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 :-)