Hacker News Reader

Comment by mooreds | Hacker News Reader

I think that the readership is too broad. After running a meetup for a couple of years and being a leader/participant in other organizations, you need to have something which unifies a group. Otherwise there's no reason to hang out together.

Would you have a meetup of <insert newspaper here> readers? That's the breadth of topics covered by HN, and I just don't see it being unifying enough.

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Depends.

A HN pub crawl would be cool, you want diversity to keep things interesting while using HN as a broadly similar filter would help to ensure there are some overlapping interests.

More targeted groups are good for learning or specific activities.

Good point. I'd show up for a pub crawl were it within a 30 minute drive from me (front range of Colorado, USA).

How about Hacker News music scene?

People meet and play/jam/work/demo new music.

Focus on anything audio/software related that makes music.

That still requires the "unification" angle - now it's merely alcohol instead of an interest area. :-)

I don't know. It depends on how often and what the expectations are. I think it could be cool as a few times a year thing in different regions/cities just as a meet and greet or mini conference type thing. Maybe a presenter or two, then put some faces to the user names (for people who don't want to be anonymous). Allowing more frequent meet ups to happen organically out of that.

Newspapers aren't a community though. I think the Ask HN section is the closest there is to a community, but the majority will hang out on the front page or even Show HN.

I did become friends with people in my geographical region who read HN. It is a unifying aspect - non-American who reads HN.

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