Community Profile

MUMSFS expedient menu of links (New for November 2009)
Latest COE **** Navigation Tips **** ALL Guide-tagged entries **** Rules of Etiquette **** DNIL **** Turnout Reports

The short version is that MUMSFS is essentially a very open and friendly sci-fi themed LJ-users meetup group that meets in various parts of the Washington DC Metro area, but mainly in Gaithersburg, Rockville, Silver Spring and College Park, and occasionally places like Laurel MD and Herndon VA.

When--Tuesday/Thursday Meetings:
The majority of the time, mumsfs meets every week on either a Tuesday *or* Thursday. (Exceptions include the odd Monday or Wednesday.)
A calendar of dates, times and locations is posted "Members-Only". Meetings last about three hours, beginning at various times 6m 7, or 8pm, depending on venue and listed for each in the monthly events calendar. It occurs at any one of over 35 restaurants spread out over a large portion of the DC Metro area, including Maryland areas Gaithersburg, Rockville, Bethesda, Wheaton, Silver Spring, College Park, Takoma Park, Greenbelt, Laurel and sometimes Sterling VA.

If you are already a mumsfs member and wish to receive email notification of important announcements, please follow this link to subscribe to email alerts for MUMSFS posts marked "events reminders" or "events calendars" (or preferably both by doing it twice). In either case you must change "community polls" to the tag item of your choice from the drop down menu. By doing this you won't miss any and you won't be dependent on having me contact you individually to remind you.

If you've just happened upon this community, if don't know anyone here, and if the thought of hanging out with Sci-Fi fans bores you to tears, please check out mocomdmeetup which is also a very open and friendly themed LJ-users meetup group, but lacking any central theme.)

Most everyone is welcome and the "rules", which are spelled out in anal-retentive detail below, are only required reading for the socially-clueless. If you think are are socially-clueless, (or if people frequently say that you are) you might want to read them. Everyone else can just show up until directed otherwise.

The not-so-short version:
MUMSFS is a not-all-inclusive club which is a spinoff of a *mostly*-all-inclusive club called LUMSFS. Due to a history of problems with LUMSFS, nearly every LUMSFS-spinoff is not-all-inclusive. The difference between MUMSFS and the other spin-offs is that (to my knowledge) this is the only such club which is *easy* to join and which lists its rules plainly and publicly.

Precedent:
In the history of LUMSFS, such a "spinoff" is typically called a "Splinter Group" and the reasons for "Splintering" have been many. I seem to recall that prior to my joining in the '90s, it was rumored that a group split off so that they could meet in a restaurant that permitted smoking.

In a sense the current status of "LUMSFS" is that of a splinter group, in as much as those operating LUMSFS do not regard it as a private entity unto itself, but rather as the "meetup" function of an online community of the same name. Those membered in the online community exceed 100 and certainly far exceed the 22 people who ever show up at meetings, yet they set policy and vote on where such meetings should be held. I'm not saying that MUMSFS is itself more like the LUMSFS I once knew than that which calls itself LUMSFS today, but I am saying that LUMSFS has changed in such a way that because of how it is externally governed, it is now even less like the LUMSFS I once knew before the asshats came along and ruined it for everyone.

How?
Rules and guidelines
Increasingly there are entries tagged User Guide to explain how to use this community. Various facts of MUMSFS and rules for it are interspersed thoughout this info page. I'm working to further simplify this.

New January 2008: MUMSFS rules of Social Etiquette

When?
Currently all regular weekly events MUMSFS events occur on either Tuesdays or Thursdays. There may be other special events, and members may choose to use the MUMSFS member base to help flesh out a party.

Due to Lyme Disease, The following italicized feature is no longer supported:
If you are not a mumsfs member because, for whatever reason, you just cannot tolerate using LiveJournal, but you have attended meetings previously as a guest and wish to receive some email notifications (less reliable), please Click here to subscribe to an announce-only email MUMSFS notification list hosted by Google.
If you want to join, join LJ and this community, or if that's really impossible then email me if you have any difficulty and request to be placed on the MUMSFS short-bus mailing list. I call it that partly because I wish I did not even need to do that much, but also to indicate I'd prefer members use this option for short duration only.

Where?
A calendar of dates, times and locations is posted "Members-Only" at or before the first day of each month. Each calendar contains hotlinks to Wikipedia-like detailed "Restaurant Location Entries" for each scheduled location. These entries may or may not be locked at any given time. However, the scheduling of these events is to be kept secret among the member and only shared with those each member intends to "bring" and be responsible for.

Reposting of upcoming event information prior to an event to any public medium (including this community if not F-Locked) may be considered grounds for membership removal Once you are a member, feel free to post suggestions for new locations. After a location has been adequately investigated, a place may or may not be voted on before it is posted to the events calendar. Newly scheduled locations will be announced two weeks in advance.

Members may submit new venues for consideration. Please see protocol entry, How I select MUMSFS Venues

To be a member you tend to need to have an LJ account. It is practically impossible to function here fully as a member by receiving mailings. Privacy is necessary for this community to work and that means it can't be public. For you to interact with the other non public members, that tends to mean you need to be able to log in. LJ is free and easy to use. You are not required to actually blog, just read the announcements and comment regarding which events you expect to try to attend.

I am seriously considering creating loaner "Sock Puppet" accounts for people who are willing to try being members but too easily intimidated to actually create their own account on LJ.

What?
MUMSFS, the M stands for Members and for Manners. The UM would stand for the University of MD which it has nothing whatever to do with anymore, remaining as merely a representation of the group's original roots. The SFS actually stands for "Science Fiction Society". Although this aspect is not actually enforced there is a tangible undercurrent and so Fans of Science Fiction, SF cons, Anime, and fantasy are more likely to find happiness here.

Why?
UMSFS was just another SFS group before it was originally disbanded over 30 years ago. It's members have mostly moved away and have been replaced by others such as myself who have continued to meet in various restaurants as a variously social social group called "LUMSFS". I honestly don't know if it ever had a "zine" or operated any sort of "event" as other SFS groups do, but in the close to 20 years I've know if it, it never has.

Rather LUMSFS simply meets in restaurants, usually the same restaurant or two. Snipish, catty, sometimes threatening and often outright obnoxious behavior was for a very long time the norm, and when it got even worse I left. As of the creation of this community, I'd been back to being a regular attendee of "LUMSFS" for two years. At that time, LUMSFS was actually the most positive it had ever been, but there are still recurring problems which can never be fixed under its current, nearly-nonexistent rules.

Though many have returned to LUMSFS, a few have expressed reservations based their previous experience with drama ("psychodrama") there which they do not wish to relive. Though LUMSFS has been much better on average in the last couple of years than in the years that prompted me to abandon it, those whose obnoxious, intimidating and sometimes even threatening behavior that drove me away the first time, appear to be migrating back. I too have had my own difficulties and sympathize, so "today 10/21/2005", when a friend who wishes to rejoin LUMSFS explained to me her concern and desire to see an alternative group with less psychodrama than she feared, I decided to have a go at it. MUMSFS was born, if only on paper.

MUMSFS is not intended to replace LUMSFS, but to create a kinder gentler alternative physical meetup group. LUMSFS and MUMSFS each has its own purposes:

1. MUMSFS is first and foremost intended to cater to those who really no longer attend LUMSFS for such understandable reasons such as stress or depression, by excluding elements which make it impossible for those members to face LUMSFS.
   
2. MUMSFS can be used to try out different new locations which might later be used should LUMSFS again need to permanently relocate.
   
3. MUMSFS can also be used to "try out" new members before they are introduced to LUMSFS.

How?
MUMSFS now has User Manual, although the first chapter only regards how to navigate this community, but that alone is something.

Unlike lumsfs which I'd intended to treat primarily as a means of physical LUMSFS members to keep better in touch and repopulate the physical group, returning some semblance of control to its regularly attending members. With mumsfs there is no obligation to form the community primarily from those with a history in LUMSFS, but rather a community of fun, local (and hopefully fannish) people who like and respect each other, and are willing to abide a very few rules intended to help the common good. To apply for MUMSFS membership, click here

Guests:
Registered mumsfs members may bring guests. (Guests are potentially new members). Guests are the responsibility of their inviting members until the guests themselves have joined. Reposting of upcoming event information to any public medium (including this community if not F-Locked) may be considered grounds for membership removal. Due to overcrowding concerns, if you plan to bring guests to a meet it would be wise to notify me by means of a comment under the calendar entry for that month and specify the applicable date. If you wish to invite someone but are concerned that they may not be welcome for whatever reason, you may check the Do Not Invite List (DNIL)

It should go without saying that if revealing most anything from locked entries is bad, revealing such information to people on the "DNIL" is worse!

Approval:
Anyone can apply for membership regardless of whether they've even heard of LUMSFS (or even current LUMSFS-RAM status). Until a new MUMSFS member-government has been convened, approval, will fall upon my shoulders. Generally speaking initial membership will be open to those who current hold RAM status in lumsfs. As decency toward others and meeting place security are high on the list of issues which inspired this community, member status may be disputed for such reasons as a history of divulging LUMSFS meeting locations outside of the named community without prior authorization, or threatening other members. While I am not planning to require attendance prior to membership as I did while trying to repopulate LUMSFS, I feel it reasonable to suggest that membership in this community may be rescinded if members do not attend some minimum number of physical meetings in a year. Many people are pre-approved via LJ's invitation service. To see if you've already been sent an invitation click HERE

Voting:
Although membership is more open in this community that it was in lumsfs, it may be necessary to request that those have attended MUMSFS fewer than four times in the preceding 12 months refrain from voting in certain polls which most greatly affect those who are likely to appear at meetings.

History leading up to this new community:
Once upon a time, before mailing lists and LJ, LUMSFS was solely governed by those who attended, and that worked because people were able to show up more regularly than they can do today in their adult lives. Over the years many people came to mistakenly believe that somewhere there was a governing body for LUMSFS. At the time I first joined, it was first commonly believed Miles ran it, in as much as he often played go between with the restaurant and worked very hard to find new locations, that is, until he moved away. More recently some have suggested Matt ran it, even since he moved away and only runs the mailing list. Recently I have been accused (or praised with) running LUMSFS, depending on who was speaking and what was going on at the time.

With the purpose in mind of returning government to the control of those who actually attend meetings, I have restricted membership in the LJ community LUMSFS to those who actually attend meetings, but this failed because even though most of those who attend are LJ members, very few of them have opted to join the community. Although it was my intent to work toward a self-governing LUMSFS-PLG, I am coming to the conclusion that this is impossible as long as there are those who wish to undermine that goal from within. The solution appears to be to start fresh and only with those who are willing to work together.

Who:
Dr Who?

Members (76):

Watched by (80):