September 18, 2004
Meetup.com - The Response
Last week I sent a long feedback message to meetup.com. A few days ago, I received a response that, as far as I can tell, addresses none of my concerns. Frankly, I'm not impressed.
Maybe you'll have better luck finding their point. Here's the response:
Hello Sean
You ask some great questions that are totally fair, and some things that we discussed quite a bit.
Here at Meetup HQ we take the attitude that people are basically good. While it's true that some (hopefully small) number of Meetup Groups will be run by folks who will takeover or "railroad" a group, we think the overwhelming majority will be run by well-meaning and well-serving individuals. We believe that, but we've also built in some things to ensure Organizers behave in a respectful way towards their group.
Continued...
We care a LOT about Meetups having a real, authentic community spirit. In an attempt to ensure that groups aren't taken over or run poorly, every Meetup Group will have public "ratings" and comments by its members. Thus, Organizers that behave badly or don't respect their group members will have poor ratings and bad comments to warn others. Anyone can start a new Meetup Group to better serve the people. Bad Meetup Groups sink, great Meetup Groups thrive... May the better Meetup Group win the favor of the people So if someone runs a group that's not liked, it will be poorly rated and in turn, people won't sign up for it.
Does this leave you group-less? No! A minor but important change coming to Meetup is that there can be as many Meetup Groups, for a topic, in an area, as people are willing to start. For example, if someone organizing the Scrapbooking Meetup Group in your town is really just trying to sell scrapbooking materials, anyone else can start their own group.
In the end we're confident that the best groups -- ie the groups that best serve the needs of their members -- will be the happy, successful, thriving groups.
Thanks for the great feedback and thoughts about this direction. Please let us know of any further questions or comments. Thanks for using Meetup!
Please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns!
Regards,
User Relations Coordinator (name omitted)
I'm still debating whether or not to respond. Either this person truly didn't understand my original points, or he/she decided to dodge my questions. Either way, I'm not sure how far I want to pursue this.
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