Dashboard Event Widget: Display 5 meetups instead of 3

[Nao]

In the metropolitan Tokyo area, close to 10 events may be scheduled per month within the 400km range.

This means that users may not see a local meetup close to their home until when there are only 2 other events within the 400km range, even if the organizer schedules it a month ahead of the time.

Depending on the schedule, the timing could be a few weeks before the local event takes place.

I'd say it's unlikely users go to an event over 100 km away because they can find a closer event (unless it's a large one with lots of speakers or WordCamp). A 400km radius covers about a third of the country.

Ideal Solution for Our Case

Just writing this out, even though I understand our situation is an edge case.

Personally, I feel the right mix to be the following for the case of cities near Tokyo.

• 1 upcoming WordCamp within the country (Once a WC is scheduled it stays until it's over)
• 5 meetups within a 100km radius

But for other cities in Japan, a 200km radius may be more reasonable.

Compromised Solution

If tweaking the radius range (or making exceptions) per city/country is not feasible, I'd like to see more upcoming events in the widget. This change provides 1) an incentive for organizers to schedule their events ahead of the time 2) a chance for attendees to find out their nearby events.

How about showing 5 events instead of 3 when they exist? This change will not affect areas will less frequent meetups but will help those with several nearby meetups.

Keeping the 400km radius isn't ideal for my location, but I can live with it as long as more meetups are shown.

[Nao]

Map of 400 km radius from Tokyo

[casiepa]

How about making it parameters that a site admin can set?

• Number of meetups to show (between 2 and 4)
• Number of WordCamps to show (between 1 and 3)
• Radius: 100km - 400km
• Limit to country: Y/N

But the total of the first 2 can never be over 5

[nukaga]

I agree that a site admin can set. The situation of the place where we live is various.

[iandunn]

Replying to Nao:

In the metropolitan Tokyo area, close to 10 events may be scheduled per month within the 400km range.

The 400km range is only for WordCamps, for meetups the range is 100k.

• 1 upcoming WordCamp within the country (Once a WC is scheduled it stays until it's over)

The upcoming change to pin camps to the widget (​#wp41112) should help with that.

How about showing 5 events instead of 3 when they exist? This change will not affect areas will less frequent meetups but will help those with several nearby meetups.

It could affect some infrequent meetups, if they setup recurring events several months into the future. We could avoid that by having the API only include meetups that are less than ~4 weeks away, though.

I still worry about adding too much clutter to the UI, though. In the original design, 3 was chosen specifically to try and balance the amount of information that users are presented with.

Just writing this out, even though I understand our situation is an edge case.

I think it's still worth considering, and it's very helpful to get feedback from various communities, since they're all so different.

I definitely agree that there isn't a good one-size-fits-all solution, but I also have a hard time finding an elegant solution for all (or even most) use cases that doesn't have considerable downsides (for UX, maintainability, complexity, etc).

I think it's also important to keep in mind that the original purpose of the widget wasn't to help insiders like us keep track of 100% of the events that we’re interested in; it was to introduce new people to their local WP community. If someone wants to keep to track of 100% of events, then there are probably better ways, like signing up for meetup.com email notifications.

If we can find elegant ways to make the list of events more relevant to the user, though, that's definitely worthwhile. Maybe the API can look at the total number of upcoming events, and if there are more than ~3 in the next ~2 weeks, then it would remove some of the farther events from the response, so that events closer to the user are given precedence.

Another idea would be to use a translated string to set the radius per locale, and then pass that value to the API. That way smaller countries with large populations and active communities could set different locales than larger countries where driving longer distances is common. Using a translated string would prevent us from having to build/maintain per-country logic in the API itself. The API would probably want to enforce a reasonable min/max value, though.

One downside to that approach is that the best value for a locale is subjective, and different translators might have conflicting opinions. That's not necessarily a huge problem, though, since the translation editors could help find a reasonable compromise.

Related ​#wp41442, #2998

[Nao]

Thanks @iandunn !

The 400km range is only for WordCamps, for meetups the range is 100k.

@casiepa and others mentioned this in Slack, thanks for confirming.

It could affect some infrequent meetups, if they setup recurring events several months into the future.

I didn't think of such a case. I agree that seeing 4+ upcoming meetups that are months away could be not so useful for users.

We could avoid that by having the API only include meetups that are less than ~4 weeks away, though.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that the original purpose of the widget wasn't to help insiders like us keep track of 100% of the events that we’re interested in; it was to introduce new people to their local WP community.

It was not my intention to keep track of all events (We already have ​WordPress Events Calendar for that in Japan). I get the feedback that the number of new attendees visibly increased for many meetup groups here, therefore the organizers are really eager to see their own event listed as soon as possible after scheduling one (they love this feature! and I think that's one of the reasons the number of meetups incresed this year).

Generally speaking, I'm not a huge fan of using translation string to set a value for default configuration, but it sounds like a possible good solution for this. One downside I can think of is that it doesn't really work for transplant users who are using WP in their native language (e.g. someone who lives in Germany but is from Australia, using WP in en_AU).

If we can find elegant ways to make the list of events more relevant to the user, though, that's definitely worthwhile. Maybe the API can look at the total number of upcoming events, and if there are more than ~3 in the next ~2 weeks, then it would remove some of the farther events from the response, so that events closer to the user are given precedence.

I like this too, and I think it will work for Japanese users if the threshold is set right. For me, 100km is a quite long distance to travel for a short meetup. I originally said 100k for Tokyo, but now that I see the map more closely, 50k is probably a more reasonable number.

As you said, the distance one's wiling to travel for a meeting can be very subjective. It will depend the public transportaiton system, car ownership, family and work situation, etc. I'm interested in hearing opinions from people in various situations.

[Nao]

100km radius from Tokyo, Kawaguchi (Saitama Prefecture), Takasaki (Gunma Prefecture)

[Nao]

50km radius from Tokyo, Kawaguchi (Saitama Prefecture), Takasaki (Gunma Prefecture)

[dd32]

It's worth noting that the radius is a box, not circular, so it's a box of 100km north/east/south/west of the central points. When you're looking at meetups which are at the NW/NE/SE/SW directions that means it's closer to 150KM radius.

I think the ideal solution for areas such as Japan where there's lots of events within a small radius is that the API continues to return data as it does, but the client-side code slims it down to only those which are relevant, for example, "Only show meetups within a 30km radius".

The API could also add the circular radius checks (and return any boxed area events if the circular radius doesn't return anything, to maintain current results) which may also help slightly in the case of Japan, as it seems the locations are more likely to be at those box corners.

[acirujano]

Hi!

I published a post related to this issue here:
​https://make.wordpress.org/community/2020/01/21/needs-feedback-proposal-for-improving-the-dashboard-events-widget/

Could you please give some feedback? Thank you!!

[KestutisIT]

There is often a VERY STRONG unofficial meetups, that have a lot of contributors of WordPress as well. So I also suggest to create a feature, to submit unofficial EventBrite.com meetup events, Meetup.com events (ran by Meetup.com group), or Facebook.com events (ran by Facebook group), and list them in sub section, or in different color with a sub-text “Independently organized event (unofficial)”.
As for over 90% of WordPress users it is important to get help and support, as well as latest information, and they don’t really care if WordPress.org pays for that Meetup.com group monthly fee and buys cups, or that is done by a meetup organizer independently. This is exact case of city of Vilnius (capital of Lithuania). Where we have a successful meetup group, as well as we control all major developers and designers communities (websites, Facebook groups) in the country. And feeling banned / ignored puts a shade here on WordPress as a brand, which I believe, is not the thing what WordPress is all about. So I suggest more flexibility here, and more respect to those, who do contribute to WordPress a lot, despite they fact are they official (paid by Automattic) or non-official (self-sponsored).

[hlashbrooke]

Replying to KestutisIT:

There is often a VERY STRONG unofficial meetups, that have a lot of contributors of WordPress as well. So I also suggest to create a feature, to submit unofficial EventBrite.com meetup events, Meetup.com events (ran by Meetup.com group), or Facebook.com events (ran by Facebook group), and list them in sub section, or in different color with a sub-text “Independently organized event (unofficial)”.

It's great that there are some very strong unofficial meetup groups - I love that the open-source nature of WordPress allows for that sort of thing to happen! The problem with promoting those in an 'official' way (even if we indicate that they are not actually official meetups) is that it lends credence and validation to those meetup groups, when we actually have no way of confirming whether they are upholding the core principles of the WordPress project or following the rules that meetup organisers are expected to adhere to. For example, many unofficial groups remain unofficial because they want to highlight and promote WP products that are not 100% GPL - that's not something that we can support in any central or official channel.

From a technical perspective, it would also mean using APIs from a whole bunch of different providers (you already mentioned Eventbrite and Facebook, but there would definitely be other platforms) and that would be a huge amount of work to not only build, but also maintain and update as those APIs change. Not to mention that the API queries would need to be based on searches for mentions of "WordPress" rather than any centralised set of groups like we have with the official Meetup.com chapter program.

As for over 90% of WordPress users it is important to get help and support, as well as latest information, and they don’t really care if WordPress.org pays for that Meetup.com group monthly fee and buys cups, or that is done by a meetup organizer independently. This is exact case of city of Vilnius (capital of Lithuania). Where we have a successful meetup group, as well as we control all major developers and designers communities (websites, Facebook groups) in the country. And feeling banned / ignored puts a shade here on WordPress as a brand, which I believe, is not the thing what WordPress is all about. So I suggest more flexibility here, and more respect to those, who do contribute to WordPress a lot, despite they fact are they official (paid by Automattic) or non-official (self-sponsored).

You know why the Vilnius meetup group that you organise is not part of the official chapter program, and given my explanation above, you should be able to see why it is not an option for it to appear in the events widget. No one is being ignored or banned in any way - there are clear rules that organisers must agree to and some groups do not agree with those rules.

Going forward, let's keep this ticket focussed on the original question being asked and not on other topics. If you feel strongly about something related then you are free to open a new ticket to discuss it, but be aware that there are no plans to support or include unofficial meetup groups in any way.

[KestutisIT]

Replying to hlashbrooke:

It's great that there are some very strong unofficial meetup groups - I love that the open-source nature of WordPress allows for that sort of thing to happen! The problem with promoting those in an 'official' way (even if we indicate that they are not actually official meetups) is that it lends credence and validation to those meetup groups, when we actually have no way of confirming whether they are upholding the core principles of the WordPress project or following the rules that meetup organisers are expected to adhere to. For example, many unofficial groups remain unofficial because they want to highlight and promote WP products that are not 100% GPL - that's not something that we can support in any central or official channel.
You know why the Vilnius meetup group that you organise is not part of the official chapter program, and given my explanation above, you should be able to see why it is not an option for it to appear in the events widget. No one is being ignored or banned in any way - there are clear rules that organisers must agree to and some groups do not agree with those rules.

Well, as previously mentioned, this is against European Commission clarification. Microsoft used the same tactics not allowing to see any other Windows media player on Windows Install for EU customers, as they were not official Microsoft product. But EC just fined by huge fine the Microsoft and forced to do that by law. As legally we still have to wait the 6 months period after the action has be taken against our group, by the end of February, we will start the legal prosecution procedure via EC against WordPress Foundation, with it's executive Andrea Middleton, and Automattic, Inc. - the largest shareholder of WordPress (including patents), and it's executive Matt Mullenweg. We will also try to impose a request for EC to freeze the funds of WordPress Foundation, to cover the loss of potential unfair business model, that is not legally existing (100% GPL is a fiction, the law says GPL-compliant), for all meetup groups that are not being shown as an option to visit for EU citizens (they don't see an option in dashboard to choose alternative meetup group, ran by other businesses, that are GPL-compliant).
Anyway, we are not EC here. So decisions will be made by EC, as well as all fines imposed (if decided so by EC) to WordPress Foundation, Automattic, Inc. and it's funds freezing. We are here not judges, nor the investigators. I just posted what our government law advisors in Lithuanian Parliament said - that this is what Automattic, Inc. and WordPress Foundation is doing - is against EU laws and should be processed by investigation by European Commission.

Also, please don't judge me, if the EC will froze the funds for WordCamp Europe, and because of that the WordCamp Europe won't happen. It is just the laws, and we have to help all the businesses in EU. And legally they, first of all, will try to freeze all WordPress and Automattic funds that resides in the territory of EU needed for potential cover of all damage made by Automattic and WordPress Foundations to small businesses in EU, and that may include the funds expected to be used for the payment of venue location in Porto or some further year event in EU. I personally don't want to be blocker of WordCamp Europe, but that is just how the law works in EU. So once again, sorry in advance if this will happen. I'm just not the guy who makes the decision, nor even our lawyers do so - all this is done by European Comission.

[hlashbrooke]

Replying to KestutisIT:

Well, as previously mentioned, this is against European commision clarification.

We have had this discussion elsewhere and this is not the place to bring this up. To bring it to a close and to clarify for anyone else reading this however, the lawyers who consult for the WordPress Foundation have done a deep dive on the legal side of things here and there is no issue with any regulation in any region from any country or commission. That has been fully confirmed and no further discussion needs to be had about it.

@KestutisIT I must ask you to stop making further legal accusations and/or threats as they are not helpful or conducive to a collaborative community. Please only continue discussing on this thread if you have something to add to the original question, otherwise this discussion belongs elsewhere.