In this most recent post Joshua Thijssen looks at an interesting subject - fragmentation in the PHP community due to a higher level of regional user groups...and how it could actually result in isolation.

Until a few years ago, The Netherlands (wrongly called Holland) had only one single usergroup : PHPGG. After a few years a decision made to merge this Dutch group and the Belgium version of it into a single usergroup: PHPBenelux. [...] But there is a trend going on in the PHP world, especially in the Netherlands. There are usergroups popping out of the ground lately, mostly centered on a specific city. And it’s easy: goto meetup.com, sign up, create your group et voila, you are born. If you are a high-end group, you even will register a domain-name as well.

He suggests that, because of these groups, the overall number of attendees in all groups is dropping - even the larger ones. This fragmentation of groups is also breaking down things into more specific technologies, reducing the number of people coming to the more general "web oriented" groups as well. He encourages developers to attend a user group that doesn't involve PHP and learn something new (and maybe even talk about it to other PHP developers).

Inspire attendees, not only talk about the same subjects over and over again. KEEP the userbase, get them enthusiastic, have them bring new people with.. GROW your userbase, not splinter it..