Ask HN: What is the best platform to coordinate people to fix a local problem?

3 points by Stronico 8y ago ↗ HN

My neighborhood in a major American city is generally a great place to live. However, there is a large, (somehow) publicly owned and privately run, Section 8 apartment complex that is a constant source of crime and gunfire a majority of nights (not fireworks, there is a difference, and I'm aware of it). There have been two nights of 20+ shots being fired this week for example. The corporate landlord is located about 2,000 miles away.

It has been a constant source of chatter on the Facebook and Nextdoor neighborhood sites, and has been a problem for several decades now. There ARE several security measures that have proven effective in reducing crime in the past few years, but they require more or less active maintenance, namely on premises security, gates and outdoor security cameras. The out of state landlords do not make that a priority.

Much agitation has been spent on social media, which is effective in informing the neighborhood about the problem, but ineffective in finding a solution.

Does anyone know of a good platform to use to coordinate neighborhood efforts in solving the problem as much as it can be solved? I'm envisioning something like

Description of the problem Mapping History of incidents (i.e. 32 shots fired on this such and such a date, Police Report ABC123 filed (link to pdf etc) Numbers to call/emails to send (corporate landlords and political leaders) What the goals should be (in this case on premises secuity, working gates and security cameras)

Just checking to see if there is a pre-built solution before I start to build one...

5 comments

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radnam 8y ago ↗

Have you tried using Nextdoor?

Stronico 8y ago ↗

I have - it's actually less useful than Facebook for this purpose.

tqkxzugoaupvwqr 8y ago ↗

Step 1 should be talking to affected parties, not building software. Meet and talk in person. When something happens, people can take notes on paper and when you meet you combine those notes of recorded incidents. This creates more of a community feeling than anonymous flyers with a link to a website.

Edit: The problem is armchair activism. Your proposed solution is moving the conversation from Facebook to your neighborhood platform. But in the end, if everyone keeps sitting in isolation in front of their computer, the problem remains. If you are not willing to talk to people now, you won’t be later, and not change a thing.

Step 1 is being done as well as the various facebook and nextdoor - the software is to extend and amplify that.

Clarifier - the software is to extend and amplify actual pressure, created mostly by people meeting in person to discuss the problems, not another place to vent (sorry, I should have been clearer in the original post)