And we're back to the question of why it doesn't just say "upcoming meetups", without the need to point out that these are "nearby"...
Agreed. If it's labelled "Nearby" then I expect it to sort by distance and exclude anything more than ~500 miles away. Paris is not "nearby" to the US, and neither is Australia.
Alternately, relabel it "Upcoming Meetups" because that is more informative. I'd prefer to just see it re-labelled, because there will probably never be more than a couple "local" meetups near me. New York and California seem to be the only states with more than one regular meetup right now, and I doubt many of us are interested in driving 100+ miles for a meetup on any sort of regular basis.
ETA: Note that no further meetup summary posts are planned. Further coordination will take place via the Upcoming Meetups tab on the right-side site navigation bar.
There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:
Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: New York, Berkeley, Mountain View, Cambridge, MA, Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco, Irvine. And now, Washington, DC and West Los Angeles.
If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun!
To reduce front page clutter, the new plan is for meetups to be initially posted in the Discussion section, and for Anna Salamon to make a promoted post "upcoming meetups" post every Friday that links to every meet-up that has been planned for the next two weeks. For this week, please let me know if your meetup is omitted.
Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post about your meetup before the Friday before your meetup!
If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: London, Chicago, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Ottawa, Helsinki, Melbourne.