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Comment by sndean | Hacker News Reader

Over the past few years on HN I've periodically seen a nice exchange between people saying "if anyone is in Austin and wants to get a beer, let me know." There's normally a response or two. I wonder how many of these people actually meet up?

And is HN good (or not) for this purpose? Seems like readers/commenters here could easily have a lot in common, so why couldn't HN be used as a platform for 'speed friending.' But of course I'd probably never meet up with HN-ers in the DC area... because I like to tell myself that I'm busy.

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I've often thought about having a 'meet' tab in the top bar, alongside 'ask' and 'show' and 'jobs', where people could post meetups. HN has connected a lot of people over the years, both with each other and with significant opportunities. It would be nice to foster more real-world connections.

Edit: not a new idea - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1310849

Sounds good, or we could also try having an automatic thread on the 1st/14th(?) of the month, like the hiring ones.

Yes, that would be a more organic way to start.

I attended a Hacker News-adjacent meetup event at a pizza place in Osaka a few years ago. I'm not a "hacker" but it was a nice way to meet smart/lonely/bored people in a region where they are isolated enough to make meetup events really meaningful. I hope this kind of thing sees a resurgence post-COVID.

There was a HN group in Japan that met for years, but I forget where exactly they were. There was another in San Diego that met for years (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1308886 - note the response from pg!) Scott and I used to talk about randomly showing up one day.

Please, bring it on!

Please do, and name the threads “Meet HN: December 2021” etc

This is a terrific idea and I’d love to see it.

The format of a regular post wherein people could post which city (or virtual space) they’re in and up to meet in x place at y time open to replies would seem to feel the most in HN spirit.

The regularity of a post and the lack of a formalized format would go a long way to make it casual and low effort. This is important as I think the more formal meetup with PowerPoint in company office looking to hire is not something I’d like to see repeated. This could be something different.

One thing we could do pretty easily is use IP geolocation to highlight "meetup in $place" posts for readers who are accessing HN from $place. I'm not sure if this would be extremely welcome or extremely off-putting.

I mean, I'm sure it would be both, for different users, but I'm not sure what the percentages would be.

Top-level posts, or comments?

It'll also be good if locations/cities couldn't be monopolised by a single large meetup. I attended a few HNLondon meetups back in 2012, but came away with nothing.

Smaller meetups might work better for actually getting to know people.

IP geolocation gives latitude/longitude. Maybe we could sort such posts by proximity. Whether they'd be comments or top-level posts would depend on the format I suppose.

This sounds like it could provide a lot of value to many users, would love to see something like this! I had a service once that I tried to get a few people to use for this purpose, but having a lightweight one on the website itself would definitely be the best option imo.

I would really enjoy this

I live in the South Bay and I'm considering hosting a meetup either at my house/backyard or at a nearby park. Is there a way or preferred format for me to gauge interest or announce it? Making a top level post just for that feels a bit silly but that's the best idea I have.

That's how people used to do it and we certainly don't have any objections. The main problem is that it probably won't get off the /newest page. If you make it a text post it might make the /ask page.

I wouldn't have thought HN would be particularly good for this purpose. That said though, we just came out of a 77 day lock-down today, so if there's anybody in south-east Melbourne...

Frankston here. Feel free to email me. I’ve been thinking of starting a group for Peninsula/south-east hackers/founders, so, please hit me up If interested.

Inner West / CBD Sydney here...

Brisbane, sadly (for this purpose), but if you're ever up here...

I mean, I live here. So why not!

Though I imagine considering Brisbane's circles we're likely already friends haha.

Considering how tiny it is, we’ll definitely have mutuals if not! Send me an email or something (in my profile)? Always fun to meet someone here

The problem with using HN for this is that it doesn't provide any vetting. You don't know if you share enough beliefs to even begin to become friends. You don't necessarily have a shared experience to relate over.

IMO, this is fine. You meet up, and even if interests don't collide, at least you discovered someone different than you. I might be lucky and have an easy time making friends, but usually I can easily get along even with people I have little in common.

The only thing necessary to friendship is maybe one thing in common, and chemistry. None of my friends were met through any kind of vetting process, and I'd never want to do that.

You'd think this would be important, but when I think back on my friends I met most of them randomly while happening to do something together (work, school, some other obligation) that didn't necessarily say much about our shared beliefs. I think sometimes people just need a reason to get to know each other better.

I sometimes reach out and people sometimes reach out to me.

There seems to be something missing. In one case, it’s lack of time. In another, it’s that I don’t always check my ProtonMail account.

There’s a bit of a lack of commitment thingy going on from both sides.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, just my observations.

The conversations are usually fun!

Just responding to say that I'm down to meet up with anyone in Austin, check out my profile/website to see if you may be interested!

There were definitely a bunch of HN gatherings in the early days with great turnouts.

Down to meet up in Boston if anyone wants to grab coffee.

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