Meetups via meetup.com is a popular way for locals with similar interests to find eachother. I haven’t done this since before COVID and since then I’ve amped up my privacy.
After seeing Jonah’s post on the reticulum network, I am actually really interested to either start or join a Meetup or existing reticulum community in my regional area to educate, build up local infra, and potentially work with the local city govs to help or accommodate setting up this infra in our towns with aims to connect towns without using our ISPs.
Does anyone have advice or considerations in regards to Privacy on attending or hosting a Meetup and what kind of protocol I should follow if I do start a Meetup?
I’ve never attended DEFCON but maybe their privacy policy and code of conduct is a start. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about an event that large, but also is there concern then using meetup.com and being held to their privacy policy.
As a company, they have been on the decline as of late FYI. Private equity took it over and increased fees while hiding basic functionality behind a paywall. Since they are increasingly more focused on making a buck than making connections, I would be cautious w/ giving my data to them if you haven’t already.
I think it is still a good way to find new people at scale, but I would only use it as a last resort if there are no other local options or Linux User Groups or tech-friendly groups that might be amenable instead.
Luma Events is by far the best alternative that I know to Meetup.com.
Moreover, Meetup is just awful from an attendee and not so great from an organizer POV too.
It is popular indeed, but that’s pretty much all. Nobody loves Meetup just like people use Facebook.
Otherwise, not sure what kind of topics you might be interested specifically when it comes down to organization but feel free to ask anything that comes to your mind.
You can also check this one in the meantime: Lessons learned from running a local tech meetup for 11 years - Andy Grunwald
But most of the time, it’s overall just:
having common sense
being properly organized
being decent at human politics to have people come + have the sponsored location for the attendees
maybe a recording/photos for people that missed it
in the beginning: potentially an explanation on how to opt-out from being posted on meetup’s photos if wearing some specific lanyard (for the very rare that do care about that nice topic at such a public social event)
From a privacy perspective I can tell you this as someone who tried making a group a few weeks ago:
They don’t like aliases.
They don’t like non-mainstream email providers like Proton or Tuta.
You can only organize in-person meetups with a max of 10 attendees for free. For more people or virtual events you have to pay.
You have to give them credit card information even if you’re starting on the free tier.
If you’re wondering, I stopped at the part where they asked me for my credit card. However, organizing a local event comes with its challenges so I am still considering biting the bullet for our next event.
I know of Mobilizon as another platform that can be used for host or promote an event, but the value of Meetup is that I know there are people there looking for events to join. Those are the people I am trying to attract. If I’m going to use another platform that doesn’t already have a user base, I may as well double down on having an events web page, which is what I did.
Cool to hear about other platforms! If OP or anyone wants to learn more about starting groups focused on technology, digital rights, and even regional legislation, I’m happy to help!
Oh very interested! In particular, this group I have in mind was aimed at reaching out to local governments and public organizations to brainstorm how to build “public good infrastructure” and utilizing reticulum’s capabilities to connect across different mediums and try to follow NYCMesh’s lead. Get local businesses and also encourage houses in the neighborhood to connect in a way similar to EFF’s open wireless movememt.
But yeah it would be cool to get some ideas on where do you get started with accomplishing stuff like this when reaching out to local govs and orgs, specifically those that might intersect with local ordinance and program development.
Nobody loves Meetup just like people use Facebook.
In this way, I wonder if it makes sense to just attend some Meetup and Facebook events for locals and poach the members in that area if I show an alternative. Luma seems really nice, but it would even be cool to work on a small self-hosted option to run.
I like how you solved this with just hosting your own. I do wonder if it’s doable to influence the in-person events of a town or village through local networks to move to a publicly -managed https://mobilizon.org/ for locally managed events. That could be the way to get the platform network effect of Meetup at least for that town after a few months of consistency and buyin.
Imagine if we could bundle all the fedi social apps on some servers. If we do that enough times, big tech would hurt from that.
Very much feasible to do yes. Especially if you expect tech-savvy (ish) people to join. They would gladly join a better platform where they don’t need to create a brand new account from scratch again.
As for the spreading, people will talk about it within themselves so it is also not a concern, word of mouth is usually the main medium in those events. Meetup.com is only nice if you want to gather people from outside that don’t have anyone from the inner circle of attendees.
Like if you’re thinking in such a way
damn, I really care about my privacy since recently, I wonder where I could get some people around me to maybe talk about that topic.
I think that Meetup > Facebook > asking on Reddit/Discord > WhatsApp groups will be a famous train of thought. At least, from how I picture it.
My thinking when it comes to starting a group is that you want to start with a good base that helps people learn more about what you’re trying to do. Having a website, a place to communicate, and maybe some social media can help in that regard. As your membership grows you hopefully are coming across people who are interested in contributing to what you want to do.
At the same time, I would try just reaching out to local orgs and businesses as of today. You can just ask if a project like what you’re suggesting is something they’ve considered before. You’re likely going to get a lot of "no"s at first, and of course you want to selectively pick organizations you think are more likely to be interested in what you’re pitching.
Over time as the group grows and seems more established, and your presence online seems more stable, it may be easier to get buy-in from the groups you’re interested in chatting with to advance your goal. But it starts by putting yourself out there.
I would not do this without asking first, lol. It’s a good idea to attend meetings from local groups to observe how they do things so that you can incorporate that into your plan. However, poaching people is probably not going to go over well. I was able to mention the club I started in my local Linux User Group and they were very nice to let me pitch it, but I would not want to push their generosity. Building a community is hard, and they worked hard to have the one they cultivated. Once you’re new group is successful, you may feel similarly, lol
I would love to see a regional Mobilizon for my area! Really, it’s crazy how things have gotten to the point where you don’t even see bulletin boards anywhere. A community really has to fight to market itself, and many times it drives you to Big Tech. Imagine having an easier time connecting with your neighbors through a platform as massive as Facebook rather than having the organic methods of sharing local information we used to have. It’s a lesson I am learning more and more about as I go through this.
I actually went the other way around where I started with a basic web presence, reached out to people I knew who may be interested to start, and then through creative promotion online and offline people started hearing about it enough to where now we have some word of mouth spreading. Still early days for us from a promotional standpoint, but it’s exciting to see that we may have landed on something that really resonates with people.
