> if you've never attended a party held in another state by some random person you've never met in real life, I highly recommend it This somewhat off-topic, bu

> if you've never attended a party held in another state by some random person you've never met in real life, I highly recommend it This somewhat off-topic, but I'd highly recommend this as well. In general, I've been a member of a few Internet (IRC, forums, mailing lists) communities that would organize real-life events and made good friends and formed important associations through this. I've also seen several degrade into "just another $medium community". In many cases they would be forked many times into smaller/more selective communities that'd would maintain the feel of the older days (you could say reddit this with news.y.c and programming.reddit).