I'm currently making a lot of changes to the way the events section works.

Those of you who organise events and are already used to the way things work will want to follow these changes.

The changes I'm working on will be as follows:

• Separate social events and commercial events sections will be rolled into one, and social events possibly renamed. Whether an event is social or commercial is now specified when creating the event itself.
• When creating an event it will now ask for the location and event type. These will automatically be encoded into the subject line when viewed in the events section. This means the name of the event can be entered without all the other extra details we used to include. These are mandatory fields - no info, no event.
• Calendar events and a discussion thread are now linked together - if creating an event from the calendar a discussion thread is automatically created. If creating an event from the forum, a calendar event is automatically created. No more need for a moderator to get upset about people not reading guidelines, constantly PMing them to add a calendar entry and link it to their thread, etc.
• There is an RSVP included - people are able to quickly say whether they will be coming and whether they are bringing guests. The summary of RSVP totals is visible right at the top of the event/thread. People can change their RSVPs prior to the event, and the event organiser has the ability to moderate these.
• The event forum now includes a quick summary of the next events in the next 14 days (not just on the front page anymore).
• There are two buttons in the forum - "New Thread" and "New Event". New thread is a classic discussion thread - for talking about events in general, changes and suggestions etc. New event is the button you should almost always use - to create or discuss an actual event. If there is some confusion about this and people make events using new thread instead of new event I'll remove the new thread button entirely.
• When event threads are viewed outside of the event forums (for example on the list of new threads, or on the calendar itself, or in the events of the next 14 days on the front page they will appear without the additional information in the name itself (location, type, date/time)
• When events are created from the forum, the default is "ranged event" (start and finish date/time must be given). If you want to create a recurring or all day event you can do this from the calendar itself.

I hope these changes will make the organising and attending of events easier for everybody. Please feel free to discuss these changes and make suggestions. If you are a regular event organiser, do you think these changes are positive?

In case you are confused by the above, here is the super simple dummies guide to creating an event:

Event name: Sample drinks at the blah blah bar
Location: Zurich
Type: Social
Date and time: [fill in the form as prompted]
Description: Hey everybody, it's time to join us for our regular chin-wag, please use the RSVP function to give me an idea of how many are coming, and don't forget - it's fancy dress tonight! Here's a link to map to get there [insert link to website of bar, internet-based map or other useful stuff]

This will result in a thread with a subject which looks like this:

(Zurich, Social) Sample drinks at the blah blah bar 11.03.07 18:00 - 23:00