What are the qualifications of a "Hot Event"

[svpernova09]

The @joindin/leadership-team has been discussing several items and one has brought us to open this discussion:

What are the qualifications of a "Hot Event"

What does an event need to do to qualify to appear on the Joind.in homepage?

Currently Joind.in is working like this:

• We're scoring the event based on absolute value of the date difference between the event start and now. (Source)
• We take the score and subtract the result of the comment count + attendee acount divided by 5. (Source)

Some of the ideas tossed around:

• Required CFP info (or past dates?)
• Event image required
• at least 1 claimed talk

Thanks to @mcneely for bringing the topic up and @iansltx and @ericpoe for input so far. I'll leave the discussion open for 7 days to get feedback from others (If you can read this we'd appreciate your feedback)

[iansltx]

As mentioned elsewhere, I'm +1 on an event image requirement. It makes everyone look better, and takes seconds for an event organizer to add in if they have a square-format logo (which they do if they're on Twitter or Facebook).

Re: the CFP requirement, user groups/meetups that don't have a formal CFP period would get filtered out by that change. Maybe Hot Events shouldn't include those types of events, but that would also filter out curated conferences.

Likewise, a claimed talk requirement would filter out networking-focused events that don't have talks per se. I'm personally fine with doing that for Hot Events but that's just me.

[DaveLiddament]

IMHO the aim should be minimal effort on the part of those wanting to leave feedback. Without feedback the site is nothing.

Given the above I think hot events should be events that are in progress, or have finished within the last day or so. Then anyone who is at an event goes to joind.in homepage and can click through the events.

Every PHPSW night we organise we seem to be first or second in the list. Whenever I'm at a conference the event is also 1st or 2nd in the list. So it seems that the current formula is working. I'd vote for no change.

[iansltx]

@DaveLiddament the rationale behind the change is that, while well-attended, well-commented, well-maintained event listings get top billing on the page, everything lower down is a mixed bag, with a bunch of events that consist of nothing more than a description (and one attendee, namely the organizer). The idea of any changes would be to ensure that events that are actually engaged in the platform don't get drowned in the noise. e.g. there are a few events on the Hot page that are ghost towns, which are keeping JestPHP (which has a logo, talks listed, multiple attendees, etc.) from the front page.

[exussum12]

Personally I think it should be

Absolute days distance from event. Ie before event compare to start date. After event compare to end date. So 0 for currently running. 1 for either day before or day after. Then event image yes / no Then Amount of comments

So all events running currently are at the top. Followers by events which either start tomorrow or ended yesterday

When two events have the same number ie 0 for currently running. Events with images take precedence. If all events have images amount of comments takes the winning spot.

Would also consider a sponsored slot at the top of the results to try and finance the site

[heiglandreas]

As joind.in is mainly about feedback I'd filter out events that have no slots assigned (for the Hot Events). As there is also a possibility to create networking slots that's not a drawback.

I would not take CfP infos into account though. Otherwise we would need to verify whether the CfP-site actually existed which migbt not be the case anymore when the hot events are estimated...

Besides that a logo should be a general requirement unrelated to the hot events but making it a part of the algorithm can help. Perhaps we can silently ignore all events for the hot events that have no logo.