GSO App Support Shut Down Our Feed After We Followed the Directions

[MinnesotaSwanny]

I am currently serving as the chairperson for an Intergroup located in Central Minnesota. Our Meeting Guide App feed was suspended on 6/1/2022 after the App Support team received some inaccurate information by a DCM in our Intergroup’s catchment area that we listed meetings with inaccurate addresses. In actuality, we used intersection addressing (per the instructions in GitHub for the Word Press plug-in). Our feed was suspended with no due process given to our Intergroup. We have reached out numerous times to our GSO Staff Coordinator to try to clarify the situation. I have also provided a copy of the instructions from GitHub that we followed along with the actual CSV file we fed into our meeting directory that used the intersection addressing. We have subsequently changed all of our listings back to street addressing, except for the meetings that are currently missing or inaccurate in the Meeting Guide App.

We’ve also provided GSO App Support (thru the Staff Coordinator) with the following policy change that our Intergroup has put in place in order to avoid any future meeting duplications going forward:

Our meeting listing policy for our Intergroup going forward will be to use the identical street addresses for meetings already listed in the Meeting Guide App by another service entity that owns the geocodes for that location (ex: Minneapolis Intergroup, Area 35). However, we will list meetings not yet in the Meeting Guide App that are legitimate AA meetings by street intersection to have them appear uniquely in the Meeting Guide App. This will ensure only unique, accurate listings are available for Meeting Guide App users looking for an AA meeting in our catchment area. To resolve the question on which service entity in our catchment area owns any given geocode, I suggest that the groups themselves be allowed to choose which service entity lists their meeting.

As a result of our Meeting Guide App feed being suspended, there are AA Meetings that are not listed at all in the Meeting Guide App or listed incorrectly. Here are some current examples:

Incorrect - On The Path To 12 Step Recovery, Sundays at 6 pm in St. Cloud, MN (incorrectly listed in aaminnesota.org as inactive on Saturday nights): https://aasaintcloud.org/meetings/on-the-path-to-12-step-recovery/?tsml-day=0&tsml-region=st-cloud
Missing: AA Pioneros Spanish Speaking Meeting, Mondays at 7:30 pm in St. Cloud, MN: https://aasaintcloud.org/meetings/aa-pioneros/?tsml-day=1&tsml-region=st-cloud
Missing: Hanover Thursday NIght Meeting, Thursdays at 6:30 pm in Hanover, MN: https://aasaintcloud.org/meetings/hanover-thursday-night/?tsml-day=4&tsml-region=hanover
Missing: Freedom Speakers, Sundays at 6 pm in Big Lake, MN: https://aasaintcloud.org/meetings/freedom-speakers/?tsml-day=0&tsml-region=big-lake

@joshreisner - Can you help me convince GSO App Support to turn our Meeting Guide App feed back on (given our firm commitment to abide by the policy we have adopted in our Intergroup going forward)? We have received no due process or actionable consideration on this since our Meeting Guide App feed was suspended on 6/1/2022. I have also discussed this situation during the “All Things Internet” workshop at ICOAA in Denver earlier this month; the Chair from that workshop (MC) May be asking you for help and guidance on my behalf soon (if he has not done so already).

Thank you and thank you for your service!

Alan S, SCI Chair

[joshreisner]

Hi Alan,

When we wrote "intersections are usually ok" in the spec we meant that in the technical sense and not "as a method of circumventing GSO's system for handling duplicates." Please do not use intersections when a valid street address is available.

I hope Code for Recovery will hear from GSO what happened at some point, but please understand we are on the outside, and would not expect to convince them to reverse a decision.

If a street address is already registered to another entity, that registration can be switched if another group such as yours reaches out, on a case-by-case basis. Was that process followed?

Looks like AA Minnesota is no longer listing meetings at the Dream Center, so this would not cause a conflict now, but perhaps they removed them after SCI was removed from the app.

I do see the other meetings as being missing. Have you been in touch with Minneapolis Intergroup or the Area? Could they possibly import these listings from you? I'm sort of surprised at how many meetings are listed on your site, are you importing the Minneapolis Intergroup feed? You might need to stop importing from them for that to work.

[MinnesotaSwanny]

Hi Josh, Thank you for your prompt, thoughtful reply. * Intersection Addressing: Thank you for the clarification and the direction. Duly noted and our Intergroup will absolutely comply going forward, if we ever have our Meeting Guide App feed turned back on. * Regarding the GSO Reversing Their Decision, I understand the nature of the relationship. I also understand that you still hold the license for the Meeting Guide App. Could you let the staff at the GSO know that in your role as their software provider, you have reviewed the circumstances under which they suspended our Meeting Guide App feed and also let them know that our Intergroup did not fully understand how Intersection Addressing was meant to be used? * Registration Switching: After many exhaustive attempts to make some headway on this with our former GSO Group Services Rep and the GSO Staff Coordinator, we have made no progress due to the fact that one of the two Areas in our catchment area refuses to recognize our Intergroup as existing or even being part of AA and a well placed trusted servant in the other Area recently referred to our Intergroup at the last Area Committee Meeting as "an outside entity" and they have refused to respond to my request for further clarification on what they meant by their statement. We are currently working with a former West Central Regional Class B Trustee (not from Minnesota) as well as a current Class A Trustee to attempt to arrange a mediation session between our Intergroup and the key trusted servants of both Areas in our catchment area so we can work out our issues. I will let you know if we get any traction on this. We've been asking for this sit-down meeting for months, to no avail, and will continue to keep asking. * The Dream Center Meeting on Sunday night has been incorrectly listed as inactive on Saturday night by the Area the meeting is in and the Group Records Chair for the Area this meeting is in refuses to recognize our Intergroup let alone our suggested corrections for this meeting. As a result, we have people turning up on Saturday nights to this facility looking for a meeting that does not even exist because it has been moved to Sunday nights at the same facility. * For the missing meetings, they are all new (less than six months old) and Minneapolis Intergroup and both Areas in Minnesota have a hard and fast "six month old" rule in order for them to be listed. Our Intergroup board feels this rule is outdated since it was created with printed meeting lists in mind. We believe electronic meeting listings have largely replaced printed listings and so if one of these meetings were to go dark, it is easy to remove them from the listings that folks use because they are electronic. Also, the prospect of our Intergroup listing these new meetings at the present time is moot, given I now understand that we are not to use intersection addressing and because the other service entities in Minnesota already have been assigned the Google Geo-codes for the locations these meetings are held at. Thanks Josh! In Service, Alan P.S. I love the new dropdowns on the Meeting Guide App (Android). A lot easier to use!

…

________________________________ From: Josh Reisner ***@***.***> Sent: Thursday, September 22, 2022 9:49 AM To: code4recovery/spec ***@***.***> Cc: Alan S ***@***.***>; Author ***@***.***> Subject: Re: [code4recovery/spec] GSO App Support Shut Down Our Feed After We Followed the Directions (Discussion #51) Hi Alan, When we wrote "intersections are usually ok" in the spec we meant that in the technical sense and not "as a method of circumventing GSO's system for handling duplicates." Please do not use intersections when a valid street address is available. I hope Code for Recovery will hear from GSO what happened at some point, but please understand we are on the outside, and would not expect to convince them to reverse a decision. If a street address is already registered to another entity, that registration can be switched if another group such as yours reaches out<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmeetingguide.helpdocs.io%2Farticle%2Fompwn3xgy7-when-multiple-entities-list-a-meeting&data=05%7C01%7C%7Ca9dd18c3377246b6c9b708da9ca9aa9d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637994549765516347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=XtZKkl5ek8Vh1zoroe25u%2FSyVVdSaCH6hg8O%2BG09NX0%3D&reserved=0>, on a case-by-case basis. Was that process followed? Looks like AA Minnesota is no longer listing meetings at the Dream Center, so this would not cause a conflict now, but perhaps they removed them after SCI was removed from the app. I do see the other meetings as being missing. Have you been in touch with Minneapolis Intergroup or the Area? Could they possibly import these listings from you? I'm sort of surprised at how many meetings are listed on your site, are you importing the Minneapolis Intergroup feed? You might need to stop importing from them for that to work. — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fcode4recovery%2Fspec%2Fdiscussions%2F51%23discussioncomment-3710191&data=05%7C01%7C%7Ca9dd18c3377246b6c9b708da9ca9aa9d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637994549765516347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=krDeHoUN7AJ%2FPFjK%2BWmOURubCp8RKxIVIWEFrfAMcM8%3D&reserved=0>, or unsubscribe<https://nam12.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fnotifications%2Funsubscribe-auth%2FAYWSHBQUUZQB32YTYZTCRYTV7RWX5ANCNFSM6AAAAAAQS5APNQ&data=05%7C01%7C%7Ca9dd18c3377246b6c9b708da9ca9aa9d%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C637994549765516347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=LxXw2MZgVthxGWtSWz3uKRBmvdXc0m7vqv9mU0IThsQ%3D&reserved=0>. You are receiving this because you authored the thread.Message ID: ***@***.***>