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<body><div>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.<br></div>
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<div>What would be really nice is if there as a freely hosted application that was meant for small open source groups. <br></div>
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<div>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.<br></div>
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<div>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%.<br></div>
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<div>And may I add that these kind of discussions are what make this mailing list great. We should have more of them.<br></div>
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<div>On Tue, Jan 6, 2015, at 04:06 PM, Braddock Gaskill wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div>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. <br></div>
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<div><div>RSVPing on meetup does help the image of the group though, since we get several times the number of RSVPs attending.<br></div>
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<div>-braddock<br></div>
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<div defang_data-gmailquote="yes"><div>On Tue, Jan 6, 2015 at 4:01 PM, juanslayton @<a defang_rel="noreferrer" href="http://dslextreme.com">dslextreme.com</a> <span dir="ltr"><<a defang_rel="noreferrer" href="mailto:juanslayton@dslextreme.com" target="_blank">juanslayton@dslextreme.com</a>></span> wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote defang_data-gmailquote="yes" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><div><div><div><div><div>Hi James,<br></div>
<div> 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.<br></div>
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<div> 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...."<br></div>
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<div> 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.<br></div>
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<div> 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.<br></div>
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<div> Personally, I have better things to do. I'm with Stallman on this one.<br></div>
<div>Juan Slayton<br></div>
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