I have pondered in the past why European countries have tended to have a
stronger culture of face to face meetups than the United States. I have
considered and mostly rejected some theories, and settled for myself on
what I think is the most likely explanation.
One theory is that Americans aren't as sociable as Europeans. I know of
no evidence for this, and if there are any differences they are surely
quite minor. Americans do get together for all kinds of meetings and
social events.
A related theory is that the availability of public transportation in
Europe means people can get together more easily. Again, I don't see
this as being particularly relevant. We have cheaper gas and drive a
lot more, and in terms of people getting together with friends, I have
not seen this as a major barrier.
A completely different theory is that chapters arose first and most
strongly in non-English Europe because the Foundation was not there for
them, and they needed to get things done. This theory is likely partly
true, and especially for the Germans it seems to ring true to me. On
the other hand, let's be honest, until very recently, the Foundation was
not there for anyone :), and we got everything done by just getting
things done.
Finally, I think there is the matter of the "language compactness". And
this to me is most persuasive. For the most part, non-English languages
are more "compact" than English. For an extreme example, consider
Dutch: virtually all Dutch speakers can make it to anywhere in Holland
within 2-3 hours by train. This means that when a meetup happens,
everyone who is anyone is likely to be there.
In English, though, we are so geographically dispersed that in a major
city like San Francisco, you could go to a meetup and meet people with
whom you have never interacted on-wiki. This means that meetups are not
automatically a clean continuation of on-wiki work and friendships, but
a matter of meeting new people (with whom you may have few interests in
common, other than a general interest in Wikipedia/Wikimedia) and making
new friendships.
I suspect this means that English-speaking chapters (including in the
UK, which is a small country but not a compact language!) will have a
slightly different character as compared to chapters based on more
compact languages.
This analysis, if true, suggests something or other about chapters in
the US, but since I am not sure what, I will stop here. :-)
--Jimbo