Vidar hat problems with the payment of the group and was in discussion with meetup to fix this. While a group is in an "unpaid" state everyone can step in and pay the fee to get full admin rights to the group. After getting full admin rights, that Women removed Vidar, renamed the group and removed the discussion form and mailing list.
[...](3) Meetup Groups. Organizers who allow their Basic Group Fee Subscription to lapse are subject to removal as the Organizer of the Meetup Group that they lead, and their Meetup Group may be terminated or transferred to another Organizer. [...]
Yeah, it's happened before too. In fact, I think all the members of the group get an email asking if they'd like to pay and take over. At least they used to.
I've also been told that it's tricky to remove a group, which means if you want to disband it, you have to manually remove all your members one by one unless you want to potentially subject them to a spammy takeover like has happened here. Removing members from your groups is also a pretty painfully slow process.
I got this very email about a month or two ago and was pretty startled that they'd just up and let anyone take over instead of having the admin determine a plan for the group if he leaves or doesn't keep his payments up when he creates the group. It was totally out of the blue and there wasn't even an opportunity for him to send out one final message or let people know what was going on.
Given the way the site looks and functions, I'm surprised there isn't a more popular alternative. If anyone knows of any, I'd love to hear about it.
Comments
Is this an issue with Meetup.com or did someone willingly give her admin? /concerned meetup organizer
Vidar hat problems with the payment of the group and was in discussion with meetup to fix this. While a group is in an "unpaid" state everyone can step in and pay the fee to get full admin rights to the group. After getting full admin rights, that Women removed Vidar, renamed the group and removed the discussion form and mailing list.
This is really bad that this can happen.
Is that really true? If you start a meetup.com group and fail to pay a bill, anyone can take it over?
Yes, it's true.
From the http://www.meetup.com/terms/
3.3 Meetup Group Fees;
[...](3) Meetup Groups. Organizers who allow their Basic Group Fee Subscription to lapse are subject to removal as the Organizer of the Meetup Group that they lead, and their Meetup Group may be terminated or transferred to another Organizer. [...]
Yeah, it's happened before too. In fact, I think all the members of the group get an email asking if they'd like to pay and take over. At least they used to.
I've also been told that it's tricky to remove a group, which means if you want to disband it, you have to manually remove all your members one by one unless you want to potentially subject them to a spammy takeover like has happened here. Removing members from your groups is also a pretty painfully slow process.
I got this very email about a month or two ago and was pretty startled that they'd just up and let anyone take over instead of having the admin determine a plan for the group if he leaves or doesn't keep his payments up when he creates the group. It was totally out of the blue and there wasn't even an opportunity for him to send out one final message or let people know what was going on.
Given the way the site looks and functions, I'm surprised there isn't a more popular alternative. If anyone knows of any, I'd love to hear about it.
So I just got back from talking to the Meetup.com people. Doesn't seem like there will be a policy change.
That's really unfortunate. Thanks for the response, though!
We'll keep you posted what the community decides on using instead in our next meetup.
Can you point to an example of this happening before?
(edit to answer my own question:) I found this & yes that seems scary as hell:
"Neglect to pay the Org dues for greater than 14 days, in which case the group becomes available and anyone can take it over"
http://www.meetup.com/boards/thread/27771222