Change Location Temporarily Closed to Something Else

[Grateful-Viv]

Not sure if TSML UI goes here, will assume if it doesn't, you'll move it to the right place.

I put this same request to app support for the Meeting Guide.

Would it be possible to change the text “Location Temporarily Closed” to “Not Meeting at Physical Location” or “Meeting Online Only” or leave it blank, if the meeting is online, yet the meeting is still associating themselves with that location. And "Meeting Suspended" or something like, if inactive (or just leave blank).

The issue is many of the meetings that did meet at a physical location, intend to, at some point, return. In fact the location may very well be open and other groups are meeting there on different days, but a particular meeting may not be. Yes, it's almost been two years, but they do not want to disassociate from the brick 'n mortar location. That is why they still want to have the meeting showing as being associated with the place they met and having it crossed out is fine with them. And for that reason using the approximant location option would not work for them.

This does not apply to TSML plugin, which just leaves it blank.

edit: I’m still not using TSML-ui even though I prefer the design better for 3 reasons.

1. Need to have the upcoming meetings widget go to the upcoming meetings displayed in ui.
2. Though not a show-stopper, would prefer to have the other widgets work (e.g. meeting top)
3. The production version should not also be a development version. Often I have looked at TSML-UI to see changes have been made. They’ve been good ones such as displaying xx meetings in progress, but some others have broken some of my custom CSS.

[joshreisner]

Hi @Grateful-Viv

Regarding the main request, I think we all agree that we need a meeting type that signifies that a meeting which meets online and is still associated with a non-approximate location is not in fact meeting at that location. Originally we called this Temporary Closure and then (I think per your request?) we updated it to Location Temporarily Closed.

TSML uses this type behind the scenes but does not display it. I see that it's not visible on this meeting as an example: https://demo.code4recovery.org/meetings/up-the-creek-daily-reflections-6

Am I right in thinking the rationale to change away from Location Temporarily Closed is that the location itself might have other meetings, it's just this meeting that's not meeting there currently?

If so, that sounds logical to me! If GSO adopts a change (either hiding it in the UI or changing the taxonomy) then TSML UI will follow. I'm going to convert this discussion topic to an issue and move it to the Spec repo, since that's where we consider changes to types.

Regarding the other requests, the TSML team is about to release an update and then start working on TSML UI / WP integration for the next release, which will definitely touch on issues 1 and 2, and conceivably could also address 3.

[joshreisner]

Oh I forgot Spec has discussions, I'll leave it as that.

@L-squared FYI. Perhaps something to discuss in the next meeting?

[tech2serve]

At the risk of creating a bit of confusion, I'll link to some discussion from late summer 2020.

The gist is the idea that status information for a location is not alway equal to the status information of a meeting itself. The most common scenario offered is spring flooding in the midwest. The can cause a location to be temporarily closed, the sidelining all of the in-person meetings at that location.

Alternatively, a church has Vacation Bible School during the month of July, and only the noon meeting is affected. The 7pm meetings can be held as scheduled. In this case, only the meeting is temporarily suspended.

I realize this is all well and good, but implementing would definitely need to be done in a manner that is simple to understand.

[Grateful-Viv]

Am I right in thinking the rationale to change away from Location Temporarily Closed is that the location itself might have other meetings, it's just this meeting that's not meeting there currently?

Yes, that is exactly it.

I know I was a big proponent back then in advocating changing it from temporary closure to location temporarily closed. That made sense at the time because it was only the location that was closed — the meeting was still going on, but just online.

But here we are two years later, and now it makes less sense. The location may be open for other meetings, but it’s just the one meeting not currently meeting there.

Meetings have sure evolved over the past two years — it’s hard to believe it’s been this long. I put myself in the same group that thought this would be a few months at most and then we’d return back to “normal” meetings. Now we have all kinds of meetings and can even travel the world to them. I appreciate that Code for Recovery has adapted to our continual changing landscape as we trudge the road of happy destiny to finding solutions that work best to accommodate as many as possible.

Looking forward to the pending update for the plugin.

GSO did say they’d discuss it and I hope they end up doing this. It is my hope you will adopt updated language even if they don’t — the plugin may use the logic as you pointed out, but I appreciate that it doesn’t display it.

Also looking forward to the UI/WP integration in the near future. Would be glad to beta test.

Thank you.