In my opinion, having meet-ups announced at the front page (which is 'promoted') is very important because if strangers accidentally first and for a short period of time visit the site and see a meetup in their region, they might decide to go there. Getting new people into rationality and having many people at meetups is, IMO, more important than the small nuisance of having to scroll past the meetups.
I think the probability of the above is slim and better served by a bright meetup button or some such solution.
I think whatever the probability that a first time stranger sees a meetup close to them geographically and goes is eclipsed by the probability that the user will not be presented with an article of interest and that they will never become interested in the site.
With only 2/10 articles promoted being articles a person is far less likely to see something accessible/of interest to them.
This said everything in moderation. If the ratio was reversed so that 2/10 were promotions for meetups this would not be an issue. If though you wish to post this many meetups to a prominent place on the website we need some sort of change to the structure of the website.
You are probably correct at this. A structural change to the website so that meetups and actual posts are placed seperate but are equally visible would probably be best.
The problem is that I'd want a high probability of people noticing meet-ups they want to attend. I suggest meet-ups as both a tab on the top navigation bar and as an upcoming meet-ups list on the right-hand margin. It sounds redundant, but that seems to be livable for comments.
Would an opt out option in your settings be enough to satisfy you? As well as an additional rss feed that did not include meetups?
That way people can opt-out rather then requiring people to opt in to receive meetup notifications.
Would this solution be satisfying you? Do you think it would satisfy the community?
I think the impulse to promote all meetups was a good idea but now adding to much noise to the "PROMOTED" feed. Of the 10 "PROMOTED" feeds 8 are adverts for meetups.
I propose adding Meetups to the navigation bar and only adding them to "PROMOTED" when they are especially significant; for example have a special speaker and might draw attention from people who are out of town.