# Ruby/Rails user groups **URL:** \ **Category:** Rails\ **Created:** [February 19, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095 "2007-02-19T20:52:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 8:52pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/1 "2007-02-19T20:52:58Z")
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what I could give back to the Ruby / Rails community (communities?), and the idea I have now has grown out of my own search for a user group and out of a desire to pave easier roads for later newbies to follow. I’m going to (attempt to) create a centralized Ruby / Rails user group website, which will offer free resources to any user group which needs it, and will at least attempt to catalogue all Ruby / Rails user groups in existence, even if they don’t actually use the resources of my website. This is a very young plan, which could be quickly dashed if I’m missing something (a website that already does this), or if no one seems interested. Currently, I’m planning on offering search capabilities (so you can find a group or groups near you), a group forum for each group, mailing list capabilities (I have absolutely no clue how to implement this, but assume that there are plenty of tools available to do the job), an event calendar, and any other features that are requested or required. I am hoping, after the initial publication of the site, to be able to spend the time necessary to add internationlization. I am also hoping to find a hosting company that will help sponsor the cost of hosting a site that will start free, and remain free, but will require a lot of space/bandwidth assuming it goes anywhere. If anyone has any suggestions, comments, or feels the desire to pitch in, I consistently monitor this group/mailing list/forum and am also welcome to personal emails at technodolt :: at :: gmail :: dot :: com. Please, please give me some feedback so I can know if I’m wasting my time. ---
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2007, 10:01pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/2 "2007-02-19T22:01:49Z")
At 8:52 PM +0100 2/19/07, Luke I. wrote: > I’m going to (attempt to) create a centralized Ruby / Rails user group > website, which will offer free resources to any user group which needs > it, and will at least attempt to catalogue all Ruby / Rails user groups > in existence, even if they don’t actually use the resources of my > website. +1 > If anyone has any suggestions, comments, or feels the desire to pitch > in, I consistently monitor this group/mailing list/forum and am also > welcome to personal emails at technodolt :: at :: gmail :: dot :: com. > > Please, please give me some feedback so I can know if I’m wasting my > time. Quite a few Ruby groups are listed on [http://ruby.meetup.com/](http://ruby.meetup.com/); there is no separate category for Rails, but many of these concentrate on it. I list several Ruby and Rails groups in SF Bay Area Scripting Groups [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/bass/groups.php](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/bass/groups.php) What would be very cool, IMHO, would be a way for folks to list their locations (e.g., by zip code) and have the result be logged in Google Maps. I’d suggest two separate maps: one for individuals and the other for groups. FWIW, Jef Poskanzer’s GeoRSS service makes this sort of thing quite easy to prototype. I put together a map of Apple Stores in the US: > [An ACME GeoRSS Map](http://www.acme.com/GeoRSS/?xmlsrc=http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/as.xml) > > I punted the overseas stores (whose information is actually > hidden in the main page) because I had already spent more > time on this than I wanted to… ## -r [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm) Rich M. [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog) +1 650-873-7841 Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development ---
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 3:20pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/3 "2007-02-20T15:20:41Z")
See also [http://www.rubyholic.com/](http://www.rubyholic.com/) (seems to be down for me at the moment). – Building an e-commerce site with Rails? [http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce](http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce) Meet up at RailsConf: [http://railsconf2007.conferencemeetup.com/](http://railsconf2007.conferencemeetup.com/) ---
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 4:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/4 "2007-02-20T16:14:07Z")
> +1 Thank you > Quite a few Ruby groups are listed on [http://ruby.meetup.com/](http://ruby.meetup.com/); there is > no separate category for Rails, but many of these concentrate on it. This is getting close to what I want to do, but I’d like to have something specifically aimed at RoR (or just plain Ruby), on an RoR platform. Just seems like the right thing to do. > What would be very cool, IMHO, would be a way for folks to list their > locations (e.g., by zip code) and have the result be logged in Google > Maps. I’d suggest two separate maps: one for individuals and the > other for groups. Sounds like a cool feature… thanks for the suggestion. > FWIW, Jef Poskanzer’s GeoRSS service makes this sort of thing quite > easy to prototype. I put together a map of Apple Stores in the US: > > > [An ACME GeoRSS Map](http://www.acme.com/GeoRSS/?xmlsrc=http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/as.xml) I’ll check that out. Thanks 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 4:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/5 "2007-02-20T16:17:01Z")
Benjamin C. wrote: > See also [http://www.rubyholic.com/](http://www.rubyholic.com/) (seems to be down for me at the > moment). > > – > Building an e-commerce site with Rails? > [http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce](http://www.agilewebdevelopment.com/rails-ecommerce) > > Meet up at RailsConf: > [http://railsconf2007.conferencemeetup.com/](http://railsconf2007.conferencemeetup.com/) It seems as though there are a lot of these sites, that basically are just collections of pointers to alread established things. I’m hoping to be able to offer free hosted content… instead of creating your own website, you can just use ours… complete with forum, auto-created mailing list (most likely via Google G.), location-aware searches, etc. It seems like there are plenty of blogs in the Ruby/Rails arena, there are lots of websites dedicated to how to use it, or to specific aspects of it, but there doesn’t seem to be a lot in the way of a truly centralized community. Maybe this will just flop horribly and no one will sign up for it, but I’d like to at least give it a go. ---
**Author:** ![technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/e99b99/32.png) [@technodolt](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/technodolt)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2007, 10:14pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/ruby-rails-user-groups/86095/6 "2007-02-20T22:14:04Z")
> This is getting close to what I want to do, but I’d like to have > something specifically aimed at RoR (or just plain Ruby), on an RoR > platform. Just to be clear, I was suggesting that you use the Meetup page as a resource for building your own list. ## -r [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm) Rich M. [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/resume) removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog](http://www.cfcl.com/rdm/weblog) +1 650-873-7841 Technical editing and writing, programming, and web development