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I'm working on the list for this week's Austin Bitdevs Underground, and there's just too much stuff. All the noise about BIP 110 makes it seem like not much else is happening, but the reality is very different.

How does the list guide the meetup? I noticed on prior posts of yours too that it is huge!

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I start with a QR for the list so that everyone can get on the same page, and then present a selection of items from the list for discussion grouped by topic.

For instance, this week I imagine we'll do all the Spark/privacy stuff together and all the BIPs together and a good chunk on mining. And then a hop around releases and tools and research discussing things that attendees find interesting.

I try to read out most of the items on the list and when it seems like people want to talk about it, we do.

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I remember thinking - last month iirc - "this must be a could-be list" because it would take way too much time to discuss it all. So I guess that was the right feeling.

Would you say that the devs discussion focuses more on current affairs - i.e. the current outcome the list describes, or the road between what's here now and what's envisioned?

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Definitely leans more toward current state of things, less future oriented. It would be an interesting concept to focus more on what Bitcoin could be in the future.

It does come up, in the context of some new tool or development, but rarely is the meeting positioned around what the envisioned state might be.

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I used to frequent a FOSS meetup a while back where we'd cover events, then a short talk / presentation / AMA and then the final round before networking time was: what are you working on? This made the socializing part much more forward looking.

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I like the idea of a time for what are you working on. Currently the socializing time is mostly at the beginning of the meetup, this seems to make it more less about what people are working on and more about easy chit-chat.

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Right. Pre-meetup socializing is to get comfortable, this is important too, especially if you have newcomers. Post-meetup socializing is for bonding. Can even just reserve 10 minutes or so for it if your participants are on a tight schedule. But it's good to have some time (and still have the space) to linger - or go for a pizza.

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