Edited to Add: Here's my Calendly for anyone who wants to get set up.
TL;DR
If you're a LessWrong or SSC meetup organizer who wants to host online events, we are offering to let you host them in the LessWrong Walled Garden with our support. If you're interested (or just want a tour), please comment below or reach out to us directly (DM or Intercom) and we'll set you up.
- Also, we're planning a Meta-Meetup, a meetup for meetup organizers on Sunday, 20th December 2:00PM to 4:00PM (PT). Please join if you're just interested in meeting other organizers, sharing experiences, brainstorming ideas and plans, and just rubbing virtual shoulders with other agenty folk who made good things happen for their communities.
What is the Walled Garden?
The LessWrong Walled Garden is a highly customized GatherTown space that we carefully curate to keep the quality of interaction high. We've had good success running events there and think it now makes sense to expand its usage to general meetups which we want to support.
rocks are slippery, don't fall, I mean it
Why are we offering this?
Though LessWrong is an online forum, the LessWrong and broader Rationalist/SSC communities have historically thrived via in-person meetups. Real-time, high-fidelity, embedded interaction matters for getting to know people, exchanging ideas, and having a good time. Unfortunately, this year has made them difficult to host, and that's why we built the Garden. Online meetups are but a simulacrum of the real thing, but let's try to make it a damn good simulacrum.
What's on offer
- A beautiful, massive, exquisitely crafted, customized virtual world.
- Always available, LessWrong pays all fees.
- Reinvigorate your group after these tough Covid months.
- GatherTown has the advantage over Zoom of extreme ease of breaking off into smaller conversations and then rejoining due to its proximity chat.
- Consult with the LessWrong team on how to host successful online meetups.
- [Optional] You can keep your events private to your group, or if you like, boost attendance by making your events public to other meetup groups or the broader LW community.
- Anyone in the Garden sees a calendar of upcoming public/semi-public events, plus upcoming events can get displayed on the LW homepage too.
not those kind, well...
How it works
Event organizers will be given access to the Walled Garden at any time, from which they can generate event invite codes that can be given out to meetup attendees. (Expiring codes helps ensure the Walled Garden stays a high-quality place, compared to no wall.)
How to get set up
Comment below, DM me or another LW team member, ping us on Intercom, or email (ruby@lesswrong.com)
Hope to see you there!!