I added a nicer meetup updater thingy March 6, 2007 9:07 PM   Subscribe

After seeing people post and repost meetup reminders, I finally figured out a way to fix it. On the front page sidebar, you should see a simple list of upcoming meetups. Details about how it works are inside...
posted by mathowie (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 9:07 PM (34 comments total)

That is very nice, I like it a lot. Thank you.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:08 PM on March 6, 2007


There's a simple form linked below the upcoming dates that anyone can use. I went ahead and added several confirmed meetups coming in the next week. If you're an organizer of one and it is confirmed in a MetaTalk thread somewhere, feel free to add yours.

The way it works is like this:

1. someone proposes a meetup in the gatherings category, people mull over a location and a date. Eventually an actual date and location is proposed, then people start saying if they're coming or not.

2. Go ahead and post your meetup along with a link to the discussion thread about it.

3. If your meetup proposal is going nowhere, don't post it until a few people confirm

4. There's no reason to post a reminder thread about your meetup thread, since it will stay linked on the front page sidebar until it happens.

That's it! Hopefully, we won't see any more double posts about a single meetup anymore. I went ahead and deleted two from today alone.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:10 PM on March 6, 2007


Snazzy.
posted by cmonkey at 9:13 PM on March 6, 2007


I added the five that looked totally confirmed for the next upcoming week.

I bet in the future it'll help people gel onto a time/location faster and get more people showing up. I can't wait to see 20 meetups populate the sidebar!

Also, on the URL, feel free to link directly to permalinked comments where someone comes up with the final location/date to make it easiest on people showing up to an old meetup proposal thread for the first time.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:22 PM on March 6, 2007


Yay! Great!
posted by serazin at 9:23 PM on March 6, 2007


(see you on the 11th SFians!)
posted by serazin at 9:24 PM on March 6, 2007


Very nice.
posted by pombe at 9:27 PM on March 6, 2007


Sweet, Matt.
posted by klangklangston at 10:01 PM on March 6, 2007


You are on FIRE, Matt. Nice job.
posted by boo_radley at 10:05 PM on March 6, 2007


Rock and roll.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:11 PM on March 6, 2007


Well, you know. Exploding suns are awesome. DNA is awesome.

This is kinda neat-o. But thanks, Matt.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:46 PM on March 6, 2007


very good idea.
posted by chococat at 10:59 PM on March 6, 2007


So is the wiki meetup page still being used/updated? Or are people in Vancouver still planning their Christmakwanzaafest?
posted by miss lynnster at 11:00 PM on March 6, 2007


People in Vancouver don't plan, silly. They enthusiastically but ambiguously sort-of-agree to do things, then flake out on or just before the actual date citing a variety of plausible but suspect complications and/or rain. It's great!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 11:10 PM on March 6, 2007 [2 favorites]


Great idea.
posted by nola at 11:12 PM on March 6, 2007


It is good enough.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:54 PM on March 6, 2007


Elegant AND useful. Always a wonderful combination.
posted by dhammond at 12:51 AM on March 7, 2007


I wish I had the peanut butter concession tonight, because Matt be JAMMIN'.
posted by Dizzy at 1:27 AM on March 7, 2007


Yo, you're cool, man. Thanks.
posted by breezeway at 5:43 AM on March 7, 2007


many many thanks
posted by nj_subgenius at 5:55 AM on March 7, 2007


I never see the sidebar. Somehow or other I still manage. I navigate from lofi.mefi. You get to see all the deleted posts and you don't have to look at that totally unprofessional blue background (has this been covered?). Different strokes I guess.
posted by tellurian at 6:03 AM on March 7, 2007


tellurian, we're talking about metatalk, not metafilter. There are sidebars on the other sites, you know.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:28 AM on March 7, 2007


Matt, thanks. It isn't all shiny but does the job. That's what I like to see!
posted by dame at 6:40 AM on March 7, 2007


Good idea!

Would it be a big resource suck to add x new by the city to show people when comments are added to meetup threads that have scrolled off the front page?
posted by and hosted from Uranus at 6:49 AM on March 7, 2007


Sorry mathowie. I am an idiot. I have never looked at/used/thought about, the sidebars until this post brought them to my attention.
posted by tellurian at 7:01 AM on March 7, 2007


Would it be a big resource suck to add x new by the city to show people when comments are added to meetup threads that have scrolled off the front page?

There's no room for it. I figure if you're interested in that one thread, you've now got a simple one-click way to get to it from the front. It's essentially auto-bookmarked for you.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:59 AM on March 7, 2007


Thanks Matt! Unfortuantely I didn't see this until after I posted a reminder... This is very cool.
posted by horseblind at 8:17 AM on March 7, 2007


It's ok, you're horseblind after all. I removed the followup.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:04 AM on March 7, 2007


That's really cool.
posted by owhydididoit at 9:05 AM on March 7, 2007


Yay! Nice work mathowie!
posted by nj_subgenius at 9:17 AM on March 7, 2007


Hooray!
posted by matildaben at 10:23 AM on March 7, 2007


cool as.

a pony: can australia be referred to under her official code, OZ, rather than AUS(tria)?
posted by UbuRoivas at 9:59 PM on March 7, 2007


Sorry, it's useless. It presents the information in a pretty format that is of no use to users, since it relies on them spotting their local town appear somehwere in the middle of a mostly static list in a small font in the sidebar, assuming they miss the original thread.

Making the list reverse chrono by date posted would be a big improvement, or adding a "New!" flag, or tieing it in to the user location database, or fuck it, going back to the old system.
posted by cillit bang at 1:57 PM on March 9, 2007


Err, any chance this could make it onto the sidebar of the main site and not just MetaTalk? *strokes potential pony very lovingly*

cillitbang, you're not a UI designer by any chance, are you? It sounds like something they'd/I would say; although it's not the nicest updater thingy in the world, it's better than none. :)
posted by rmm at 6:43 PM on March 10, 2007


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