[SGVLUG] Meetup

[James McDuffie]

I have my own issues with Meetup as well. I really wish there was an
alternative. I have spent a fair amount of time looking around for
something comparable, but came up with nothing.

What would be really nice is if there as a freely hosted application
that was meant for small open source groups.

But then again, we are using Meetup for its crowd effects. As Braddock
says, its a good way to bring in new people. People are joining our
group every week, although the "engagement rate" is fairly low. Our own
SGVLUG website however is infrequently used. The unfortunate state of
the Internet these days is that most people only discover things through
a small number of websites. Gone are the times when your self hosted
site could make it big based on content alone.

Meetup is just to supplement this mailing list. From what I have seen
the crossover of people that use Meetup versus the mailing list is
actually quite small. There are 200+ mailing list members and almost 300
Meetup members now. Although I haven't checked, I bet that the number of
people belonging to both is probably around ~10 - 15%.

And may I add that these kind of discussions are what make this mailing
list great. We should have more of them.

On Tue, Jan 6, 2015, at 04:06 PM, Braddock Gaskill wrote:
> Yes, Meetup is a little sinister. I resisted joining for many years.
> If you are put off by it, don't worry, just come to the meetings.
>
> RSVPing on meetup does help the image of the group though, since we
> get several times the number of RSVPs attending.
>
> -braddock
>
> On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 4:01 PM, juanslayton @dslextreme.com
> <juanslayton at dslextreme.com> wrote:
>> Hi James, I do appreciate the work that you and a handful of other
>> active supporters put in to keep SGVLUG alive. I think perhaps it is
>> time to explain my own non-compliance with some requests.
>>
>> To RSVP with Meetup, one needs to register. To register, you need to
>> agree that "...you have read and understand this Agreement and agree
>> to all the terms of this Agreement...."
>>
>> The Terms of Service agreement referred to is 15 pages long, runs to
>> 8342 words of legal gobbledygook, and can be changed at any time.
>>
>> This is the very sort of thing that drives me to Gnu/Linux. I would
>> be interested to know how many of our group actually have read this
>> thing, and if there is anyone who claims to understand it.
>>
>> Personally, I have better things to do. I'm with Stallman on this
>> one. Juan Slayton
>

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