The Fate of DallasPHP's Meetup Site

[Tim Stiles]

I have considered letting the meetup.com site go this fall, but it's
still a major source of random search engine based traffic - very
little conversion to real members and attendees though. Their forums
are unmoderated and mostly empty - I certainly have little time to
control them and would rather spend my efforts elsewhere. Opinions?

Tim

[Jake Smith]

Tim,

I agree that there is not much interaction on the meetup.com site, but I know many people find the group through meetup.com.  I know, I personally found Dallas PHP that way.  I would really like to get more involved in helping out the User Group, so any tasks you would like to delegate I would be happy to help.

Jake Smith
[t] @jakefolio
[w] www.jakefolio.com

[Adam Crabtree]

Though I'm new, my personal input on increasing the influence and exposure of any organization is just like that of any open source project, create the tools and transparency necessary for constituents to contribute where they can and desire to. Possibly building a trusted circle of individuals who can contribute to the source code of the DallasPHP website to act as contact points for SEM, SEO, architecture, and blogs. My personal experience is that there is typically a great desire to contribute even if it's a small amount and that the goal of any organization is to lower the barrier of entry to such individuals to maximize those contributions in small ways even like guest blog posts, etc...

I may be preaching to the choir though as I'm not familiar with the group's current organizational efforts, but hearing the possibility of shutting down the meetup group where multiple individuals including myself have found DallasPHP because it is understandably becoming yet another maintenance task seems to me to be both counter productive and instead an opportunity for the delegation of responsibilities within the communty, possibly even to some enterprising college student looking to pad his resume.

If the goal is greater visibility, a goal in which I feel it's safe to assume is shared by at least a majority of the active members, then the answer is not to focus the groups efforts on a small list of high priority tasks but instead to harness it's potential by allowing each member to contribute in their own way, simultaneously taking ownership and allowing for the group to evolve to the needs, wants, and desires of it's members.

Initially this means laying out a list of group priorities and finding individuals eager to volunteer and contribute, and to open up discussion amongst the members concerning alternate goals and/or means by which to achieve them.

It sounds from your email that this may even be your desire for someone to step up to run manage the meetup group. Though I'm very new, I'd be more than happy to take that very small task on rather than allow it to be ignored or worse "let go".

Who else amongst the community would be interested in contributing to to the visibility of the DallasPHP group and in addition helping to network and more closely knit together the multiple PHP groups across Texas in a more meaningful manner?

Adam Crabtree 

Sent from my iPhone

[Tim Stiles]

Jake, 

This is probably the best route to take.  It's systems are far more stable and reliable now than they have been in the past, and it's not a bad system if that's where you base operations, but there's more flexibility in the DallasPHP site for where I intend to go.  This is made even more annoying by the fact that Meetup's annual cost is the single largest expense DallasPHP has.

I watched the North Texas MySQL group try to shut down its Meetup Group when Meetup refused to let Sun take ownership of the account (they want real people's names and credit cards, not organizations), and that process is really ugly - and more than a little deceptive to users.  It's definitely best if we can ignore that mess.

If you can handle keeping the Meetup Schedule up to date (We don't always know topics as early as we'd like to, but you can set the schedule up far in advance and update contents as we learn it),  pushing that flock towards the DallasPHP site for current info ( and towards the Constant Contact Mailing list instead of Meetup's list), I think that would be a worthwhile expenditure.  You can also explore the survey/polling tools they have, which might prove useful.  If you want to try to manage the forum, go ahead, but I think it would be simpler and more beneficial to all to push members towards PHP's IRC channels. (I'll be adding info to DallasPHP about those too as soon as I don't feel like a newbie there.)

If you have a meetup account , I'll see about promoting it to management status in their system as soon as I can.

I think this'll work.  

Thanks!

[Tim Stiles]

Adam,

I agree about the Meetup group, especially in light of our new goals and (speculative) timetable.  Which is why I raised the question here instead of just dropping the account.  Jake has offered his help, let's see how well we can get that set up.  That'll free up a lot of my attention to work on tools for streamlining the collection of suggestions for topics and lining up the speaking schedule.  Which in turn opens other doors for improvement of the DallasPHP site, hopefully getting some closer interaction with the both the local and national communities.

Keep the suggestions coming.  The hardest part about moving forward is asking questions and getting back silence.

Thanks!

[Jake Smith]

Sounds like we have a good start.

Have you guys considered contacting some of the other groups in the DFW area to try an organize a Bar Camp?

Jake Smith
[t] @jakefolio
[w] www.jakefolio.com

[Jason Ragsdale]

We have spoken about it and we along with Chris Koenig from microsoft would love to do it. The only issue is finding someone with the time and motivation to run point on this. We have access to whurley and giovanni that help drive bar camp Austin every year and i am sure they would lend what assistance they can if we need it.
-Jason

[Adam Crabtree]

I've never organized a Bar Camp, but would be more than happy to take this and run with it. Just send me Chris, whurley and giovanni's contacts so I can get started getting group feedback and seeing what all's involved. 

Adam Crabtree  

Sent from my iPhone

[Jason Ragsdale]

Adam, Jump over to the BarCamp thread i started and ill post more information. I just sent of an email to Whurley to get me access to the http://barcamp.org/BarCampDallas wiki page so we can start planning.

[Keith Davis]

What the heck is a barcamp?

 

Keith Davis (214) 906-5183

 

---

From: dall...@googlegroups.com [mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jason Ragsdale
Sent: Wednesday, September 30, 2009 1:59 PM
To: dall...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [DallasPHP:118] Re: The Fate of DallasPHP's Meetup Site

[Jason Ragsdale]

http://barcamp.org/TheRulesOfBarCamp

[Scott Kingsley Clark]

My two cents, as someone who has been meaning to become more involved
with the DallasPHP group for a while, is that having a way to find you
is step one. Lots of people use meetup.com, that's also how I found
you. If there was a way to forward everyone onto this Google Group and
have the forums there disabled, that'd be a great solution. Not sure
if this is possible though, but either way I think it'd be best to
keep it and emphasize that most of the action goes on here.


Best Regards,

Scott Kingsley Clark // Developer + Consultant

----------------------------------
sc0tt...@gmail.com
http://www.scottkclark.com/
----------------------------------

214.233.4048 // Mobile

[MonkeyT]

I know the forums can be disabled. I couldn't find a way to forward
them to other sites (They work very hard to keep their audience on
site, one of the reasons I named the Meetup Site "DallasPHP.org"
instead of "DallasPHP" - people don't like to read explanations, even
the group description.).

You can add static pages to the navigation, though. We might be able
to add a page that implies that it's the forum but explains that the
action goes on here (where it can be handled through email and we have
more means to handle anyone who misbehaves/spams ).

We'll look into it.

Thanks!
Tim

On Oct 1, 7:58 am, Scott Kingsley Clark <sc0ttkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> My two cents, as someone who has been meaning to become more involved
> with the DallasPHP group for a while, is that having a way to find you
> is step one. Lots of people use meetup.com, that's also how I found
> you. If there was a way to forward everyone onto this Google Group and
> have the forums there disabled, that'd be a great solution. Not sure
> if this is possible though, but either way I think it'd be best to
> keep it and emphasize that most of the action goes on here.
>
> Best Regards,
>
> Scott Kingsley Clark // Developer + Consultant
>
> ----------------------------------

> sc0ttkcl...@gmail.comhttp://www.scottkclark.com/
> ----------------------------------
>
> 214.233.4048 // Mobile

[Joshua K]

I really like the IRC idea. I wasnt able to make it to the meeting
last night, but it would've been nice to have been able to interact
with the group through IRC. I checked to see if #dallas-php was open
on freenode, and it looks like i'm the only member.

> > On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Tim Stiles <monkeytraine...@gmail.com

> > > wrote:
>
> > I have considered letting the meetup.com site go this fall, but it's
> > still a major source of random search engine based traffic - very
> > little conversion to real members and attendees though.  Their forums
> > are unmoderated and mostly empty - I certainly have little time to
> > control them and would rather spend my efforts elsewhere. Opinions?
>

> > Tim- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Chris Cornutt]

I've actually been hanging out on #dallasphp on Freenode for a bit now. It should always be open since I have one of the ChanServ bots in there. I can't guarantee that there'll be anyone else, but it's a start!

-chris

--
Senior Editor
PHPDeveloper.org
ccor...@phpdeveloper.org

[Joshua K]

looks like we're just one character different... i'll hop over to it
this evening.

> ccorn...@phpdeveloper.org- Hide quoted text -

[Tim Stiles]

Just getting used to IRC myself, after talking a lot bout it with
speakers at CodeWorks Dallas. Not habitual for me yet, so my
attention will be sporadic - but it will be second nature before too
awful long.

I'll add info about it to the website and mailings so more people will
know about it.

Tim

[Jason Ragsdale]

Ok, i'm on IRC now as well.

[John Burns]

Anybody got a particularly good IRC client that they would recommend?

 

---

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[Jason Ragsdale]

I like colloquy on the mac

[Joshua K]

I use Windows and Linux, so Pidgin is an easy and consistent interface
for me across multiple platforms and supports all of my other IM
connections.

[Jake Smith]

IRC via Adium on Mac
IRC via Pidgin on PC

Jake Smith
[t] @jakefolio
[w] www.jakefolio.com

[Tim Stiles]

Same here.

[John Burns]

OK folks, forgive the irc newbie here (I’ve got to believe I’m not the only one J), but now that I’ve got pidgin, I’m trying to setup my account. I chose protocol IRC and it defaults to server irc.freenode.net. After following several help pages, I’m still not getting to the server. Any suggestions to get in?

 

Thanks!
John

 

---

[Joshua K]

John, I'd be glad to help with Pidgin. After your "Account" in Pidgin
is setup and connected for irc.freenode.net you should be able to join
a channel by going to the Buddies menu and choosing Join a Chat (ctrl
+c). For account, make sure your freenode account is selected. For the
channel type "#dallasphp".

I encourage you to chat with NickServ and establish a registered
account. You'll find me there as _gtt_ or gtt

On Oct 14, 3:35 pm, John Burns <jbu...@presco.com> wrote:
> OK folks, forgive the irc newbie here (I've got to believe I'm not the only one :)), but now that I've got pidgin, I'm trying to setup my account. I chose protocol IRC and it defaults to server irc.freenode.net. After following several help pages, I'm still not getting to the server. Any suggestions to get in?

>
> Thanks!
> John
>
> ________________________________
> From: dall...@googlegroups.com [mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Jake Smith
> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 11:12 AM
> To: dall...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: [DallasPHP:146] Re: The Fate of DallasPHP's Meetup Site
>
> IRC via Adium on Mac
> IRC via Pidgin on PC
>
> Jake Smith
> [t] @jakefolio

> [w]www.jakefolio.com<http://www.jakefolio.com>

>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:30 AM, Jason Ragsdale <jr...@jasrags.net<mailto:jr...@jasrags.net>> wrote:
>
> I like colloquy on the mac
>

> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:28 AM, John Burns <jbu...@presco.com<mailto:jbu...@presco.com>> wrote:
>
> Anybody got a particularly good IRC client that they would recommend?
>
> ________________________________

> From: dall...@googlegroups.com<mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com> [mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com<mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com>] On Behalf Of Jason Ragsdale

> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2009 10:25 AM

> To: dall...@googlegroups.com<mailto:dall...@googlegroups.com>

> Subject: [DallasPHP:141] Re: The Fate of DallasPHP's Meetup Site
>
> Ok, i'm on IRC now as well.

> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Tim Stiles <monkeytraine...@gmail.com<mailto:monkeytraine...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Just getting used to IRC myself, after talking a lot bout it with
> speakers at CodeWorks Dallas.  Not habitual for me yet, so my
> attention will be sporadic - but it will be second nature before too
> awful long.
>
> I'll add info about it to the website and mailings so more people will
> know about it.
>
> Tim
>
> On Oct 14, 2009, at 9:12 AM, Joshua K wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > looks like we're just one character different... i'll hop over to it
> > this evening.
>

> > On Oct 14, 8:38 am, Chris Cornutt <eny...@phpdeveloper.org<mailto:eny...@phpdeveloper.org>> wrote:
> >> I've actually been hanging out on #dallasphp on Freenode for a bit
> >> now. It
> >> should always be open since I have one of the ChanServ bots in
> >> there. I
> >> can't guarantee that there'll be anyone else, but it's a start!
>
> >> -chris
>

> >> On Wed, Oct 14, 2009 at 8:07 AM, Joshua K <goodtimetr...@gmail.com<mailto:goodtimetr...@gmail.com>>

> >> wrote:
>
> >>> I really like the IRC idea. I wasnt able to make it to the meeting
> >>> last night, but it would've been nice to have been able to interact
> >>> with the group through IRC. I checked to see if #dallas-php was open
> >>> on freenode, and it looks like i'm the only member.
>

> >>>>> I agree that there is not much interaction on the meetup.com<http://meetup.com> site,
> >>>>> but I know many people find the group through meetup.com<http://meetup.com>.  I

> >>>>> know, I
> >>>>> personally found Dallas PHP that way.  I would really like to get
> >>>>> more involved in helping out the User Group, so any tasks you
> >>>>> would
> >>>>> like to delegate I would be happy to help.
>
> >>>>> Jake Smith
> >>>>> [t] @jakefolio

> >>>>> [w]www.jakefolio.com<http://www.jakefolio.com>

>
> >>>>> On Wed, Sep 30, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Tim Stiles <

> >>> monkeytraine...@gmail.com<mailto:monkeytraine...@gmail.com>
> >>>>>> wrote:
>
> >>>>> I have considered letting the meetup.com<http://meetup.com> site go this fall, but

[Michael Clark]

I got a little confused with Pidgin as well.  This link helped me the most:

http://eclug.homelinux.org/content/view/192/59/

-- 
Mike Clark
mwc...@gmail.com
h (972) 926-6682
c (214) 454-2333
AOL: mwclark4453
MSN: mcl...@adapt2.com
Y!: mwclark_dallas
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