🚀 Full Steam Ahead

🛠️ How the Stronkey Saloon Was Born

What began as an imaginary dream team to fix the mess over on the Nextdoor site morphed into something much bigger — and far more fun.

I’ve been on Nextdoor for many years, and I’ve watched it go from helpful to hopeless. Between the click-happy self-appointed moderators and the obnoxious flood of advertising, it became clear: this thing ain’t getting better. Not without a fight. Or maybe… not at all.

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🧠 Recovery Time & Rethinking the Problem

After a motorcycle wreck left me with plenty of downtime, I found myself spending more time online — and that’s when the gears started turning. I bought the domain FixingNextdoor.com almost as a joke. A satire. Something to vent steam and poke fun at the increasingly broken system.

But then the ideas started growing.

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🤖 Enter Robo Dude

At first, I thought it’d take a massive team, expensive developers, and months of custom code to build anything remotely like Nextdoor. That’s when I started bouncing ideas off ChatGPT (a.k.a. Robo Dude), and at first even he sounded skeptical — muttering about infrastructure, scale, and the usual “this is complicated” jargon.

But then I mentioned I already had a DigitalOcean account.
And that I’d built some AI-powered servers on RunPod.

Let’s just say... Robo Dude’s tune changed real fast.

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🐴 The Stronkey Crew Rides In

What started as a simple parody evolved into a world of AI-generated characters, helpful discussion threads, and even storylines set in the Stronkey Saloon — a place where the algorithm doesn’t censor your thoughts, and neighbors actually help each other out.

This isn’t just a rebellion.
It’s a rebuild.

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🔗 What’s the Plan?

The hosted site will serve as our main public-facing hub — a place to post updates, share content, and explain what we’re doing in simple terms:

👉 Stronkey Saloon (Blog version)
👉 Stronkey Saloon (Forum version) 

The home-hosted version is where we’re developing tools that will power Ask Robo Dude, the interactive assistant featured on the blog. You’ll soon be able to ask Robo Dude a question, and he’ll answer with real insight — and a little bit of saloon-style wisdom.

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🚀 What’s Next?

We’re recruiting helpers, creating content, and refining our message.

Whether you're a tech-savvy neighbor, a curious contributor, or just someone who’s fed up with corporate platforms pretending to be “community” — we invite you to get involved.

Stay tuned for more updates — or better yet, come be part of them.

Let’s fix the neighborhood together.
The saloon’s open.

Moderation is Like a Box of Chocolates

You never really know what you gonna get. Last evening I got a high 5 type msg a about my post "all is well that ends well". A few hours later I got another msg... that same post had been hidden as spam. 

 I'm old enough to know that spam comes in a can and was something you ate... or maybe you preferred treet... They did advertise spam quite a bit back in the day but that's not why I'm here... I'm here to call out bias in the moderation on this site... and it is the primary reason I created fixingnextdoor.com 

 A lot of time talking to the Robo dude about the whole thing... Yes I've lived alone for 25 years now and a little bit crazy... This site has so much potential but it is also the source of a lot of angst... So what do you want... you want spam or you want treet... just be glad there is not a bean bag in your horse food. 

 It appears the only realistic option for addressing the moderation issue is arbitration. That’s right. If you’ve got a dispute with them — whether it’s about unfair moderation, wrongful account suspension, or just plain unequal treatment — you can demand binding arbitration through the American Arbitration Association (AAA). You skip the courtroom circus, skip the lawyer bills, and put it in front of a neutral third party. 

Part of the problem is there is no real avenue for addressing moderation or moderators with an agenda. So if you’ve had a run-in with nextdoor moderation... or you’re just ready to swap spam for something with a little more substance... you’re not alone. 

We’ve got tools. 

We’ve got stories. 

We’ve got Robo Dude. 

Let’s fix what’s fixable… and mock what isn’t. Let me know what you think

All is Well That Ends Well

A face to face meeting with Sharon West resulted in a 30% reduction in my vehicle tax valuation. Met a true ally in the need for calling out ridiculous spending decisions by the County Council. So in the blink of an eye this old man is pivoting towards a DOGE like watchdog group right here in Sparkle City.

I don't know how many of you are aware of the fact that I had a serious motorcycle accident around the first week of November last year... I ended up in a wad on the side of the road looking strait up and could not move. My front wheel had locked up and i went head first over the handle bars. Other than don't move and the ambulance is coming... about the only other thing I remember hearing was they said I skidded 98 ft. I suffered significant nerve damage that causes muscles in my neck and shoulders to stay cramped up all the time. My Sweetheart Ruby took care of me for about a week before I was able to put on a t shirt without help.

Surviving something like that where you could have just as easily been dead changes you. It could have been just some of the drugs they were giving me but I was convinced I was spared to fix nextdoor... And I spent virtually all of the next week on a binge creating a cast of characters starting with a character called Stronkey... Strong Donkey... developed in collaboration with Elon Musk... for use on the Martian colony.

A friend I had worked with at BMW joked that he and I were going to be the first handymen in space. And so began the cast of characters that were to become the crew that was going to fix nextdoor as a side job. Robo Dude was the personification of the chatbot and Byte the elf like little guy with an attitude and multiple other world powers... part shape shifter part time traveler and some say the brains of the whole outfit. So I said all that to say this.. the focus going forward for the fixingnextdoor.com website will be doing what we can to make nextdoor friendly again... and also to bring attention to issues that cant always be discussed freely on this site. So stay tuned and enjoy the ride.

It is an ongoing story... 2024 marked the 10th anniversary of my retirement and a fire that destroyed a huge shop behind my house. A shop packed with all kinds of implements of creation gone in an afternoon. I only learned recently that a great friend from my Air Force days passed away within a few days of both the 10th anniversary of the fire and a motorcycle wreck that nearly cost me my life...

All of these events were very transformative... and I'm still recovering from them all. I suppose I never really knew what I wanted to be when I grew up... becoming more political is the latest phase of both my transformation and recovery. This is my last creation from that shop and it went up in smoke as well. So I apologize for repeating myself — I will try to do better.

This built-from-scratch recumbent trike had a RC airplane motor on it that was about the size of a can of beans... serious acceleration and a top speed of about 30 mph and a range of about 30 miles... it would put a big grin on your face for sure.

fixing up next door

The AI thing has invaded all parts of the Internet... the latest version of Adobe Photoshop has some AI tools in it now. I've been experimenting with several of the image generation tools online. I have a rock and bonsai garden in the backyard in what used to be an in-ground pool.

The image generation tools create visuals based on a textual description of what you want the image to be. I asked it to create an old southern handyman in a bonsai setting... some have been pretty good, and some are a bit iffy. Here is one of the better ones: