openstack-community team mailing list archive

[andi abes <andi.abes@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 11, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Stefano Maffulli <stefano@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Fri 11 May 2012 11:54:21 AM PDT, Doug Hellmann wrote:
>> I certainly don't see anything about that in the terms of
>> service. http://www.meetup.com/terms/

There's definitely a way to "migrate" the ownership of a group (and
the 144$ yearly fee responsibility) among users. You can nominate a
new "Organizer". (just did that for various reasons).
Not sure there's a real need to delete a group. You could just post a
- go here for future events post on the group's page....

>
> Right, there is nothing there. I have heard stories from people that
> ran groups on meetup.com and had problems closing/migrating away from
> there.

Part of the issue of migrating is maintaining contact with the
previous members.  Folks / Meetup own their contact info. You can
export the details the members decided to share with your group, but
contact info is not necessarily one of those.

>
> Basically, to close a group you need to ask meetup.com to do it, after
> you've advertised your intentions and got consensus among other admins.
> The process is described on
> http://www.meetup.com/help/How-do-I-delete-my-Meetup-Group/
>
> They may have made things easier than in the past but I don't think
> this is relevant for our discussion.  Allow me to rephrase what I said
> before:
>
>>         Of course it's your choice to use it or not but I'm not
>>         comfortable advocating for it as a solution
>
> What I meant to say is that I'm in favor of each team picking its own
> preferred tool to keep the local community engaged, informed and
> ultimately happy. I'll keep myself neutral for the tools of choice of
> the local communities. I can provide suggestions, only if asked but the
> choice should always be done by the local coordinators.
>
> Hasaim:
>
>>>     Shouldn't the requirements be considered prior to selecting a portal?
>
> Yes, indeed. Lets go back to the beginning, below is the list of
> requirements I identified. Is this all we need?
>
> Basic needs
>
>  • A directory of OpenStack user groups (OSUG) that is more flexible
> and appealing than a wiki page.
>  • A system to get in touch with members (all members or just the
> coordinators/leaders?) of the international communities.
>
> Features
>
>  • Register users using SSO
>    ∘ as a user I would like to be able to associate my profile from
> Launchpad, Linkedin or Google to the site
>  • Support content in multiple languages (switch list and automatic
> recognition via browser agent configuration)
>  • Support roles: managers of the groups can add resources, members can
> sign up as members, anonymous can read all content
>  • Show activity from all groups in my own language on the portal home
> page
>  • Directory of OSUGroups, with geographic representation
>    ∘ be able to view the groups on a chart
>    ∘ display also the full list of groups
>  • Manage content (pages) of generic interest
>    ∘ to host content like how to start a group, general, policies,
> trademark stuff, generic icons, etc
>  • Per each group,
>    ∘ allow users to add events, each group will expose its ical feed
>    ∘ show to list additional resources for the group: mailing lists,
> forums, wiki pages, home page, url of blogs,
>    ∘ import RSS feed from blogs to aggregate content on groups page
>    ∘ display photostreams from flickr and such on the home page
>

Meetup.com does provide some additional capabilities, useful for
actually planning events themselves:

  * RSVP to events. Very useful for head count / Tshirts and other
miscellaneous per-head items.
  * Per event announcement  - rather than spam all the UG members, you
can provide per-event announcements just to the positive RSVP's
  * Export of various items into convenient formats (i.e. CSV). It's
useful  e.g. for dealing with venues which require a priory list
attendees' full name
  * Reaching out to ""adjacent"" technological interest UG's (meetup)
- there's quite a lot of activity in high tech arena that is Openstack
Adjacent - Cloud UG's, Google Tech, Web 2.0 etc. Meetup ""promotes""
groups to folks who share interests. Think SEO for the physical world
;)

That said, some other items beyond meetup that could also help:
  * sharing & curating capabilities - video, photos and slidedecks.
You've got your YouTube and G+ Hangouts and slideshare... but curating
past events and organizing info into consumable (and locatable)
archive


Lastly, about SSO and user identities. I see UG as having a dual role
- preach to the choir and getting new converts - or.... have a forum
for existing Openstack community members (developers, deployers and
users) to interact in person, but also promote openstack to the
uninitiated. An SSO system that will add a potential barrier for folks
who are (not that I understand why in this day and age) reluctant to
sign up providing any personal details (e.g. email address).
Potentially, that's one benefit for meetup - it allows folks to decide
what details to ""expose"" about themselves to the UG organizers and
fellow members, and utilize a singup that they already have for other
purposes. Members of the  BOSUG are split between being members of
just 1 group, or quite a few.


(Sorry, didn't intent to require a TLDR... )



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