Where were we going again?

June 20, 2007 8:46 AM

Is it possible for admins or orginal posters to edit at the top of a meetup post? Like in this recent meetup thread. It's confusing to read through the whole thing and come out with no idea of whether time, date and place have been settled.
posted by brina to Feature Requests at 8:46 AM (19 comments total)

We can do it but we prefer not to babysit meetup threads or have to have that level of interactions with other people's MeTa posts. Theoretically people should add a decided meetup to the MeTa sidebar or someone in the thread can make a MeTa post like this one.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:49 AM on June 20, 2007

I get that, Jessamyn, and it totally makes sense. I guess what I was wondering is if some sort of time/date/place format could be made available at the top of the thread, so that one doesn't have to scroll all the way to the bottom to find that nobody likes Bar X, or it's too crowded, so everyone's going to Bar Y instead, except they're going three hours earlier and two weeks later.

Theoretically, if such a feature were available, the top of the post would eventually say: Meetup is at TIME on DATE at PLACE. Almost in the same way that a title can be changed on an IRC discussion.
posted by brina at 9:00 AM on June 20, 2007

The easiest way for that to happen is for someone to delete and add an event to the MeTa sidebar or for people to get in the habit of checking the bottom of the thread first.

On the other hand, your idea makes sense but I don't know if it's any better than updating the sidebar entry [since who could edit the date/time/place? anyone? admins and the OP? what if the OP isn't going and someone else is? what if you email the admins to update it and they don't because they're out and about?]. This seems to be a concern at places that have frequent and possibly shifting meetups which is very few of the MeFi meetups except in places like NY and Portland [OREGON].
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:07 AM on June 20, 2007

I added an update to the Marlborough thread a week or so back as an experiment. I don't know who in the thread or in attendance got any use out of that, but obviously I get the appeal.

The question from the admin side is this: is it worth coding in the feature for the subset of situations where it'd be useful, and hyping/supporting that feature? Barring that kind of development effort, it's like jessamyn says: sort of asking to be peppered with meetup-edit requests.

That latter case doesn't honestly bug me much; I won't speak for Matt and Jess on it, but I personally wouldn't mind making an edit every week or so if it was just an email from the organizer saying "please toss this time/location info into the top of this long and winding meetup post". On the other hand, if it got really carried away I could live to regret saying as much.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on June 20, 2007

The question from the admin side is this: is it worth coding in the feature for the subset of situations where it'd be useful, and hyping/supporting that feature? Barring that kind of development effort, it's like jessamyn says: sort of asking to be peppered with meetup-edit requests.

I want to suggest again a separate Meetup subsite linked in the Header just like Music or Podcasts. Continuing to repurpose Metatalk for this is I think the wrong way to go about it.
posted by vacapinta at 9:15 AM on June 20, 2007

How 'bout this: when you post a meetup to the sidebar, it also posts the decided-upon date and time in a box at the top of the thread.
posted by kindall at 9:20 AM on June 20, 2007

Also in brina's example an update like "ABC Bar is too crowded, we're heading to XYZ Bar" requires someone with web access who is authorized to make changes (somehow) relatively quickly. Having admins update something like that is hit or miss and the "miss" part renders it only quasi-functional, whereas having everyone able to edit the place/time/date area would mean possibe conflicts and resultant headaches. I like kindall's idea though.

moral of the story is please send all meetup update requests to cortex not me, tx
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:21 AM on June 20, 2007

I thought we were supposed to post a single clear comment with the details in the thread, and then make the sidebar link to that specific comment.
posted by chrismear at 9:23 AM on June 20, 2007

Like the 5 May London one here.
posted by chrismear at 9:26 AM on June 20, 2007

If you setup a meetup pointer on the front page, be mindful of what you link to. It doesn't have to be the thread, it can be a specific comment announcing the location and date, etc.

If stuff changes after you added a meetup pointer, click the little "x" next to the pointer, and you'll get an edit screen. There, you can change the URL to a specific comment (copy/paste the full permalink) with the latest info.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:28 AM on June 20, 2007

chrismear, actually that sort of thing might solve the whole problem with minimal work on anyone's part.
posted by brina at 9:30 AM on June 20, 2007

Huh. That's a really good and obvious idea.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:39 AM on June 20, 2007

This is why I thought it would be useful to set a precedent by which the person initiating the meetup has the final say on date/location/time. That way when you're scanning through all the comments about how FOO Bar sucks or why we should all go parasailing the next day instead, there is at least some definitive voice. If there IS occasionally a change to be made to a post that requires admin attention, that person can make the request.

I know meetups are usually cobbled together democratically anyways with little contention, but it would be nice to have some sort of standard to follow in cases where ambivalence and disorder take over.
posted by hermitosis at 9:47 AM on June 20, 2007

Do I get a cookie?
posted by cillit bang at 10:23 AM on June 20, 2007

Hermitosis is far too nice. I think we should just ban anyone who complains.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:05 AM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

I'd love some kind of improvement to this. I'm still not exactly sure what's going on with the DC meetup, which means I probably won't be going.
posted by Khalad at 12:55 PM on June 20, 2007

This seems like the perfectly application for a wiki, maybe even the MetaFilter wiki..

Not completely perfect, but it is an existing solution.
posted by Chuckles at 2:50 PM on June 20, 2007

MetaFilter: cases where ambivalence and disorder take over.
posted by Chuckles at 2:51 PM on June 20, 2007 [1 favorite]

Why not allow the poster of the original thread to mark a specific comment as the "final location", exactly like AskMefi's best answer feature?
posted by spiderskull at 5:34 PM on June 20, 2007