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Meetup.con

MEETUP.CON

December 8, 2021 (updated December 21, 2021) Published by Andrew Lamb

ITALICS ARE ME, STANDARD TYPE IS MEETUP. 

It would appear that as of now you have not approved my new group https://www.meetup.com/non-compliancealliance/ Please can you expedite this as I wish to share with contacts, gain members and all in time for our meeting with our local mp on Friday!

I can verify that you organize two meetup groups:
Life Drawing Wales and Wales Outdoors.

We’ll help you find your members and your subscription allows you to:

  • Start up to 3 groups with unlimited members.
  • Schedule events and stay in touch with your group members.
  • Charge ticket fees or dues to help cover your costs.
  • Appoint a leadership team to help manage your group.

Our group and event policies have all the guidelines you need to make sure your next submission is approved.

Here are some other best practices and advice for submitting a group:

  1. A clear and detailed description: Be thorough and descriptive about the purpose of your group, who your ideal members are, and what members should expect to learn and do together.
  2. Simple guidelines and rules: Clearly list any requirements, group rules, and best practices for your group, events, and members.
  3. Affiliations and other need-to-knows: Be transparent about any businesses or brands your working with or any other information about yourself as an organizer that would be helpful for your members

You can submit a new group for review anytime.

Our group and event policies have all the guidelines you need to make sure your next submission is approved.

Here are some other best practices and advice for submitting a group:

  1. A clear and detailed description: Be thorough and descriptive about the purpose of your group, who your ideal members are, and what members should expect to learn and do together.
  2. Simple guidelines and rules: Clearly list any requirements, group rules, and best practices for your group, events, and members.
  3. Affiliations and other need-to-knows: Be transparent about any businesses or brands your working with or any other information about yourself as an organizer that would be helpful for your members.

Here’s a copy your original description for reference:

This group is for those who have been shocked by the events of March 2020 onwards and who see the sprint to totalitarianism as a race they do not wish to be in. We will use this group to network, to deliver our own gatherings and so create our own social environments, free from those who would have us banned from venues and public spaces.
You have a business? We’ll promote it. You have a skill? We’ll get you selling or sharing it. You yearn for community? We’ll platform it.
We should be angry. No doubt about that. We should be angry at ‘the man’ and what the man has done. I used to say I was born on November 23rd 1963 but I’m afraid this hateful state of affairs has been raining down upon the average Jo since Gobekli Tepe.
This space is an antidote to the man, a place to connect with others who are soon to be ‘outlanders’, those others, those that are disallowed from ‘normal’ participation in an abnormal world.
These connections will enable us to live lives outside of the mainstream, outside of the places that only allow the faces of those that have complied.
This is a free to join group and is not here to collect data or money. This group is not affiliated to any other and is member driven. This group has a website, born on 1st December 2021 and so light on content, but, that’s where you come in 🙂

You can submit a new group for review anytime. I want to let you know that Meetup helps people make meaningful connections. We do not approve groups whose primary purpose is to post sales, advertisements, and promotional content.

These types of events work well on Meetup:

  • Discussions that offer new perspectives
  • Adventures that get people out of their comfort zones
  • Hangouts that allow people to get to know each other
  • Tours that help people discover new places and ideas
  • Workshops that help people sharpen their skill
  • Speaker sessions that spread new ideas
  • Games that connect people through fun, shared experiences

Yes I asked a specific question. The four ‘offences’ that meetup stated I potentially fell foul of with the firm assertion that I fell foul of at least one needs explanation. I want to know what exactly I wrote re the deleted group the person that assessed non-compliance alliance thought fell foul of your rules. That was a simple question and I want it answered one to find out what meetup is now about and two to make sure I do not fall foul of the same in the future. Bandying about accusations without evidencing them is very dangerous indeed as I am sure that you know. I hope that we can both learn from this process.

Please let me remind you that Meetup does not approve groups whose primary purpose is to post sales, advertisements, and promotional content.

The line: “You have a business? We’ll promote it. You have a skill? We’ll get you selling or sharing it. You yearn for community? We’ll platform it.”
Sends a message as promotional, I’d suggest changing it, and our team will be able to approve the group if you submit it again.

I am FURIOUS!!!
I sent this in response to your message above:
Yes it does help. It’s not good practice to have hidden an arbitrarily applied rules.
This in fact is the first descriptive line regarding what the group is about ‘We will use this group to network, to deliver our own gatherings and so create our own social environments’ and that is clearly aimed at events and group development and of course meaningful interactions.
When I was first contacted I think it would have been polite to inform me of the line that your moderators found inappropriate and then I could have done something about that. This process of extraction of that information has been painful.
I’ll re submit now.
Further, may I remind you that the original reason for deletion of my group was this
‘trustworthy, safe, honest, and respectful to members and the community at large’
Which is not compatible with the most recent reason and which seems designed to make me angry as an accusation of such is extremely rude indeed and I still have no apology for such…
And I have set up my new group removing the lines you suggested and AGAIN it has been flagged wasting my time and effort in this.
https://www.meetup.com/the-non-compliance-alliance/
Please Approve This Group ASAP!

Your Meetup group The Non-Compliance Alliance was approved to Meetup. 

I hope this helps, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

You have approved but it is set to private.
Effectively, because someone at meetup is unhappy with the content, you have shadow banned my group. When I search for politics or one of the other key terms and Cardiff
Now, in 2019 this group would have sailed through, a group seeking to promote peace, freedom, inclusivity, critical thinking and open debate in safe environments.
We are inclusive, clear, we are not affiliated to any organisation and we do not charge for any events. We welcome all. What’s not to like?
Now, tell me why this group has been made private. Tell me why you are limiting a valid and ethical position to be heard by having the group invisible to those searching for events.
A search for the group or it’s events using the meetup search bar returns similar groups but not my group. I have no idea why the events are set to private – the content is very bland indeed as we really fro not have an agenda.
This is what you say about private groups
‘When a group’s content visibility is set to private, only members of that group will be able to see your group profile information and answers to profile and event questions.’
At the mo non members can in fact see the profile but cannot see the event detail and as I have said the group is shadow banned, ie not searchable.
Finally your team have said this:
‘sensitive or mature interests’ – please tell me what is so sensitive about my group that adults can’t have choice to see and join OR not and please identify the mature content. I believe there is NONE!

The reason our team decided to set it private is because of this event: https://www.meetup.com/the-non-compliance-alliance/events/282654440/

While we do allow sensitive content on the website, they’re set to private, and your event says the following: “We’ll be drawing some nudes”.

Currently, there isn’t a way to change a Meetup group from private visibility to public. We take member privacy very seriously here at Meetup. We made this change with our members’ privacy in mind because member lists are visible to search engines if a Meetup group is public.

Please see this Help Center article for more information.

You can submit a new group for review anytime. I recommend avoiding content that’s sensitive to the website.

So if I delete this event would you’ll make my group public? Indeed, as that event has now passed I have deleted it. I therefore expect the group to be made visible. I must say there is absolutely double standards at play here. All over meetup you have public life drawing events at which there will be naked models being drawn by the attending artists. Very many indeed. So, forgive me for thinking this making private of my group is not about life drawing being ‘adult. Who do you in meetup think you are in deciding on the sensibilities of adults in the real world? Is meetup some kind of weird 1960’s Middle American Christian Majority throwback? You know the majority has been lost, right?This has gone on for to long now. Please just make my group public OR make every single life drawing event on the meetup platform private!

Thanks for your continued patience with us.

I’m Bryan, Senior Customer Support Lead at Meetup HQ. Your concern was escalated to me directly, so I’ll be glad to continue the conversation with you.

No, if you delete the nude drawing event we would not make your group public again. Once a group is made private, we cannot alter the status. You’ll need to close the existing group and recreate the group again for approval. If you decide to go that route, please reply back to this email and we’ll place special attention and urgency on your group for the review process to make sure the group remains public upon approval.

This thread is not solved. Further, following this totally unhelpful communication I received another. This time warning deletion of the group if I do not comply with local laws. I do comply with local laws.
Whats going on here is that meetup do not like what I am attempting here. And that is sad. That is also very controlling and kinda Chinese style censorship.
Again, what I am trying to do is offer a place for those who are marginalised to call home and to meet and so not feel so isolated. Meetup’s treatment of me in this has been shameful and I am truly shocked at what I see as the lying mild threats and serious accusations that have been fotrthcoming from Meetup in this matter. Truly shocked!
I will now delete once again this group and start again.
I expect the group to be live and public and so able to be found by those searching meetup by the end of today.
Yours, extremely saddened by this whole saga, Andrew Lamb.
Please let me know when you have approved this group and made it live and searchable.I would have expected a more timely response Bryan. Edgar certainly was responding in less than a day and it appears that escalating with meetup slows things down.Hi Bryan, Senior Customer Support Lead at Meetup HQ.
It would appear that you place special attention and urgency when placing obstacles o the way of event organisers rather than as you stated ‘we’ll place special attention and urgency on your group’ with regards to having listed and searchable.
I hope that your eye has caught these messages and that you have personally flagged the new group Critical Thinking For Critical Living as public and searchable and that the process of making this so is taking place NOW.
Andy

Hi Andrew,

We can confirm your new group, Critical Thinking For Critical Living, has been approved and it’s public.

Your group appears on the /find page when doing a keyword search for ‘critical thinking’ in Cathays, GB.

Here’s the search link:
https://www.meetup.com/find/?location=gb–cardiff–Cathays&source=GROUPS&keywords=critical%20thinking 

THIS IS NOW URGENT BRYAN – NO MORE GAMES PLEASE
Bryan, you know full well that you have maintained a shadow ban on this group. Critical Thinking for Critical Living has 10 curated by you topics – there were more but someone at your hq has taken it upon themselves to micro manage this – and not one of them is Critical Thinking.
If I search for, say, local politics in Cathays it does not show. Likewise all of the other topics. This makes it not searchable and so no one will find the group. And you know this. You have made this this way.
I am shocked once again that a senior customer support lead at Meetup’s community support team would be ‘controlling’ a longterm UK group organiser in such a way.
FURTHER, I’ve checked both of my other groups and both also appear to be shadow banned.
Art in Cardiff returns London based events and walking in Cardiff returns walks in Dublin or London.
You are not serving your members or your platform well here and you have some very serious questions to answer.
I expect ALL of my groups to be searchable and visible for their locations (all are Cardiff area although Wales Outdoors has events across Wales and so each event is pinned to a separate start point location) and searchable and visible for their topics which I will check and update now.
I expect an apology for my treatment and provable loss of income because of decisions taken at Meetup HQ and no further interference from your staff in my business.
Andrew Lamb
Wales Outdoors
Life Drawing Wales
Critical Thinking For Critical Living

Please can you provide me with either a graph or the figures for membership of Wales Outdoors from it’s inception through to now – I’m happy with a 0 figure for the inception date and then once a year on the same date, through to 2021. If you have a more detailed response available then that would be good too 🙂 Thank you.

Thanks for your feedback, Andrew.

It’s true we curate topics on the back end during the group approval process. If our approval team determines there are topics that are irrelevant to a group, those topics are omitted. On the flip side, if our approval team determines there are better topics for a group the organizer hasn’t selected, then we add those topics. 

This is in an effort to make sure local members in your area receive the new group announcement only if their Meetup profile interests are similar to your group’s topics.

Meetup also does not guarantee Meetup groups will absolutely appear in the search results based on specific keyword searches and/or phrase searches. You may consider trying other keyword/phrase searches to find your new group in Meetup search results.

We’re unable to provide the graph you’ve requested. You may visit your group’s members page and click the Download member list option to take a look at membership in the group from its inception to present date:

You are still playing games Bryan and I really don’t know why.
How would you be able to curate a group’s keywords without it having any activity? Why indeed would you employ staff, so time and money, to do this when you really ought to be focussing on getting the software fixed?
My groups are not appearing in my area by topic.
Just do a search using ‘walking and ‘Cardiff’. The top return is a group based in Dublin. This is not acceptable but any stretch of any imagination. Please tell me that you agree that this is unacceptable and if so please sort it out! I am losing income here and it would appear I have been for a very long time!!! If you have no inclination to or not the skills to sort it out please be honest and please let me know why.
Please note that every walking provider in Wales is being badly serviced by meetup. Either the software is in NO WAY fit for purpose OR the Sunrise Jogging company are feeding meetup back hand dollars or bottles of quality Irish Whisky.
Your xl database is organised in the most unusable fashion possibly, by having a word in the date it’s impossible to interrogate. I can’t even organise the spreadsheet in date of sign up. If I could do this I could get to the numbers and plot a graph. So, I ask again, please can you make availa§ble to me a list of members in date order of signup.

Further, I’ve just been billed for the next six months and wonder what service I am getting if my business’ are all shadow banned, as I have proven and you have failed to explain.
Remeber that time when meetup wrote to me commending me on being one of the fastet growing groups in my area?
It would appear that for a very long time now meetup have been doing all that they can do to disable my business’ on the platform.
I demand a full explanation and in a timely manner to – like as a response to this message.