The SD Meetups are, apparently, better at coordinating voting on HN than any other HN meetup.
(that's not a criticism, just an observation. I think it's totally fair, but I run LA HN http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hacker-News/ , and we rarely hit front page, despite having 50+ attendees at most meetups, and 352 meetup members).
As the HN community grows, it seems harder and harder for these meetup posts to make the homepage at all. While I can understand why YC might not be quick to "endorse" or link to any particular local HN groups, is there some possible middle ground? For example, a monthly post which somehow lists all of that month's upcoming local HN meetup events around the world? I think a lot of people don't realize that they can just do a web search for [city name] + "hacker news", and something like that might at least make it periodically apparent that such local gatherings exist. Other suggestions welcome!
(that's not a criticism, just an observation. I think it's totally fair, but I run LA HN http://www.meetup.com/Los-Angeles-Hacker-News/ , and we rarely hit front page, despite having 50+ attendees at most meetups, and 352 meetup members).