Proposal: Detect dormant Meetup groups and check with them automatically

I know, I know… I’m proposing again something that needs some of that dev time which we don’t have. But hear me out, let’s discuss this for the future and we also might have contributors to make this happen!

Our MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. program is growing fast. We had 575 active meetup groups in February 2018 and the latest number checked seconds ago is 778. Amazing!

Some of those MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups might be inactive or dormant for one reason or another. Community Team would like to help organizers and members of those Meetup groups to go forward and have regular meetups again. We have a good set of ways and tools to support them.

Currently, we don’t have tools to detect dormant Meetup groups other than by manual work (last time it was done by @courtneypk on February 2018). Manual process involves exporting the list of meetups, sorting it, manually sending emails to organizers… And doing it for all the 778 groups. That’s deputyProgram Supporter Community Program Supporters (formerly Deputies) are a team of people worldwide who review WordCamp and Meetup applications, interview lead organizers, and keep things moving at WordCamp Central. Find more about program supporters in our Program Supporter Handbook. time we don’t have available right now or in the future when chapter program grows more.

I’d like to propose a semiautomatic process for this. Leveraging Meetup.com APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., we can check when each group has had their latest meetup. We are already pulling the information about latest meetup date to our Meetup tracker, so that helps us here.

  • Run a check when last Meetup has been organized at the same time when pulling the same data to Meetup tracker
    • If the last meetup has been over six months ago, start the following process
  • Send an email to the organizer’s email address in Meetup tracker. CC support@wordcamp.org to open up a ticket in HelpScout
    • With HS workflows, tag the ticket dormant-meetup and close it
  • If the organizer responds
    • Remove the tag in HS ticket
    • Start a discussion about how the Community Team could help them
  • If the organizer does not respond in two weeks
    • Open the ticket with HS workflows and leave a comment suggesting to send message to organizers via Meetup.com
    • Manual step: deputy sends a pre-defined message to all organizers via Meetup.com, adds a new tag dormant-meetup-org-contacted and closes the ticket
  • If organizers do not still respond in two weeks
    • Open the ticket again with HS workflows and leave a comment suggesting to send a message to members of the Meetup group
    • Manual step: deputy sends a pre-defined message to all members of the Meetup group via Meetup.com, adds a new tag dormant-meetup-members-contacted and closes the ticket
  • After two weeks
    • Open the ticket once more with HS workflows and leave a comment suggesting to check if there’s any new activity on the Meetup group or if a member has replied or sent a Meetup application
    • Manual step: deputy does the checks and if there hasn’t been any new activity, proceeds to remove the group from chapter

This way we can detect dormant Meetup groups efficiently without a need to do a lot of manual work for it once in a while, help local meetups to overcome their possible problems that have led to inactivity and keep our chapter program meetup list up-to-date.

Time for feedback! Please leave your comment by 2019-10-18.

  • Is this semiautomatic process needed?
  • Do you have any feedback on the proposed process? How to fine-tune it to be better?
  • Any questions or concerns?