Thumbs-Up, Susan: A Field Guide to the Neighbourhood WhatsApp Group

Ours is called The Green & Surrounding Streets, and it has eighty-four members, of whom roughly sixty are muted and twelve are on fire. It is, depending on the hour, a lost-property office, a bin-day almanac, a car park tribunal and a place where somebody's dad posts a sunrise. I would defend it with my life and I have also, twice, considered leaving it.

What follows is not a complaint. It's a field guide, written by someone who has spent three years in the undergrowth and come out with a certain grudging fondness.

A short taxonomy

Every active group settles into the same handful of recurring roles. You will recognise all of them, and you are almost certainly one of them, whether you admit it or not.

The Bin-Day Herald

Posts a single, unexplained emoji at 6.55am on collection day. Not the word "bins". Not even which bin. Just a small green symbol, cast into the void, trusting the street to interpret it correctly. This person has never once been wrong about a bank holiday collection, and the rest of us quietly arrange our lives around them.

The Lost Cat Correspondent

Works on the assumption that every cat within a two-mile radius is either missing or about to be. The photograph is always slightly blurred, always taken at night, and always captioned with a name like Clementine. The good news: Clementine is usually home by teatime. The better news: the group collectively rejoices every single time, and there's something rather lovely in that.

The Parking Diplomat

Writes like a United Nations resolution. "I'm sure whoever has left the silver estate half on the pavement has a very good reason, and I don't want to cause any upset, but…" The but is doing enormous work in that sentence. The silver estate belongs to the same person every time. Everyone knows. Nobody says.

The Voice-Note Novelist

Sends four minutes and twelve seconds of audio, unannounced, in which a question is asked at 3 minutes 50. Something about a hedge. I have never once played one to the end, and I suspect that's mutual.

The Thumbs-Up Ghost

Susan, in our case. Replies to everything with the same thumbs-up, including the notice about the funeral, including the warning about the escaped dog, including the entirely unhinged post about the magpie. It is either the most zen response in modern communication or a cry for help. I have decided it is zen.

The Lurker

Me, mostly. Reads everything. Contributes nothing. Has strong opinions about the parking situation and expresses them to the kettle.

Six rules of engagement

1. Mute, don't leave. Leaving is a statement. Muting is a lifestyle. Nobody needs to know you've opted out of the 6am emoji economy.
2. Wait twenty minutes before you reply to anything emotional. Half the group's flashpoints resolve themselves while you're making a cup of tea. The other half need a phone call, not a paragraph.
3. Never use the group to settle a two-person dispute. If it involves a specific fence, a specific hedge or a specific parking space, take it to a private message and save everyone the theatre.
4. Say thank you out loud once a month. Someone has lent someone a ladder, or taken in a parcel, or driven a neighbour to the station at an ungodly hour. These things go unremarked far too often.
5. One announcement, one tag. If it matters, and it's urgent, and it's about water or gas or a road closure, by all means @ everyone. Otherwise, let it sit.
6. Keep the good stuff. The sunrise pictures, the "does anyone want these apples", the photo of a child's first bike ride. It's easy to be cynical about a group chat. It's harder to be cynical about someone offering you free rhubarb.

What it's actually for

Here's the thing I keep coming back to. The other week the water went off across four streets with no warning at all. Within eleven minutes, the group had worked out that it was only our side of the main road, that the little shop still had bottled water, and that Mrs Ellery at number nine had no way of getting to it. Someone knocked on her door. Then someone else did the same for the couple on the corner.

Nothing about that required a smartphone. But it wouldn't have happened on the same afternoon without one, either. The WhatsApp group isn't a village square, whatever we tell ourselves — it's more like a bus shelter with a very loud tannoy. It's imperfect, occasionally maddening, full of people being slightly too pleased with their own wit.

And yet. It is also the place where a street that doesn't really know each other manages to look after itself, in small increments, one thumbs-up at a time.

The etiquette at the bottom of the bag

Most of what goes wrong in these groups is not malice. It's just people forgetting that eighty-four humans are reading, and each of them has had a day. The neighbour who posts a pointed note about parking has probably had a rough week. The one who replies with a thumbs-up to everything may simply have run out of words.

So here's my rule, offered gently: treat the group like a bus queue. Say good morning. Keep your bags out of the aisle. If you see someone struggling, help them without a fuss.

And if you're Susan — keep on with the thumbs. Someone's got to keep the peace, and it might as well be you.