC1278 (talk) 20:02, 31 August 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Perhaps you should freshen up on WP: CANVASSING as well. The policy does not render a discussion "impossible" or "corrupt" or null or anything else when canvassing has happened. The policy states that the practice is considered to be disruptive editing and advises editors how to respond to canvassing. So, once again, you have been called on your attempt to foist verbiage created by your employer as valid text for a Wikipedia article. Please stay on the subject and address the accusation. Thanks in advance. -The Gnome (talk) 21:07, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I didn't actually make any statement about the 170k neighborhoods. Can someone say how they are created and is there any kind of minimum number of people and can someone belong to more than one neighborhood? Can a street have more than one neighborhood for exactly the same number of addresses? Can a neighborhood be divided into as many smaller neighborhoods as you want? Dom from Paris (talk) 22:40, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I've just checked something and nextdoor claim 170,000 neighborhoods with an average of 700 households. This make a grand total of 119M households...according to this source [1] there are 126M households in the US. So either nextdoor has captured 94% of the American population or a household can be in more than 1 neighborhood which then means that the figure means nothing in reality because the definition that nextdoor gives to neighborhood is not the same as the general public. This seems to be more than misleading. Dom from Paris (talk) 22:57, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

I've searched all over and I cannot find a figure for the number of users. This is very strange because most social networks boast about the number of users. It almost looks like nextdoor is deliberately hiding their user numbers. I would suggest that the different figures be taken with a generous helping of salt and that only figures from reliable sources that have checked their information be used. Sources that say "nextdoor claims" etc should be avoided. Dom from Paris (talk) 23:34, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

This source comes from nextdoor's press page so one can imagine that they are ok with the info. [2]. It mentions that in 2016 there were 100k neighborhoods and 10M users ( not households as they encourage each member of a household to create an account). This is an average of 100 users which is a long long way from 700 households per neighborhood. Dom from Paris (talk) 23:45, 31 August 2018 (UTC)

Here is another source [3] from their press page that states that they do not disclose their membership numbers. This could be added to a section about membership. Something along the lines "despite the fact that Nextdoor does not disclose their membership numbers it was reported that in 2016 they had 100,000 neighborhoods and 10 million users in the US. Nextdoor now claim that 170,000 have been created. Dom from Paris (talk) 00:00, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

One could imagine that the terms "household" and "neighborhood" might be used by Nextdoor differently than how they are used in everyday conversation or in economics. Yet, here's the company's CEO claiming in July 2018 that they "serve over 200,000 neighborhoods across five countries – including nearly 90% of all neighborhoods in the U.S." -The Gnome (talk) 03:48, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Seeing as you only need 10 households to create a neighborhood this could mean as little as 2 million user accounts globally and there is no limit to the geographical size of a neighborhood so if 10 users create a neighborhood for every town in the US you are very quickly going to cover the whole country with a relatively small number of accounts. All of these figures mean nothing beyond the publicity value for nextdoor without figures on user numbers. Dom from Paris (talk) 09:14, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

Agree, which is why I support the move to strike off the lot. -The Gnome (talk) 09:46, 1 September 2018 (UTC)

In my opinion, we have both canvassing and vote stacking going on here, rather blatantly. Either every previous participant in the recent Nextdoor discussions needs to be notified of this new discussion, or none of them. An editor can't just notify editors who have supported their arguments in the past, and ignore editors who disagreed with them. My suggestion is that we have an RfC about this in which no one who was notified here or me participates. Since User: Spintendo is a very active reviewer of Request Edits, and devoted a lot of time to reading the sources about this in order to evaluate the request, I'd suggest they pose the RfC about this matter, if they're willing. @Spintendo:. I also think this section should be archived so as not to prejudice the discussion. The other editor running process on this article is @Jytdog:, who may also want to weigh in on how to proceed with this question. BC1278 (talk) 21:01, 25 September 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Since i was pinged...you could launch an RfC on this but given the weak sourcing i see little hope of it succeeding. Jytdog (talk) 21:22, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: There is very extensive sourcing. Dozens of articles tracked the growth over the years. It was narrowed to one source, viewed as the best and most recent, after extensive discussions during a Request Edit. The question is whether the canvassed editors get to participate in an RfC. If so, then everyone who has participated in the past has to be notified, not just them. Also, might it not be better for Spintendo to launch the RfC than me, since the particular approach in the article was tailored by them? And they are a neutral reviewer. BC1278 (talk) 21:31, 25 September 2018 (UTC)BC1278

What the objectors are saying, is that a) these numbers come solely from the company, which is private and b) the definition of "neighborhood" is not the same as used commonly. So WP reporting that number doesn't really communicate anything, regardless of how many RS repeat it. In my view people in the editing community will find that line of reasoning persuasive. Spintendo was trying to help you and I find it rather ugly that you are trying to wrangle him to put up the RfC that you want. Please don't ever, ever do that again. Jytdog (talk) 23:06, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

@Jytdog: I made the suggestion that Spintendo would be a neutral party, called to this article as a Request Edit, since I have a COI here and the particular wording and sourcing approach was guided extensively by Spintendo. So I think this it to the benefit of Wikipedia project. You haven't cited any policy that says it is improper to suggest another neutral editor consider an RfC when their work has been removed, in general or when a paid editor is involved. It actually seems a more neutral and fair approach to me, especially as I have offered not to participate at all in the discussion in that case. I don't intend to engage in substantive discussion in this section because of the canvassing and vote stacking.BC1278 (talk) 17:01, 27 September 2018 (UTC)BC1278

I have this page on my watchlist so ping or no ping I would have participated. As I have already said in the absence of membership figures the number of neighborhoods is meaningless as there is no limit to size and you only require 10 households to create a neighborhood and each household can have as many users as there are people living there or just 1. The fact that you are pushing for this to be included shows that the company wishes the information to be out there. It is misleading to say that they cover 90% of all neighborhoods in the USA because neighborhood is not a finite and universally accepted unit. You might as well use "area" or "place". This is clearly a way of giving the impression that their membership figures are extremely large as a way of promoting for their real estate ventures and improving revenue. As I have already shown the different figures are misleading. 170k neighbourhoods X an average 700 households = 94% of all households in the US are on nextdoor. These figures cannot be verified as should be treated as suspicious. Dom from Paris (talk) 23:19, 25 September 2018 (UTC)

This article is on my Watchlist, too. I don't think you can state it plainer or better than Domedeparis did: "This (continuously trying to insert the 170,000 neighborhood figure into this article) is clearly a way of giving the impression that their membership figures are extremely large as a way of promoting their real estate ventures and improving revenue." How many times do we have to go around with this? BC1278, who is paid to edit this article, keeps trying to insert the 170,000 figure no matter how many times we remind him that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a massive online advertising venue. Chisme (talk) 16:45, 26 September 2018 (UTC)

Request Edit

As disclosed above, I am a experienced Wikipedia editor but have a COI in this article.

1. Please delete unsourced opinion content from the "Crticism" section:

"The concerns openly expressed in town meetings was nextdoor.com was a platform for authorities to collect data on household residents, their opinions and daily activity. Nextdoor staff were not open to dialogue on either topic but rather engaged in censoring those expressing discenting views about the platforms uses by authorities. Even at the start, it seemed obvious the platform was geared toward a marketplace for paid advertisers and authorities, as it is today, rather than bringing communities together. Many users expressed concerns that account holders were giving up personal information on their own families and neighbors without full disclosure on the protections or sale of that information. Today, its easy to link up your account on nextdoor with facebook."

2. Please delete section "Croticism" and move its content into the History section. While Criticism sections are not expressly prohibited by policy, in this article, having a separate criticism section has repeatedly led to violations of NPOV, especially encouraging users unfamiliar with Wikipedia policy from writing their unsourced opinions. See WP: Structure in WP: NPOV. "Segregation of text or other content into different regions or subsections, based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself, may result in an unencyclopedic structure, such as a back-and-forth dialogue between proponents and opponents."

Thanks BC1278 (talk) 18:17, 27 November 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Partially  Done. I deleted the final three sentences from the passage you mentioned. The rest could potentially be supported with citations and I have requested such. I made the second edit, as requested. Strikerforce^Talk 15:17, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

Did more research

Hi Strikerforce

Thanks for reviewing this request. I looked more closely to see if I could find any sourcing for these sentences: "The concerns openly expressed in town meetings was nextdoor.com was a platform for authorities to collect data on household residents, their opinions and daily activity. Nextdoor staff were not open to dialogue on either topic but rather engaged in censoring those expressing dissenting views about the platforms uses by authorities."

I found no such sourcing, which makes sense. The first sentence is a conspiracy theory that the Nextdoor is a platform for government authorities to collect data about people, such as their opinions and daily activity. The second sentence says Nextdoor wouldn't respond to this conspiracy theory and in fact, censored the theory from the platform.

A conspiracy theory that alleges potentially illegal activity (i.e. a private company enabling government authorities to collect extensive private data about ordinary people, without a warrant) and has no reliable source, is a very serious violation of WP: Verify. "All quotations, and any material whose verifiability has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, must include an inline citation that directly supports the material." I am challenging the verifiability of this unsourced theory. There is no sourcing to support an assertion that government agencies are using Nextdoor to compile data about people's opinions and daily activities.

I should also note that the editor here is an IP address that has only been used for this one edit. [4]

Could you please take another look in this context? Thanks. BC1278 (talk) 00:37, 30 November 2018 (UTC)BC1278

I see that Spintendo (I love that user name, by the way) has responded to your concerns. I would disagree, slightly, with omitting the sentence in its entirety. Purely looking from a standpoint of facts presented by the article, my question is this - were concerns, in fact, expressed to that regard during the meetings mentioned? If the answer is yes - and, one would also reasonably assume, that the response by staff was as presented in the passage in question -, and that can be properly cited, I'm inclined to leave the sentence. The question of whether or not the passage is speaking of a conspiracy theory is another matter, in my opinion. I have no intention of reverting Spintendo's edit, however. Strikerforce^Talk 15:02, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

I think that the sentence in question was slightly off in what they were referring to, and perhaps what they meant was the issue that is mentioned in the Atlantic piece. The passage stated "The concerns openly expressed in town meetings was nextdoor.com was a platform for authorities to collect data on household residents," I believe that this is a predominently accurate restating of the issues, in that law enforcement was and is using the platform to engage with the community in order to learn better about its needs and its issues. "Their opinions and daily activity." this is slightly off, in that law enforcement wasn't concerned about daily activity inasmuch as it was concerned about daily crime, as well as fostering a good opinion of its actions and intent within the community. "Nextdoor staff were not open to dialogue on either topic but rather engaged in censoring those expressing dissenting views about the platforms uses by authorities." This mirrors slightly the Atlantic piece where the writer stated that her questions were ignored in a town hall meeting and that her account was suspended. So I believe that the Atlantic piece may be what the now-removed sentence was actually referring to but was written and explained poorly. But then again it might not have been about it. Without the original editor who added it here to say, we don't know.  Spintendo  08:11, 2 December 2018 (UTC)

Reply 29-NOV-2018

  Edit request implemented  

1. The problematic sentence has been omitted.
2. The COI editor is reminded not to duplicate other user's signatures in their own posts.

 Additional changes made:

1. Additional information regarding the issues experienced in Seattle, along with quotes from former Mayor Ed Murray, have been appended to the article along with references.

Regards,  Spintendo  02:42, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

Undue weight?

I have a COI as a paid consultant to Nextdoor.

User:Spintendo, as per your recent response to the previous Request Edit.

Propose deleting:

"According to The Atlantic, "Seattle Mayor Ed Murray derided an atmosphere of 'paranoid hysteria' he’d witnessed on the message boards of some of Seattle’s more upscale neighborhoods."[21] The mayor told KUOW, the local NPR affiliate, that Seattle's wealthiest areas are some of the most active communities on Nextdoor.[22] "The neighborhoods where most of the social-media complaints are coming out of are not even the neighborhoods that have significant crime problems, which tend to be our communities of color in the south part of the city. If it’s simply about creating a sense of paranoia or if it’s about stigmatizing folks in our city that are struggling, then I have to think about why we’re in that kind of partnership."

I think the beginning of that section, added at the same time, by itself gives appropriate weight and summary to the issue discussed:

"The police department in Seattle had been engaging with people through "town hall meetings" held on the platform, but in 2016 concerns were raised about whether their engagement complied with open meeting laws.[21] Reporting from The Atlantic has discussed further concerns over hyperactive “crime and safety” sections of Seattle's private community pages."

The extended quotes that follow seem to give undue weight to the opinions of this single individual, the former mayor of Seattle -- 6.5 lines of opinion to illustrate a point that was already been summarized just above it. If we leave in his extended comments, then under WP:Undue, we're obligated to give similar weight to opposing POVs. There is, for example, reporting in other sources about how useful a tool Nextdoor is for law enforcement and reducing crime. See: "How Nextdoor is helping law enforcement connect with residents and reduce crime" for reports from five cities. So, to solve Undue, we could add:

But police departments in San Mateo, California; Omaha, Nebraska; Durham, North Carolina; Plano, Texas and Sacramento, California have all used Nextdoor to solve crimes. "[T]he Sacramento Police Department has had a dedicated presence on Nextdoor, Facebook, and other social media channels for several years. Through Nextdoor in particular, the department has developed incredible neighborhood watch programs across the city and has successfully engaged residents in their efforts. Thanks to these strong community ties, the department was able to announce last year that they had successfully reduced the citywide burglary rate by 17.5 percent," according to StateScoop. "How Nextdoor is helping law enforcement connect with residents and reduce crime"

There are other similar sources with reporting along the same lines, which wold further flesh out this differing perspective. There is all sorts of laudatory language from government officials and others praising Nextdoor, which outside of the context of balancing POV to avoid Undue, would probably be considered promotional. But at present. I'm not requesting an extensive section with an alternate POV, as I think just cutting back the proposed deleted language would be just as effective in addressing Undue. And probably better for the article, as his language, as quoted at length, is somewhat more inflamed than we'd expect in a NPOV summary of an issue.

What do you think? BC1278 (talk) 03:31, 30 November 2018 (UTC)BC1278

As I am the editor who added that information, I'll leave it to another editor to decide its fate. I will say that the sentence above the quote from the mayor is a completely separate issue, that of open meeting laws. What the mayor is discussing is a different issue, and since he was the mayor of the city in question at the time, I believe his words have merit, especially since they were reported on in two separate, reliable publications. The source provided by the COI editor for their additional proposals comes from statescoop.com, which is published by CyberScoop. CyberScoop describes itself as the following:

CyberScoop reaches top cybersecurity leaders both online and in-person through our website, newsletter, events, radio and TV. With more than 350,000 unique visitors a month, CyberScoop will help you precisely engage your highly targeted audience of technology decision makers and influencers.

I don't see how an article meant to influence cybersecurity leaders online is an appropriate source to use considering this topic.  Spintendo  00:14, 1 December 2018 (UTC)

References

I very much respect the opinions and expertise of User:Spintendo, and have seen their fine work on many articles. But in this particular case, I happen to disagree, but only on the length of the new passage, not that it shouldn't be included. I haven't formally proposed adding that language from StateScoop, as of yet. I was trying to show that there are readily-available sources praising Nextdoor's impact on local communities (and I have seen many others) that could be used to balance the extended quotations from the mayor of Seattle to avoid WP:Undue. If necessary, I will put together multi-source proposed language with an opposing POV to the mayor. But I think the better solution is to leave in a summary of what the mayor had to say, ("Reporting from The Atlantic has discussed further concerns over hyperactive “crime and safety” sections of Seattle's private community pages.") but delete the essay-like expansion in the all the quotations that follow. It's length and tone create an NPOV and balance problem. If there is just a summary of the criticism, then I don't think it's necessary to present an opposing POV to rebut.

That said, although it's premature, I'll add that the language quoted from Cyberscoop is similar to what you'd find on the "Advertise" page, or media kit, of most every for-profit publication. The demographic is identified and the publisher brags about its ability to engage with the audience, thereby creating an attractive environment for advertisers trying to reach a similar audience. The hype from the ad sales staff doesn't mean the editorial isn't reliable. Here's a quote from an "Advertise" page: "Whether you want to reach a niche local or leadership influential, our global audience at scale, or our international readers, we have the quality content, targeting capabilities and technology to excite anyone." The publication? Washington Post Or how about this one from The Atlantic, the source of the extended quotation: "We reach thinking people—and make them think harder. The Atlantic’s audience is influential, curious, and eager to leave a lasting mark on the world. Never ones to shy away from change, they seek out new ideas, challenge conventions—including their own—and ultimately aim to foster progress." [5] BC1278 (talk) 20:02, 3 December 2018 (UTC)BC1278

The main difference between CyberScoop and the Post and Atlantic sources being the demarcation line between advertising and journalism is much more pronounced and regulated with the latter two while being indecipherable with the former. If anyone needs a primer on this lack of distinctions, they need only view how the representations are given by each publication, most notably with the sections quoted by the COI editor coming from those publication's separate advertising/media kit sections while the quote from StateScoop comes from its main About Us page. No such distinctions there.

As far as size, the COI editor has not described what it is about the length and tone of the Mayor's quote which creates a "balance problem", specifically since the quote is only 3 sentences in length — not even enough to place it in a blockquote. By my count, on 15 separate occassions the article uses either direct quotes or paraphrases material quoted in another source — be it Nextdoor press releases, company provided announcement information, or information quoted from other partnering organizations' announcements and press releases. The entire article is practically devoid of any originally-written information on the topic. The argument that this article has a weight distribution problem when it comes to repeating announced or quoted information is completely accurate, although not in the way the COI editor would have you believe.  Spintendo  00:24, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I looked over the"About" page carefully and it's clear they use "About" as their label for the 'Advertise" page on other websites. [6] It's just a different nomenclature for the same thing. Even so, the description of the audience of Cyberscoop is that it includes "influencers" - which is just a person in a position to influence behavior in their industry. It doesn't at all suggest the editorial copy will influence behavior on behalf of advertisers. The language about Cyberscoop isn't even particularly relevant, since the information comes from StateScoop. The parent company is "SNG" [7], which describes itself as: "Scoop News Group is the leading public sector tech media company in the country. Built on a foundation of award-winning journalism, we are the community's platform for education and collaboration through news, TV, radio and events." Then it offers advertisers the chance to buy ads in its publications. There's also a precise description of StateScoop, the quoted publication: "StateScoop reports on news and events impacting technology decisions in state and local government. With our website, daily newsletter and events, we bring together IT leaders and innovators from across government, academia and industry to exchange best practices and identify ways to improve state and local government."[8] It seems to me to be an expert, reliable, independent source, from a legit news media company. But I don't think we're going to get much discussion about the underlying issue without a RfC. So I'll post one. I first need to research and write the alternative POV to the former Seattle mayor, with more sources than StateScoop. His attack is very severe and uses language that wouldn't be allowed in the voice of the encyclopedia were it not in quotes. I'm not going to defend the whole article since I didn't write it. But I will say that the sourcing is incredibly good, with articles from The New York Times (multiple), Harvard Business Review, Wired, NPR, BBC News, The Wall Street Journal and The Atlantic. It's not a bunch of press releases and non-independent sources. It also has abundant criticism.BC1278 (talk) 01:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)BC1278

Reply 05-DEC-2018

  Deferred to WP:RFC  

• The COI editor has indicated their intent to move to RFC. They may begin that process at their earliest convenience.

Regards,  Spintendo  13:39, 5 December 2018 (UTC)