Bug: Many Duplicate Events Showing on Three.js Events

[allella]

These could be somewhat related to an earlier, not totally resolved bug where some Meetup.com events were missing venue zip code and state.

Nate with Three.js did edit events and seemed to fix his missing venues.

Though, I think he's also been exploring different Saturday start times, so perhaps this is related to changes to start times on events.

Nate is in the HG Slack, so we can ask him if he's been changing anything in addition to fixing the venues a few weeks ago.

In any case, something about Three.js, and probably related to updating records, is causing duplicates to show on the HG calendar.

[allella]

This could be the result of changing from a venue to virtual, or perhaps the time change, or some combination of them.

Here's what Nate said about the changes

[allella]

We're also seeing a change in the meetup's name for Three.js which may have coincided changes to work around #213

These greenville-webgl-meetup-group events would have been created before the group.urlname in Meetup's REST API results were changed by Three.js.

https://www.meetup.com/greenville-webgl-meetup-group/events/hmwmktygcfbfc/
https://www.meetup.com/greenville-webgl-meetup-group/events/vxskktygcfbfc/
https://www.meetup.com/greenville-webgl-meetup-group/events/vzbgktygcfbfc/

The three active upcoming events on Saturday, March 23, 2024 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM EDT all seem to be different URLs going to the same page. They also appear to be part of a recurring schedule.

https://www.meetup.com/threejs-meetup-group/events/hhpsktygcfbfc/
https://www.meetup.com/threejs-meetup-group/events/299572843/
https://www.meetup.com/threejs-meetup-group/events/lhqsktygcfbfc/

[allella]

As alluded to in #213, Meetup still renders REST API responses for old group.urlname values. So, requesting greenville-webgl-meetup-group returns the same results as threejs-meetup-group

These return the same results, but threejs-meetup-group is the correct / current urlname.
https://api.meetup.com/greenville-webgl-meetup-group/events?&sign=true&photo-host=public&status=past
https://api.meetup.com/threejs-meetup-group/events?&sign=true&photo-host=public&status=past

[allella]

I went and purged these Three.js duplicates manually and then reimported and they didn't come back. The issue may recur, but for now the calendar isn't crapped up with duplicates.

Also, another group hints at a likely source, or component, of this bug. That is, when Meetup.com events are created with no venue and/or when the venue is changed. In particular, going from virtual to physical venues may be part of the issue.

This DC864 duplicate seems to confirm the issue because they created an event with no venue and then added these same event later with a physical venue. It's unclear if they deleted the original event or if Meetup generated a new event key in the process.

This event no longer exists, so it was either deleted or the result of Meetup generating a new unique event value for an edited event.
https://www.meetup.com/defcon864/events/nrrcxsygchbdb/

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This event is active and working and is the one with a venue set, even though it may not be the actual venue they use.

https://www.meetup.com/defcon864/events/pwdqjtygchbdb/