Upcoming meet-ups: Bangalore, Ottawa, Edinburgh, North Carolina, Paris, Logan, Irvine

post by FrankAdamek · 2011-06-26T21:29:41.141Z · LW · GW · Legacy · 18 comments

ETA: Note that no further meetup summary posts are planned. Further coordination will take place via the Upcoming Meetups tab on the right-side site navigation bar.

There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:

Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: New York, Berkeley, Mountain View, Cambridge, MA, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Irvine. And now, Washington, DC and West Los Angeles.

If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun!

If you missed the deadline and wish to have your meetup featured, you can reach me on gmail at frank dot c dot adamek.

To reduce front page clutter, the new plan is for meetups to be initially posted in the Discussion section, and for Anna Salamon to make a promoted post "upcoming meetups" post every Friday that links to every meet-up that has been planned for the next two weeks. For this week, please let me know if your meetup is omitted.

Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post about your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!

If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: LondonChicagoSouthern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area)St. LouisOttawaHelsinkiMelbourne.

18 comments

Comments sorted by top scores.

comment by matt · 2011-06-22T06:14:14.322Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

See the new Meetups widget in the sidebar, and "Add new meetup" link under "Create new article" for logged in users.

Meetups posted there automatically generate Discussion posts as a temporary hack to provide meetup comment discussion - we really wanted to publish all the work we'd done so far and didn't have time to finish that feature.

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T15:07:41.985Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

See the new Meetups widget in the sidebar, and "Add new meetup" link under "Create new article" for logged in users.

Melbourne and Seattle are not "nearby" Waco (or Greenville, 45 min east of Dallas). Is that intended to say upcoming meetups (near in time rather than space)?

Edit: Also, I don't like the semiotics of the envelope icon for "reply". That suggests "private message" and is indeed how it is used elsewhere.

Replies from: matt, thomblake
comment by matt · 2011-06-22T18:14:10.113Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Melbourne and Seattle are not "nearby" Waco

This'll work better when there are more meetups. The widget shows the (I think) six nearest meetups. The three extant meetups (at time of writing) are all in the set of six nearest meetups.

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T18:17:45.140Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Or, you could just change it to the unconditionally accurate label "upcoming meetups".

Replies from: matt
comment by matt · 2011-06-22T18:35:27.242Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Or the more informative "Nearest meetups".

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T18:44:41.923Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It only shows three, and they're not the nearest. You've already labeled the page that "nearby meetups" links to as "Upcoming Events".

I'm sorry to keep hammering this, but ... :-/

Replies from: matt
comment by matt · 2011-06-22T19:01:56.498Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It only shows three, and they're not the nearest.

It's currently showing all meetups that exist because only 3 exist. They are the nearest 3 of all meetups that exist.

You've already labeled the page that "nearby meetups" links to as "Upcoming Events".

The page it links to shows all meetups, not the few near ones the sidebar will show.

I'm sorry to keep hammering this, but ... :-/

Let's keep going until we both understand - I'm often wrong, but don't understand how the current design is wrong.

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T19:06:52.895Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It's currently showing all meetups that exist because only 3 exist. They are the nearest 3 of all meetups that exist.

I mentioned "only three" because a now-deleted part of your earlier comment said there were six.

In any case, I'm pretty sure that there are other scheduled meetups closer to me (Houston, Austin, NC, LA) -- is this only drawing from a list that are formatted or registered?

Also, it's disconcerting for Australia to be called "nearby", and only a little less so for it to count as "nearest", even if that's literally true for that set.

Replies from: matt
comment by matt · 2011-06-22T19:16:07.226Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

In any case, I'm pretty sure that there are other scheduled meetups closer to me (Houston, Austin, NC, LA) -- is this only drawing from a list that are formatted or registered?

Only three meetups have been entered using the new system. Many other meetups have been announced using normal posts in the Discussion area, and summarised in promoted meetup summary posts (which was the official way to announce meetups a day ago).

Also, it's disconcerting for Australia to be called "nearby", and only a little less so for it to count as "nearest", even if that's literally true for that set.

There are many meetups not yet entered into the new system, and their coverage of the globe is pretty good. I think Australian meetups will disappear from your list in a few days.
There will be some users who really are geographically far from any organised meetups… perhaps they could resolve their disconcertion by organising a close meetup :)

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T19:32:11.087Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Okay, I didn't know it was only listing meetups from a new entry system (rather than, say, all recurring meetups). Any reason Australia is above Seattle? (I know that's pretty minor as an issue.)

Replies from: None
comment by [deleted] · 2011-06-22T19:39:00.398Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I think the earliest meetups are at the top of the list.

Replies from: SilasBarta
comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-22T20:13:20.793Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

And we're back to the question of why it doesn't just say "upcoming meetups", without the need to point out that these are "nearby"...

Replies from: handoflixue
comment by handoflixue · 2011-06-23T18:49:21.012Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Agreed. If it's labelled "Nearby" then I expect it to sort by distance and exclude anything more than ~500 miles away. Paris is not "nearby" to the US, and neither is Australia.

Alternately, relabel it "Upcoming Meetups" because that is more informative. I'd prefer to just see it re-labelled, because there will probably never be more than a couple "local" meetups near me. New York and California seem to be the only states with more than one regular meetup right now, and I doubt many of us are interested in driving 100+ miles for a meetup on any sort of regular basis.

Replies from: matt
comment by matt · 2011-06-24T00:36:19.815Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

That it's not filtering by distance looks like a bug. I think it'll be sensible for most users if it shows the nearest five of meetups occurring in the next 14 days. I think filtering by location is a very useful feature in the sidebar widget.

comment by thomblake · 2011-06-22T15:10:39.249Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Edit: Also, I don't like the semiotics of the envelope icon for "reply". That suggests "private message" and is indeed how it is used elsewhere

Very much agreed.

comment by SilasBarta · 2011-06-21T22:54:09.354Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

Will Houston be meeting this weekend too? I'll be going down for separate reasons and may be able to visit again.

Replies from: tadrinth, FrankAdamek
comment by tadrinth · 2011-06-23T18:44:03.912Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

It looks like they're meeting on Sunday: http://lesswrong.com/r/discussion/lw/6bz/meetup_houston_tx/

comment by FrankAdamek · 2011-06-23T01:16:53.269Z · LW(p) · GW(p)

I'm not sure, I didn't come across a post announcing such a meetup.