Fellow group organizers/moderators - advice needed

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JanuaryMan
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Joined: 1 Jan 2012
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Posts: 3,359

26 Nov 2013, 9:27 am

Hi gang. Because of the nature of the topic I wasn't sure whether to put it here in Social Skills or Love and Dating but seeing as it pertains to diplomacy and social skills I figured here would be the best place. Anyways.....I manage/moderate and organize a fair few things in real life. One of these things is a Meetup group for gamers in my local region. Now to elaborate on the (perceived) issue:

I find that as far as visible activity goes because the group is relatively minor....there's scarce activity, sometimes 2-3 weeks between. However, if we have a new girl sign up to our group, we get a flurry of activity all of a sudden and lots of new members (99% of the time) guys that join almost instantly and RSVP to the same events or just "lurk" and eventually leave if the girl never goes to any events or she herself leaves the group. It is not a one off, and is a pattern that's emerged 3 times in the course of 4 months. As an organizer, I understand that connections will forge between people and sometimes romance will blossom. I feel that as an organizer I must also understand the need to be vigilant about people misusing my own group as a hookup or dating directory when it's intended for people with a common interest. I feel if I don't do this not only will I struggle to keep the variety of the group mixed as the creep factor will scare away women, I also feel if I do too much I will not be much better than the types of people I don't want misusing my group.

So my questions to fellow organizers or people who have held special-interest meets in the past are:
*How much intervention is too much?
*What steps should I take in vetting my members that join during these almost blatant patterns?
*How do I deem what is appropriate and inappropriate interaction between members?
*Do you normally have a rule system set up in place for this? I have thus far avoided having a guidelines page for my group.

There are some people who are very obvious and it's easy to vet them but for others it's hard to tell whether they are genuinely there for the group or just to be nosey/ scout. I'd like a bit more advice on where the line should be, and how to draw it...if a line should even be drawn at all. I want my meetup group to be about its purpose first and foremost, with the social interaction being the icing on the cake. I suppose people using Meetup or similar sites as a means of meeting men/women for dating is something I'll have to maybe even knock on the head. I just find it frustrating when I see like 4 guys join my group in the same 2 days after 1 girl decides to RSVP to something when they probably have no interest in the group's activities or hobbies at all. We've had a couple of successful meets in the past with some decent topics from the dudes and dudettes and I kind of want to keep it that way.

So yeah, enough rambling. Advice if you can spare it, please! Thanks :)