Why not have HN meetups?

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 readers? That's the breadth of topics covered by HN, and I just don't see it being unifying enough.

The biggest issue is that dang won't be there to moderate us...

There used to be lots of meetup announcements in the first few years of HN. I don't know when that slowed down, but I also lived nowhere near most of them for over a decade (small town, good work, but not a big tech scene).

It's something I've always wondered, as I'd be interested. In the meantime, the "rationalist" sphere, who have similar intellectual interests spanning tech, policy, altruism, economics, etc., are mostly online but do actually have meetups spanning lots of global cities. I imagine you'd find 80% of what you'd want from an HN meetup. (caveat: I haven't been to any though)

https://www.lesswrong.com/community

I'd be open to something like that.

Maybe a VC can get drunk and pitch out the strangest idea possible. I know I'm going to build my 3 hour prototype in Flutter, what about you.

Unlike geographically-based meetup groups [0], the readership of HN isn't bound by some arbitrary lines on a map

You want to go get pizza some night and talk about the failing of cryptocurrency? I'm your guy! ...presuming you're within, say, 30 minutes of me (halfway between Lexington KY and Knoxville TN)

I might also be "your guy" if you wanted to discuss theological implications of a cashless society

Or if you want to talk about the pros and cons of an all- (or mostly-) electric vehicle fleet in a given country

Or any of myriad other topics

But if you're not near[ish] me ...I'm not your [in-person] guy

I'd love to get together the next time I'm in Sacramento or Seattle or Chicago or Las Vegas or Miami or any of a thousand other places - but carving out time in my life for people not nearby? It's just not a priority

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[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30533089

Sounds great but like always someone needs to go thru the hard work of putting it together. I bet few to none will volunteer.

Seattle had one. Covid killed it (for now?). https://www.meetup.com/HackerNewsSeattleMeetup/

That's a cool idea. I've been thinking about starting a Unity3D or Indie Hackers meetup here in Indianapolis, but I suspect the turnout may be low because those topics are niche compared to the size of the tech scene here. Maybe I'll give an HN meetup a try instead since that will appeal to a broader group.

For obvious reason there hasn’t been any for two years, but I’ve seen HN Meetup’s around the world, back in the day.

I actually do think this happens more in the YC startup school space. A lot of people who sign up for the cofounder matching are just looking to meet interesting people. I’ve personally gone out to play pool and eat lunch with a couple folks my roommate found via the platform.

Have you seen the HN user map someone put together a while back? All over the map. You can have regional stuff for sure. If YC is ok with it of course.

Once COVID is fully past I'd love HN meetups. But lets give up on the idea that they be monthly. Not only would you burn out leaders but in my case having to drive to Detroit or Ann Arbor would mean I couldn't do it monthly.

I think quarterly would be perfect. Plus in Michigan you could bypass the worst of winter and not have the worry of a blizzard wiping out all your plans.

Because someone might ask us to explain our downvotes