Hank Chapot wrote:
I think there is some validity to your last point. I went to one meetup in San Francisco and walked away thinking, what exactly are those folks trying to do? We had no real purpose, or maybe I missed it, and maybe folks were just looking for social experience. an agenda sounds too formal, but what else are we there for? Besides, the insiders who seemed to already know each other kind of huddled off from the crowd.
I had two issues relating to my own experience as a wikipedia content provider that I wanted to talk about, and one was answered quickly and the other never came up. Then the assembled went to a restaurant and I hopped on BART somewhat perplexed.
So, if this is a community, some form or shared world-view or acknowledged reason for meeting would be helpful, and I've got my ideas.
I think some people are happy to have free-form meet-ups, and other people want events that are more structured. It's all good :-)
Personally, I think there is plenty of room for a Bay Area "chapter-like entity" and other U.S.-based volunteer groups. (That is distinct from the question of how such entities would be legally-constructed.) Since moving to the Bay Area, the staff of the foundation has gotten requests to participate in outreach-type events (e.g., a street fair) - and IMO, the entity that's best positioned to do those things would be a chapter or other volunteer-based group. After all, if there were an outreach opportunity in Milan or Stockholm, it would be handled by community members. I don't see why we'd want it to be any different in the Bay Area.
There's lots of stuff to do - public outreach, PR, etc. So I applaud Geoffrey, Hank and others for exploring the possibilities :-)