YAPCs, Perl workshops and Monger meetings
As I was trying to buy my flight ticket to the London Perl Workshop I thought I look around if there is some other interesting event on the days before or after. Quickly I landed on Eventbrite and found a couple of interesting talks at The RSA.
As I was already at Eventbrite I checked which Perl events are listed there.
To my surprise there are almost no Perl events listed on Eventbrite.
Maybe if there was a Perl Module for Eventbrite?
Then I checked Grical for Perl, Lanyrd, Joind In, Upcoming of Yahoo and ...
nothing.
Well almost nothing.
The only place where I saw the London Perl Workshop was the Lanyrd web site and there was only one other Perl event there.
So are we surprised people don't see us?
I don't know how big the impact could be but what if all the YAPC and Perl Workshop organizers started to post their events on these sites? Could that help in getting more attention?
What if each Perl Monger meeting was posted there?
What if someone implemented the modules to access the above web sites?
What if someone wrote a script that could be used by all the organizers to update the various event sites?
Written by Gabor Szabo.
I blog about Perl.
Sounds like a great idea to me, when you do it can you also think about integration with Act, or think about that first. I know the YAPC::NA guys are doing a lot of Act stuff so maybe chat with them about it - also can I have my organisers puppy :)
I use "The Perl Review, Perl Community Events" calendar into Google Calendar.
https://www.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ngctmrd1cac35061mrjt3hpgng%40group.calendar.google.com
I may be misunderstanding, but isn't EventBrite an event toolkit? I mean, the way to get events listed there is to run events through the site? Looks like while we're using ACT, we can't get stuff on EventBrite. Or am I wrong?
A few years ago I started putting Perl events on Upcoming. I stopped because it appeared to me that no-one was using Upcoming any more. Maybe I was wrong there too? (Can you sense a theme developing?!)
I added all the YAPC's I've attended to Lanyrd when it first opened. I'm pretty sure it has all the LPWs too.
But, yes, it would be good to get more stuff out there.
I just went through the process to try to create a page on Event Brite for Perl Oasis. They require you input ticket sales information. Which for an ACT driven conference simply won't work.
Last three months we have Kiev.pm at least one social meeting each month. It's not standardized yet to exact day like 'first Thursday of month', but each next meeting attracts more people which is because increasing of social activity of group and Black Perl Workshop recently happened.
I announce each meeting in Kiev.pm mailing list, facebook group and going to create announcements on linkedin group in future.
I'm not sure that announcing each monthly social meeting at Lanyrd can bring a big impact: frequent announces on Lanyrd and other sites will look poor, especially with 0 attendees and no activity.
Most of Kiev.pm members using fb and I found very useful and easy to maintain meetings, know aprox number of participants and for social sharing through fb events.
Also I have to say that not only announcing event has sense, but publishing minutes, brief description and few photos could be a good idea.
This allows members who could not be present at the event and even all other people around know what's happening.
@shadowcat-mdk unclear why the sarcasm.
@joaquinferrero.com yeah, I am one of the maintainers of that calendar but that's only useful for people who already know about it. These others might help in putting the Perl events in front of people who are not so much into Perl.
@Dave Cross, You might be right about EventBrite I have not looked that deep. I don't know if Upcoming is actually going down or already down.
I just saw that mentioned on the FOSDEM mailing list. I hardly ever use any of those services but I guess others are using them.
Anyway, I should have thought you already tried these things, I usually find out that you do things a few years before I even think about them.
@chris.prather.org thanks for checking.
@yko as you wrote :) The question is how to export the success of one PM group and Perl Workshop to other groups and Workshops.
MDK wasn't being sarcastic. I'm curious what you saw as sarcasm.
Most YAPCs are on Lanyrd.
http://lanyrd.com/search/?q=yapc&year=2011
If you don't see the future perl events that you don't see, *you* can add it (which I did for YAPC::Brasil a few weeks ago, for instance).
@Mithaldu maybe "sarcastic" is not the right word here. I just don't understand why was he trying to "volunteer" me to write that code. Was it offending that I raised the whole issue? If not, then why throwing the ball back to me?
The same goes to @Miyagawa. I don't understand this "*you* can do it". Does that come from a feeling "You (Gabor) are just talking and not doing things"? Or was that just a helpful comment explaining that anyone can add any event?
Gabor: The reason I was trying to "volunteer" you (as this can be interpreted) can be attributed to the following reasons:
1. because it is your idea, and I think you should have the right to proceed in the best way forwards first or at least have principal choice -to- proceed;
2. I thought it was a good idea, I don't have the ability of the tuits to implement it;
3. I think the Act people might like it and as I said the YAPC::NA guys are doing a lot with Act at the moment and maybe you can get them involved and therefore "volunteer" them to do it;
4. I just wanted to see something come of the idea that might be useful to organisers;
And, dude, the ball started with you, it was your ball, I was just trying to engage with your idea. I didn't mean to imply you had to do all the leg work, just "yeah great go ahead, run with your idea". Does that explain what I said better?*
*Also not intended to be sarcastic, just mindful of the fact that we are not all native speakers of the same language so making sure I convey the right message.
This might be a piece of IRC culture, but lately complaining about an issue has been taken to be synonymous with "I volunteer!". This is mostly because often the ones complaining have more time than the actual maintainers and often do not realize that they can just resolve the issue by going ahead, making the change and sending a pull request.
On that note, if this was only meant as ideas, please do add an entry or three to http://cat.eatsmou.se so it doesn't get lost. :)