Thank You Meetup!!!! New Search Feature

It's nice to see so many people happy with this new feature!

I'm not quite sure why everyone is so happy, though.

What sort of groups do you run and what exactly are your members so keen on searching for on the message board?

When it comes to message board upgrades, I was hoping for the ability to create sub-threads within each thread

By the way, in another thread
March update
I see Meetup is encouraging you all to turn off your message board in favor of the mailing list. How do you feel about this?

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Hey Tom,

Thanks for this feedback.

I'm sorry you didn't see the same kind of value in this addition as other Organizers. Just the same, I'm glad that so many Organizers were happy with this addition.

The March update you referenced was from a year ago (I'm sorry if there was any confusion on that). We encouraged Organizers to choose one or the other to help reduce their work load and confusion for their members. Over time we learned that many Organizers (including me) use both options and are happy with reaping the benefits from both.

I hope this helps. If you have any further questions about mailing lists, please feel free to send us an email at support@meetup.com.

Thanks.


Lucette

Hi Lucette!

Thanks for the reply but I had been hoping to hear from some of the organizers who are so pleased with this feature. Maybe they can point out something I haven't thought of yet!

Sorry about the mix up on the March 07/08. So now message boards are being encouraged over mailing lists I guess?

Neither are being encouraged to Organizers over the other.

We provided the choice and leave it up to the Organizer to decide what's best.

I hope this helps.


Lucette

Hey Tom,

I organize 4 groups and AO one so I am super busy.

I will base this on my main group and why I love the search feature. (this group is a moms/playgroup) We try to keep posts within the same threads (ie, recalls) this way there is not a whole new thread for the smae topics over and over again. Now my members can just type in "recalls" in the search box and that thread will pop up and they can add their recall notice to it.

Also it is really helpful for me when I am trying to remember what a member said about something. For instance a mom in my group posted something Target had on their website and one of the pregnant moms saw and loved it. Well she recently had her baby and I wanted to get it for her. I typed in Target and got that thread right way.

So helpful for me!!!

PS - I use it on these boards all the time when answering questions. It helps me be sure I am giving other Orgs. or members the correct info and if it has been addressed already or not.

Why am I happy with the search?

Because it is a small step in the right direction. A feature we had been asking for that was released and quickly refined so that it provides some of the missing functionality.

It showed me that Meetup sometimes does the right thing.

Of course, that does not mean I am suddenly fawning over Meetup. I think the latest 'feature', the 'thumbs up' vote for comments was poorly thought out, poorly implemented and pretty worthless to boot.

However, I was willing to give credit when it was due.

Len

It's nice to see so many people happy with this new feature!

I'm not quite sure why everyone is so happy, though.

What sort of groups do you run and what exactly are your members so keen on searching for on the message board?

When it comes to message board upgrades, I was hoping for the ability to create sub-threads within each thread

By the way, in another thread
March update
I see Meetup is encouraging you all to turn off your message board in favor of the mailing list. How do you feel about this?

.

Oh let's see, I have a moms group that I run, almost 100 people, we often have questions, such as a dr recommendation, rest. recommendation, babysitter, consignment shop info etc etc, maybe our child is sick with something and we want to see if someone else has had that problem too. Oh how do we do that without going thru over hundreds of pages of info?? OH yes that pesky search button that FINALLy works!!!

I have no intention what so ever of turning off my message board and using the mailing list feature only. NO WAY NO HOW and if meetup does away with the message board they do away with me and probably a hundred other orgs. The message board is integral to our group and my members dont' want the 1000 emails a day from the very active board that we have.

Anyway my point is the search feature was LONG over due and could be beneficial to any group out there. Maybe if I was in a movie meetup I would want to search and see if someone has watched a movie I wanted to see and see if they put a review of it. So it can apply to any group.

We have a very active membership (500+) that is on the message boards constantly. As a support group (Divorce/Separation) there is a constant interchange of questions and advice, and over time the same questions get asked again. While we have created links to the ones that turn out to be pretty useful, with the volume we generate its hard to find them sometimes. The search function (just noticed today!) is a godsend!

The search function does seem to be very simplistic though. Something that would handle a little boolean logic, specific search criteria (date ranges, poster name, etc.) would be very helpful. Ranking results by closeness of match would be great too. But even in its basic form this is really good. I was able to point someone to an old thread on custody agreements to someone in need that was a huge help. I never would have been able to find it otherwise!

DSSG

The new search features are good.

However, the search feature for these forums is SEVERELY lacking functionality.

Would be nice to be able to search just one forum instead of doing a search and ending up with thousands of results from any and all meetup discussion boards. Which pretty much makes the search of these discussion boards useless.