Week 1 Release: March 2008

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

Well said...and I will post again my comment from the other thread
THUMBS DOWN!!! Take it off!!!!

please take it off, it just clutters up the page and makes no sense.

Hi everyone,

I'm Jesse, I work at Meetup, and my team worked on this, so I'll chime in here.

First, I want to apologize for posting information about this release late. That was a complete oversight and we had no intention of sideswiping you guys with surprise stuff. Will not happen again.

Ok, let's talk about the Members Comments feature. Hopefully I can clear up a few of your specific comments:

"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?"
No one can see who voted for what, so it shouldn't lead to fights in that way.

"By allowing members to vote on comments, it also allows NEGATIVE comments to "bubble up" to the surface, too." Correct. Our goal was not to have the most favorable comments move to the top necessarily, but the most accurate ones. Sadly, if there's a negative comment that most members agree with, there's a good chance it's deserved. Part of the goal of the project was to give you some additional feedback from your members. (And of course you could still hide any negative comments.)

"If they want to learn about my meetups, they can look at my About Us pages!" I agree! Unfortunately, we have a ton of people coming to the Meetup pages who don't take the time to do that. We want to catch their eye and convey the character of your Meetup, and we've learned testimonials and quotes from the members is one of the most effective ways to do that - which is why we changed it from showing one quote to three.

Besides your Meetups' home pages, these quotes display throughout the site for people browsing for Meetups. Currently, those quotes are random and some pretty non-sequitor ones come up. One of our main goals was to make sure we were displaying good and representative quotes here. We didn't want Meetup HQ hand-picking quotes.


OK, having said all that, we are definitely listening to what you guys are saying now, and the great points you're making, and we're going to keep thinking about this. And I'll gladly answer any other questions you have. Thanks.

"By allowing members to vote on comments, it also allows NEGATIVE comments to "bubble up" to the surface, too." Correct. Our goal was not to have the most favorable comments move to the top necessarily, but the most accurate ones. Sadly, if there's a negative comment that most members agree with, there's a good chance it's deserved. Part of the goal of the project was to give you some additional feedback from your members. (And of course you could still hide any negative comments.)

But we can't hide negative comments any more. All comments now show up when you click the "see all member comments" link!

Besides your Meetups' home pages, these quotes display throughout the site for people browsing for Meetups. Currently, those quotes are random and some pretty non-sequitor ones come up. One of our main goals was to make sure we were displaying good and representative quotes here. We didn't want Meetup HQ hand-picking quotes.

But it seems you don't want organizers handpicking quotes either now? What good is minusing out a comment if it can still appear when someone clicks "see all member comments"?

Please give us the option to turn the "thumbs up" thingy off.

Thanks.

Jesse-

Thanks for your input.

First, I want to apologize for posting information about this release late. That was a complete oversight and we had no intention of sideswiping you guys with surprise stuff. Will not happen again.

Yeah. What body part are you offering up as guarantee that it won't happen again? You see, we've heard this promise before. Monthly, in fact.

OK, having said all that, we are definitely listening to what you guys are saying now, and the great points you're making, and we're going to keep thinking about this. And I'll gladly answer any other questions you have. Thanks.

If you are definitely listening to us, your paying customers, you have surely picked up on what we want.

1. GIVE US WHAT WE ARE ASKING FOR INSTEAD OF USELESS PAGE GUNK
2. BEFORE the coding starts and definitely before the release, run some of these ideas past actual organizers.

And if you're going to keep thinking about this, what's your process? Organizers voting? What's the timetable? Lots of times, the longer you think, the less action you take. hmmmm.

Please also take a moment to have someone at Meetup HQ respond to the question of why our functions turned into Meetings.... no one has bothered to answer this question.

In the past 6 mos, we've had Shouts, Meetings and now this implemented whether we like it or not...... so yes, I think you're not really listening.

I just keep saying this: instead of dealing with grief and grumblings after the fact, for pity's sake, tell us what you're thinking and *really* listen to our input. That airline passenger Bill of Rights came about because paying customers are treated like cattle, not given information and just expected to suck it up. Please don't follow the airlines example.

KarenL

"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?"
No one can see who voted for what, so it shouldn't lead to fights in that way.

But they CAN see who the quote is from, right?

"By allowing members to vote on comments, it also allows NEGATIVE comments to "bubble up" to the surface, too." Correct. Our goal was not to have the most favorable comments move to the top necessarily, but the most accurate ones. Sadly, if there's a negative comment that most members agree with, there's a good chance it's deserved. Part of the goal of the project was to give you some additional feedback from your members. (And of course you could still hide any negative comments.)

You assume that the voting is not done by disgruntled or jokester members, or for destructive reasons, or that it will be one vote per person. Can you promise that?

"If they want to learn about my meetups, they can look at my About Us pages!" I agree! Unfortunately, we have a ton of people coming to the Meetup pages who don't take the time to do that.

On what do you base this data? Why is it unfortunate, in your opinion? Who has indicated this is a problem?

And what about (as I mentioned before) the stars, etc, etc.? I can count about six separate ways that prospective members can get information about whether the members like their Meetup or not. We do NOT need, or LIKE this new offering. Get it?

We want to catch their eye and convey the character of your Meetup..

Oh, dear. This is so NOT the character I want to imply about our Meetup! It looks childish, cluttered and just embarrassing.

...and we've learned testimonials and quotes from the members is one of the most effective ways to do that - which is why we changed it from showing one quote to three.

Yes. Two aspirin are effective for getting rid of most simple headaches. So I think I'll take six or eight! That will be so much better!

Besides your Meetups' home pages, these quotes display throughout the site for people browsing for Meetups. Currently, those quotes are random and some pretty non-sequitor ones come up. One of our main goals was to make sure we were displaying good and representative quotes here. We didn't want Meetup HQ hand-picking quotes.

Ahh.... I think I am beginning to see.. You did this in order to simplify your job. You need a program that pulls random quotes for posting on various OTHER Meetup locations. Now, you are hoping you can simply cherry pick from the top percentiles, and hope that they can easily fill into various Meetup categories. Only now this will also INCLUDE negative comments, if someone stuffs the ballot box or has an axe to grind.

Maybe you might want to re-think whether you pull random quotes at all. If people want to see what our other members are saying, they can go RIGHT TO IT.

OK, having said all that, we are definitely listening to what you guys are saying now, and the great points you're making, and we're going to keep thinking about this. And I'll gladly answer any other questions you have. Thanks.

And while you mull it over indefinitely, there it sits. I am sure you are sincere, but PLEASE! This is the script we are getting every time, and nothing changes and it is wearing thin.

As the post above puts it perfectly:

And if you're going to keep thinking about this, what's your process? Organizers voting? What's the timetable?

In the past 6 mos, we've had Shouts, Meetings and now this implemented whether we like it or not...... so yes, I think you're not really listening.

Here's a thought: Please stop fixing what ISN'T BROKEN. Please consider fixing instead the things we are asking for...

Respectfully,
- Beth

How to grow mushrooms:
Keep them in the dark
Cover liberally & often with manure



I am not a mushroom. But I do sense a fungus among-us.

Hi everyone,

I'm Jesse, I work at Meetup, and my team worked on this, so I'll chime in here.

First, I want to apologize for posting information about this release late. That was a complete oversight and we had no intention of sideswiping you guys with surprise stuff. Will not happen again.

Hmmm... I have heard that before.

OK, having said all that, we are definitely listening to what you guys are saying now, and the great points you're making, and we're going to keep thinking about this. And I'll gladly answer any other questions you have. Thanks.

Thinking about it!!!!! In other words we have to suck it up. Thank you Meetup!

Please take the thumbs up/down option off. It serves no useful purpose for us and it doesnt matter if non-members can vote or not they'll just join the group vote then remove themselves from the group later- yikes

It clutters up the page and confuses our members. Can you please try to keep things simple?

Hey Tom,

But we can't hide negative comments any more. All comments now show up when you click the "see all member comments" link!

As I reported here, this is a bug and we're already working on fixing this.

If you have any further questions about this bug, please feel free to drop us a line at support@meetup.com.

Thanks.


Lucette