Welcome, this is the proper place for your questions. :)
Firstly, I just wanted to say that you should be able to get everything you want out of the site without a paid GDNet+ subscription; recruiting using our Classifieds section does cost a fee (unless you're working on a not-for-profit project), but everything else you mention can be done for free. GDNet+ subscriptions help to support the site and we would really appreciate any new subscribers including yourself, but we don't want to mislead anyone. If you find our site valuable please consider subscribing to support us, but don't think you need the subscription to use the site.
With that out of the way, I'll have a go at answering your questions:
Meetups - Are these a thing at all for members, do people get together ever, are there online/offline events anything at all like that?
We used to have a feature specifically for real-world meetups, but it didn't see a lot of use and was removed from the site quite a few years ago now. That being said, some members do still meet up on occasion; if you make friends here real-life meetups may be possible, but aren't something officially facilitated by the site. Many members here are also members of their local IGDA chapters, some of whom host regular meetings; if you're interested in meeting with others from the industry IGDA membership (also free at a basic level) will be worth looking into.
In terms of online meetups, the site has a chat feature with a small but regular attendance, and a loose affiliation with the IRC channel #gamedev on the irc.afternet.org network.
There are also informal online game jams run roughly once or twice per year.
My code is generally distributed on GitHub with an MIT license, sometimes I use content under creative commons or a lib under LGPL, any funky ownership rules I need to be aware of when I go to create an article or share a project?
Nothing that should be a concern. :)
All of your content remains your own property, you retain all rights, and we don't require any exclusivity. We retain the right to store and display your content once submitted, but will honour removal requests based on privacy or rights concerns.
For code samples you are welcome to choose licencing at your discretion. We try to encourage open and permissive licences, but it's entirely your decision.
Blogs sound very nice, I feel bad for asking but where can I view some existing blogs? I have looked across the nav bar but can only find Journals (I assume these are different?)
Sorry, the terminology has been used interchangeably on the site; developer journals are blogs.
You can view a selection of recently updated journals HERE. Note that there's currently a known issue where view counts aren't always updated promptly and correctly, so the low view counts you see don't reflect the actual traffic to the journals.
Recruiting seems to be a thing here, and I'm not making plans but i want to know; If I recruit someone using this site am I obligated to give credit back (I certainly would) or is there some policy or rule I should be aware of?
We would certainly appreciate a shout-out if you recruit team mates for a successful project here, but nothing is required. We display your job offering or offer of services and help to facilitate contact between you and interested parties, and the rest is up to you; we're looking to expand the services offered in future but will never require any credit, rights, etc. for our services.
Do you game? Seriously, one thing I've enjoyed about working with developers the last decade is many of my co-workers enjoy gaming. Any organized gaming events going on in the community?
Many (but not all) members of our community are regular gamers, but we don't formally organise any events. Members do organise informal group gaming sessions or discuss their gaming experiences semi-regularly. For those members with well-known ongoing projects in the community it's not unusual for community members to offer play-testing.
Otherwise I'm just looking for a way to connect with other developers and engage in this (or any) community.
We think we offer one of the (if not the) best online gamedev communities around. Hopefully you find it as helpful as many of our existing members.
Hope that helps, and please feel free to ask any additional questions you might have. :)
