Anecdote from the NYC rationalist (OBNYC) group: Something I think we’d want that other groups might want too is an easy way for people organizing meetups to post to multiple channels like a website, mailing list, LessWrong and meetup.com.
Another issue we have that others may have too is that we tend to host meetups at people’s apartments, and the people hosting don’t necessarily want their addresses to be posted publicly. We currently handle this by only posting the address on a Google Group which is configured so you have to “apply” with a text box, and then we basically accept every application that seems like a reasonable human or mentions how they found the group. But Google doesn’t give us any way to say what to put in the box, or make the box less intimidating. I know when I first visited NYC the “application” almost intimidated me out of joining, and made me more hesitant to show up to some person’s apartment in case I was intruding on a social group I wasn’t really welcome in. I imagine a lower-friction and more welcoming way to put up a small roadblock to seeing the address would help recruiting.
I’ll add another voice agreeing that an easier way to crosspost events would be great. Meetup.com allows repeating events, but LessWrong does not, and I find the LessWrong calendar/time interface so frustrating I’ve stopped posting events on the community page here.
Anecdote from the NYC rationalist (OBNYC) group: Something I think we’d want that other groups might want too is an easy way for people organizing meetups to post to multiple channels like a website, mailing list, LessWrong and meetup.com.
Another issue we have that others may have too is that we tend to host meetups at people’s apartments, and the people hosting don’t necessarily want their addresses to be posted publicly. We currently handle this by only posting the address on a Google Group which is configured so you have to “apply” with a text box, and then we basically accept every application that seems like a reasonable human or mentions how they found the group. But Google doesn’t give us any way to say what to put in the box, or make the box less intimidating. I know when I first visited NYC the “application” almost intimidated me out of joining, and made me more hesitant to show up to some person’s apartment in case I was intruding on a social group I wasn’t really welcome in. I imagine a lower-friction and more welcoming way to put up a small roadblock to seeing the address would help recruiting.
I’ll add another voice agreeing that an easier way to crosspost events would be great. Meetup.com allows repeating events, but LessWrong does not, and I find the LessWrong calendar/time interface so frustrating I’ve stopped posting events on the community page here.
I completely agree with the first one. It’s a task I found annoying enough in the past to limit the spaces where I post announcements.