I’m a student at Hive here in Helsinki and would love to attend. Lurking on HN for years but not nearly enough Karma. I’ve bookmarked the form for later however I’ll try my luck anyway with the form now. Very cool to know there is an HN meet up here!
Thank you HN for the karma on the above comment, I've since kindly been added to the group. No more helpful get 71153750 into the meetup karma needed. I will endeavour to comment more and post to earn it!
Nice one! As a seasoned industry veteran, I've been wanting to have something like this, and while there are many evening tech meetups going on around here, your schedule is much more suitable for the otherwise busy life! *starts karma mining to qualify*
Filled the form and included my email with the HN user ID just in case you'd be willing to deliver the meeting details that way when they've been decided.
The phone number is not associated with WhatsApp (never had it, and won't), but it works with Signal in case it would be more viable option for meetup info comms than email. Who knows, perhaps even a shadow group already exists there, or has potential to get established?
Thank you for arranging such gatherings, hoping to meet up soon!
Hi. Long-term HN user based in Helsinki. I'd join but don't really want to share my phone number with a large group of people. Can you not find another way to co-ordinate?
There should be an email sent out whenever a meet is organized. WhatsApp group is mostly for choosing the most suitable date and a place , it’s not mandatory for participation
Someone correct me if I'm wrong (I've never used it myself), but Google Voice doesn't seem to be available in Finland at all so probably not?
> Google Voice is a telephone service that provides a U.S. telephone number to Google Account customers in the U.S. and Google Workspace customers in Canada, Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the contiguous United States.
Not sure what I'm supposed to do with a US phone number anyway, I'd probably be more embarrassed about using a US phone number then letting people in a HN meetup group see my real phone number.
Dunno if it's a generational thing or what, but I check my email like maybe once a day sometimes I can go 2-3 days without looking at it. It's just a place where Stuff gathers and I go through it when I Get around to it. Can't even remember when I used email to actually communicate with a non-business entity outside of work.
I am not from the area but the deliberations about which messaging platform is kosher are an enormous time waste for every bottom-up organization, especially FOSS projects or hacker spaces.
Interesting you think it's less important for "FOSS projects". I would think the chat should be free software especially in those circles. IRC, XMPP, Matrix, email. Lots of options that have been around for decades now.
As a Finn, I've definitely had to say the phrase "No, I don't have WhatsApp" more times than I care to count. That being said, I imagine a FOSS project or hacker space to be more cognisant of WhatsApp's ownership than a car dealership trying to sell me a used car via video call. I got rid of my WhatsApp precisely because Meta started tweaking the terms of service.
There are a few people who don’t use e-mail, sure, like Donald Knuth. But conscientious objectors to e-mail? I don’t know of any, and if you find any, they probably don’t use the Internet, either.
My thoughts exactly, but I noticed Europe is heavily dependent on WhatsApp for some reason, everyone I have ever talked to before they ask for WhatsApp and some even look shocked when you say you never use it! Instead of email, simpleX or element would do the job.
Great! I just spent the past 4 days in Helsinki for vacation (writing this from Silja ferry to Copenhage). Really lovely city , Allas pool Sauna is really a "something else" experience for a Mexican, and a friend of mine who lives there mentioned the vibrant startup community you guys have there. I read a bit more about it and visited Oodi library, which apparently has some great perks for startupers.
Im envious of the startup atmosphere you got there, particularly the more "socialized" less cutthroat d*k waving sense of it .
There was one 14 years ago. I even gave a talk there once. Maybe some of the original organizers or attendees who commented on this post would be interested in rebooting it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4754269
I tend to like the smaller meetups that are focused. But they often degrade in quality as they scale. A failure mode I hit several times was group circles with a louder or opinionated person eventually entering and taking the focus of the group. For large meetups that's not an issue I suppose. Break-out groups did work, but it needs some planning.
I live in Helsinki so this seems fun. Commenters everywhere are a pretty strongly (self-)selected bunch so seems like a good way to get a strong selection effect without arduous requirements. Does anyone have previous experience with this kind of a setup?
Not going, but just adding commentary - Having a karma requirement for a physical meetup is a poor choice. People will come out physically if they truly care, gatekeeping it with internet points is a bad idea, especially if you turn people away.
Having it be an open invitation meetup would attract a very different cohort and would have a very different character. Feel free to start that meetup - I might give it a try. But I wouldn't be interested in spending my personal time organising it
Makes me wonder if there's any meetups in my neck of the woods in good ole Nova Scotia. I kind of doubt it, but it would be wicked. Hope you guys have a great time!
theres def atleast one OG guy id love to buy a coffee/beer for there, no idea if he goes to HN meets tho, would love to attend at when Im next over there in any case.
I suppose organizers choose the easiest way to contact people rather than relying on one of the least-used messaging apps that people won't install just to attend a meetup.
> To keep the group focused on posters (and not just readers!) anyone can join so long as:
> they have a non-greenname account
> they have 64 karma or more
Is the karma checked at the door or is it at the time of submission? Seems like somebody could be at 12 and then post “actually I believe the general consensus on gravity is wrong” in the right thread the night before and roll in with 89 points