The main problem for me is that the “nearest meetups” section just isn’t useful. The nearest one to me on the list is quite literally on the other side of the continent.
The funny thing is, I happen to know that there are some very close meetups coming up. There’s one weekly about a two-hours’ drive from me in Irvine. That one doesn’t appear on the splash page, but one in the Bay Area (about 8 hours away) does, which means that the “nearest meetups” list doesn’t actually have much to do with spatial proximity (or if it does, it’s not in a way I personally have been clever enough to find useful).
It seems to me that if there’s going to be a prominent list of meetups, it needs to involve at least one of three properties in order to be useful to readers:
It ranks the largest meetups. This might require setting up some kind of RSVP system so that the website has some ballpark idea of how many are coming. It would also need to do something to account for people who are regulars at regular meetups vs. people who show up just once to one particular meetup.
It ranks the meetups that occur next (i.e. temporal proximity). I’d argue that this one alone wouldn’t be very useful, but in tandem with the others could be a boon. (I think a system calendar would do this much, much better, though.)
It ranks the meetups by spatial proximity. (I think this this being planned, yes?)
Otherwise it just looks like a random list to me. What good is it for me to know about a meetup in Tortuga, DC, Cambridge, Australia, and India? I guess if I were traveling widely that might be nice to know about, but if I were traveling widely I would be more careful to look up details of what occurs when rather than just relying on a sidebar that, apparently, excludes several more local options.
I think it would be really helpful if there were some kind of standard submission form for meetups so that the system knows when and where each one is as well as how frequently recurring (with options to adjust times to account for changes, kind of like Google Calendar does with recurring appointments).
I should be quick to add, by the way, that it’s really clear that the programming team has put a lot of work into this site and have given it a lot of thought. Sorry if I seem at all unappreciative. Thank you for all you’ve done and continue to do!
The main problem for me is that the “nearest meetups” section just isn’t useful. The nearest one to me on the list is quite literally on the other side of the continent.
The funny thing is, I happen to know that there are some very close meetups coming up. There’s one weekly about a two-hours’ drive from me in Irvine. That one doesn’t appear on the splash page, but one in the Bay Area (about 8 hours away) does, which means that the “nearest meetups” list doesn’t actually have much to do with spatial proximity (or if it does, it’s not in a way I personally have been clever enough to find useful).
It seems to me that if there’s going to be a prominent list of meetups, it needs to involve at least one of three properties in order to be useful to readers:
It ranks the largest meetups. This might require setting up some kind of RSVP system so that the website has some ballpark idea of how many are coming. It would also need to do something to account for people who are regulars at regular meetups vs. people who show up just once to one particular meetup.
It ranks the meetups that occur next (i.e. temporal proximity). I’d argue that this one alone wouldn’t be very useful, but in tandem with the others could be a boon. (I think a system calendar would do this much, much better, though.)
It ranks the meetups by spatial proximity. (I think this this being planned, yes?)
Otherwise it just looks like a random list to me. What good is it for me to know about a meetup in Tortuga, DC, Cambridge, Australia, and India? I guess if I were traveling widely that might be nice to know about, but if I were traveling widely I would be more careful to look up details of what occurs when rather than just relying on a sidebar that, apparently, excludes several more local options.
I think it would be really helpful if there were some kind of standard submission form for meetups so that the system knows when and where each one is as well as how frequently recurring (with options to adjust times to account for changes, kind of like Google Calendar does with recurring appointments).
I should be quick to add, by the way, that it’s really clear that the programming team has put a lot of work into this site and have given it a lot of thought. Sorry if I seem at all unappreciative. Thank you for all you’ve done and continue to do!