Slashdot Readers Visit Meatspace

Several readers sent in notes about their Slashdot Meetup experiences; we'll start with tuxedo-steve 's report from Melbourne: "Just a quick wrapup from the Melbourne, Australia /. Meetup. We ran into problems due to the assigned meeting place being closed at the scheduled meetup time, but ended up getting a fair few people (20-30 probably) herded up before moving to a bar that would provide us with service. A good night ensued, fueled by tech-related conversation and a fair amount of beer for those so inclined. For those yet to have their meetup, be sure your meeting place is going to be open!" Below are a few more local reports -- feel free to add yours in the comments.

Nest, jmccay writes: "The New Hampshire meetup was great. We didn't have a host, but somebody reserved a table. I think it was the meetup people. We talked geeky stuff (and complained about the new word based karma system). We had the hardware comparison (and one-up contest for a couple of people). All in all I enjoyed it and I am looking forward to next time. I hope more people show up next time (only 5 out of 24 showed up this time {I just checked}). I think voting begins Saturday for the next meetup place!"

MattyBoy.bigBalls() writes: "So the first Slashdot Meet Up is done in Toronto. Lets see ... I got pretty blasted ... talked about programming/video games/movies/science ... basically everything on slashdot ... someone asked me my user name and I had the pleasure of responding MattyBoy.bigBalls() hahahaha ... I met some girl who's into skateboarding/linux/punk rock and slashdot.. that's just odd And since im in Toronto on the subway ride home I had a conversion with some world youth day kid about god.. yikes ... thats scary when I'm wasted ... Rock OUT!"

InfinityWpi writes: "Just a quick reporting-in on the Slashdot Meetup Day in Fargo, North Dakota. We had 11 names on the Meetup list, four people RSVP... and three show up, one of whom hadn't RSVP'd. Still, the meeting went on until almost ten."

Finally, mmarlett writes: "The Wichita, Kan. Slashdot meetup just wrapped up. It was a tight, eight-person group. There were some interesting facts, though:

• Most of us sustained some sort of heavy electrical shock as children, either by inserting metallic things into outlets or cutting hot wires. Monitor coils were also popular.
• No one brought a digital camera, but everyone said they'd bring one next time.
• None of us could remember anyone's name. Once we paid the tab and removed the nametags, it was a lot of "what was your name, again?"

We had a great time and talked about everything from the Soviet Union's introduction to newsgroups (Dennis, a.k.a. wetcat, was there) to problems with Linux installs to antiquated hardware installs. I took down the sign I made ("Know who CmdrTaco is? [slashdot logo] Who are you?") around 7:30 when it seemed like everyone was there and people at other tables started staring."

Comments

karma

[Mr_Silver]

We talked geeky stuff (and complained about the new word based karma system).

Yeah, what is up with that? And what does "Excellent" mean?

Maybe I'm being really dense but I didn't see any announcement about the changes. It would be nice for a news posting to go up with the details when that happens. Generally users don't like seeing changes that they don't know about suddenly appear without any details.

Of course, if i'm being blind then feel free to mod me into oblivion (and send me down to "Not so bad" or whatever the next Karma category is).

Re:karma

[metlin]

Yeah, what's with this sudden changes?

But then CmdrTaco has updated the FAQ abt the new changes.

Sheesh, I miss my Karma :-/ 50 gave you a sense of accomplishment, excellent sounds awful ;-)

Re:karma

[rmohr02]

I don't remember them all, but they're now listed in the FAQ.

Yeah, what is up with that? And what does "Excellent" mean?

I guess it's so people with Karma: 49 don't go insane trying to get Karma: 50, since it's "just a number in a database".

I think they should use the animal I'll be reincarnated as instead of these adjectives, so that I'd have Karma: Cow.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, let me explain the word-based karma system. Basically, if your post includes words like "Micro$oft", "Windoze" or "Beowulf", you'll instantly get modded-up by some clueless modbot.

On the other hand, if you make references to the Slashdot crew's gross incompetence with spelling, grammar and actually GETTING NEWS RIGHT (see the numerous incorrect FreeBSD "releases"), or anything else Sims, Bates or Malda don't like, you'll get modded down. As this post will, because it expresses anti-Slashdot sentiment.

Don't get me wrong, I read Slashdot a lot, but it's pretty damn laughable in places. This new post-limiting system has been a disaster -- instead of leaving the trolls at -1, now janitors and modbots spend all their time modding script-posters down! What a waste.

Just my thoughts. Watch it get modded down instead of generating genuinely interesting debate.

Re:karma

[Stephen Williams]

I think they should use the animal I'll be reincarnated as instead of these adjectives, so that I'd have Karma: Cow.

Negative karma presumably means reincarnation as CowboyNeal.

-Stephen

Re:karma

[popeyethesailor]

I wish there the ratings had an associated animal,instead of adjectives;

l.t 10 - Goat

10 - 19 - Sheep

20 - 29 - Dog

30 - 39 - Bunny

40 - 49 - Cat

Re:karma

[aldjiblah]

Good stuff. Now, how *do* I get onto that spaceship?

Re:karma

[Baloo Ursidae]

Why not keep the words, since they will be helpful to newbies, but put the numeric value in parens?

Re:karma

[Mr_Silver]

But then CmdrTaco has updated the FAQ abt the new changes

Granted I missed that and should have looked.

However it would still be nice if they tell us what the changes are rather than us having to scan through all the FAQ's periodically to find out has been changed as a result of the update. Or just stumbling across something and going "oh, i think that might have changed, better check the FAQ".

I did moot the idea to CmdrTaco that karma values be public so that you could tell how "respected" (if you like) other people thought of your views. Not surprisingly, he didn't like it.

I still think it would be nice to assign additional points to people with a high karma so that I can view their (probably) insightful views even though several idiots have marked it as "Redundant" or "Flamebait".

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

hey -- hopefully this new word based karma system will stop karma whoring and karma burning... at least a bit!

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

and...
George Michael - Chameleon

(think about how the rating appears...)

Re:karma

[QueefChief]

Taken from the FAQ:

The text label is one way we've decided to emphasize the point that karma doesn't matter.

And at the same time, based on your karma, you're limited to the number of times you can post (based upon karma level) within a 24 hour period. So, how does it not matter?

And even still with a qualitative term, we're still being told karma matters since there are thresholds, so people will just try to get the next level, just being capped at Excellent. Why not just do away with the karma system all together? I'm not saying lose the moderation ability, but don't apply it to accounts.

But then again, those with no lives at all will just tally up the moderation. But, finally, if that be the case, lose the moderation points too, and just use textual descriptions there.

Re:karma

[x98chn]

I wish there the ratings had an associated animal,instead of adjectives;

and anyone with karma of 0 or negative can be rated a tac-er.. troll :)

sigh... Sometimes it's just not worth it to post in the morning...

Re:karma

[damien_kane]

Send $1 to:
Happy Dude
742 Evergreen Terrace
Springfield

If you want off the spaceship send $1 to:
Sorry Dude
742 Evergreen Terrace
Springfield

Re:karma

[TrpnHntr]

If you're gonna use animals for Karma scores Cow should definitly be the highest...

Re:karma

[buffy]

Doubly frustrating...

I've never really cared about watching my Karma, but I'd taken a recent jump into the high 40s. I did a quick calculation in my head and figured I was easily +50, so I went to check and what do I see... Karma: Excellent.

Damnit! I never even got to see it!

Actually, I just figured at the time that once you hit the "cap" it switched to "Excellent" rather than a numeric value. It wasn't until this little thread that I became aware that a change had, in fact, been made.

Oh well...never cared about Karma before...not going to start now.

Re:karma

[TheCarp]

> Sheesh, I miss my Karma :-/ 50 gave you a sense of accomplishment, excellent sounds awful ;-)

Heh mine was 112 until the other day. I guess when the cap was instituted my account never had its karma reduced to the cap.

Its funny because I was at 119 when the cap started and then it just never went up again. No matter what it just stayed the same or went down. Slowly over the course of what? the past year and a half? it made it down to 112 (maybe 111?)

Frankly, it was great. My karma couldn't go up...so I just completely stopped careing about it. I was immune to moderation. Even though before the cap I said that I didn't care about karma and gave lip service to the idea that it was meaningless, there was always this odd attachment to it and it felt good to see it go up.

Once the cap was on and it was constrained to only go down, it became completely meaningless of a number. That turned out to be great, because it was a bit freeing. Frankly I like this new system, I think it finnaly will do for everyone what the original cap + high karma did for me.

-Steve

Re:karma

[popeyethesailor]

Okay. You can have Cowboyneal .

Re:karma

[Evro]

Yeah, what is up with that? And what does "Excellent" mean?

Why don't you RTF faq? This is all explained there. If people are complaining about the new system then it totally justifies the reason CmdrTaco changed it. Karma is just not something you should care about, and he's stated that displaying the Karma value was the worst mistake he's ever made with Slashdot. Personally I think the system's metrics should have been even more nebulous, such as :) :| and :( . To emphasize how useless the number really is. Like I said, the fact that people would complain about such a minor change to something so irrelevant shows that there was a problem, and they are just trying to fix it.

There was probably no announcement because it is not important.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe one day get married and raise some kids. That's accomplishment

Getting married and raising kids is simply adding to global over-population and accomplishing what's expected of you in most cultures. Hardly something to feel like you've accomplished something important. Then again, if that's all you expect from your life, it's probably a fairly easy life to live.

Re:karma

[John Harrison]

I wish the words vaired more. They could have a large number of lists and then choose one at random each day, or better still, each lookup. That would mess with the heads of the people who pine for the numbers.

The first time you look it is "Excellent", then "Elegant", followed by "Ego-Boosting". I would find it funny just because I know how much it would bother many of you.

Re:karma

[_J_]

Announcements were made in a very informal manner in CmdrTaco's journal. If you make him a "friend" and set up your messaging you to can get this info.

J:)

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh don't you worry, I do leave my comp to do rocketscience. And math. And physics.

And yes, I have a geek girl too.

Besides all this, I have Karma 50. So what does that mean, that am an over achiever?

Re:karma

[bmetzler]

I still think it would be nice to assign additional points to people with a high karma so that I can view their (probably) insightful views even though several idiots have marked it as "Redundant" or "Flamebait".

You can! Notice the little pushpin looking doodad at the end of the username/date line, right after the message number. Click on it. Now, make that person your friend. Next go into your preferences and put a +6 in the friends box. Wala!! Every post that your friend makes now looks like a very insightful 5 post.

Note that you can also do this with your foes, and put a -6 in the prefs.

-Brent

Re:karma

[fredrik70]

I would die for the Karma category "Fascinating"

Re:karma

[invenustus]

That was Culture Club, not George Michael! Culture Club's lead singer is Boy George, who is, like George Michael, British and gay, so the mistake is understandable.

Re:karma

[MadCow42]

>> We talked geeky stuff (and complained about the new word based karma system).

Well, it was either that, or fix their math algorithms... "Excellent" turned out easier than trying to fix "49 + 3 - 2 = 48".

q:]

MadCow.

Re:karma

[Mr_Silver]

You can! Notice the little pushpin looking doodad at the end of the username/date line, right after the message number. Click on it. Now, make that person your friend.

The problem with this is that you need to know if they have a high karma before you make them your friend.

I'd like to be able to say something like "anyone with a karma over 40, bump their post up by 2" but as of yet, i don't think that is possible.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I've already posted in this story. Somebody mod this +1, funny.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

"Why not just do away with the karma system all together?"

This is the obviously correct answer - but can someone with the gigantic ego of Rob Malda admit that he was wrong?

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

How do you manage to type so well with Malda's cock in your mouth?

Re:karma

[Saint Aardvark]

I still think it would be nice to assign additional points to people with a high karma so that I can view their (probably) insightful views even though several idiots have marked it as "Redundant" or "Flamebait".

Good idea; what I'd like, though, is to be able to set the threshold for comments to show anything that had been modded up, no matter what its score. So, even if an AC gets modded up only to +1, I'd still see it along with everything higher than, say, 2.

Re:karma

[sllort]

Announcements were made in a very informal manner in CmdrTaco's journal

For more in depth coverage of Moderation and META-Slashdot issues, check out my journal - here's coverage of the karma obfuscation update and my an open forum on Under/Overrated.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

You spend way too much time reading /. Please do something like take a vacation, get a girlfriend and/or boyfriend, read a book, visit your family, etc... You'll thank me sooner or later.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, as long as it's as ass I like what's your problem?

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

well... I dunno abt karma, but it could mean that you do have a significantly higher IQ than s/he/it or whatever it is that Queefchief is.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually yes, that'd be nice you know.

It'd be nice if we could see various postings by ppl in Karma brackets in different colors or something, or in someway we could get to know their karma range.

Also, it'd be nice if /. had the option of you rating your score, like giving yourself a -1, 0, 1 or 2 for your posts by default.

For example, I know that this post is worth just a 1, and there are times when I've felt that my posts (esp. when I bite a troll) would be nice at a 0 so that I can just post not worrying abt moderation.

I think that way, I could be a troll and a karmawhore ;-)

~metlin

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right. We should all just stop having kids. Maybe we can all play on computers and contribute to the . . . wait, that would contribute nothing. Get a life. There are things far more important in life than computers and science. You are defined by the relationships you create and destroy. You don't seem to have any, so implicitly, you are nothing.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

What is this "girl" thing you speak of? What kind of hardware does it use, and what is the best version? Also, is the interface intuitive and easy to use, or can it be cranky and irrational? ;)

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, you don't have Karma 50, since it is no longer a number. Second of all, you're validating the exact reason they did away with the number; karma is not a game score. How does that make you an overachiever, when you yourself are part of the reason the karma system sucks?

Also, a geek is a person (usually a circus performer) that bites the heads off live chickens. So if you're gi siis a geek, I'd watch yourself.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Even as rude as that was, I startled several people with my laughter after reading this!

Re:karma

[Roofus]

We talked geeky stuff (and complained about the new word based karma system).

Karma? I'm still pissed about loosing moderation priviledges because of this.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think intelligence is only marked by knowledge of the sciences, you have a lot to learn poor boy. Hopefully puberty will help you out. But I fear the worst, and that you won't really realize that technology is not the end all be all of everything until you are much older and wasted your life.

By the way, what IQ test were you using there? It must have been one I haven't seen yet.

Re:karma

[suffocate]

Ha ha, you care about karma. You're a syphillic donkey fucking retard, and you deserve a kick in the box. Does it make your penis bigger to have a 50 post count? What about the guy above that has 112? His penis must be HUGE Do you feel inferior, knowing that your penis is less than half the size of his?

Re:karma

[NickDngr]

Negative karma presumably means reincarnation as CowboyNeal.

I would be more inclined to think it means reincarnation as John Katz.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, I think you're mistaken there. I'm sure that the karma is still 50, coz how else would they keep track of users and their "grades"?

Just because it shows excellent does not mean that in some database his karma is not 50.

I guess you're playing the sour grapes game here because you're unable to get a any Karma :-P

Dude, it's a girl, and who cares if she bites the heads off live chickens, as long as she's a girl. And a geek at that!

And one question, have you been living in a cave lately? Ever tried getting a geek girl? Then you'd know ;-)

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

You are one of them lusers aren't you?

That's coz am a card carrying member of mensa, and it doesn't matter, intelligence rules.

And it's gotten me dough which has gotten me girls which has gotten me sex. So I have everything in life.

And you're dumb.

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

no idea about brains man, but i'm very sure that you have no penis....

just because you know html does not make you a man. i'm sorry, but you stay invalid.....

bound to the death to using your back orifice......

Re:karma

[smoondog]

I know and this eliminated my idea to hold the first annual unofficial /. Karma whoring competition. Players all create new uid's and the goal is to see who can get the most karma in a week. (Hit fifty and create a new user ..., etc.) With the moderation system there is room for cheating, but thats all part of the fun.

What's up with that 'Taco?

-Sean

Re:karma

[hether]

I hadn't been watching my karma score so much to get to 50, as to notice when my comments were moderated. I login and I'm up a point or two and I know one of my comments was moderated so look to see which one. Now I login, see I'm still at excellent, and have no clue if any of my comments have been moderated. I'd have to go through each comment to see if there was a change.

And that is why I want numbers back!!!!

Re:karma

[r_j_prahad]

l.t 10 - Goat

10 - 19 - Sheep

20 - 29 - Dog
[...]

50 -- Penguin.

Well.... am I right?

Re:karma

[martyn s]

I have an even better idea. Keep numbers for yourself, and make the words public for anyone to see.

Re:karma

[guttentag]

50 gave you a sense of accomplishment, excellent sounds awful

What's wrong with Excellent? I think it sounds like something an evil scientist/millionaire would say in a Bond flick:

"Excellent. You will make a fine addition to my ideological army. Together we will stamp out trolls. Now go forth and rid the world of trolls!"

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it."

Re:karma

[Anonymous Coward]

Mensa's entrance standards must have really gone hill since last time I checked...

When and where?

[Jaden42]

A list or a calendar of some sorts of where these meet-ups take place would be quite useful. I for one would defintely attend if I knew when and where they were going to happen.

Maybe I am just blind and somewhere on slashdot that exists, but I do see it anywhere.

wow

[__aahlyu4518]

"We ran into problems due to the assigned meeting place being closed at the scheduled meetup time"

Never knew bartenders read /. as well ;-)

Re:wow

[pyrote]

Slashdot effect on reality

Re:wow

[216pi]

He didn't read the artic^H^H^H^H^H signs on the door of the bar.

Re:wow

[QueefChief]

What's up with people doing all this ^H^H^H^H and ^W^W^W shit now. It's annoying, and no one cares what you thought you were going to say.

Re:wow

[tuxedo-steve]

Never knew bartenders read /. as well ;-)

Indeed. Jokes about us being "Denied of Service" were bandied about.

We left a note informing late arrivals of the new meeting-place. Some dubbed this note a "301 Redirect" message.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like you guys were a real barrel of laughs.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

if one can't make geeky jokes on slashdot, where can one make geeky jokes?

idiot.

Re:wow

[Anonymous Coward]

One should make geeky jokes in one's basement, to one's "Virtual Girlfriend" dancing for one on one's screen.

The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[LWolenczak]

The Winston-Salem, NC meeting went well. We had no host. We talked about lots of stuff,including the new karma system... turns out everybody hates it and wants the numbers back. There were seven of us... about the number who RSVP-ed, but we still lacked a host......

We talked till about 8:30, the mall we were in closes at 9, so we all had some good time to talk.

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[quamper]

Some further thoughts..

Good turnout for the area I guess..

We had 7 and 8 had RSVP'd, only the sponsor didn't show up (figures I guess) as stated above

We had the obligatory M$ bashing.. talked about some recent articles... sipped some coffee... thought we may have seen some AC's lurking in the crowd (though none threw any little crazy haired troll dolls at us!) .. had a poll where Cowboy Neal wasn't an option!

So all in all it was pretty geeky.. location wasn't the best, but it worked out alright.

I'd be willing to go out on a limb and say I'll turn up for next months.. SO if you're in the piedmont NC area make sure to signup, it was good unwholesome fun!

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[uncleFester]

SO if you're in the piedmont NC area make sure to signup, it was good unwholesome fun!

Even if you're not in the piedmont area, try signing up and check it out.. it's fun!

(like, driving over from the Hickory area.. dearth of geekdom)

I may check out Charlotte next time, if they actually have their meeting (it's a little closer) but had fun and hope to see y'all at a future meet.

-ol' man Unemployed 'fester

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[jcm]

Wow. I'm impressed! I can't believe 8 folks in my hometown (well, Kernersville) read /. Maybe it isn't as bad as I think. Though, we did have our fun during the early to mid 80s with the Padded Cell, Monterey Bay, and the like... ahhh, memories of growing up. Good to see geek life down there! Have fun!!!

Jay

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[jcm]

But Hickory is the world's copper and fiber manufacturing capital! :) Corning and CommScope! I spent a year and half there myself as the Network Manager at Frye... as you say, not a lot happening on the geek front.

jay

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[LWolenczak]

People in kernersville reading slashdot.... what will people think..... :)

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[LWolenczak]

maybe our area needs our own slash :)

hmm... maybe I need to buy another domain name....

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[jcm]

People, FROM Kernersville reading /. :) I moved away about 9 years ago. In the DC Metro area now.

Jay

Re:The Winston-Salem, NC Meeting

[LWolenczak]

I moved here like 9 years ago... way to much fucking traffic....

Well its confirmed... There are atleast two people in Kernersville that read slashdot... Oh my...What will people say....

Toronto location, turnout?

[lars-o-matic]

How many people were at the Toronto event, and where was it held? I never heard of slashmeets until too late yesterday to get out...

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[damien_kane]

My karma was there... all positive of it

I too would have liked to go but didn't know where to go

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[wintermute1974]

At its peak, I would estimate that there were somewhere around 35 or 40 people at the Toronto Meetup.

I was the fourth person to arrive (about 15 minutes after the event started) and for the first hour or so, it looked like the turnout was going to be pretty thin.

Anyway, after an initial hesitancy, I got completely engrossed in the conversation. Two hours later, the place was packed, and from the laptop and the t-shirts that I saw around me, it looked like the Slashdot crowd had arrived.

The crowd got thinner around 10:30 - 11:00 p.m., and so to compensate, the Rivoli turned the already loud music up some more.

Hello to Saul, Zafar, Rachel, Sean, and later Steve who were at my table, as well as Vern and the group from the Kitchener/Waterloo/Cambridge area.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Dstrct0]

Hey it's Jon (Orange T-Shirt guy from the K/W/C group. I have totally forgotten everyone's name (those that I could hear anyway), so ummm.... where were you sitting/who are you?

Yeah, the music was WAY too loud. Could hardly hear ourselves talk. That kinda sucked. Plus it wasn't very cool music in the first place :) A little too much funk for me...

We're all thinking of going to the next one, how about you?

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Nobody's Hero]

Hey this is Vern yah that music was at an obscene level. I wanted to shoot that DJ. WHY FUNK????? I'm thinking about going to the next one. I suppose my nervousness around the whole thing will have faded by then. What about you guys? All I can say is what can you expect when you get a bunch of geeks together in one room. I mean we aren't well known for our social skills! And I assume from the post that this Jon my fellow RCC alumnus. I'm so pleased you remebered my name.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[mE123]

it's saul.... W00t....

I think the Toronto Meetup must have been the best..

dare to disagree?

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[smcavoy]

Hey, it's Sean
I had a good time there, took a bit for the place to fill up. Deffinatly a good time. The music towards the end, was getting in the way of talking with others...
Glad to have met you all.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[_J_]

Well, I wish I could have made it out - tix to see Austin Powers. If the Riv was too loud, try the Belcher accross the street. They've got some of my favourite beers on tap, Trivial Pursuit boxes all over the place, and an atmosphere more conducive to conversation.

Just an opinion...

J:)

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Dstrct0]

It was pretty good. Next time we should either try somewhere a little quieter (someone on this thread suggested the Belcher... it sounds cool), or maybe go visit the pope! (Sarcasm. I remember one guy last night thought we were actually on our way to see the pope. What's up Matt?)

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[wintermute1974]

I was sitting at the booth, practically straight across from the entrance to the top floor at the Rivloi. I was facing the pool table area.

Unlike most of the fellows at my table, I was clean shaven, wearing glasses and a collared green shirt. We were introduced, but from the distance between the two tables, we really didn't get much chance to talk.

Baring meteoric bombardment or sudden flooding though, we can correct that later. I'm going to me at the next meetup. I'll see you there.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Anonymous Coward]

The Bishop and Belcher is pretty good.. We play trivia every week there. The cards are getting a little threadbare though. Nothing like ketchup covering the answer, or somebody's 'witty' comments inked in.

Is it just me or the majority of servers at the Belcher gay? "Not that there's anything wrong with that.."

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[wintermute1974]

Hi Vern, yup, I'm the other RCC grad at the party last night.

Before you guys arrived, we had been joking how the party would have been really popular if it was co-hosted remotely on IRC or some other similar venue. (Naturally, that would have defeated the whole purpose of the event.)

I was hesitant about going too, but then I realized that hey, this was a party that I was looking forward to for weeks, so I went after all.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[wintermute1974]

Hi Saul, it's John. Yeah, judging from some of the less than enthusiastic replies to this article, it sounds like some meetups were more successful than others.

For some cities and towns, a second meetup may not happen at all, but that's not the case in Toronto. If word spreads about what a good time we had, there might even be more people there next time around.

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Gurukhan]

Now we know for sure we had the largest /. meetup (in terms of numbers of attendees), I was the 2nd person to arrive and kinda nervous since no one was there and even the guy at the bar wasn't sure of this event .. but within an hour or so it was all geeks around .. then u know for sure its all /. crowd .... At peak time the attendance easily exceeds 35, 40 ppl. Thanks for remembering my name. I thought it would be damn difficult for u all ..

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[Gurukhan]

Thanks for remembering my name with spelling !!! I was the 2nd one to show up .. here's the pics http://zaksolutions.com

Re:Toronto location, turnout?

[_J_]

Damnit,

Now I'm going to have to find a new place to get my cornish pasty. Not that their's was good be begin with...

Just kidding. I'll be having their bangers again.
Unless someone has a better idea.

J:)

I Couldn't make it

[voudras]

My 30th birthday was the night before - i got so muckin tanked that i slept right through thursday.

Pisses me off that i missed it, but i will be looking to attend the next one for sure.

Anyone have the skinny on the Rochester, N.Y. meeting?

Re:I Couldn't make it

[rufo]

I went to it; it was a pretty good time. No offense meant to any of the people there, but it was slightly weird being around people who, for the first time, are greater than or equal to my geekiness (most of my friends don't get too close to me...). I got involved in an interesting conversation or three with a couple people, swapped e-mail addresses with one person and promptly lost somebody else's (Pete, you out there?). I did show up an hour late due to some other stuff I had going on, as I only found out it was happening today at around 6:55, right when I was heading out to take care of some prior commitments. Luckily for me that particular Starbucks was 10 minutes from where I live and right on the way from where I was headed to/from. I'll probally attend the next one, assuming I don't have anything else going on. As I said, overall I had a good time. Anyone else from Rochester around?

(Rufo from Rochester, who is relaxing his grammar/spelling after writing long into the night last night...)

Re:I Couldn't make it

[TwitchCHNO]

Check your blog for my e-mail addy.

uh oh

[__aahlyu4518]

"We had the hardware comparison "

On non-geek meetings this would've painted a whole other picture.

Re:uh oh

[Anonymous Coward]

Painted the same picture with the geek meetings. Only metaphorically. And inverted.

NZ meetup

[__aafkqj3628]

I'd like to hear about any NZ meetup that occured. If any :( Too bad that our litte we-got-no-armed-forces country is ignored down here most of the time.

Re:NZ meetup

[netsharc]

Isn't the idea that the users organize these things themselves, I mean, I think you could have organized one and told the appropriate people here so that it would get announced for other NZ'ers to see. Although if you're like me, you couldn't be bothered calling the bar/restaurant whatnot.

Re:NZ meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll gladly trade you some of our American we lay off more each year, but increase funding to enrollment drives each year Army for your non-existent one. At least it doesn't use 40% of your annual budget.

Re:NZ meetup

[mabinogi]

That's 'cause they spend 40% of their budget on leaky Australian ships ;)

Re:NZ meetup

[hdparm]

There was supposed to be one in Auckland, London Bar, cnr Queen&Wellesley St. Don't know what happened - couldn't get out of work. Next time, maybe...

Re:NZ meetup

[hdparm]

Wrong. There are more stupid ways to spend even more than 40% and this government have mastered them all. If nothing changes after tomorrow's elections, H1B US visa looks pretty attractive.

Re:NZ meetup

[__aafkqj3628]

The worst part is that the currect government is going to win the electiion today.

Re:NZ meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

Man, and here I was just thinking that NZ would be a great place to flee to from the US. Wanna trade citizenship?

Mm, antiquated hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

You ever try installing a modern distro on a Pentium 90?

Bloody hell, I'm gonna have to install with the drive on a different box, and then recompile a new kernel and hope it works on reinstall/reboot. ;)

Re:Mm, antiquated hardware.

[MiTEG]

I think Redhat up to 7.2 will install on anything with at least 32MB RAM. Gotta go back down to 6.2 for 16MB though.

Re:Mm, antiquated hardware.

[damien_kane]

Slackware will install on a 486/33 with 8mb RAM, although I wouldn't recommend it

blah :P

Re:Mm, antiquated hardware.

[Anonymous Coward]

hah! I have NetBSD 1.5.3 on a 486 with 4 (yes FOUR) MB of RAM. It's my cable modem router, running ipfilter and ipnat, and it just works. Don't try to run sshd though :)

Re:Mm, antiquated hardware.

[Dstrct0]

I managed to get a pretty stripped-down install of Mandrake 8.1 on my Pentium 75... It is damn slow, but it functions as an e-mail/ICQ terminal.

You can find it

[__aahlyu4518]

Here

Re:You can find it

[guttentag]

So, uh, MarsDude... Did any other beings turn out at the meetup on your planet? I understand most martians are afraid to reveal themselves on slashdot, but I'd love to know what they really think about this forum, karma, Windows, etc.

Re:You can find it

[__aahlyu4518]

Well, to be honoust.. I was the only one there. Not strange considering I'm the only martian left.
I stay here on this beautiful red planet to draw the maps for the marsshop in the hope that soon the creatures from earth will come visit me and maybe live here. I am counting on the fact that the first couple of thousand humans will be mostly geeks. I am a regular slashdot visitor and can identify myself with the nerds. All alone with one of my 3 right hands.
I was visited by a creature that originated from your planet before. Nice little chap. Very polite but not much of a conversational person. And he had wheels... do you all have wheels?
On the topic of slashdot: well.. I have a karma of excellent and since I'm a huge Bill & Ted fan, that is enough for me to know about karma.
I think the forum is nice, but I hate those trolls. We had trolls on this planet (ugly and mean little buggers) as well. But we threw them of the planet because they were killing our future. Just like your trolls are ruining yours. I understand that Linux is not the biggest OS on your planet. It IS on ours (well.. i'm the only one with a computer... so not that tough to win over the planet). But to many in that community are not considering that people who might think about Linux are confronted with yelling ranting and screaming people (the trolls) and are turned of of something that could be so wonderful.
Never tried Windows though. That Mr. Gates person reminds me to much of the martion trolls.
So if we got rid of the trolls, how come that I'm the only one left you ask? Well, some martians took control of everyones privacy and security. They decided to make all decisions for us, and life got so boring and restricted, that most of us took their own lives or started a war amongst eachother as we did not dare to fight the big evil. And that was that. I got lucky. I'm a martian geek.. I was locked up in my room with my computer for a coding session. And once I got out of my room to get some pizza (as no one was answering the phone at the pizzacave). I noticed everybody else was dead.
Sad story but hey. The only one I miss is the bloke that delivered my pizza.

glasgow, scotland

[TMW2N]

I turned up to the glasgow one ( was supposed to be the host) i had printed the sign and everything, was there about a half housr, nobody seemd to trn up and i went away. which was pretty bad. :(

Re:glasgow, scotland

[highlander123]

let me know for meetings in glasgow starting in september. i'll be there on school exchange and wouldn't mind a little overseas geek-talk at all.

happy sys-admin day to everyone too..

Re:glasgow, scotland

[wangi]

Was quite suprised that site didn't even have a venue in Edinburgh...

Anyway i'm sure turnouts (if anyone had) would have been a subset of SLUG/EDLUG...

Re:glasgow, scotland

[TMW2N]

funnily enough i left and went to the SLUG meet. doubt i'll go next month.

Northern New Jersey

[jptxs]

I went to satisfy curiousity, and thought I'd leave after 20 minutes. I stayed for two hours until I absolutely had to go and had a great time! Man, what a difference in conversation when most of the people you're talking to have clue 1 as to what the hell you're talking about! I'll be going most every month I believe.

You can see our little meetup on our new Yahoo group gae started quite propmtly by our host.

Slashdot meetup, SLUG or sleep

[Zeddicus_Z]

Alas, but the Sydney Slashdot meet was scheduled for the same time SLUG was scheduled. It was a tossup between SLUG, /. or sleep (curse my company's birthday party last night. ill never ever ever ever drink again until tomorrow night :). In the end, sleep won out. Although, as you'll notice, im still awake :/ Hopefully i'll be able to make it to the next one!

To Bobby Sue, it was great meeting you

[Anonymous Coward]

Read using that thing you whispered in my ear.

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almost ten ??

[__aahlyu4518]

"Still, the meeting went on until almost ten."

That's when the scriptkiddies moms wanted them to be home.

I would have gone

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have gone (San Jose, CA area) but I'm pretty sure there were no attractive women (or women at all :-/). If anyone can prove otherwise, I'll go to the next one.

Melbourne...

[jquirke]

a while back I was looking for info on the Melbourne (that's in Australia for you Americans ;-) meetup, but I forgot about it completely.

I guess a lot of people weren't aware of the meetup, I think if there were perhaps a reminder of some kind for upcoming meets on the main page the turn out would have been a lot bigger.

I know there is a website with all these details, the problem is if you don't know about this website (as a lot of slashdot readers don't see every article) then you still don't know about the events.

20-30 is quite small for a city the size of Melbourne (about 4 million I think), and I definitely know there are heaps of slashdotters here.

--jquirke

Re:Melbourne...

[actiondan]

I guess a lot of people weren't aware of the meetup, I think if there were perhaps a reminder of some kind for upcoming meets on the main page the turn out would have been a lot bigger.

You mean like the Slashdot meeting reminder that was posted on the front page yesterday?

Re:Melbourne...

[catacow]

You mean like the Slashdot meeting reminder [slashdot.org] that was posted on the front page yesterday?

Yes, that would be the one. The one that was posted over 9 hours after the Melbourne meetup (we're +1000).

The again, people who signed up did receive a few emails beforehand.

Re:Melbourne...

[actiondan]

Ahh - my apologies. Being at the center of the chronological world (GMT), I have an annoying tendancy not to take timezones into account.

Re:karma- no bloody cats

[evil_roy]

Everyone hates cats.

The NEW Slashdot Effect

[Knitebane]

We ran into problems due to the assigned meeting place being closed at the scheduled meetup time

Aint /.ing webservers bad enough? Now we knock over bars too?

London Meetup

[umm qasr]

Ahh, the London Meetup, what a story...

IIRC, ~130 people RSVP'd for the Pitcher and Piano London /. meetup. It was the 2nd largest after Toronto when I checked. About 10 people showed up. =/ It was a great night though. Dave Green from NTK came along...and sold t-shirts. (I bashed you for selling t-shirts again! but at least I plugged NTK=)

I was hoping, but didn't realistically expect that ~130 people would turn up, but the people that did were great to talk to. We talked about lots of geeky things--as you would imagine. I met some people I had only read about before and really enjoyed myself. Plus there was, of course, lots of beer. I only regret having to leave around 11 to get my train home, when the party was moving to Pizza Express! (Dave's pathological addiction). All in all it was a great night, and I would like to do it again sometime.

Re:London Meetup

[geeklawyer]

It was fun. Disorganised fun. But what else would you expect with FOS people!
seriously, next time:
1) lets not choose a yuppie wine bar
2) some people need to wear a slashdot/tux t-shirt so we can find each other
3) we need a host!
4) if dave green comes along he must bring more NTK t-shirts or pay a drinking forfeit!

Re:London Meetup

[fredrik70]

Yeah, couldn't make it to this one unfortunatelly, too much work for the moment.
I'll be there next time though!

A more normal pub would be nice as well, geeks drinking isn't usually a pretty sight! ;-)

Re:London Meetup

[dylan_-]

I was considering coming along, but the date happened to be me and my gf's anniversary. Choose a better date next time ;-)

Re:London Meetup

[Yunzil]

I was hoping, but didn't realistically expect that ~130 people would turn up, but the people that did were great to talk to.

Pfft, amateurs. This year's annual Discworld MUDmeet in London (well, Feltham) had well over 100 people. You people just need to get organized. :) I almost felt bad for the staff at the Feltham Wetherspoon's, but then I thought about how much money they made that weekend.

Re:London Meetup

[BakedBeans]

Hmm.. I was one of the 130 that RSVP'ed.. unfortunately arrived 10 minutes late (wonders of the tube) and stood around for 20 minutes trying to spot the /. team. No joy, so left. Agree that the next venue should be a little more 'geek-find' friendly. Will be on time for next one... where was everyone though??

Re:London Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm gonna have to raise the bullcrap flag on this one. VirtuaGirl doesn't care if you remember your anniversary or not.

Re:London Meetup

[agk]

Here's my collection of NTK Pizza Express photos including some taken last night.

Re:London Meetup

[jenbee]

please recommend venues to us for the next london meetup. you can do so here: http://www.meetup.com/suggest/venue it'll be helpful if you add "slashdot" into the special notes field. you can also post here, and i'll check back. venue voting opens for the next meetup REALLY soon, so get those suggestions in.

Re:London Meetup

[geeklawyer]

have a couple of ideas for venues - will post as suggested

Re:London Meetup

[umm qasr]

There is a better date, every month. Next one is Thursday, August 22 @ 7:00PM. See website for more details.

Re:London Meetup

[umm qasr]

You people just need to get organized. :)

Organised? It was put up on meetup.com, and people turned up. AFAIK, or anyone else knew, the host did not even show. It was not badly organised, it just wasn't organised at all.

Re:blah

[AyeRoxor!]

"I would rather meet up with five dozen AOL or Yahoo! kitty-oriented or crochet related chat room people than the dorks and dweebs posing as the intellectual and technological highbrow in person."

tsk tsk tsk.... someone's jealous that he's not intellectual or technologically highbrow.... :) awww

I think it's a great idea. Ill post more on my experience later.

Geek types

[plaa]

* Most of us sustained some sort of heavy electrical shock as children, either by inserting metallic things into outlets or cutting hot wires. Monitor coils were also popular.
* No one brought a digital camera, but everyone said they'd bring one next time.
* None of us could remember anyone's name. Once we paid the tab and removed the nametags, it was a lot of "what was your name, again?"

Interesting... How many others recognised themselves from this? I've had an electrical shock from inserting a screw into an outlet (though I've never played with monitor coils). I wouldn't have remembered to take a camera (even if mine's weren't so awful), but would've liked to. And I can't remember anybody's name for the first 1/2 year I know them...

Others like that out there?

Re:Geek types

[B1ackDragon]

Yes! I stuck penny's in the wall as a child. I'm horrible with names, my average is meeting people 6 times before I know their name. I always forget stuff.

Speaking of fun with electricity... When we were younger my cousin and I worked with our parents in a small lawnmower repair shop. One day we found a strange box (coil tester) and started playing with it. He was holding onto the leads while I played with the knob, the needle jumped to 7 (out of ten) and he was rolling on the floor, very comical like. 70,000 volts we found out later. Luckily it was a very low amperage...

Re:Geek types

[3rd_Floo]

I attribute my lack of memory for names for that first 1/2 year to all the radiation absorbed from these 3 monitors in front of me... Should I be worried about the low pitched fizzle/hum being produced by this 8 y/o MAG?

Re:Geek types

[Anonymous Coward]

Electrical shock from an uncovered light switch..never remember my camera..and I don't even know what your name is despite replying, so yeah :>

Re:Geek types

[Boone^]

I attempted (when I was 8) to fix a clock my mom got for Christmas but died 2 months later. I figured it *had* to be the plug, so I cut it off, stripped back the wires, and inserted the wires.

20 minutes later I woke up with no eyebrows. 14 years later I graduated with my BSEE.

Re:Geek types

[Anonymous Coward]

I got a shock when I was about 3 or 4 by sticking a hanger into an electrical socket.

I then got a shock about Grade 9 by touching two live plugged in wires accidentally

I then got a shock about 4 times when I was working as a consultant when I forgot to discharge a capacitor (Ouch, it really hurt.)

Now, I am lucky to remember my own name, much less others. :-)

Re:Geek types

[scabbers]

sorry for maybe disappointing you, but I don't think that this is /.-reader specific. probably more than half half of all children who have el. in their home have made some "experience" with it.

and meeting many new people at the same time makes it hard to remember names, esp. when you have a good topic to talk about, which obviously was the case :-)

Re:Geek types

[Anonymous Coward]

hehehe...I tried to fix my black and white TV when I was about 10...forgot to unplug the TV before I opened it...you can imagine the rest :)

Re:Geek types

[skotte]

yeah, well, like .. that mmarlett guy who wrote that comment? turns out i know him! wouldnt be so odd i guess, except i thought he was cool -- not a slashdotter! eww!

at any rate .. he went to my high school and boy scouts, inspired me to take an interest in photography, and i havent seen him since. yeah, i'm a mook. but i think it's cool when i, living now in new york, run across people i used to know in years and many miles past.

btw: Hi Mike! how's things? :)

Re:Geek types

[fobbman]

"I attempted (when I was 8) to fix a clock my mom got for Christmas but died 2 months later."

You're posting from the afterlife? Or is this Shirley Maclain?

Re:Geek types

[Boone^]

The clock died, not me. :P

Re:Geek types

[mmarlett]

Things are great, Scott. Crazy little world we live in, isn't it? Truth be told, I'm a closet geek. Litterally. In my closet, behind my ties, belts and jackets there is an assortment of CAT 5, USB, Firewire and power cables. Hanging there on a hook, visible only if you dig for them. The top drawer of my dresser is filled with CD-Rs, spare video cards, manuals and general junk. But, you know, I'm still cool, too. Or something. --Mike

Cleveland Meeting

[stryders]

Well, about 5 people had RSVP'd, and two showed up. Neither of us actually suggested the location, so we were both a bit puzzled and still have this sneaking thought that the rest of the group was huddled in a corner avoiding us. Anyway, we talked for a good 3 hours (8 beers) and it worked out well considering how it nearly fell apart. Its not as easy as it looks to go meet at a bar when you have no idea who you're meeting and don't want to walk in and say "So where's the /. crowd?"

Re:Cleveland Meeting

[Anonymous Coward]

We saw you. We were avoiding you because you're such a fucking dork. Did you at least hook up with that other guy and get something good out of it?

Re:Cleveland Meeting

[moojin]

i had to go to another party... perhaps at the end of august...

Re:Cleveland Meeting

[Anonymous Coward]

next time, the cleveland meeting shouldn't be in a bar...that way the under 21 crowd won't get shut out of it. i go to jillians (the assigned venue for the cleveland meetup) on a regular basis, but i always have to leave by 7:00 pm because i'm only 18.

Re:I can see it now...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ohmygod! You like Real World too? That's so awesome!

same at Montreal

[gmack]

That happened to us in Montreal Canada as well.. soeone booked the meeting at 7 at a nightclub that doesn't open till 8:30.

The waiter at the next place over gave us a table on the sidewalk next to the the nightclub's entrance so we could catch any slashdotters going in,

Seven people ended up arriving and we had a good time(at least I did).

Re:same at Montreal

[Oculus Habent]

I didn't make it to one, but I wonder how many additions to "friends" there will be.

--
Please insert 1 mg caffeine for the next 5 minutes.

Re:same at Montreal

[Cyclone66]

What club did you go to?

Re:same at Montreal

[gmack]

We went to the LavaLounge.

Wow - NH in the story!

[zoward]

I arrived at the Manchester, NH, about fifteen minutes late, since I didn't know where on route 28 the TGI Friday's was (and there are about a half million restaurants on route 28). It turned out to be right off the exit. I got there and met jmccay immediately. Next came perlmangler (sp?) and his brothers. Much beer and other potables were imbibed, and a good time was had by all, discussing karma, old hardware (VIC-20's and the ubitiquous 300 Hz Vicmodem), operating systems, jobs, wireless, etc, etc ... and playing mind games with the waitress... I had to leave a little early, but I'm making a point to put aside the entire evening for the next one.

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[kaszeta]

I arrived at the Manchester, NH, about fifteen minutes late...

Well, at least you had one in your part of NH. Apparently there wasn't a critical mass out here in the Hanover/Claremont/Lebanon area, since our meetup got canceled. Too bad I didn't have to time to drive down to Manchester.

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[zoward]

Yeah, it was about a 35-minute drive to Manchester from Brookline, NH, two towns west of Nashua. Everyone else at the table was from Manchester or Merrimack (closer to Manchester than Brookline is). I'm hoping we can get more people to the next one - it's a good time!

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[jmccay]

You're welcome to next time!

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[jmccay]

The first thing I did when I got home was boot up the computer to send it in because I remembered the comment about sending in a review of it. Did you catch the comment about the new karma being explained int he FAQs?

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[zoward]

Yeah, I'd actually seen it a couple of days ago. It left me a tad disappointed. Still, their argument certainly holds weight: the point of the system is to get people to post intelligently by allowing the populace to vote, and while this worked with a numeric system, people were getting obsessed over their karma ratings.

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[jmccay]

Here is the person and quote I was telling you about:

Raven
Why my piggy!?! I love-ed you, piggy! I love-ed you.

Any idea where that quote is from?

Re:Wow - NH in the story!

[zoward]

I went Google hunting, and found these:

The Scary Monkey Show

ravenpowers (I think this is the guy you were asking about).

Pittsburgh Sucks

[Xenopax]

I figured that since a few Pittsburgh people RSVPed someone would actually show up. I sat around in an empty bar for about a 1/2 hour waiting for someone to come, drinking a over blended whiskey sour, and eating stale pretzels. Who the hell picked that place anyways? The only upside to this was the place picked is a 5 minuted drive from my place.

And yes, it was just me in the bar. Not even another customer. Just me and the old bartender who could hear anything I said. Argh, stupid meet-up.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[sharkey]

Indianapolis, too. It was to be in an Internet cafe. The bartender hadn't heard anything about it, nobody looking around for anybody. Had a couple of beers, bailed after a half-hour or so.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[tps12]

Then you turned over the lone napkin on the bar counter, and found, written in pencil, the cryptic letters, "YHBT. YHL. HAND." Better luck next time.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Peyna]

My roommate registered and didn't go to the one in Indy, want me to beat him up for you?

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Xenopax]

Oh man, I love HAND too. That's where we should have gone.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[RainbowSix]

Wait until school starts and all the nerds filter back from their parent's basement (aka, me :)

Or just attend one of the several nearby college's computer club meetings. It may as well be a /. meeting except it will be in a server room instead of a bar.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmmm just curious, what bar was it? (I live in Pittsburgh). Sorry I couldnt be there to commisurate

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[dafozzee]

Yea, I'm sorta trying to figure out who picks these locations. Here in Lincoln, NE the meetup ended up at a bowling alley, mostly because.... well i'm not sure. I guess geeks hang out at bowling alleys? or maybe not. I woulda thought that a Barnes&Noble or something with their internal coffee shops woulda been a good pick. Or the little coffee shop down-town with free wireless internet... but alas none of the decent places in town were "good enough" for a meetup. Maybe someday they'll actually USE the suggestions from the people who live in these places.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Xenopax]

It was in the Suburban Room, a little bar out in Dormont. It looked like a nice place, until I bit into a pretzel. Yuck!

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Xthlc]

Sorry Xeno; I was going to show, but had to cancel at the last minute (personal matters).

Who the hell picks these places on meetup.com, anyway? There's tons of great places to meet in this city, and they pick a crap bar in *Dormont*. I voted for it, but frankly that bar just seemed like the least evil choice on the list (Dunkin' Donuts?? WTF????).

Quite simply, Pittsburgh's meetup.com choices sucked. A lot of people's comments here seem to indicate that our city was by no means alone in that distinction. I think that if we had a better choice of venues (e.g. the Roman Room in the South Side, the Squirrel Cage in Sq.Hill, etc) we would've had a much bigger draw.

meetup is very, very flawed, in that the people who actually live in the city don't get to pick the venues.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Xenopax]

That's very true, I read that the livejournal meetup had one that met in a parking lot.

Personally I didn't mind the Dormont choice, I live in Dormont, so it was very easy for me to get to. However someplace in Sq. Hill would have been nice too. Personally I would have loved to goto Silky's (The sports bar, not the strip club... but that would have been good to). We need to get ahold of these meetup people and demand better choices!

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Robotech_Master]

Nobody showed up to the Springfield, Missouri one, either. Geez. I mean, the Livejournal meetup we had met in a parking lot, but at least it got four people...

Oh well, maybe next month...

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Samrobb]

I wasn't able to attend (prior commitments, do I didn't even register.) Still, a suggestion for the next meetup: the Foundry Ale Works in the Strip. That's where we've been hosting Geek Night for the past 4 years... decent food, good beer, and (IIRC) they still have a standing wireless network connection provided by a local ISP.

BTW, the next Geek Night gathering is this coming Thursday (August 1st), if you're just interested in meeting like-minded souls. We typically have 400-500 people show up over the course of the evening.

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, we were all there, but took offense to the 'NSync shirt you were wearing and took off for another bar...

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[jenbee]

we are trying hard to improve our venue selection. we didn't have the help of local pittsburgh residents when we made our first pass at choosing venues. i've taken down the info posted in this thread, but you can also submit venue suggestions here: http://www.meetup.com/suggest/venue (do me a favor and write "slashdot" in the special notes field if/when you submit a suggestion.)

Re:Pittsburgh Sucks

[gwhalin]

We do allow the people in the city to pick the venues. In fact, that is what we strive for.

http://www.meetup.com/suggest/venue

Greg
greg@meetup.com

Did

[NorthDude]

The first one arrived claimed the first post?

Re:Did

[Anonymous Coward]

s/post/pissed/

astfgl

Age

[Anonymous Coward]

So now many people have met...how old is everyone?
What about us 50-year-old Unix heads.

karma schemes

[Fuzzums]

Change your ratingsystem to

animals [pig | dog | cat | ...]
religions [...]
moviestars [Ford | Connery | ...]
architects [...]
computers [ZX80 | PS/2 | ...]
babes [...]
food ...

Re:karma schemes

[$rtbl_this]

Change your ratingsystem to
. . .
religions [...]

Yeah, and watch OSDN get sued into oblivion when everyone with a negative karma is designated a Scientologist.

Re:karma schemes

[rmadmin]

babes [...]

Hrm.. interesting

Karma: BOING! (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)
Karma: Hoe (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)
Karma: Ex-Wife (mostly affected by moderation done to your comments)

Re:karma schemes

[Anne_Nonymous]

Everyone here knows that Karma is representative of a users penis size.

Re:karma schemes

[Anonymous Coward]

why?

OSDN is an American company.

OSDN is not required to be 'nice', just as you do NOT have a right to not be offended.

Actually, the way it works is that I DO have the right to offend YOU.

You have the right to leave.

So, put Muslims at Ultimate Negative Karma
then Catholics (No karma due to kid-touching)
then Jehova's Wittnesses just above...
then First (Southern Baptist, too much singing)
then Eastern Orthodox Catholic (weird outfits)
then Church of England (at least you can get divorced)
then Universal Life Church (They welcome everybody)
then Hindu at Ultimate Positive Karma (come on, they have sacred cows and worship elephants, what's better for karma than that?)

Re:karma schemes

[$rtbl_this]

Excellent! The only thing I'd add to this is that anyone who gets $rtbl'ed is made an honourary Discordian.

Now if you'll excuse me, it's Friday and I need to find a hot dog.

When in MeatSpace

[cpuffer_hammer]

Ping the server before attemting to get higher level services. :) This can done useing the public switched telephony network or by sending a single client to the server to verify its service status.

Most Meatspace servers will also provide a prodiction of when services will be avalable in the future.

What's wrong with this picture?

[Lizard_King]

met some girl who's into skateboarding/linux/punk rock and slashdot..

/me raises eyebrow

thats scary when I'm wasted

hmmm.... now it all makes sense.

karma = moderation average

[Fuzzums]

Let your karma be the sum of the moderations. This way you can be a troll, funny or interesting.
Or with some gramatical mathematics an overrated flaimbait.

report from Mantleshire, England meetup

[tps12]

Well, we just finished up the meetup out here in Mantleshire, and I thought I'd report in.

Fourteen blokes showed up, and we only had to send two home (one was arrested for possession of a firearm, and one had his mum storm and haul him back home). Had several pints and a wee bit of whisky, and discussion of course centered on Free Software and Enterprise.

I was surprised that a number of the lads were finding themselves disillusioned with Linux. The general feeling is that we've been pushed aside as Linux has become more of a mainstream USian commodity, and so a few of them (not myself) are heading back to Windows. But to each his own, as they say.

By the time the pub was closing we were all a might pissed, so I might be mistaken here, but I believe two of the blokes (I won't mention names, but you know who you are) went home together. I guess this was a "meetup" in more ways than one! All in all, a bloody fine evening. It sure beat getting pissed in front of the telly, which is what my weekend's looking like. I look forward to next month's meetup, and encourage anyone near Mantleshire to show up!

Re:report from Mantleshire, England meetup

[Christianfreak]

he general feeling is that we've been pushed aside as Linux has become more of a mainstream USian commodity, and so a few of them (not myself) are heading back to Windows.

And Windows is not a mainstream USian commodity? And M$oft won't push you aside if you get in the way of profit?

Interesting that they feel that way.

Excuses, excuses...

[berniecase]

Well, I would have gone, but I was getting a night tour of the underside of the Seattle monorail. Good stuff, but I'll be there next time...

Re:Excuses, excuses...

[berniecase]

Argh, not a "night tour," just a "tour."

(And now I will continue to wake up, considering it's 5:15am here in Seattle, and I'm here at work.)

Re:I can see it now..

[gerf]

It reminds me of the last couple years, with Counter-Strike. I'm at a Univerisity with 10/100 ethernet everywhere. So, we started playing CS. had 2 or 3 servers running full-time, just for the network. Imagine a LAN-party. cool, huh? Well, imagine one 24/7. There'd be people playing at 4 in the morning, 10 in the morning, 10 at night, all the time.

But that's not the best part. The best was, we'd all play football out on Founder's Field (in the middle of campus), full contact, no matter what weather. After which, we'd all go drink. There were also parties, kegs, bottles, ect. I still hang out with those guys somewhat, and it was really a good experience. Especially M@averick, who'd always get drunk, sometimes get hauled away to get his stomach pumped... but the kid could whoop any of us in CS.

Even though a few failed out because of it, the whole meeting people you've been spending hours with online is a very rewarding experience. NOTE: there are more than just /. meetup's at meetup.com there's livejournal as well (yes, i'm friggin blogger), and others.

Minneapolis Meetup

[Tesseract451]

Meeting started out with 5, but stragglers kept coming in till there were about 20 all together. We had to keep assimilating nearby booths/tables to make room. The "All your tables are belong to us" comments were made more funny when we figured that we were probably the only people for miles that got the reference.

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[FinkP]

Don't forget the Open source nacho's and the Pretzles in the public domain.

So many geeky references but it was a blast. Looking forward to the next.

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Zekat]

How late did the rest of you guys stay? Having to get up at 5am to get to work sucks :-(

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Some Woman]

to all the RSVP'd no-shows (including our host!) we know who you are and we hope you like being duct-taped to a tree next to a mosquito-filled lake! :-)

Sorry! You don't have to be so mean about it. :) I was there at 7:10, but couldn't find you. I saw a suspicious looking group of 6 20-something males, but wasn't sure.

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Zekat]

(n)Curses, foiled again! we were at the first table in from the entrance until 7:15-7:20... I know it was uncool, but you could have asked the "greeter" hostess for the "Slashdot Meetup" like I did :) Too bad the guy with the "EFF" T-shirt didn't show up till later, we were all hoping to meet you!

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

I wound up leaving around 9:30 or so, there was still about 12 people when I left. I would have stayed longer but I had to be somewhere as well.

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe, I think that the mysterious Some Woman was half the guy's motivation for showing.

In all seriousness, you should have joined, we had a pretty good size group there after a bit. I'm pretty surprized no laptops made their way onto the table and I don't think I heard one person say "First Post!" Disturbingly normal group.

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

Note to self: next time bring Post-It(R) to label first column, pillar or doorway seen...

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Some Woman]

Hehe, I think that the mysterious Some Woman was half the guy's motivation for showing.

That's an awful lot of pressure. Now I can never go for fear of upsetting people's ideals.

Anyway, it sounds like it was a pretty fun evening. Next time I'll bring a stuffed penguin and wave it around. :)

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Zekat]

Sorry to disappoint both of you... I stopped in just because it was on my way home from work. :P
When I showed up the first 3 guys were already pondering the dearth of UofM students, including Ms Mysterious Some Woman.
RE: Waving a penguin next time: doubleplusgood idea, stuffed optional--one serving of "open source" brewery nachos could feed a small nation!

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[droleary]

Too bad the guy with the "EFF" T-shirt didn't show up till later...

I would have been on time if more downtown parking ramps accepted motorcycles, the bastards. Got there eventually and it was a good time. 20+ people came (and went), good food, good conversation, excellent tip for the server (money variety for the human variety, that is)! When/where do the pictures get posted? There was some interesting, uh, let's say "visual contrasting" going on. :-)

Re:Minneapolis Meetup

[Rattking]

I think me and my girl were the last ones there.. and we left when we ran outta beer money.. i thnk it was around 12:30

Huh

[zapfie]

Slashdot users visit Meatspace? Aren't we gonna Slashdot meatspace? It feels so empty without a link to Slashdot..

Minneapolis Meetup

[Zekat]

Lies... and statistics: Attendance vs Time wasn't quite exponential, but probably the only time a bunch of /.'ers could be described as "Normal" (think Bell curve). Of 80 some listed, and 25 RSVP'd we collected a bar coaster of 18 nicks (I was AC #1 of 3 (now sporting my own shiny new nick!)). Conversation was lively, we had a chair-space overflow and took over a booth, and we even had 2, count'em, TWO attendees of the female persuasion show up! BTW, note to all the RSVP'd no-shows (including our host!) we know who you are and we hope you like being duct-taped to a tree next to a mosquito-filled lake! :-)

Hartford, Connecticut Meetup Notes

[mikey573]

The Hartford, Connecticut area Meetup was very small, but still a good time. No one had a clue who picked Chili's as the venue, but it was a good meal.

Hartford Area's Thoughts:
The general consensus was that posting is not as worthwhile/enjoyable to do anymore on Slashdot for a couple reasons:
- The need to post immediately within a few minutes of a story being posted to have any chance of moderation
- Ambiguous "Lameness" filters when composing messages akin to porno filters: filtering out more stuff than they ought to.

15 people signed up on meetup.
6 people (roughtly) RSVP'd for the first meetup.
3 people actually showed up.

Meetup should allow people who actually show up to have more voting power over the next venue...

Paltry

[hangdog]

After reading about the general lack of numbers that showed up at these meetings, I think it's safe to say none of the places where the meeting occured were /.'ed.

Re:Paltry

[wintermute1974]

The Toronto group could have slashdotted a smaller pub, but the Rivoli is just too big a venue. Had everyone that RSVPed shown up, there still would have been room.

Boston

[tweakt]

Initially there were actually two meetups scheduled for Boston (one originally at Jillians for "Boston" proper), and the one at Gallery Cafe for "North Boston Suburbs"... which is rather ridiculous, so they were combined at the last minute.

Well out of the 80 listed on the page... we had a grand total of -five- people. It was still a good night, not entirely wasted. Much chit-chat about random crap ensued, which lasted a couple hours. Good food, nice view, not bad at all.

But next time don't sign up if you aren't serious about attending. Also, Gallery Cafe is nice, but I would suspect very hard to find and difficult to get to due to traffic at that hour. So please vote for a different venue next time.

Re:Boston

[Anonymous Coward]

"But next time don't sign up if you aren't serious about attending."

The problem is that you _have to_ sign up if you want to find out where the meetup is taking place. The key stat to check is the RSVPs.

Re:Boston

[Lurkingrue]

Of course, thats what the RSVP thing is for...I'm signed up, but had other obligations, so we didn't say we'd be there. Now, the folks who do RSVP and never turn up -- they're the ones you should be chastising...As for location, I'd think somewhere either along Mass Ave or Boyleston would be easy to get to, easy to leave. And next time a non-weekend night would be a very good idea to avoid the normal crowds in cities.

Re:Boston

[_xeno_]

Like the other posters said, I signed up so that I could see where the event was being held on the offchance I could make it there. Since I didn't know if I could make it, I didn't click the "RSVP" button. It turns out that I couldn't have made it, so I didn't come.

But I've got to post a slight rant on the "RSVP" feature - RSVP actually means "respond, please" (respondez, s'il vous plait - I think?) - meaning that they should have options for "I will be attending", "I will not be attending", or "I might be attending." Since I could only say that I might be attending I would have loved to have given that option. That way, you could have seen that there were 7 people planning on coming, 3 people who might come, 5 who couldn't, and 65 people who were to lazy to respond. (As an example, obviously...)

If there is another Slashdot meetup, I'll try and come. But I couldn't promise to come to this one. If it were on a weekend, then there would be a higher chance I could manage to come to it. Maybe next time, maybe...

Re:Boston

[bass_miologics]

Traffic was a killer. I got out of work, by the time I picked up my friend and went to jillians ( WHO picked jillians on a day the redsox play? thats just silly) figured out the meeting wasn't there, then found the second meeting place; I was 2 hrs late. I didn't like the second location. I think everyone had left by the time I got there. Sorry. I rolled in and rolled out.

Re:Boston

[Skip666Kent]

Next time we'll meet at the Model Cafe in Allston. Be good tho', or Effie'll kick your ass.

Re:Boston

[Kaz Riprock]

Echoing the sentiment of others, I even wrote on the meetup page that I'd have to see closer to the date if I was going to be able to come or not. This was before my department scheduled a conference for Wednesday through Saturday for me to attend (and help organize). So, I was on a Duck Tour boat/car in the Charles River when the five of you found each other at Jillians.

Madison, WI

[Anonymous Coward]

3 showed up, but not the meeting coordinator. Could have been more, but didn't make themselves known. How about meeting at Memorial Union next time. Less juke box and all ages can attend.

Alabny Meetup

[doon]

Well Our meetup place turned out to be a Small Parking Lot With a non-descript Corporate type building. I hung out there for a while and even rode back to the "real" starbucks in Latham (Newton Plaza). And the Parking Lot. After about 30 Minutes and an Iced Carmel Machiatto (sp?). I rode home. Maybe Next month?

Re:Alabny Meetup

[WebMasterJoe]

I was going to be there, but my company had a dinner cruise that night in Lake George. Oops. I'll try to make it to the next one, though. How many people were going to go?

It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked

[Hairy_Potter]

everytime we tried to get into a heavy discussion on ipv6, or Win XP, these barely dressed women would walk by, dance around a pole, and try to sit on our laps. You didn't miss much.

Re:It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked

[dmarien]

"It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked"

Okay, well why?

"everytime we tried to get into a heavy discussion on ipv6, or Win XP, these barely dressed women would walk by, dance around a pole, and try to sit on our laps. You didn't miss much."

*shakes head sadly*

Re:It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked

[molo]

Gah, you must go to RIT or something. Perfect place for a meeting. A place full of old women strippers.

I hope I never go back to Rochester.

Re:It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked

[TwitchCHNO]

Ok wait? there was an alternative meeting place in Rochester?

A strip club?

Hey I have a proposal for next month - kinda a mixture of the two. Ok well it a bar the youngins won't get kicked out of.

The Olde Toad! /pub/lunch

Re:It was at the Klassy Kat, and it sucked

[anewman]

Why not have it at Java's, downtown on the East End? That's a pretty neutral place and during the summer, it's easy to get conversation going. Those wishing to booze later in the night can go to Milestones, it's a block away.

Of course, I don't live in Rochester any more, but I figured I'd throw my 2c in.

Charleston SC meetup was a wash

[Imabug]

Darnit. Either I didn't wait long enough or nobody bothered to show up for the Charleston meetup.

Showed up at the appointed place about 10 minutes before the appointed time. Waited around for a while, but didn't see anyone claiming any affiliation to the meetup. nobody with signs or anything. checked with the hostess, and she hadn't seen anybody there for the meetup. left to check out the bookstore, came back 15 minutes later and still nobody. by then, the wait for a table was about 40 minutes according to the hostess, so i decided to bag it and go do other things.

unfortunate, because i was looking forward to meeting other /.ers in the area and see how geeky these people were. oh well, maybe next month.

Re:Charleston SC meetup was a wash

[schnurble]

Yeah, the lady at Chili's said you left about 3 minutes before we got there.

PopeFelix (the host) had to cancel at the last minute because of work, so myself, kimi, and Hlynna showed up at about 7:15. We waited until 7:45, then got a table and had a few drinks, then left.

I wore my first-edition green-and-white Slashdot hat, hoping people coming for the meet would get the picture. But I guess we were there after you left.

Hopefully next month.

*Almost Ten*!!!

[SubtleNuance]

Fargo, North Dakota...Still, the meeting went on until almost ten."

OH MY GOD! You Fargo-ites are P-A-R-T-Y ANIMALS! Almost 10, can you imagine. You better goto Church twice this week..!

Re:*Almost Ten*!!!

[fredrik70]

mind you might have been 10 am the next day....
that's what's drugs do to you!! :-)

Re:*Almost Ten*!!!

[linzeal]

10 am the next day, what they built a time machine as well. Those bastards, but I did get a free steak and 3 drinks at the one in san jose.

Re:*Almost Ten*!!!

[InfinityWpi]

Hey, you try keeping three people going on one conversation sitting in the coffee shop of a bookstore. If more people had showed up, we could've stretched it out longer, I'm betting.

Did anyone notice....

[TheLocustNMI]

Sjender's "Pacific Solution" game about the australian pacific-refugee problem?

http://home.pacific.net.au/~sjender/pacificsolut io n/

A choice bit of rhetoric from the instructions:
[pic of boat]
A leaky craft full of filthy boat people. Must be stopped at all costs, for the good of the nation. Say it with me: We don't want people like this in our country!

Wow, here in the US, we had people who might say such things -- they were call the Ku Klux Klan!

What a jackass.

Re:Did anyone notice....

[Anonymous Coward]

He's actually ridiculing the attitude of the PM et al towards the refugees with this 'game'. Perhaps you have to be an aussie to understand it. This is *not* an attack on those people.

Evidence:
"The Australian Taxpayer© will be forced to chip in $0.02 towards providing them with safe haven."
- 2 cents ? He's hardly making me hate them, if that's his mission.

"get them into concen^H^H^H^H^H^Hdetention centres"
- The government call them detention centres, but they really have been found to be like concentration camps.

"We're fairly suspicious about tahini."
- I don't think I need to explain this one ?

So, perhaps next time, don't jump the gun and take things at face value.

Re:Did anyone notice....

[recap]

Here in Australia we have a thing called sarcasm. Before you accuse some one of racism you might like to work out what it is!

Re:Did anyone notice....

[biohazard99]

Not just the klan, Janet Reno, Bill Clinton, John Ashcroft, Bush Jr. and Sr., Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot are all part of that list. Having tight, controlled borders is typically a good thing for a nation. There are legitimate ways to transfer ones residence and citizenship to another nation, so use them. Admittedly, Elian Gonzales (Janet Reno is so screwed if she shows up in Little Havana), probably should have stayed here, just to piss off Castro. He did have a loving family here so he would not have been a resource drain on the welfare state. But thousands of Red Chinese, Haitians, Cubans, etc trying to enter the US every year would signifigantly impact American budgets.

Re:Did anyone notice....

[tuxedo-steve]

Wow, here in the US, we had people who might say such things -- they were call the Ku Klux Klan!

Just a word in my defense...

I was, in fact, being sarcastic. I think the attitude of the Australian government towards those seeking refuge in this country is absolutely disgusting. The game was my way of speaking out against it. Who says code can't be speech?

Re:Did anyone notice....

[kubrick]

A choice bit of rhetoric from the instructions:
A leaky craft full of filthy boat people. Must be stopped at all costs, for the good of the nation. Say it with me: We don't want people like this in our country!

Wow, here in the US, we had people who might say such things -- they were call the Ku Klux Klan!

Unfortunately, here in Australia we have to call those people "the Prime Minister" and "the Minister for Immigration and Aboriginal Affairs". And the general public has voted for them *three bloody times* in succession.

This country is seriously fucked.

Meatspace? That's an odd thing to call it ...

[1in10]

Hmm, Meatspace ... interesting name ... well if I ever open a gay club at least you've given me an idea of what to call it! ;)

Re:Meatspace? That's an odd thing to call it ...

[Mytho-X]

Not an odd thing at all for someone who is a sci-fi geek!

Read Rober A. Heinlein's book "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" it will explain it all.

The basics is that there is cyberspace and meatspace, meatspace being where human's (made of meat) live.

Re:Meatspace? That's an odd thing to call it ...

[Kredal]

for further reading, check out They're Made Out of Meat, a short little play that's just a discussion between two interstellar travellers.
Trust me, it's short, but good.

shocking

[timothy]

When I was about 5, I put the legs of a large stapler into a 120v wall outlet. I saw a blue-white flash, smelled ozone, and then was inexplicably on a table in front of my surprised Sunday School classmates. (My muscles convulsed and launched me a bit.) Much more interesting to me than Sunday School. The teacher kept trying to make me admit that I stuck a pencil in the outlet, and I repeatedly denied this. Nope, not a pencil.

The outlet took the brunt of the visible damage, though -- it was cracked, blackened and partly melted. My thumb got a pretty interesting scar which lasted for the next few years but has unfortunately departed.

timothy

Akron, OH

[j2gEEk]

Couldn't get there at the scheduled time, but i and two others showed up at the bar around 11:30- the festivities apparently disbanded long before then... might i suggest a time later than 7:00pm?

Re:Akron, OH

[Anonymous Coward]

I got there at 6:45 and the hostess said she didn't know anything about it, but after checking with her boss she seated me at a table with 16 chairs and told me 2 other people were there and she'd bring them to the table. Well, she never brought anybody else and 1 other slashdotter came in at around 7:00. We talked, drank, ate and waited til about 8:30 and then left. My guess would be the Aero's game didn't leave optimum parking spots. The 2 of us will show up next month and hopefully more will show. I would have stayed or came back later, if I knew others would show up.

Re:Akron, OH

[MrLee]

Ok, now I don't feel so bad. I showed up about 7:05 and wandered around Jillians looking for anyone. I didn't see a soul. At this point, I remembered why Jillian's was a bad idea. That place just sucks. It doesn't help that it's downtown AND there was a Aeros game.
After about 5 minutes of wandering about, I left. Might I suggest another location next time? Cafe Momus by Akron U would be much better. It has a meeting room, it's easy to park, they are tech friendly and if we decide, we can go somewhere else that has booze, downtown is three minutes away!

Re:Akron, OH

[j2gEEk]

Great Idea- I second Cafe Momus. That would be perfect!

The Warren-Roseville, MI Meeting

[Link-chan]

Around 7 people were there, which was a pretty good turnout. We didn't have a host like a few of the other meetings. We just sat around a table and talked. There was a conversation about open-source as a whole and how it could break into the various markets more easily, which was interesting. I myself had a conversation about the PDA market. Overall, a good meeting.

Re:The Warren-Roseville, MI Meeting

[Anonymous Coward]

My fiance tells me there were 12 and I've got to trust her count. :)

An excellent meetup with some excellent people, there were some problems. As Link-chan said, our host either didn't show or he did but never spoke up. The name of the bar wasn't the name mentioned on the site which probably caused some confusion. The bar didn't know we were coming and suggested that we could have been accomodated better if we had called in advance. And it appeared that we had some underaged participants, though they didn't appear to have any problems--I would have called for a vote to switch locations if there had been any issues.

We were able to get everything together and have an excellent meetup! Hopefully, we can get more turnout next time from our local LUG. :)

Raleigh Meetup

[XaXXon]

The Raleigh meetup turned out pretty well. We had 19 people RSVP, and had about 20-21 people show up -- the extras were due to spouses/gf's/small people. It was a bit tight trying to get a table for 20 at Chilis at 7pm, right in the middle of their dinner rush, but they did a great job getting us in there.

We had quite a group of people. Most people were computer geeks, but we had an agriculture geek, a lawyer (yes, we let him stay), a politician (who stayed just long enough to give us his vote-for-me speach), a teacher.. We got seated ~7:20 and the last of us left a bit after 9:30, so it was a good get together (my vocabulary is still stuck in the mid 90's BBS days), and the time really flew by.

I brought a digital camera, but I can't find the stupid usb interface cable, so there's no pictures available right now :(

ADV: If you're in the Raleigh area, join us for the next one.

Everyone, check out slashdot.meetup.com!!!

"go insane"?

[Kozz]

Heh. "...go insane trying to get Karma: 50".
That's funny. Find the right time to post to a story (when it's got <100 comments) and a relatively on-topic post maybe sprinkled with some relevant links that contribute to the story, and it's damned easy to reach the cap. Of course I'm sure you know this too.

Then again, it's just as easy to make an inflammatory comment that gets you moderated to oblivion, LOL
[that particular comment & my attitude toward CmdrTaco still remain]

Re:"go insane"?

[rmohr02]

That's funny. Find the right time to post to a story (when it's got

Yea, but sometimes it's hard to find a topic I know enough about to get that comment (but it's always easy once I've reached the limit).

Re:"go insane"?

[rmohr02]

I meant to quote more of your comment, but I must have missed part of it.

Re:"go insane"?

[Loligo]

>it's hard to find a topic I know enough about

Funny, I usually find it harder to find a topic I CARE enough about instead of knowing enough about.

-l, jaded

Re:I would have gone

[gosand]

I would have gone (San Jose, CA area) but I'm pretty sure there were no attractive women (or women at all :-/). If anyone can prove otherwise, I'll go to the next one.

Gee, and you sound like such a winner. I can't imagine why you haven't found someone yet.

Re:karma- no bloody cats

[liquidsin]

It's spelled "Katz". And...um...yeah, lameness filter dodging in full effect, yo.

Nashville, TN MEETUP

[Medieval]

I got to the Nashville meetup spot at about 6:45, one other /.er was there.. small groups of 2 or 3 people started showing up, some with blue hair (obviously /.ers..) We had 12 or 13 people show up, we frightened the TGI Friday's waiter, and we managed to keep the felonies to less than ten. Things rolled along well, but I left at about 10:00, and there were still 6 people there when I left. We got an email address logbook going so we can keep in touch, and we offered to share our vast libraries of books with one another. Also, beer. =]

Atlanta's meatspace

[ssyladin]

The Atlanta Meetup went fairly nicely. ~20 RSVPed, 6 showed up but one had to bail after less than an hour. Moved the proceedings to some place that served alcohol in appropriate quantities. Talked businesses, tech, world - general drunk geekiness. Despite only a few people showing up, it was really fun and I look forward to the next one.

However, I'd like to hear from some of the people that RSVPed but didn't show up. I'm not accusing anyone of being lazy (heck, I was an inch from not going myself - it was a 30 minute drive for me) but if we get feedback as to why people didn't show up, then maybe we can do something to get better attendance in the future.

Re:Atlanta's meatspace

[Erik_Kahl]

See this comment for a couple thoughts.

I'm glad it went well. I'll be at the next one, but I hope its somewhere else. How about Dave and Buster's? They can handle any number and accomodate all ages until 10 or 11. We can play video games together. Or get blasted.

What do you think?

Re:Atlanta's meatspace

[Danborg]

I did not RSVP, nor did I show up because the location sucked. Not everyone who reads /. is some twentysometing inner-city punk-ass. How about a venue out in the suburbs? I think the Perimeter Mall area is a good place to meet in the middle, for those traveling from the northern suburbs and those coming in from the city.
You can imagine my disappointment when I saw that the choices for next month's meetup are all inside the perimeter. Who picks these things? Hey MeetUp people, how about letting us vote for our own choice of venues, and then narrow down the final choice by general vote.

Re:Atlanta's meatspace

[Danborg]

I agree, Dave and Buster's would be an excellent choice. Unfortunately, it seems that MeetUp has already selected three poor choice locations for next month, and D&B's isn't one of them. Oh well, there's always September.

How did the Atlanta, GA, USA meeting go?

[Uttles]

I was unable to make the meeting, anyone attend?

Charlottesville,VA

[waldoj]

I was the only person to RSVP after Charlottesville, VA had 7 people sign up. The location choices were ridiculous -- I'd love to find out where those came from. I submitted an alternate one, but it never showed up as a choice.

It looks as if over-committment is a common theme around here.

-Waldo Jaquith

Nashville TN meetup

[mojumbo]

Well, after a rough start, the Nashville meetup turned out pretty well. We met at TGIFridays in a local mall, and while they were expecting us, I don't think they were expecting quite as many ppl as showed up. First they put us outside on the patio, then it started raining :/ We got moved inside, and after some table shuffling, we finally got settled down and got some drinks :) Oh, did I mention that about 18 ppl showed up (more than had rsvp'd). Conversation on my side of the table ranged from port concentrators to programming to handguns to counterstrike. We covered pretty much everything geek. After getting run out of friday's at 10, about half of the group continued to stand in the parking lot and talk for about an hour. Then the mall security got suspicious! ha, there weren't any computers around, so we were completely harmless. So, it was a great success and I look forward to doing it again next month.

phil

Cincinnati, Oh.

[uncoveror]

Cincinnati had 11 or 12 show up over the course of the night. At least half were members of CINPA (CINcinnati Networking Professional Association) members. We talked about our tech toys, work and school experiences. I talked about my websites, Uncoveror.com and Dontbuycds.org, and gave out copies of The Uncoveror newsletter. It is good we met at a resturaunt, and not a bar because one slashdotter named Matt was a high schooler who couldn't have got in otherwise. We had fun, and will do it again next month.

Oklahoma City, OK Meetup

[theGreater]

Well, since no one else has posted yet, I'll sound off on the OKC OK TGIF rendezvous.

We originally had about 35 signed up, with 3 hosts. 15 showed up, none of whom were hosts, and most of whom were smarter than I.

We sat around and tried to remember everyone's name for awhile, with frequent introductions and occasional small talk. Once we got past trying to be social, it all went pretty smoothly.

I left about nine-ish, having spent a rather pleasant two hours discussing everything from an upcoming bewoulf laptop cluster to acoustic cradle modems and teletype. All in all, it was a fairly productive way to meet like minded individuals, and have a good time.

Was it closed, or was it...

[bmooney28]

Slashdotted? ;) sorry.. couldn't pass that one up :)

Re:report from Mantleshire, England meetup TROLL

[ynohoo]

Na such place mate! Unless Columbia has decided to rejoin the Glorious Empire...

One problem

[RainbowSix]

Just reading other people's posts I see a problem: a lot of test were held in bars. I'd venture to say half of the people who would have gone aren't over 21!

I'd say a disproportionate number of people reading /. are college undergrads like myself, and I don't turn 21 until I'm a senior which means that I couldn't get into the Pittsburgh one even if I wanted to go.

Finally, it is summer, which means a lot of people are away from the big cities as classes don't start for another month.

Maybe in September there will be more attendance

Re:One problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Come to New Orleans and you can go into a bar at almost any age.

Re:One problem

[jmccay]

Vote for a venue other tha a bar. In NH ours was at TGI Fridays. I think Chili's would have been better.

Re:One problem

[Robotech_Master]

In Missouri, at least, you can go into a bar if you're underage, but you can't order alcohol. At least, that's the case at all the bars I tend to visit. (But then, all the bars I tend to visit are also restaurants, so it stands to reason they'd let families, with underage people, in to eat.) Two of the people at our LJ meetup were underage.

Re:One problem

[XO]

I don't know if this is nationwide or not, but until 9pm in Michigan, you can go into a bar at ANY age. Which certainly seems to be a good idea as to why meetups for most events seem to start at 7 -- that can give a time/place for everyone to get together, and then if they want to find another venue, the option is open.

Did the meetup cure your loneliness?

[Anonymous Coward]

Washington Meetup

[Mindcry]

about 120 signed up... 30 RSVP'd, and around 30-40 actually showed up, quite impressive really... the restuarant had to move us around a bit cause people kept appearing ;) overall it was a really nice event; everyone was ready to talk about anything ;) definately doing this again... thanks all, 'twas a great idea... later

Re:Washington Meetup

[ecarlson]

We're up to 184 people signed up for the Washington DC Slashdot Meetup. I think we actually had 25-30 people there last night, unless people showed up after I left, which was a little after 9pm, but it was still a pretty big group. And a lot of fun. It was cool to meet all those other geeks.

Re:Washington Meetup

[CrystalCut]

I'm really glad things went as well as they did, considering what happened to other Meets around the country.

It was great being able to meet so many interesting people, and hopefully the next meet will be a bit more organized.

And I really hope the email I sent to the MeetUp group didn't sound like the 1,000 other emails they probably received today.

Was it in Clifton you geeky faggot?

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in Cincy. I look for skinny/fat geeks to pick on. See you around, likely at Sitwells or Buzz.

Re:Was it in Clifton you geeky faggot?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, show up next time. at least two of us know kung fu and all us geeks will k1x0r your a55.

Signup != RSVP

[n-baxley]

I think people are a little confused about the difference between signing up for the meetup service and rsvping to the meeting. I wanted to see where this thing was in Kansas City and it signed me up. I wasn't able to make it so I didn't RSVP, but once I signed in the KC count went from 44 to 45. If you want to gauge how many people will be there, look for the RSVPs.

Re:Signup != RSVP

[gcrocker]

There were 5 people at the Kansas City meetup, which was comparable to the number of RSVPs. Everyone there had met at least one other person, and the graph was connected, so that made it pretty comfortable. Hopefully there'll be new folks at the next one so we can tell 'em about KCWireless.net. ;-)

-glenn

Boulder, CO meeting.

[Hobart]

Where:
2002/08/25 19:00MDT Old Chicago, 1102 Pearl St, Boulder, CO 80302

Who showed:
Eazolan
Ben
Wire
Ehackathorn
Hobart
O3zone

Summaries/Photos at:
http://www.dim.com/~mackys/irregular/current/Bould erSlashdot.html
http://www.jb.org/meetup/
(The pictures being low-quality is my fault)

Re:Boulder, CO meeting.

[Mr. Sketch]

Wow, I guess I should have gone then. There were about 15 people RSVPd and that sounded like a bit too much for my anti-social self :). 15 drunk geeks didn't really sound like a good time to me :), but six people is a lot more doable, so perhaps I'll go next month.

Re:Boulder, CO meeting.

[sconeu]

2002/08/25 19:00MDT

Dude, can I borrow your time machine?

Re:Boulder, CO meeting.

[Hobart]

D'oh!!!!!!

Whoops... :-)

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[account_deleted]

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ITS SPELLED GUNG FU DUMBASS

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:ITS SPELLED GUNG FU DUMBASS

[Anonymous Coward]

what a brilliant reply.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

It never would have been +50.

[autopr0n]

The most karma you could ever have was 50. After that it could only go down.

Re:It never would have been +50.

[cje]

The most karma you could ever have was 50. After that it could only go down.

Lots of us were "grandfathered in" before the 50-point cap was put on, though (we didn't get it chopped off to 50.) My karma was at something like 238 before it suddenly switched to "Excellent."

Thanks a lot, Taco. ;-)

Re:It never would have been +50.

[4of12]

Then, of course, there's the usual problem with the 50 point karma cap if you happen to get modded up before you get modded down (I think this happens more often)...

50 + 1 - 1 = 49

but

50 - 1 + 1 = 50

I always felt like a helium balloon bouncing against the ceiling.

Dallas Meetup

[lpret]

We had ten people RSVP and five of us showed up, so it seems our 50% is not as bad as we thought. Our venue changed an hour before the meetup to some bowling lane, and we ditched that pretty quick. It was mostly a good discussion of the awaited Perl 6, multiCase or under_score, and the introduction of Fark which, I might add, is friggin hilarious. We are in the process of looking for beer sponsors -- Sam Adams, do you hear us?

Re:Dallas Meetup

[DLR]

Where is the comment for the Plano/N. Dallas meetup?

Rochester, NY Meeting

[dondelelcaro]

Having just recent arived in Rochester, NY, (previously in 714, 909 and 213) I was pleasantly surprised at the size of the turnout at the starbucks conveniently located in sight of my desk. It's always nice to be able to talk to fellow tech heads in meatspace, especially those whose circles are outside of yours even online.

Not sure exactly how many people signed up, or how many actually showed, but it looked like a relatively decent time was had by all (even accounting for the lack of ethanol.) [Too bad the organizers didn't seem to show (or at least, remained safely anonymous...)]

Re:Rochester, NY Meeting

[echucker]

Just out of curiosity, which SB was it? If I walk to the front of the building, I can see one of the eight from here.

Re:Rochester, NY Meeting

[dondelelcaro]

It was on Mt. Hope just south of Elmwood. (My desk in Eastman dental faces east onto Mt. Hope.)

Re:Rochester, NY Meeting

[echucker]

Gotcha. I'm across from the one at Jefferson / East Henrietta.

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Heh.

[autopr0n]

Well, I'm a pretty loudmouthed commentator, so my old account would be modded in both ways pretty often. I had 190 or something when the cap went into effect. After I was only able to lose it I basically stopped posting.

If you asked me, they should have either set everyone's cap to their current level, or just hacked everyone's total down to 50. seeing your karma slowly decline like that was just depressing :P

Re:Heh.

[TheCarp]

Odd...

I was told by a friend of mine that when the cap went into effect his karma was reduced to 50 immediatly, and he was very surprized when I claimed to still have akarma of 115 (it was a while ago). I guess im not as special as I thought? Oh well.

-Steve

Northern New Jersey meetup

[Party Remover]

Images and light narrative can be found here.

There's something a little subversive about clusters of technophiles, scattered across the planet, having synchronized gatherings in chain restaurants and bars. Maybe next time, we should ask to have them in their basements.

"Welcome to Nerd Club. The first rule of Nerd Club is, you do not talk about Nerd Club."

His name is Robert Malda...
His name is Robert Malda...
His name is Robert Malda...
His name is Robert Malda...

Re:Northern New Jersey meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

Sweet Jesus on a bun!

Women!?!!!

I'm moving to NJ!

The Manhattan (below 42nd St.) Meetup

[realgone]

Body count: Out of the 159 who signed up, maybe about 15 showed. One was even rumored to be (gender == female), but this has yet to be confirmed by UN observers. =)

Venue: A little iffy. The meetup was originally scheduled to be held at a bowling alley near Union Square, but this got changed last minute to a bar above the alley. Not everyone got word in time, so we may have had some attrition there. And god knows if any of the under-21 /.ers got turned away by the elevator bouncer.

As for the bar itself? Nice enough, but didn't really have a /. vibe. It kinda felt like one of those corporate-chic places that inevitably get picked for the company holiday party. (This turned out to be remarkably accurate later in the evening when a large group from Merrill Lynch, I think, marched in, got drunk, and played Twister for a few hours at the far end of the room.)

And before I forget: $8 drinks at the bar(!) I tried to explain the whole "free as in beer" concept to the bartender, but I don't think I got very far.

The meetup: A mixed bag. The next one of these could definitely use a host. As it was, people just kinda wandered in, spent a couple minutes figuring out if the extremely sedate and fragmented group over by the bar was indeed /., grabbed a drink, and tried to form their own 2-3 person molecule of conversation. It would have been cool if everyone had gotten together at some point in the evening and done something, anything. Heck, form a big circle and play some "Duck, Duck, Penguin".

Other than that, my only observation is that people went home *way* too early -- especially for New Yorkers. By 10:30, it was just myself and another bloke closing out the place, playing pool and doing tequila shots. It's just unholy.

Biggest surprise: To the best of my knowledge, not a single laptop was whipped out over the course of the evening.

Re:The Manhattan (below 42nd St.) Meetup

[jmccay]

Only one laptop was brought to the NH Meetup, and he shall remain nameless ;) because he walked right by his brother and the rest of us and circled the restaurant. It never came out at all.

Re:The Manhattan (below 42nd St.) Meetup

[Blackjax]

Actually it was 18 people, I counted a few times during the event.

There was one girl there, but she was the girlfriend of a Slashdot reader rather than a regular reader herself (she apparently reads the occasional story though).

The bar was nice but as the parent pointed out, it was *way* overpriced and really didn't have the right feel for a geek party. $6 for a bottle of Smirnoff Ice is a bit out of line. I could host the event at my place and buy all the alcohol for everyone and still come out ahead financially compared to what it would cost to get respectably wasted in that bar. We definitely need a new venue, hopefully chosen from the suggestions of people who were there last time.

The crowd was interesting and I'd definitely be up for doing it again sometime. It is a great thing to be able to say to a group of people "I read this story about :topic: on Slashdot and it got me thinking about :some idea:" and see heads nodding and murmers of "yeah I saw that story too" rather than the usual "Slashdot???". I also noted that the backgrounds of the people I talked to were more varied than I'd anticipated, at least half were not any sort of tech professional .

As far a what time it ended goes, I think it would have gone longer on a Friday or Saturday. I was there until about 10:15 and would have stayed out longer but for the fact that I am currently employed and want to stay that way. ;-) C++ and lack of sleep don't mix well.

For the future, I suggest we swap e-mails and have some sort of introduction during the event as suggested above. The Meetup site really lacks any way to talk to one another and coordinate things, and the hosts seemed to be more observers than people who actually ran the event. It really had the feel of a bunch of people who showed up at the same place rather than an actual meeting.

If you couldn't make this one or weren't sure that you'd like it, consider coming to the next, it was worthwhile.

Re:The Manhattan (below 42nd St.) Meetup

[perlstar]

I thought it was a great turn out and really enjoyed the conversation.
there was actually a second girl who showed up later on... i wonder if that's a national record???
Really laid back crowd though. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

As for the meetup place... somewhere less fancy would definitely be better. I'd suggest Oddessa -- a low_key hipster bar on st. mark's and ave A.
The drinks are $3-$6.

Does anyone else have any suggestions?

BTW, does anyone know what happened to the digital camera pictures? I really hope they get posted somewhere.

Wow...

[autopr0n]

There's a limit to the number of posts you can make per day? That's pretty asinine.

Shocking experiences

[smartfart]

Heh, I got a couple I could add to this thread...

I guess I was about 4 years old when I put a penny across the exposed prongs of a plug that was half out of the electrical socket. I remember doing it, even.

When I was 5 or so (Hurricane Camille came through in '68, that might have been it) we had a hurricane leave a lot of flooding in my hometown in Louisiana. There used to be a Texaco gas station/convenience store next door, and Mom went over there for bread or somesuch, and I demanded to be allowed to tag along. I remember walking in ankle-deep water, finding a wire laying on the ground, picking it up and saying, "hey Ma, look what I found". Apparently the wire was still attached to the electrical pole, and was live.

I'm told that my mom saw me standing frozen, and started screaming for my Dad who was working int he yard repairing something that broke during the hurricane due to the high winds, and he came running over, full-speed, and grabbed me without breaking stride. His momentum forced the wire out of my hand. I don't remember him grabbing me, though. I must have been out by then.

Anyhow, both events landed me in the emergency room.

Sioux Falls Meetup

[cjsteele]

Well, I can safely say the Sioux Falls, SD meetup sucked. It was just me, and a friend who rode with me... frackin' great time!

Way to go to all the poser bastards who said they'd be there. YOU GUYS SUCK!

Geeks weren't meant for meeting face to face... why don't we have a /. irc meeting? See if we could get thousands of slashdot users in the same channel on the same server at the same time on the same day... that'd be nifty.

-C

Re:Sioux Falls Meetup

[Shalda]

See if we could get thousands of slashdot users in the same channel on the same server at the same time on the same day... that'd be nifty.

That'd never work. Too many infantile script kiddies out there. Getting together was always one of my favorite parts of my old BBS days. The Richmond, VA meetup failed, also, but that's because the venue no longer existed. Ooops.

Which starbucks was it?

[Hairy_Potter]

I showed up at the Klassy Kat meetup, perhaps I should have tried the Starbucks one.

Re:Which starbucks was it?

[Anonymous Coward]

The one on Mount Hope, very close to the corner of Mount Hope and Elmwood.

Re:Which starbucks was it?

[DLR]

In Plano it was the one on the NW cornor of Alma and Parker.

Montreal meetup

[chriscokid]

We had the same problem as the Australian folks, the venue was not open. It is a nightclub (Lava Lounge) and only opens at 20:30. It is unfortunate that nobody checked this before suggesting it as a venue. Fortunately there was a restaurant next door with outside tables where we could sit and eat/drink while waiting for others to show up. A total of 7 people showed up and we had a good conversation. None of the so-called hosts made an appearance. I hope we can have more of these with a bit better organisation, it is interesting to meet new people in the technology world.

Re:Montreal meetup

[50000BTU_barbecue]

I'm one of the 7 people that showed up. It had been a while since I went to 'GT' (I'm old, OK?) so it was pretty interesting to see the people behind the comments. I did get a first post in, I was 15 minutes early!

Re:Montreal meetup

[vasi]

I was there too, I just set up a Yahoo group so that we can figure out better places to meet, and just generally reassure people that the meeting will happen :-)

Toodles!

vasi

Chicago?

[RobPiano]

Did any chicago/burbs people go? I would have gone but frankly you people scare me. :)
Rob

Re:Chicago?

[xtrat]

Putting personal fear aside, I decided to go. After the initial brawl, where two people had to be taken away after being whopped in the head by a Ti Book, the meetup when fairly well. The turn out was ~25, and the last of us left the bar about 1am.

The thing that I found to be most interesting is the large number of people (myself included) who don't watch/have a TV for lack of interesting material, and time to watch the uninteresting material. I guess /. just don't enjoy staring into a CRT.

Other topics of conversation in not perticular order:

• /. and blogs
• NPR, The Onion, and the Daily Show -- the holy trilogy of news (or at least funny)... I won't mention JJ not reading /. anymore ;)
• Local music and the persutes of a /.er record label
• letterboxing and what the hell it is
• standard OS conversations
• academics vs. the real world (not the show -- although that might make an interesting program...)
• Job market or lack thereof
• Advertising and it's effect on us
• Cowboy Neal -- ok, we didn't actually talk about him, but the list wouldn't be complete without him

All and all, a good evening. I think we might even get some returns next month.

Re:Chicago?

[kashani]

Don't worry I'll pass this little blackmail friendly post on the fabulous Miss JJ. heh heh.

I still think we should have an Onion meetup.

kashani aka Ramin

Re:Chicago?

[kashani]

Hey how would people feel about meeting at the Diversy Rock and Bowl, 2211 West Diversey.

1. Bar
2. Darts
3. Air Hockey
4. Arcade
5. Rockabilly Waitresses
6. Second Bar
7. Bowling

kashani

Oklahoma City

[nontrivial]

We actually had about 18 folks show up, although nobody fessed up to being a host. We had a strong showing from the OKC Linux user group (http://linuxsig.org) which wasn't planned. It was fun!

Showed up 30 minutes late, everybody gone?

[fishbowl]

Either that, or nobody else showed; either way it must have been pretty lame. Or maybe everybody was later than me? (I waited a while).

James

Tempe AZ

My meetup complaints

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to send this to meetup.com but their online form was not working. But this is what I wrote;

I was very disappointed with our slashdot meetup in ****

First was the venue: The venue chosen was an expensive restaurant, and it was a poor choice. Out of the few people that showed up, NOBODY had voted for this venue. So how about letting the people who COMMIT to showing up for the meetup CHOOSE the venue. Actually, none of the choices presented to us were good in the first place. So we went to the Starbucks coffee accross the street. This was bad too as the music they were playing was loud and it was difficult to hear the conversation.

Secondly, why did only 8 people out of the 50 who signed up show up??? Most of the people who showed up DID NOT receive any RSVP or reminder email about venue choice.

Thirdly, the "host" for this meetup performed his duties very poorly. He did not have people introduce themselves, there was no nametags and the conversation WAS NOT on topic about slashdot or slashdot topics. Instead 3 out of the 8 people dominated the discussion about their experience in the military, leaving the rest of us out as wallflowers that were forced to listen. It would have been nice if the conversation was not dominated by a couple of people.

Fourth, there needs to be some sort of attendace accountability. Meaning that members who show up are giving preference to deciding venue choice. Also, you should keep track of attendence and drop those of the list who do not and are not serious about showing up. After all, your whole website is about people "meeting up".

Fifth, the "host" needs to be sensitve to ALL who are there and not just a couple of people who want to talk about whatever they feel like talking about. It's ok to talk about other things a little bit, but it would be logical to spend most of them time talking about slashdot and slashdot topics instead of off topic personal experiences.

It would be nice if there could be a forum or webpage for the people who wanted to meetup in a particular city too, where we could message each other and decide topics for discussion. and venue choices.

Re:My meetup complaints

[gwhalin]

Just would like to comment on a few points ...

- We send email to everyone who signs up to notify people of winning venues, to try to get people to RSVP, to notify people of venue changes, event cancellations, and a few other things. We do our best to keep the user well informed of what is happening. Perhaps people did not use real email addresses. We do tend to get a lot of bounces right after a mailing goes out. Also, please be aware that just because you have 50 members in your chapter, you may not have 50 RSVP's from these people. Many people sign up, realize that they can't make it, and do not RSVP. We can't really force people to attend or not to attend.

- We hope to improve our venues available to vote on via user suggestions. As we are organizing local gatherings for people, we know that the locals will know better than us what the great venues in their area are. So, please feel free to go to http://www.meetup.com/suggest/venue to let us know your suggestions.

- As far as poor hosts, please keep in mind that these are fellow /.'ers who have volunteered to help the event run smoothly. They are useful in helping people find each other. We do not expect the host (or anyone for that matter) to force the conversation any direction. We are simply trying to arrange gatherings for people interested in similar topics (i.e. /.).

- Please feel free to contact us via our support email (support@meetup.com). We do our best to reply to everyone who sends in, and we also take seriously all of our user problems, complaints, and suggestions.

Greg
greg@meetup.com

Re:My meetup complaints

[llefler]

Many people also sign up because it's the only way to find out where the meetup is. I wouldn't be surprised if that is also why you get a lot of fake e-mail addresses.

And maybe you should only list the people who RSVP'd.

-ll

Re:My meetup complaints

[gwhalin]

No, I fully understand why people use fake email addresses (fear of spam). I do it myself on many sites. But, if you use a fake email address, you can't expect us to actually be able to send you an email. :)

The member list has a little symbol next to those users who have RSVP'd.

Greg
greg@meetup.com

I met myself

[Chacham]

I met myself in my apartment. What a loser! I'm never gonna meet him again!

Re:karma- no bloody cats

[jmccay]

Cats rule. There is one main difference between a dog and cat when it comes to their relationship with humans. You become a dog's master, and you befriend a cat because you will never truely break a cat.

Re:Alabny Meetup make that smalbany

[klaa2]

err ..albany .. so 678 rt7 .. starbucks .. sure lure me out with the promise off coffee .. so its a office building w/ tony the tailor in the basement and various lawyers .. I hit the mobile station for smokes and the yellow pages .. yes there is or rather was a starbucks computer training something or other at 678 rt 7 .. not there now .. WTF .. who set this up. Lets do better next time .. for starters .. some place that exists .. indoors would be nice .. coffee is a must for me to start the car .. .. it took /. to make me consider actually talking with someone .. I guess I might maybe sorta kinda be a host .. if I have too .. but no hats or funny clothes .. so .. ideas into that little form box and we will vote ..

LA Meetup

[MsGeek]

About 12 people showed up at Jillian's at CityWalk. Lots of fun, however the general noise factor made any sort of serious conversation impossible.

Of the 12 people, three of us were female. In your face, NJ!

I have created an IRC channel at irc.openprojects.net called #la-meetup . Hopefully we'll figure out a time when everyone can meet in there. As far as future meetups go, we all definitely want to do this again. Whether we do it under the auspices of Meetup or not is not clear.

I'll get pix up today sometime. They'll be up on MsGeek.Org and I'll send a link address to the folks at Meetup.

columbia, MD?

[karb]

Just moved there but had other obligations last night. Since I saw only about three or four RSVP's, reading the posts, did it actually happen?

Re:columbia, MD?

[ecarlson]

Columbia was canceled due to lack of RSVP's. Didn't you get the e-mail? I did. I went to the Alexandria, Virginia (aka. DC) one instead, and it was great. We had 25-30 people there out of 184 who were on the list.

Re:columbia, MD?

[karb]

Didn't get the email ... one of the reasons I couldn't go is that I can't access that email address at the moment :) :)

thanks :)

Milwaukee any1?

[pcs305]

Did Milwaukee happen? Duty called I could not make it. (did not rsvp)

It sounds like.

[/dev/trash]

A big scam. 80 people signed up, only 3 showed up. Or I was the only person in a bar with no other customers.

Dublin meatspace

[ynohoo]

Like I said earlier...#3957083

Re:Alabny Meetup make that smalbany

[Anonymous Coward]

I never said I was gonna go but I think I might next time or so... Finding a good place to meet is deff a must. Professor Java's is always a cool place.

Vancouver Meetup

[MagikSlinger]

It was a small affair of about 8 or so people. We had fun until at least 8:30 pm when a couple of us left. We all agreed a better venue than Starbucks was needed. Preferably someplace that served real food & beer. Someone took a digital photo and will be soon available elsewhere.

Re:Vancouver Meetup

[Asparfame]

I was another atendee. Just posting this so I can remember your username easily.

Re:Vancouver Meetup

[Asparfame]

By the way, I was one of the UBC students (Aviv). The one in the orange / yellow shirt. The guy with the camera is a friend of mine, so I'll bug him to put the picture somewhere soon. Who were you? I don't remember anybody's name unfortunately, so I'll need a visual cue.

Re:Vancouver Meetup

[MagikSlinger]

Travers Naran. Tall and big framed.

Seattle meat-up

[MsWillow]

It went well, I thought. Had close to 20 people show up. Somebody *did* bring a digital camera, and soon got to discussing its features, price, battery life and other geeky things :) Nobody brought a laptop, notebook or anything like that :(

Sit & Spin was rather noisy - it's a great funky place for three to five people, but with this many, it got obnoxious. I never even met half the people, because they were on the other side of the table and I couldn't even see several through the decor, let alone hear them.

Oh, and there were a total of *three* women there, which seems like a pretty high number, from what I read about the other meetings :)

We chatted about distros, bashed Micro$loth, wailed about karma, music, heck, Vikki even waxed eloquent on her political views (which are slightly to the right of Ghengis Khan :) ).

Somebody earlier had a great idea: Meetup should allow people who actually show up to have more voting power over the next venue. YES!!! There *was* parking, at $6, behind the building, but then you had to walk 2 blocks to get in the front (they weren't allowing people in from the back - that was for the bands that started at 9:00, throwing us all out). Two blocks may not sound like a problem, but I have multiple sclerosis - my total safe daily walking ability is about 4 blocks. After getting in the building, then standing and chatting for two hours, I was *seriously* beat :(

Maybe something up north a tad would be better? Near Northgate? There's good bus connectivity there, and enough space that free parking is the norm rather than the exception. Plus, maybe this time we could find a place more suited to gatherings of more than 4 people at a time?

Regardless, I still want to attend the next one. Vikki may opt out - she's not really a people person, preferring the feel of a keyboard under her fingers (or a soldering iron in her hands) to actually going someplace to chat.

Re:Seattle meat-up

[Comte]

I got there kind of late, around 8-ish, and didn't see any crowd, so just hung out for a while. Were you all at the big table by the window? That seemed to be the only sizeable group, but even then it only looked like a half dozen, so I figured either it was a big no-show or too small a group for me to ID.

I actually did go in the back, because The Gun Street Girls were supposed to make an appearance, starting at around 9:00 p.m., but by 11:00 they still hadn't hit the stage -- Wattawaste!

Re:Seattle meat-up

[starling]

Maybe something up north a tad would be better? Near Northgate?

Fremont might be worth considering. There are a few spacious bars (the Dubliner in particular is a great meeting spot), it's easy to get to by bus and there's plenty of on-street parking.

Wish I could have made it to this one but work intervened...

Re:Seattle meat-up

[hawky]

I showed up with my wife, we ended up parking across the street, it was $3 for evenings, and it was closer than walking around the block.

We left with about 6 others around 8:30pm to go look for food, ended up walking a few blocks away to Huricane. Was decent, and I am glad to have met some good people :)

Re:Seattle meat-up

[Gumber]

Sorry I didn't make it. I was feeling rather ambivalent. Probably just as well, I don't deal with noisy places very well.

Northgate is very easy for me to get too, but it seems to be dominated by horrid chains.

One idea would be Zeitgeist Espresso down near Pioneer square. I say this because it is a pretty big space and they have free 802.11b connectivity, which hopefully no-one will use, except maybe to stream, but knowing it is there should give people a warm fuzzy feeling.

Thuey usually close at 7:00pm, I think, but they might stay open later if arrangements were made. 20 people should be enough incentive to stay open late and it would guarantee we have the place to ourselves.

On the other hand, they aren't a bar.

They also have a smaller place on capitol hill that is open late.

Re:Seattle meat-up

[MsWillow]

The crowd was around the round table near the counter. The one with a rather large HVAC pipe "sculpture" over it?

I was wearing a green blouse, standing, chatting with a few others. 'S a pity you didn't notice the people with the stick-on name tags.

Re:Seattle meat-up

[pryan]

I was one of the people at the other side of the group. Sorry I didn't get to meet you. The guy who had a digital camera brought an iBook as well. I wonder if he'll post the images. I brought my laptop but left it in the car; there didn't seem to be a point without network connectivity. :) I will be bringing my digital camera next time, though.

I thought Sit 'n Spin was a good pick. Parking on the street is free by 7, but finding a spot was tough. The next venue should have better parking and be a little quieter; a network connection would be nice, too. Perhaps Speakeasy or the Bauhaus cafe? Another option might be a restaurant like Denny's or the Hurricane.

Re:Seattle meat-up

[chartreuse]

The meetup was fun and pleasantly geeky too. I'm not sure Sit & Spin is really the right place for meeting, though. Pluses: all-ages (I think we had a few folks who'd be underage at a bar), reasonably centrally located, and not much cigarette smoke. Minuses: it was hard to find table space, there was intrusive background music that limited conversation to a six-foot radius (if that), no network access, and it's not all-ages after 8:30 or so.

Bars aren't all-ages (and usually have smoke and too-loud music), and restaurants may have unrealistic expectations about everybody ordering food. Internet cafes and coffeehouses may be the best locales for this.

The Zeitgeist is a nice space but Pioneer Square is a little out of the way and somewhat dangerous as well (it's where Seattle's original Skid Road was). The Speakeasy would've been a good place to meet, unfortunately it burned down last year. The Hurricane might work if we could reserve a table or two ahead of time. It might also be worth it to check out the Vivace Roasteria (at Denny & Broadway on Capitol Hill, overlooking the reservoir), they've got some space and are open late, IIRC.

Anyhow, thanks to everybody for making it, I'm looking forward to next month. And I hope the guy who photo'd the meetup posts the images!

Karma is now capped at "Excellent"

[Cy Guy]

As another former karma 50+ I too find this bothersome. The switch to word based karma would have been an ideal time to get rid of the foolish cap business. Personally I would like to see the following levels beyond Excellent:

• Superhero
• godlike
• Demi-God
• God
• CowboyNeal

LURN TU SPEL YUNG GRASHOPEER

[Anonymous Coward]

Twin Cities Meetup

[Xaroth]

I think the best part of the evening was when we attempted to /. the bar by ordering everything simultaneously, and then repeating our orders three or four times when they didn't come fast enough.

DC (Alexandria, VA) meetup

[ecarlson]

I think we had at least 4 women at the DC meetup (out of 25-30 people), including one who did the organizing (thanks).

The restaurant was a little too noisy, but we eventually got our own room, but it wasn't away from the noise.

We had at least one laptop, one digicam, which we passed around so everyone could take photos (I also had mine, but we didn't use it), and someone had a neat little VCD player, which was like a CD walkman with a video screen embeded in the lid.

Of course, everyone (just about) had a cell phone, and there were probably lots of PDA's.

Hopefully the next one will be a little farther away from the city (like in Fairfax county, where a lot of us live), so we don't have to deal with so much traffic.

Re:DC (Alexandria, VA) meetup

[TheSync]

Yeah, the DC meet was very cool! I even ran into people I knew, but was unaware that they were coming to the event.

Re:DC (Alexandria, VA) meetup

[Fnord]

Its very strange to see a post about the Alexandria meet in response to the Seattle meet. I just escaped from Alexandria to Seattle. No matter how hard I try to get away from there it somehow worm's its way back into my life.

(ps. No I didn't go to the Seattle meet. Wanted to but was stuck at work until midnight last night)

Iowa?

[hether]

Did any of the Iowa groups actually get together? There were several scheduled across the state, but I haven't seen anything about them yet. Next time I may consider driving to one of the more interesting ones if I hear a good report.

Oddly enough, the meetup suggested as closest to me when I entered my zip is NOT the closest. Didn't really matter though. Either way, one listed 5 signups and the other had none. I have a feeling only maybe Des Moines, Cedar Rapids or Iowa City drew people.

Re:Iowa?

[TuxChick]

I just wanted to let you know that the meetup in mason city, ia went great. I was the only girl, but we all had fun talking about geek stuff.

Cincinnati Meetup

[HoldenCaulfield]

Well, the Cinci meetup went pretty well . . . we didn't have a host, so the initial getting a table/finding other people part was a bit difficult. Our meetup was at a Chili's, about 20 minutes from downtown. We probably had a dozen people over the course of the night, over a pretty broad spectrum. We had IT professionals, a high school student, a med student, a contractor or two, a tech, and me (the materials engineering grad who's looking for a job.)

Discussion was interesting, with there usually being two or three discussions going simultaneously about various topics. These varied from WiFi, to distros, to mutual aquaintances. I'm not the biggest computer geek out there, so there were definitely areas where I was out of my depth, but the conversations were still interesting.

I don't know when the meetup ended, but I left a little after nine because I was heading out to a bar with some non-Slashdot friends of mine (though there was definitely a part of me who would have liked to have stayed and chatted some more). Overall a good time . . .

I'm one of those people who didn't show.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have gone to the Austin meetup, but:

- I had to signup to find out where it was.
- My name wound up on the list.
- It was then that I learned that it would be held at a bar downtown.
- My girlfriend is 20. ... Even if I had wanted to deal with the parking and the crowds (downtown austin during happy hour becomes progressively less pleasant as you get near the weekend), we couldn't have gotten in together.

No offense to the austin host(s) (I assume their hands were somewhat tied by the meetup.com system), but TALK ABOUT PISS-POOR PLANNING. Not on a weekend, during happy hour, half the venues were bars (some geeks aren't quite old enough, others I'm sure aren't big drinkers), and you had to commit to go just to be able to decide whether or not you could make it.

This is not rocket science, folks. In order:

1.) Pick a time.
2.) Make sure said time does not potentially exclude large portions of your user base.
3.) Pick a venue.
4.) Make sure said venue does not potentially exclude large portions of your user base.
5.) Publish information (including time AND venue) to your user base.
6.) THEN have people sign up.

San Fran via New York via Pakistan on H1B :)

[Anonymous Coward]

The San Fran meetup was a total blast, here was a bunch of people who used terms like Markov Chains and Next Generation of AI in a conversation about P0rn! and Quake! well ok some one *HAD* to bring in RTS to ruin the conversation, but overall it was fun. I also got my chance to meet The Man! or atleast someone aspiring to be one. We also had two of Bay area's sweetest chicks between us, too bad I am hooked up already. The third one (ConsumedByTV's gf) simply won't talk to us :(

By the way guys, I am the guy who came as Anonymous Coward.

Love ya'll
Faraz

Bad experience in So California

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi -

Thought I would post this here as well. A few problems:

The South Bay / Long Beach location was inside the Del Amo mall where we would have to leave by 9 PM. Maybe that is why too few people RSVP'ed and it was cancelled.

The Orange County one was at the Irvine Spectrum which is a cool mall, but on the south edge of O.C. A location in Santa Ana or Costa Mesa would have been more centrally located for O.C.

My (brilliant? obvious?) idea to have the San Diego meetup at the Sheraton Hotel to coincide with OSCON 2002 was not used.

I think the idea of these "meetups" is great, but from what I have seen this time around, the locations set via slashdot.meetup.org in this area were not that good.

TWR, Torrance, CA

No Ottawa listed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps this has already been asked before, but...what the hell!

Why in the world isn't there a group meeting in Ottawa? With our nickname of Silicon Valley North, plus a hotbed (or what used to be a hotbed) of hi-tech, I'm surprised that there isn't a group meeting somewhere. Clocktower Pub, anybody?

Re:No Ottawa listed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, you can have a big meeting at the Unemployment office line up!

Had a great time

[zephc]

getting to meet new people that new what karma and mod points were =]

Our group (the san jose, ca) one was about 17 or 18, a few people larger than who had RSVPed for it, but we hope to get more people next time! A Yahoo! Groups list is being set up for the people in this area asap.

We want more people here next time! 88 people on the list, and I want at least *HALF* RSVPed next time! Of course, we will have to find a larger venue in that case...

San Francisco venue

[mahlen]

So how did Cafe Cocomo (http://www.cafecocomo.com/) work out? When i found out that it was a dance club with a dress code, it seemed like a really mindless choice for a /. meeting, so I passed on it. But it sounds like i missed out. Did Cocomo end up having /. appropriate places, or was every S.F. nerd more stylishly dressed than I would expect?

mahlen

When the president does it, that means it's not illegal.
--Richard Nixon

Re:San Francisco venue

[RealDhar]

We bailed on Cocomo when they told us we couldn't come in without dance shoes. We left a sign and headed down the street to Goat Hill Pizza.

That, and Cocomo didn't open until 7:30. Makes me wonder who did the research on these places...

-g.

San Francisco Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

The SF meetup was supposed to be at a place called the 'cocomo cafe' at 7:00. I arrived around 7:10 to see about 4 people standing outside waiting to go in. Apparently, the place didn't actually open until 7:30. So we stand around talking in this light industrial area south of the bay bridge, enjoying the graffiti art spray painted on the warehouses across the street, until 7:30. By now about 15 people have shown up. So we make our move to the enterance and someone from inside starts telling us we need dancing shoes to get inside. F**king dancing shoes! So there it is, we had to wait half an hour to get told to go away unless you have some dancing shoes. So we go back outside and formulate a plan to meet a few blocks away at 'goat hill pizza'. Before leaving, we place a sign on the fence to guide any stragglers starting with 'Nerds can't dance...'.

We caravan over to the Goat Hill Pizza place and eventually are seated and order pizza and beer and had a good time talking. The attendants were uniformly in the software/networking industry. We had the person, whose name I forget, dressed in all black, leather, with long black hair and three inch fingernails. He was a really nice guy and had an old apple newton with him. Slashchick actually showed up with her friend. She's a babe ;-) There was a video game developer (or at least someone who spends a lot of time talking about video games ;-), a gcc maintainer, and quite a few unemployed software guys looking for a new gig. All in all, it was great to meet other /. people in the area, but the location issues should really be worked out in the future. I'll look forward to seeing everyone again at another meeting.

Re:San Francisco Meetup

[jenbee]

it'd be great to get suggestions from sf people for venues for the next meetup. sorry about the cocomo mixup - they are OUT of our venue database. (we didn't know about the dress code thing when we added them initially.) post your suggestions here or email them to me directly. venue voting opens soon, so the sooner the better. jen@meetup.com

Re:San Francisco Meetup

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Slashchick and her friend were babes, really! ;)

They should do a poll!

[smoondog]

New Karma System:

1. Excellent
2. Good
3. Neutral
4. Bad
5. Terrible
6. Cowboy Neal

-Sean (I may have the order/names wrong, so sue me.)

San Francisco meetup...

[SlashChick]

Well, this will probably go into oblivion since there are already 300+ comments posted, but I thought I'd add our locale's story.

I arrived with my friend Valorie at about 7:45 (we were late because we had to walk her dog!) We went into the venue (Cafe Cocomo) only to find out that it was a salsa dance club that had just opened at 7:30. When we walked back outside, we noticed some geeks in a car and asked them if they were with the Slashdot meetup. They said yes and pointed us to a sign on the gate that started with "Nerds can't dance..." and ended with directions to a local pizza joint.

People straggled into the pizza joint until about 8:15, when the pizza place finally found a table to accommodate 14 people. (Considering 110+ people signed up, this was a rather disappointing turnout. Our host didn't even arrive!) I took over the ordering of the pizzas, and we snarfed down 4 pizzas and two orders of garlic bread, as well as a lot of beer, wine, and soda.

There were definitely some interesting people there. Everyone I talked to had written software of some sort -- one guy had written shareware to search for porn, and two other guys carried around an iBook with some software that searched for open wireless LANs. One guy had legally changed his name to Lunatic! He had the most interesting fingernails -- he grew them way out and some of them were several inches long. It seemed to be a pretty Mac-centric crowd, but then again, this is San Francisco, so I wasn't surprised.

All in all, we had a great time and a lot of fun. If you're a Slashdot reader in or around San Francisco, please join the slashdot-sf Yahoo group so we can keep in touch.

Here are a couple of other wrapups I found from our group: Anonymous Coward and another Anonymous Coward. (I was surprised at the number of people without Slashdot usernames!)

And to those of you who signed up but didn't go (including our host), well, you missed out on a fun night!

Re:San Francisco meetup...

[valorie]

At first I was a bit skeptical about going to a /. meetup since I've only been a reader until today, but considering attending was a great way to meet some fantastic new people, I agreed to go with Slashchick .

So, thank you, my friend, for dragging me along!

-Valorie

Meet spot

[Anonymous Coward]

Our meet spot was a place with no seating... what did they expect us to do? Stay?

BK

Re:karma- no bloody cats

[travdaddy]

Everyone hates cats.

Yeah. That's what everyone said at the meeting.

Another Nashvegas Meetup Review

[remoford]

About 14 of us met at T.G.I Friday's for the Nashville-area meetup. Ages ranged from 17 to early 30's, and amazingly both genders were represented, so conversation was lively and covered a multitude of topics. Slashdotters exchanged friendly greetings with such gratuitous puns as "We've slashdotted the server," etc. The somewhat unexpected turn-out provided ample opportunity for the professionals to share some much-needed advice with the students, advice that may soon be put to use in apprenticing/interning positions. The overall experience was rewarding, providing us geeks with a techno-fellowship we don't often have the opportunity to enjoy offline. Even after the meal and the departure of a few working slashdotters, conversation continued in the parking lot and even as I type this, slashdotters sit behind me in my house discussing esoteric filesystems and their applications - and this is 5 1/2 hour after we first met up. I think I can safely say that the Nashville-area meet has been a definite success. Kudos to whoever came up with the idea, and I hope all the other meets turned out as well as ours did.

Plattsburgh, NY

[anewman]

Anything happen in Plattsburgh? I checked and like 4 people were signed up, I had also made plans... anything happen?

Atlanta Meetup experience

[Anonymous Coward]

I couldn't make it until 8pm; admittedly an hour late. That said, I didn't have a positive experience. I agree with the grievances of these two Atlanta Meetup posters as well.

Nobody was at the Village Coffeehouse venue. Further, it didn't look like our twenty RSVP's could have fit inside it. The woman behind the counter indicated that a small group had left and walked south down Moreland Avenue recently. So I loitered until 8:30, then walked to as many L5P bars as I could- to no avail.

My suggestions for next time:

• Be on-time (my bad)
• If a venue must be abandoned, leave a forwarding address
• Propose only those venues that are capable of supporting a group of our size

Thanks.

Re:Atlanta Meetup experience

[ssyladin]

First, I was late too - it happens, its okay. Second, we *did* leave a forwarding address, complete with the MeetUp logo on it and a map. We went someplace with alcohol, since everyone at that point was of age. I agree with your third grievance - the place was hard to find and the size wasn't big enough.

Hopefully we can get a better handle on things in the future. OH well.

Re:Atlanta Meetup experience

[Erik_Kahl]

I think I'll submit Dave and Buster's as a venue choice. Its on 85 past north of 285 a couple miles.

Any Atlanta folks have any thoughts, objections, support?

Re:Atlanta Meetup experience

[Anonymous Coward]

> Second, we *did* leave a forwarding
> address, complete with the MeetUp logo
> on it and a map

Uh- where? I specifically looked around for something like that and couldn't find one anywhere. Did anyone come late saying they'd actually seen the forwarding sign?

Southeastern Virginia Meeting

[Anonymous Coward]

Southeastern Virginia (virginia Beach) meeting
went well. 17 people showed up at the Five 01
Bar and Grill. Because of the venue layout, the group was divided into 3 large booths.

The turnout was better than I would have expected
for our region. We are going to post the pictures
and put up some information at www.757.org/geekmeet over the weekend. Haven't had a chance yet -- didn't leave last night until 11pm.

The host never showed that I know of.

Albuquerque

[Sloppy]

We had a lot more people show up than RSVPed. I was only expecting 5 or 6 people, and there were (damn, I didn't think to count) maybe around 15? We actually did "slashdot" the interior of a Starbucks, but it was a nice evening and there was space and tables outside, so other people still had a place to go.

Slashdot seems to overlap 2600 quite a bit. There were a lot of 2600ers who already knew each other, but also a few of us outsiders who didn't know anyone.

There were a few people who I think were under 21 (CS undergrad students). I'm glad we didn't have the meetup in a bar, because if these people (I'm thinking of one in particular) had been excluded, I think things would have been less lively. I mean, just because they think perl is a decent language, doesn't mean we should get rid of them -- I'm sure as they get older they'll start to see the light and switch to Python. ;-)

I was the guy who had been pushing for a PGP/GPG signing party and failed, but at the meetup I found at that there is at least some interest. So I guess I'll try again next month.

Everyone was very friendly and I enjoyed it. Whoever's idea this was, gets a karma point.

Re:Albuquerque

[Nathaniel]

"We had a lot more people show up than RSVPed. I was only expecting 5 or 6 people, and there were (damn, I didn't think to count) maybe around 15? "

It was like there were maybe 16 there, what with the proxy. ;-}

Moderation and Karma

[Nonesuch]

I hadn't been watching my karma score so much to get to 50, as to notice when my comments were moderated. I login and I'm up a point or two and I know one of my comments was moderated so look to see which one. Now I login, see I'm still at excellent, and have no clue if any of my comments have been moderated. I'd have to go through each comment to see if there was a change.

If you enable messages in your profile, then your Slashdot messages page will list replies to and moderation of your posts.

COLUMBUS OHIO MEET

[mr_gerbik]

Man.. it was slow here. Here at the Columbus meet, it was just me and 10 strippers. These girls were complete sluts. The problem was, they were all Redhat users, it was so lame. I wish there would have been some more nerdy Debian types there... maybe next time.

-gerbik

My apologies to paris

[protohiro1]

Je suis désolé, mais j'ai eu un cours, qui coûte assez cher. (Je ne veux pas le rater, ça c'est sûr) Mais je pense que c'est vraiment pas mal comme idée, surtout pour les étrangers et expats...Et la prochaine fois, bon, j'ai trouvé un nouveau boulot aux USA, donc... si vous êtes à Boulder...

your web page

[Anonymous Coward]

The "How to Negotiate a Job Offer" link on your page doesn't work.

Re:your web page

[Samrobb]

The "How to Negotiate a Job Offer" link on your page doesn't work.

Thanks for the heads up; I'll see about fixing it. In the meantime, you can reach the Geek Ed pages with the following links:

How Stock Options Work
How To Negotiate a Job Offer

Re:I would have gone

[M3 QT]

I don't think we have to prove anything to you.

Broward County meetup

[bobdole369]

I sure didn't go - seeing as everybody (EVERYONE) wanted to go to sawgrass. Somehow (meetup probably had a kickback) Corner Pocket Billiards (WAY on the other side of the county, and not in the best neighborhood) got chosen as a venue. BS as far as I'm concerned. That site is stupid...

Chipper
who the heck chose corner pocket billiards, I won't be visitng Wilton Manners. Sawgrasswas a better idea.

Suggestions for Future Meetups

[XO]

Having been to a semi-successful MeetUp (Ann Arbor, Michigan), I'd like to add in a few comments that I hope get modded UP so that people will see them, and make their Future MeetUps (if they intend to have them...) a lot easier to deal with.

Pick a restaurant, or other relatively well known public place, that you know EXISTS. This is what Venue Voting is for. If you see places that don't exist, you might want to contact MeetUp, so that they don't continue to get people looking for places that don't exist! If you're in an area where people might be travelling long distances, vote for a site that's EASY to find for people who might not be familiar with your area - something near a Highway/Interstate, or at least near some major crossroads. Our location was just about perfect - although packed as heck, and we had to wait 40 minutes or so for a table, at the corner of US 23 and M17/Washtenaw is a pretty easy to identify location.

First person there (or, even before hand) should let the staff know that there's a group of people by the name of "slashdot" (or "slashdog" if your waitress is too busy checking out Reverend George, when you tell her the name). Get some space reserved. I thought 8 people was pretty decent, esp since there were only 5 RSVP'd when I last checked before leaving for the restaurant. Brendan (probably the youngest person at any of the meetups - 7th grade makes you .. what.. 12? 13?) had the wonderful thought of reserving a spot for as many as he saw on the RSVP board, and then the waitresses got to help put us together.. though by that point, we had amassed into a group of 5 not-at-all-looking-like-we-would-be-together people, so when the next person wanders by they're like "oh, you're slashdot."

Second.. wear some geek clothing, or something. Just by chance, Tomo and I happened to pull into the parking lot, and park nose-to-nose at the exact same moment, and then after not finding anyone, we returned to our vehicles to hang out.. obviously looking like we were waiting for something. If anyone owns a /. hat or t-shirt, that's probably a REALLY good indicator, I just picked the geekiest looking thing that I could find.. (yeah, I know my employer's not THAT geeky, but i didn't want to wear my Sprint t-shirt as that got me deluded with insults the last time i wore it to a gathering) Since my vehicle is pretty beat up, I might just spray paint a big "/." on the hood of my truck next time. lol.

Third: Stick around. if you're going to a spot that's got food, even if there's only one or two people that pop in, grab some food. play some video games. Just hang out.. do SOMETHING at the location. We're geeks. Many of us are habitually very late. Many of us are referred to by our co-workers as operating in our very own time zones. People will come in late. Also, people might be driving in from a way away, and not familiar with directions or traffic issues.

Fourth: voice your concerns with the people at Meetup. Obviously since slashdot represents the largest number of people on meetup so far, it's quite new. I think the people who set it up did an excellent job on the site, but obviously there's a few things that need to be addressed. If they don't soon setup any way to communicate amongst people in the site, then I'd like to welcome everyone to come and make use of the message boards and instant messaging at my site ( http://mage.kicks-ass.net/ ). Yes, Slashdot is a big message board. It's sheer size makes it almost a difficult medium to use to communicate with people, back and forth. I rarely see any CONVERSATION on slashdot, just comments on stories.

Fifth: Have fun!

Hey.. did anyone show for the meeting in Southgate, MI? I went to head over that way after I got back home and did what I had to do there, but encountered some really bad construction zones that yahoo's driving directions took me through, and all the street signs were missing, so i couldn't find anything.

Thanks for showing up George, Martin, Eric, Brendan, Tomo, Jason, anyone I forgot...

-out

Re:karma- no bloody cats

[CaptainEcchi]

It's okay, my cat hates you, too.

Another Melbourne-Montreal connection

[ynotds]

booked the meeting at 7 at a nightclub that doesn't open till 8:30.

That was our story that started the thread in the first place.

The place the Melbourne gathering finished up at was more than appropriate. It didn't just have a row of Internet terminals available for $A2 an hour if you bought a drink, but the tipping jar on the counter next to the Internet prices promised to improve your karma.

Bozeman, MT

[ken_i_m]

meetup.com's website said not enough people had signed up for a /. meetup here. um... whatever. There were 5 of us at the BozemanLUG meeting. The LUG meets the last Thursday of each month so we will have a conflict anyway. Nonetheless, I am surprised because Bozeman is a very high-tech oriented area. Linux Meetup Day is August 6th and there will be one of those here.

--
I think, therefore, ken_i_m
"Doing my part to spread the open and free software memes."

LA Meetup: Pix

[MsGeek]

Here's the pix page...
http://www.msgeek.org/html/la-meetup/

Re:LA Meetup: Pix

[red5]

Oh shit. I showed up late and tried (and failed) to find the group. I was totaly standing right next to you at the bar. I though it might be you guys but how would I go about asking?

Me to randome guy: "Excuse me, have you ever heard of slashdot?"
Randome guy: "Are you trying to sell drugs in here? Security!"

Err, yeh.

[autopr0n]

Well, that guy obviously was less then 50, so he could not have gotten above. My old acount still has like more then 100. Or it did, anyway.

Sacramento, CA

[Bill Kendrick]

Sacramento's was good. I have a feeling there'd've been more than the 12 who showed up if the venue hadn't changed at 12:30 that afternoon. :) (Someone forgot to see if the winning venue _existed!_ D'oh!)

Anyway, I was there, 'representin' the big LUG in the area, LUGOD. The head of the smaller SacLUG (a coworker of mine at Worldcom, in fact) was there too.

Interestingly, most of the folks who showed up were people I've never met - so they aren't regular LUG'ers. They will be, though. Bwahaha.

One dude who came had just recently moved to the west coast (if you could call Sacramento that!) from Flordia.

As with one of the posted meet-ups above, noone brought their digital camera. I had my Zaurus, though, of course, and showed off the recently-ported Doom running on it, and handed out some leftover handouts Sharp gave me for LUGOD. ;^)

I should go into marketing...

-bill!

Toronto Meetpup Pics

[Gurukhan]

I reached Rivoli (meetup place) @ 7:10 and thought I must be late .. then found out that I was the 2nd to reach there !!!!! Anyways .. I had a nice time there .... when I left @ 11:00 there were still 5-10 ppl. Here are the pics @ http://www.zaksolutions.com, and Rachel Is NOT an alien !!!