Nick, I understand you're joking, but that doesn't mean that you aren't discouraging people from coming. Please understand just how scary it is to go meet other people, especially people who have very large amounts of those character traits you value the most.
On a side note, are you in contact with Bay Area people on KW? I know Ashley's in SF and I think Jomun Dogu is too. Could you advertise this over there?
ETA: The main way I see this sort of joke reducing attendance is by making the scenario in which a person goes to the meet up only to be mocked for ignorance or lack of in group fashion much more available. There are quite a few people who feel that they either intrinsically fail to meet the standards of LW or would only meet them after having read the sequences/graduated college (high school)/read all the fashionable literature/whatever. Even with me specifically renouncing this point of view, people are still being intimidated. I don't want someone to either think harder about possible negative receptions or think that the official line (as espoused by me) will not be held to by everyone.
I can agree with this. I was really hesitant when I went to the last one of these, and I'm still not sure if I'm going to go again. It's not that I had a bad time, it's just that everyone there seems far more competent than me.
Edit - please disregard this post
ETA: Any Late-comers, We did end up in the VLSB.
Hi all, it seems we've reach that time of the month, that time when we get together and be rational in Berkeley. As usual, we'll meet at the Starbucks at 2128 Oxford Street at 7 pm, then move into the atrium in the Valley Life Sciences Building on the Berkeley Campus. There'll be an expedition to get food, so don't feel that you have to eat before hand.
I want to make a special plea to the lurkers on lesswrong to come, I promise no one will think poorly of you if you're still in High School, aren't a member of Mensa, or haven't read the sequences. This is a social event where we get together with people who like rationality, not a way for the shadowy cabal of beisutsukai to puzzle out the secret of quantum gravity. Even if you only just linked here from Methods of Rationality, I and everyone else here wants to get to know you.
Hope to see you all there!