What about something big and shiny that can get people to the wiki, but then direct them elsewhere for actual discussions? In fact, it seems that this is already what’s going on. The wiki page for meetups provides links that seem to go to either Google Groups or email lists of some sort. In other words, the wiki is doing what it does best (providing a more-or-less static source of information that can be easily updated), and other tools are doing what they do best (allowing for planning and discussion).[1]
My vote would be:
To integrate this idea (aiding meetup awareness/communication) into some sort of home page idea. As in, make it apparent at the homepage that these exist and how to get involved.
To have some sort of “sticky”, perhaps, that would allow stumblers to the site to see that meetups exist (and it would redirect to the wiki list of local area meetups). Or perhaps instead of redirecting, organizers post to a “scrapable” place and in a scrapable format and the “sticky” constantly gets regenerated with this sort of thing (from HERE).
If any of these were in place, we could actually vote on whether any meetup announcements occur on LW proper—if you get people to a mailing list… then they’ll be getting the emails, which seems better than relying on them to visit LW or their news reader in a timely fashion anyway (I think I’m safe in betting that people check their email more than LW).
This seems to be a win-win, though I may have missed pitfalls.[2] In other words, the hoopla about the top-level site cluttered with meetup announcements gets resolved, but new visitors aren’t left clueless about the existence of meetups.
Let me know if you think this is the best idea since sliced bread, or if (far more likely) you think it’s highly unnecessary.
I think the ideas contained are quite good (we need a way to a) reach newcomers, b) communicate/plan meetups, and c) keep things clean on the site), but I think actually implementing all three in LW proper might be re-inventing the wheel a bit. I think we can definitely do a & c, while b is the bullet that primarily requires new functionality and is done well by solutions mentioned below, IMO. Thus, I think getting something low-hanging going which does a & c while directing people to tools that do b might be a better approach.
(1) And there are other tools as well. While meeup.com is great and full-featured, it costs money. I checked out Group-O-Matic and it looked like it would work well enough for my attempt at a Minnesota meetup. Google groups is working for 8 of us planning two separate virtual meetups right now. Anyway, there’s options is the point.
(2) One, for example, might be that a new person doesn’t want to sign up for a mailing list because it seems bothersome to get auto-emails, but they would check a website because they are still left in control over whether or not they visit. Thus, a truly new person who didn’t know if they wanted to stick with LW for the med-long haul might randomly check the site and see an announcement, but wouldn’t have joined the mailing list for his/her area to be informed. Then again… with something like google groups, they can check the group if it’s public without getting the emails anyway. Just trying to think outside the box and think of ways that this isn’t a good suggestion.
What about something big and shiny that can get people to the wiki, but then direct them elsewhere for actual discussions? In fact, it seems that this is already what’s going on. The wiki page for meetups provides links that seem to go to either Google Groups or email lists of some sort. In other words, the wiki is doing what it does best (providing a more-or-less static source of information that can be easily updated), and other tools are doing what they do best (allowing for planning and discussion).[1]
My vote would be:
To integrate this idea (aiding meetup awareness/communication) into some sort of home page idea. As in, make it apparent at the homepage that these exist and how to get involved.
To have some sort of “sticky”, perhaps, that would allow stumblers to the site to see that meetups exist (and it would redirect to the wiki list of local area meetups). Or perhaps instead of redirecting, organizers post to a “scrapable” place and in a scrapable format and the “sticky” constantly gets regenerated with this sort of thing (from HERE).
If any of these were in place, we could actually vote on whether any meetup announcements occur on LW proper—if you get people to a mailing list… then they’ll be getting the emails, which seems better than relying on them to visit LW or their news reader in a timely fashion anyway (I think I’m safe in betting that people check their email more than LW).
This seems to be a win-win, though I may have missed pitfalls.[2] In other words, the hoopla about the top-level site cluttered with meetup announcements gets resolved, but new visitors aren’t left clueless about the existence of meetups.
I think the ideas contained are quite good (we need a way to a) reach newcomers, b) communicate/plan meetups, and c) keep things clean on the site), but I think actually implementing all three in LW proper might be re-inventing the wheel a bit. I think we can definitely do a & c, while b is the bullet that primarily requires new functionality and is done well by solutions mentioned below, IMO. Thus, I think getting something low-hanging going which does a & c while directing people to tools that do b might be a better approach.
(1) And there are other tools as well. While meeup.com is great and full-featured, it costs money. I checked out Group-O-Matic and it looked like it would work well enough for my attempt at a Minnesota meetup. Google groups is working for 8 of us planning two separate virtual meetups right now. Anyway, there’s options is the point.
(2) One, for example, might be that a new person doesn’t want to sign up for a mailing list because it seems bothersome to get auto-emails, but they would check a website because they are still left in control over whether or not they visit. Thus, a truly new person who didn’t know if they wanted to stick with LW for the med-long haul might randomly check the site and see an announcement, but wouldn’t have joined the mailing list for his/her area to be informed. Then again… with something like google groups, they can check the group if it’s public without getting the emails anyway. Just trying to think outside the box and think of ways that this isn’t a good suggestion.