Week 1 Release: March 2008

Hello Everyone,

As Maya mentioned earlier on this board, Meetup is now releasing new features and upgrades on a weekly basis instead of on a monthly basis!

Here's a quick overview of the new feature in this week's release:


Members can up-vote Comments

Comments about your Meetup are written by members when they take the post-event survey (they can be also be added or edited later on the "All comments" page). These comments have always been displayed on your Meetup's home page and other places on the site where we feature various Meetups.

We've just added a new feature that allows you and your members to vote for their favorite comments. The comments with the most votes, will be bubbled up to the top of your Meetup's home page. By allowing members to vote on the comments that they think best represent that particular Meetup, it will hopefully help prospective members learn about your Meetup.

Only you and your members can vote. Non-members visiting will simply see the comments and will not be able to vote for them.

As organizer, you can still choose to not display certain quotes.





We'd love to hear your thoughts on this new feature!

Thanks,
Brian

Hmm, i like the idea of the comments with the most votes being displayed most often, however i don't think this new feature is necessary. I already delete comments that aren't nice. So i don't really need this feature. I think it sends a negative message if people see that folks have 'disagreed' (though i don't know if it allows folks to see when others disagree; i do know it allows us to see when folks agree). Also, i couldn't figure out how to disable the voting. I had attempted but failed. Normally on meetup.com it's mega easy to see how to disable/able things.

I feel also, that this is not really necessary. I'd like to see the fine meetup.com crew focus on improving (ok, overhauling!) the message board so that there are folders, etc, instead.

Just my thoughts. Peace.

Our thoughts are already posted here:

http://www.meetup.com...


Take it down, please!

Thanks.

Wait. So the point it to only vote for your favorites? How were we supposed to know that? How are our members supposed to know that? I didn't see anything about that on my page, and didn't understand that at all until you said it. I thought you just clicked on anything that you agreed with or liked, not necessarily my favorites. That isn't a clear purpose, and really it is useless.

At least the last one was fabulous.

It would be nice if there was more communication on behalf of meetup in regards to what was coming down the pipeline in the near future, like their used to be. It would save everyone a lot of headaches in the long run.

Dear Brian --
With all respect..
I would suggest, then, that you browse through the multiple unhappy responses in the Suggestions for making Meetup.com better and the Help and technical assistance for using Meetup.com sections.

I absolutely disagree that this will help prospective members in any way:

• It clutters up the page and detracts from the content that the organizers have already posted.
  
• Sorry, but it gives our Welcome page all the ambiance and classiness of an adolescent's MySpace.
  
• Having people vote on other people's comments seems mindless and redundant. After all, they've already had a chance to voice their opinions in the first place. Now you're asking them to comment on comments??? I think that many of the people who are my prospective members are, frankly, going to be turned off by this.
  
• We already have stars, a Welcome Page, an About Us page, comments after every Meetup (not "meeting" please!!) already nicely organized by date, the discussions in our Message Board (including ones specifically to discuss who we are, like our own Welcome Wagon topic) and possibly other folks have even more.
  
• Links for contacting organizers and assistant organizers are clearly posted for people that have yet more questions.
  

If a prospective member can't figure out from all this who we are, what we're about, and if others seem to like belonging, well .. good luck..

Another thing that I find really troubling is how, exactly, does this not at some point devolve into disagreements, or people voting not for the comment but for the person who made it?

I am sorry, but I really hate this. I do NOT want to turn off all the comments; we have some really wonderful ones. But encouraging our members to now vote on them seems almost insulting to people who have better things to do.

Who is thinking this stuff up? Why can't you check with us about what we need, or run it by us before springing it on us? Why can't you put your time and resources into addressing the things we are begging for elsewhere?

.. sigh.. It is really very discouraging...

-- Beth

Hi Brian--
Thanks for the explanation. You really had me fooled about the use of the comment Thumbs Up function. I agree with all the others, this voting on people's comments is really childish and does nothing to promote the positive and professional image that I want for my meetups. If I wanted to have a contest on comments I would put it in the Polls Section. And having the winner comment "bubbled up" on the webpage is something out of cartoon-land. In my opinion this will NOT help prospective members learn about my meetups. If they want to learn about my meetups, they can look at my About Us pages!

I think that some of the fine Meetup.Com folks need to come out in the trenches and be actual Organizers for a while. It might give you a different perspective on why things like this are unnecessary.

Dottie

Why?
Surely, with all the things that we DID ask for, there was someting more constructive you could have been working on?

Sorry, this one is a definite thumbs down. I'm putting the pompoms away for a while longer.

Warn us well in advance what you intend to release.
Work on things we ask for, not tin-pot crazy ideas someone dreams up.

Think, research, consult-with-your-paying-organisers, think-some-more, design, test, test, test, consult again, approve, announce, wait, release.


Len

Sorry Brian,

I am normally all on Meetups team but I really think that there were other things that could have been done instead of this.

In a way I like it because my members can basically choose which ones are present but again, there are so many other things we are asking for.

We desperately need waiting lists and even more importantly the ability to control AO powers!

I know what the time and effort that goes into anything programming related is like and I KNOW that there were better things that could have been worked on.

Take away the stupid stars if we are going to keep this. I am ok with that too.

One or the other please. My members were all confused and I had to answer a ton of emails this morning on what the heck it was all about.

Sorry guys! I know you are trying to work on cool stuff for us but this one was not that cool

Again, I am BEGGING for the ability to control my AO's powers so that I may run my group more efficiently!!!

We've just added a new feature that allows you and your members to vote for their favorite comments. The comments with the most votes, will be bubbled up to the top of your Meetup's home page. By allowing members to vote on the comments that they think best represent that particular Meetup, it will hopefully help prospective members learn about your Meetup.

Favorite comment? Maybe I'm missing something here, but Meetup group members are supposed to have "favorite comments"? You're kidding, right? This "new feature" pre-supposes that Meetup members read members comments like blogs or something. Are you kidding? Oh, wait... you're *not* kidding.

By allowing members to vote on comments, it also allows NEGATIVE comments to "bubble up" to the surface, too. That "new feature" doesn't differentiate between good comments and bad. How does this new feature know the difference? It doesn't. It just grabs whatever text is there. Why would I want members voting on a NEGATIVE comment? A favorable comment is by itself favorable and doesn't need more votes - per the popular colloquialism: "No ____, Sherlock." (As in, "Gee, do you think this favorable comment isn't favorable enough?")

I'm glad I can choose not to display certain quotes, because I'm definitely going to be monitoring member comments more closely now - and *necessarily* now, so thanks, it's more effort I didn't need...

Take away the stupid stars if we are going to keep this. I am ok with that too.

Amen. Has this 'opt-out of ratings' suggestion graduated to Popular Suggestion status yet?