It's only the watchlist messages that we have access to use to notify of meetups, so other types aren't relevant. Although watchlist messages only appear when logged on users check their watchlist, talkpage messages only appear when logged on users check their talkpages - although given the "you have messages" notification on each page, that would be more likely, I'd guess.

I'd tend to discount the number of users who have enabled in preferences emails telling them that a page on their watchlist has changed (e.g. a new talkpage message). I've never met anyone who uses that feature, but if there's research showing people do that, I'm willing to revise my opinion.

I still maintain an email is the likeliest means for letting folks now there's a meetup planned.

-- 
rexx


On 17 March 2015 at 18:51, Jonathan Cardy <jonathan.cardy@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:
Hi Rexx,

There are two types of geo targetted notice on wikis. Central notices such as the ones used on the fundraiser and watchlist notices. Watchlist notices only appear when you check your watchlist, central notices are served to everyone who logs on. On EN wiki events are usually promoted by watchlist notices.

Of course both work off the IP address and I don't know how many Scottish editors use IPs that geolocate to a sassenach address.

There are also the editors who put in an hour or two a month and might not see a watchlist notice if they didn't log in in the week it was up but would get an email if someone put a note on their talkpage.

So for various reasons we can be pretty sure that talkpage messages will be seen by many people who wouldn't see a watchlist message.

Regards


Jonathan Cardy
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums) Organiser
Wikimedia UK
 020 7065 0921

(I'm normally in the office Tuesday's, Wednesdays and Fridays - Emails on Mondays and Thursdays wont usually be seen till the next day)

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On 17 March 2015 at 16:38, rexx <rexx@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
Hi Jonathan (and everybody else on the list),

If I remember correctly, the geonotices are targeted to a rectangular area whose coordinates you supply, so it can be UK-wide or narrowed down to a particular region. If you write the geonotice, you can determine who is likely to see it, within the margin of error for geolocation of IPs, of course.

As it's about as difficult to write a personal email as it is to write a personal talk page message (possibly easier if you use MailChimp), I wouldn't attach a lot of weight to the separate argument.

Cheers
-- 
Rexx



On 17 March 2015 at 10:24, Jonathan Cardy <jonathan.cardy@wikimedia.org.uk> wrote:

Hi Rexxs, I use my watchlist and my home pc gets watchlist messages geotargetted to London and the south east. But I don't know what proportion of other editors use their watchlist, or what proportion have an ip address that we geocode to the right region. So yes I would suggest using talkpage messages as well. But i have  no knowledge as to the proportion of Scottish editors whose IP geolocates to Scotland, and without knowing that you can't know how effective this might be. 

Then of course there is the separate argument that a personal note on your talkpage is more, well personal.

On 16 Mar 2015 22:22, "rexx" <rexx@blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
Ally, the problem I foresee is that if your casual Scottish contributor doesn't see the notifications because he isn't logged in, he won't see your talk page messages (because he isn't logged in).

The low-tech solution is to collect email addresses of folks who are interested in meetups and make them into a mailing group - then send out a group email with the url of the signup page as soon as you know about a meetup.

-- 
Rexx



On 16 March 2015 at 20:32, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16 March 2015 at 14:56, Crockford, Ally <a.crockford@nls.uk> wrote:
Hi all,

I've been having a think about meetups and regional outreach. A casual/occasional contributor in Scotland mentioned that he didn't know about the meetups until too late and would have been interested in coming, but as he wasn't always logged in he was missing the notifications and wasn't seeing notices elsewhere.

I was wondering whether it would be possible to track a specific category's newly-added users (i.e. users who add [[Category:Wikipedians in Scotland]], to make it easier to post messages about meetups etc. on talk pages?

I know I've been contacted on my talk page as part of the Gender Gap task force for things, but I'm not sure whether that was someone manually contacting participants or if there's a way to streamline this.

Any thoughts or input would be greatly appreciated.


Two thoughts.

First, going back before the watchlist notices, which in fact were a revolution in meetup organisation, I did leave numerous talk page invitations, based on categories and other indications on user pages. I put in a couple of hours pasting each time.

Second, current conditions are convincing me that I should probably find out about Eventbrite pages, since at least in Cambridge they seem to be part of the expected publicity effort in our general sector. 

I'm actually also using standard techniques - email invitations and a list - which are lo-tech by today's standards. I think there is a point here about diversity of attendance, because one-club golf in publicising events leads to homogeneity.

Charles 

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