Weekly release: March 11, 2008

Quote: What does it take to fix the things that people ask for and to leave the stuff that is working fine alone?

What say you, meetup.com?

What bring me to this corner of meetup? I just want to leave a comment about the venue for all to read, not just for the organizer. Why would I want to leave a secret comment to the organizer on meetup and not using direct email? We are now forced to take and extra step to "talk about the event" after the event. The event is over, I just want to leave a comment while I am doing the rating like I have been doing the last 21 months I have been on meetup. Add all the "talk about the event" after the event if you want but let us have the comment about the venue back.

I just returned from one of the most fun events we had only to find that I can't post a comment about the event when I rate it. Yes, I see that I can talk about the meetup on the event page but it makes people go to two places instead of doing it all in one place. I don't like this, and I have NEVER complained about updates before. Why change what was working just fine???

Like you Julie, I just had the same issue. We had a fantastic event last night, and now members cannot comment on the event itself in the survey area. Although members think they are commenting on the event, they don't realize that they are now commenting about the entire group experience and that it posts to the "Member Comments" page. This is not good.

Example of a comment that now appears on my "About Us"/General Comment area'

SO MUCH FUN!! This is one of my favorite events! Thanks to Andy for his hard work and to Jim for havin' the best strategy in town....multiple 20 pointers.....way to go TEAM 2!!!"

A potential member or member who didn't go to this particular event has no idea what this is about.

Please change the survey back to the way it was.

Sandy, I couldn't agree more! Here's an example of a comment one of my moms left after the Flashlight Easter Egg Hunt Friday night. I shows up on my "About Us" and "See all members comments" page so new, potential members would read this and think she was talking about ME ("they" being ME /the group). When in reality she was talking about the town who held the event. Here's the comment:

"Wow! It was a mob scene, and not nearly as well-organized as they let on. At least they were quite good about making sure everyone got an egg, even if they didn't find it. But I really think they need to move this to a bigger venue and employ multiple Easter bunnies if they want to do this at night."

I'm sick knowing potential members will see this and I hope it doesn't turn them away!!!!! I don't know what to do because I can take it off the 'About us " page but can't delete it. Help!!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. We're listening.

With regards to Sunnie's concern about the survey urls:

The Renee method let you go back and rate events that you didn't RSVP for, but I don't think that method worked on events that were CANCELED.

I have a canceled event, on my calendar with the line thru it.. and when you click on it, it asks you to rate this event, and then lets you.

As Mary and Rachel noted above, the web address for any past meeting is customizable via the Renee Method, and it's always worked this way.

If you ever notice someone abusing this ability, please bring it to our attention.

Quote: What does it take to fix the things that people ask for and to leave the stuff that is working fine alone?

What say you, meetup.com?

What bring me to this corner of meetup? I just want to leave a comment about the venue for all to read, not just for the organizer. Why would I want to leave a secret comment to the organizer on meetup and not using direct email? We are now forced to take and extra step to "talk about the event" after the event. The event is over, I just want to leave a comment while I am doing the rating like I have been doing the last 21 months I have been on meetup. Add all the "talk about the event" after the event if you want but let us have the comment about the venue back.

The venue comments are available under the Events and Locations tab, to help the Organizer choose a venue for an upcoming meeting. Members can check out venue information (and ratings) by clicking onto the 'info' link on the upcoming or past meeting page too.

I'm sorry if you (or your members) feel that the 'talk about this Meetup' portion is an extra step, but I understand your concerns.

Please keep the feedback coming, folks!

Andrea

I'm sure that these topics have been commented upon, but I just got back from a 12 hour outing, and I'm too tired to sort through the board. So what the heck has happened? We can't leave feedback! We can't input the total number of participants! Attendance can be edited, but it doesn't appear to include maybes, so I have to go through the list to add them. Where do you folks come up with these ideas? You don't seem to make changes based on what we want--you just make these wierd, out of the blue changes. Arghhhh!

Nathan, Organizer of San Diego Off Leash, Spanish Meetup

The venue comments are available under the Events and Locations tab, to help the Organizer choose a venue for an upcoming meeting. Members can check out venue information (and ratings) by clicking onto the 'info' link on the upcoming or past meeting page too.

I'm sorry if you (or your members) feel that the 'talk about this Meetup' portion is an extra step, but I understand your concerns.

Please keep the feedback coming, folks!

Andrea

Andrea, "Members can check out venue information (and ratings)" but not the comments. Did a bunch of organizers come to meetup.com and ask for the venue comments to be made available to them only? If I have something to say to the organizer, I'll email the organizer myself before I leave secret venue comments that are available only to the organizer and meetup.com. Tell the development team they were mis-guided and need to set the venue comments function back to the way it was before this "upgrade".

I had already written in the 'suggestion' threads but I just found this one....

what the heck is going on?!!!

I am so frustrated! We had a meetup today and I go to take the survey...holy! What have you done meetup? After reading through the last few pages of this thread...I see that I'm definitely not alone. BRING BACK COMMENTS FOR THE EVENT IN THE SURVEY!. Are you serious? I'm supposed to tell my members that if they want to leave a comment about an event they have to go to the past event page and put in a comment that goes in with all the comments that may have been made previously leading up to an event? That makes no sense.

And the survey? Gees, can we please just rate events, the group and venues all seperately? I have members that say...well the event sucked (service was bad, venue was poorly organized, whatever) but they love the group, it's not the groups fault. So they want to rate the event as poor but can't because they know it will affect the group rating. There are so many reasons why this all shouldn't be grouped together. We have carpool location (JB's Parking Lot) that is used as an event location a lot. But our actual destination is a sports event. Hmmm. Or say we go to a venue and the venue is great (we go there all the time) but this particular event could have been better...like a concert in the park...the venue was wonderful as usual, but this month's band was terrible, but the group isn't responsible for either. We should be able to rate the venue as great, the event as 'don't ever want to see that band again and then the group as whole. The group rating should be like the current venue rating...the rating just stays...but with the same comment...you have rated the group a five in the past...but if that has changed.....

And please change or get rid of the wording about 'why should others join this meetup'. It's not my members job to recruit new members! They do that by word of mouth through their friends, co-workers and acquaintances. Just let them comment about the group again. The comments between this and taking away the event comments are getting all screwy when they appear on the about us page. And now I understand why they are suddenly NOT COMMENTING or taking the survey at all. The last event with the old and better survey had a 62% survey completion ratio with comment. The last two on the new survey...you guessed it...just me and me alone :(. I agree that the survey needed some help...but the only thing you did on this go around was make the layout better but made the whole darn thing confusing.

And how come attendance numbers aren't showing up anymore??? I noticed that at an event yesterday, attendance was right on..so I didn't need to adjust it...but it shows blank like no one went? What the heck? Hey, it just dawned on me...I wasn't asked how many attended my event today. Holy smokes..what are you guys doing?

And please, bring back rotating comments on the welcome page! No one is voting and the same two comments are going to sit on the welcome change indefinitely...how boring when there are soooo many great group comments to choose from :(.

Man alive, I love meetup..it's awesome...but I've only been around for a year and am seeing where things like 'waiting lists' have been begged for continuously for much longer than that...but yet...80% of the upgrades are things like rating comments, changing meetup logos, taking away event comments...all things that just don't make sense to us and we aren't asking for?

Gees, I'm ranting and I apologize...but I must say, I'm totally confused. Why does it seem like meetup keeps trying to fix something that isn't broken?

I will acknowledge that the other 20% are in fact useful changes but seriously...shouldn't that ratio be reversed?

Hey Meetup Staff!

where is Jesse Richards or his counterpart on THIS issue of survey comments?

On March 08/1st week, Jesse was here on the board, paying attention and quickly adjusting stuff based on Org feedback.

Are you hearing all these Orgs? What are you doing about this?

Comments aren't rotating, which we liked, since you implemented the silly 'vote' on other's comments. You've made it harder for members to leave comments after an event, and muddier for them to know what they're actually commenting on.

Where's the project leader on this change? Where's the corporate feedback? Is it that you can't figure out where to comment on this bit either? Hint: Add a reply, at the bottom of this screen.

KarenL

I'm sorry if you (or your members) feel that the 'talk about this Meetup' portion is an extra step, but I understand your concerns.

Please keep the feedback coming, folks!

Andrea

I have not seen a single post from anyone who likes this change, so why are we keeping it? What good is feedback if it is COMPLETELY IGNORED?

Michele

I have not seen a single post from anyone who likes this change, so why are we keeping it? What good is feedback if it is COMPLETELY IGNORED?

Michele

Sorry to be the only one but I really like the new feature. Not only is my group actually using it, they are rating the events so much more accurately. I understand how this may not work for every group but please be patient.

Everything is hard to adjust to in the beginning.

Rachel

Like you Julie, I just had the same issue. We had a fantastic event last night, and now members cannot comment on the event itself in the survey area. Although members think they are commenting on the event, they don't realize that they are now commenting about the entire group experience and that it posts to the "Member Comments" page. This is not good.

Example of a comment that now appears on my "About Us"/General Comment area'

SO MUCH FUN!! This is one of my favorite events! Thanks to Andy for his hard work and to Jim for havin' the best strategy in town....multiple 20 pointers.....way to go TEAM 2!!!"

A potential member or member who didn't go to this particular event has no idea what this is about.

Please change the survey back to the way it was.

Sandy, I couldn't agree more! Here's an example of a comment one of my moms left after the Flashlight Easter Egg Hunt Friday night. I shows up on my "About Us" and "See all members comments" page so new, potential members would read this and think she was talking about ME ("they" being ME /the group). When in reality she was talking about the town who held the event. Here's the comment:

"Wow! It was a mob scene, and not nearly as well-organized as they let on. At least they were quite good about making sure everyone got an egg, even if they didn't find it. But I really think they need to move this to a bigger venue and employ multiple Easter bunnies if they want to do this at night."

I'm sick knowing potential members will see this and I hope it doesn't turn them away!!!!! I don't know what to do because I can take it off the 'About us " page but can't delete it. Help!!

Having the same problem. Here is a comment that now sits out there for all potential members to see:

"I enjoy this event at Kamp kreatures. the girls enjoyed the show alot. Maybe we could have this a monthly event."

I guess potential members think we go see shows now?

This latest change was made one month after this thread: http://www.meetup.com... which talked about how the comments were so much more useful than the star ratings. So if I want something done, I should ask for the opposite of what I want?

So members are confused and organizers are ticked off, but meetup says we should just suck it up. I'm so frustrated! So happy to know my money is sooooo well spent.

Michele