[uf-discuss] User Groups

[Thom Shannon]

I'm trying to come up with a way to join the huge network of user groups 
out there and make it easier to find user groups in your area. The 
obvious solution would be to create a website where people go and add 
their group. I can't imagine if I setup such a site the take up would be 
that huge, plus the data would quickly get stale.

So I had the idea of promoting some sort of microformat convention, such 
as creating an hCard for user groups and vCard for the meeting events, 
then tagging all of those with something like "usergroup". Then you 
could use technorati to search all the microformats with that tag, and 
at some point you'll be able to filter them my area, I may end up 
writing that "mashup" myself. It will also tap into all the data on 
sites like upcoming.org. My problem is that I'm not sure how to come up 
with the right convention to start promoting, is a tag like "usergroup" 
a good idea? There are very few examples of people using it, but I can't 
find anything else specific that's used much.

Thanks
Thom