Meetup Tactics Open Thread

I think we need to have more discussion of meetup tactics on LW. At my local meetup, we've been feeling a bit lost about what works best, so I hereby propose that we have semi-regular meetup tactics discussions like the open and quotes threads.

So here's a few questions to start us off:

What activities or topics of discussion have been particularly productive? What is not?
Have fun adventurous things like hiking or climbing worked?
What is your opinion on the purpose of the meetups? Is it about community? Additional discussion and learning? Practice?
Is it a good idea to have different types of meetup (discussion night, fun day, social, ???), or should everything be scheduled into regular meetups?
What things have worked for building community? There should have been some community disasters by now as well, what caused them?
What has worked for actual practice and leveling up? What hasn't?
What topics produce good discussions? How much structure should discussions have?
How does your meetup get more people to come out (recruitment, attendance, etc). What works, what doesn't work?
What untested ideas do you have for any of the above?

Discuss.

So here's a few questions to start us off:

What activities or topics of discussion have been particularly productive? What is not?
Have fun adventurous things like hiking or climbing worked?
What is your opinion on the purpose of the meetups? Is it about community? Additional discussion and learning? Practice?
Is it a good idea to have different types of meetup (discussion night, fun day, social, ???), or should everything be scheduled into regular meetups?
What things have worked for building community? There should have been some community disasters by now as well, what caused them?
What has worked for actual practice and leveling up? What hasn't?
What topics produce good discussions? How much structure should discussions have?
How does your meetup get more people to come out (recruitment, attendance, etc). What works, what doesn't work?
What untested ideas do you have for any of the above?

Discuss.

I suspect that you are asking for answers to wrong questions from a wrong crowd.

If you want to find out why people do not show up, you ought to ask those who do not show up, not those who do, otherwise it is just guesswork.

And the question you probably want to ask is "You learned that there is a LW meetup in your area, but you decided not to participate. Do you remember what went through your mind when you made this decision?"

"You learned that there is a LW meetup in your area, but you decided not to participate. Do you remember what went through your mind when you made this decision?"

I participated in a couple of Helsinki meetups, but the atmosphere didn't grab me - it was mostly geeky, slightly awkward discussion about geeky topics. Nothing that I couldn't find plenty of elsewhere. (Any Helsinki meetup attendees reading this shouldn't take it personally. I'm not blaming anyone who was present - I'll be the first to admit that I probably contributed to that atmosphere as much as anyone else.)

7[anonymous]14y

I don't see how asking lesswrong people about what has and hasn't worked is the wrong approach. We have very little discussion of that topic here and I think we need more. We are asking people the question you suggest, but that's not really what this thread is about. Anyways, I'll ask you to start. IIRC you are from vancouver, and your reason for not coming to our meetups is something about us being to young. Can you elaborate on that and what we could do to make you feel more welcome?

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