[wp-meta] [Making WordPress.org] #3592: Dashboard Event Widget: Display 5 meetups instead of 3

[Making WordPress.org]

#3592: Dashboard Event Widget: Display 5 meetups instead of 3
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 Reporter:  Nao          |       Owner:  (none)
     Type:  enhancement  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal       |   Milestone:
Component:  API          |  Resolution:
 Keywords:               |
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Changes (by iandunn):

 * priority:  low => normal
 * component:  General => API


Comment:

 Replying to [ticket:3592 Nao]:
 > In the metropolitan Tokyo area, close to 10 events may be scheduled per
 month within the 400km range.

 The 400km range is only for WordCamps, for meetups the range is
 100k.[[br]][[br]]


 > * 1 upcoming WordCamp within the country (Once a WC is scheduled it
 stays until it's over)

 The upcoming change to pin camps to the widget (#wp41112) should help with
 that.[[br]][[br]]


 > How about showing 5 events instead of 3 when they exist? This change
 will not affect areas will less frequent meetups but will help those with
 several nearby meetups.

 It could affect some infrequent meetups, if they setup recurring events
 several months into the future. We could avoid that by having the API only
 include meetups that are less than ~4 weeks away, though.

 I still worry about adding too much clutter to the UI, though. In the
 original design, `3` was chosen specifically to try and balance the amount
 of information that users are presented with.[[br]][[br]]


 > Just writing this out, even though I understand our situation is an edge
 case.

 I think it's still worth considering, and it's very helpful to get
 feedback from various communities, since they're all so different.

 I definitely agree that there isn't a good one-size-fits-all solution, but
 I also have a hard time finding an elegant solution for all (or even most)
 use cases that doesn't have considerable downsides (for UX,
 maintainability, complexity, etc).

 I think it's also important to keep in mind that the original purpose of
 the widget wasn't to help insiders like us keep track of 100% of the
 events that we’re interested in; it was to introduce new people to their
 local WP community. If someone wants to keep to track of 100% of events,
 then there are probably better ways, like signing up for meetup.com email
 notifications.

 If we can find elegant ways to make the list of events more relevant to
 the user, though, that's definitely worthwhile. Maybe the API can look at
 the total number of upcoming events, and if there are more than ~3 in the
 next ~2 weeks, then it would remove some of the farther events from the
 response, so that events closer to the user are given precedence.

 Another idea would be to use a translated string to set the radius per
 locale, and then pass that value to the API. That way smaller countries
 with large populations and active communities could set different locales
 than larger countries where driving longer distances is common. Using a
 translated string would prevent us from having to build/maintain per-
 country logic in the API itself. The API would probably want to enforce a
 reasonable min/max value, though.

 One downside to that approach is that the best value for a locale is
 subjective, and different translators might have conflicting opinions.
 That's not necessarily a huge problem, though, since the translation
 editors could help find a reasonable compromise.[[br]][[br]]

 Related #wp41442, #2998

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Ticket URL: <https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3592#comment:6>
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