🛠️ 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.
🧠 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.
🤖 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.
🐴 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.
🔗 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.
🚀 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.
