I think I disagree with this piece because although I think it’s true that places are valuable for connecting, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a place that people own. In London we can use pubs, cafes and parks, often for free with just a picnic blanket indicating the edge of this space that separates the conversations from the outside world.
(I ask because there’s a big difference between a community of 10-50 people and 200-300 people. I think at the latter scale, you actually need more infrastructure)
It depends on what you mean by ‘how big.’ The Facebook group has 2100 people. There are 31 local organizers. Socials usually have 50+ attendees (we’ve split them into newcomer and veteran socials, but they’re still big enough that only David knows everyone). I personally know about 75 members of the EA London community, which means I know about 1⁄3 of the people at most events. Does that answer your question?
Ben Hoffman’s post from last year on the Berkeley REACH also seems relevant to this: Humans need places
I think I disagree with this piece because although I think it’s true that places are valuable for connecting, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a place that people own. In London we can use pubs, cafes and parks, often for free with just a picnic blanket indicating the edge of this space that separates the conversations from the outside world.
How big is the London community?
(I ask because there’s a big difference between a community of 10-50 people and 200-300 people. I think at the latter scale, you actually need more infrastructure)
It depends on what you mean by ‘how big.’ The Facebook group has 2100 people. There are 31 local organizers. Socials usually have 50+ attendees (we’ve split them into newcomer and veteran socials, but they’re still big enough that only David knows everyone). I personally know about 75 members of the EA London community, which means I know about 1⁄3 of the people at most events. Does that answer your question?
Reasonably. That does sound like it’s at a comparable scale.
Note that he’s since retracted his recommendation.
True, but from what I recall that was largely for reasons that I expect not to apply to EA Hotel.
Agreed.
Does he still endorse the retraction? It’s just idle curiosity on my part but it wasn’t clear from the comments