Do mefites have a life offline besides meetups? How can I find out?

October 16, 2008 1:04 PM

Is there a chance we'll have gigs.metafilter.com any time soon?

I have a show I'd like to post. There's no where for me to post it. But this isn't just selfish. I'd really like to know what non-web-based projects other Mefites are up to.

If we can't have gigsMe, how about a mailing list or something?

posted by grumblebee to feature requests at 1:04 PM (38 comments total)

gigs is something we've been thinking about, but honestly if you want to have a mailing list, have you considered starting one?
posted by jessamyn at 1:05 PM on October 16, 2008

What she said. I'm big on the Gigs/Events idea, and it's definitely something we've been talking about as far as possible approaches and implementation and such, so don't give up hope there—but if someone wants to start an official unofficial mefi events mailing list in the mean time, like what kindall used to do before we had Projects, that'd be totally fine.
posted by cortex at 1:09 PM on October 16, 2008

Yes, jessamyn, I'd be willing to start one. I thought before I did that, I'd throw the idea out here. Maybe a wiki would be better.
posted by grumblebee at 1:12 PM on October 16, 2008

I'd be happy to admin a mailing list. I've never done that before. Can anyone suggest a good service or app?
posted by grumblebee at 1:13 PM on October 16, 2008

Another suggestion, probably more controversial: why not just expand projects a bit more? Have an offline category and an online category. Then you could add a couple of tabs, like the ones on some of the other sites, that filter it to just online, just offline or both.
posted by grumblebee at 1:28 PM on October 16, 2008

We've talked about that as one possibility. I'm not so hot on it, personally, because I think it'd be better to have a real clear functional separation between what Projects does and what Gigs/Events would do, and because I think there's some value in really building an Event system from the ground up to take into account the unique role of both time and place in the content. Focusing on geography and calendar as not just add-on widgets but as a core part of the functionality seems like a good approach.

We're kind of collectively inclined to slow-play it if necessary and get it right the first time instead of just knocking out a clone of an existing subsite, I think is the main thing.
posted by cortex at 1:35 PM on October 16, 2008

Well the thing about projects is that it's limited to one per month with the assumption that most people use it less than that. With gig stuff we have to figure in a few things

- people on tour [many gigs, how to arrange?]
- theater runs [date range? how do do meetupish stuff?]
- regular events [post every week, every month forever?]

and I think thinking about these different angles has made the mod project of doing gigfilter not move forward. We'd love to be able to do geolocator stuff like Gigs Near Me and maybe have people link a gig and a meetup, or even look for people to gig with, potentially, but it's a lot of teeny parts and they haven't yet coalesced into one big grand idea yet. It's not really right for projects because "offline project" could really be nearly anything and there are some things we don't want [classifieds, for example] and we'd need to figure out how to delineate all of that.
posted by jessamyn at 1:36 PM on October 16, 2008

Along the lines of what jessamyn just said, I think of gigsfilter as being more of a calendar app in general than a weblog app that Projects currently works well with.
posted by mathowie at 1:40 PM on October 16, 2008

You've convinced me that this will be a lot of work to create here (though I'm glad you're still considering it!). I'll look into mailing-list systems. I'd be grateful for suggestions.
posted by grumblebee at 1:53 PM on October 16, 2008

I like the idea of a gigs as calendar app. It'd be interesting to have meetups be in a calendar setting also.

Maybe calendar.metafilter.com? That way, recurring events could be added with no sweat, along with one-time things, and you could add yourself to any event+date combo as attending.

(Similar to what upcoming was before it was bought by Yahoo and decided that sucking 2.0 balls was better than being functional and useful.)
posted by klangklangston at 2:20 PM on October 16, 2008

Speaking of upcoming, there is a MeFi Group there with 144 members. If people started posting gigs there it might alert other Mefites.
posted by pb at 2:31 PM on October 16, 2008

Is there a chance we'll have gigs.metafilter.com any time soon?

Do we have to screw the roadies?
posted by jonmc at 4:29 PM on October 16, 2008

This sounds like a fantastic idea. I hope you decide to implement it -- it would make the site that much tighter.
posted by spiderskull at 4:35 PM on October 16, 2008

A mailing list would have to deal with the problem of thousands of members from all over the world... I wouldn't have much need to sign up to a London or Chicago mailing list, but then if I was visiting there for a week it'd be handy to check out what's going on.

For this reason alone, I think mailing lists would be either overly complicated, or too full of noise to be useful.
posted by twirlypen at 4:49 PM on October 16, 2008

migs?
posted by blue_beetle at 4:55 PM on October 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

I have a gig every Saturday somewhere in Pittsburgh, Pa.

Good luck finding it.
posted by stubby phillips at 5:02 PM on October 16, 2008

I would suggest a Google public calendar.
posted by grouse at 6:55 PM on October 16, 2008 [1 favorite]

Yes I think this is a good idea and also PS I am playing at the Trash Bar in Brooklyn on 11/9.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:26 PM on October 16, 2008

Sub-pony request: when something is posted to gigs.metafilter.com, the confirmation message has to read, "The gig is up!"
posted by brundlefly at 8:03 PM on October 16, 2008

Ooh, you could have a page and RSS feed for each location (based on longitude & latitude, with variable radii) that includes:
-Upcoming gigs
-Upcoming meetups
-Nearby users
-Job postings
-Local interest AskMes and FPPs

And then, if you wanted to, you could probably just sort of lay the Travelfilter stuff onto that framework.

I dare say it would be rather excellent.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:19 AM on October 17, 2008

"The gig is up!"

It will also play a few bars from Renegade.
posted by jessamyn at 6:57 AM on October 17, 2008

I thought this was going to be for online storage, and I got all excited.
posted by boo_radley at 7:11 AM on October 17, 2008

By the way, we refer to them as "gigues" now. Those of us in the business, I mean.
posted by ludwig_van at 8:46 AM on October 17, 2008

Google calendar should be good for small scale stuff, but if this really takes off, we'll have to start calling it "pets".
posted by grateful at 8:56 AM on October 17, 2008

I'd prefer events.metafilter.com to calender.metafilter.com, since it fits more sensibly into the semantics of projects.metafilter.com.

A public Google Calendar would be a good start, mind.

Also, this would be awesome.
posted by armoured-ant at 9:22 AM on October 17, 2008

+1 for events. Gigs seems a little specific and events would cover.
posted by bonehead at 10:00 AM on October 17, 2008

Just another vote out there that it's NOT a mailing list. Points above about geography, etc. would probably destroy any real utility that a mailing list would have.
posted by polexa at 12:41 PM on October 17, 2008

I host and participate in many gigs and events. I want this.

The sooner I can have this the sooner I can use my program of psychotronic audio assault and binaural beats to build my hypnotized sleeper army, and the sooner that happens the sooner I can take over the world and rule it with an iron fist in a velvet glove.

Trust me, you want this. The first item on the to-do list - after a few obvious items like world peace, stopping hunger, and a nice dance party - is going to be inventing a truly competitive vegan bacon substitute.

The resulting all-inclusive worldwide bacon party will be talked about by historians for eons, roundly declared as the dawning of a new enlightened age.
posted by loquacious at 1:48 PM on October 17, 2008

I'd also be interested (for both selfish and unselfish reasons) in seeing not only music and stage stuff, but also when Mefites get some writing published, or a short film completed. Surely the throngs hunger to know when one of their brethren (or sistern) have a new story in, oh, I dunno, Out of the Gutter magazine or some such.

On the other hand, print knows no geographic bounds, so maybe mine is a horrible idea. I'm too whacked out on Diet Coke to know anymore.
posted by Bookhouse at 5:00 PM on October 17, 2008

I had no idea MeFites were so bent on spearing fish.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 5:43 PM on October 17, 2008

I host and participate in many gigs and events. I want this.

second.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 6:53 PM on October 17, 2008

I had no idea MeFites were so bent on spearing fish.

Dopn't forget, BOP, you can also gig frogs.

Mmmmmm.... froooooogs!
posted by flapjax at midnite at 8:54 PM on October 17, 2008

I have a gig every Saturday somewhere in Pittsburgh, Pa.
Good luck finding it.

You Pittsburghers have to pull off a decent meetup, then we'll talk.
posted by StickyCarpet at 7:52 AM on October 18, 2008

Hmmm... maybe if you wrote a song about your upcoming gig and then posted it to Music...

(Just for reference, here is January08's MeTa thread about GigsFilter.)
posted by not_on_display at 11:13 AM on October 18, 2008

I had no idea MeFites were so bent on spearing fish.

I prefer noodling, unless I have to listen to it.
posted by sleepy pete at 3:23 PM on October 18, 2008

Hey Grumblebee, if you are still looking for a mailing list program, I run a mailing list for a local club using this: http://www.notonebit.com/projects/mailinglist/
It really is simple. Users can sign up and/or unsubscribe themselves and you can send the newsletter in html or plain text. It's very easy to administer and use. and it's free.

And for what it's worth, I think this is a great idea.
posted by mkim at 6:24 PM on October 18, 2008

I'm actually writing this from a gig.
I want this to happen sooo bad.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 10:01 AM on October 19, 2008

Thanks, mkim. Having listened to the wise words of several people here, I've realized that a straight-forward mailing list won't work. It needs to be something people can filter by location (things like published books could be located "anywhere.")

So I'm now thinking it should be something like a rss-feed with location tags. Which means there needs to be a way for people to post to it.

I'm giving in some thought, and I might build something.
posted by grumblebee at 5:59 PM on October 19, 2008