[cableshaft]

Yep. I had a 1200 person geeky event meetup (board game events, geek movies, role playing, escape rooms, renaissance faires, conventions, zombie walks, a bunch of random geeky stuff) that I eventually wanted to stop paying $180/year for when the pandemic hit, since I wasn't willing to host any in-person events anymore.

I stepped down and someone who wasn't even a member of the group swooped in to pay for it and has only used it to post speed dating events since (so the past two years).

Technically I inherited the group myself, but I was an active member already and the original creator chose to hand it over to me after she moved away from the area, since I said I was willing to pay for it of the people on the leadership team (I was a moderator and posted events already).

It's one of the things I hate most about Meetup. There can be good things about it, if someone else is willing to carry on the torch like I was, and wants to keep the group going, but letting whoever wants to swoop in and snipe it just to harvest the user list is pretty crappy.

It should be something the admin (or at least a moderator, since maybe an admin could just ghost at some point) can choose to hand over, not just be an automatic process up for grabs for anyone.

[acomjean]

I was part of an urban exploring meetup. (We went to an abandoned Christian theme park). But the meetup organizer stopped, and speed dating site took it over.

If I remember correctly the members were notified the organizer stepped down and asked someone to step up.

[monksy]

I razed my group to the ground over that. Their best offer was half off for the next 6 months. No one wants to socialize over zoom unless it's their close friends. I had 7k members.

[LorenPechtel]

I don't see why people even bother--take over a group and post garbage events and people are just going to leave.