Location Info

[Dirge]

Could the location part of registering be a requirement rather than an option? So often we get new people saying 'Where can I do so-and-so?' and the first thing a regular has to do is say 'tell us where you are and we might be able to help'. It's not too sinister a thing to ask, is it?

 

Someone's just done exactly this; if you're reading it and feeling attacked, don't be, you're in a long line of similar 'offenders' and I'm not aiming at anyone in particular.

 

Also it's useful for general chat to be able to see what time zones people are on, whether they're likely to be within striking distance etc.

[Paul Schwartz]

Not a bad idea. I'll have to see if this can be done in the software used for the site...

 

Paul

[JimLucas]

Could the location part of registering be a requirement rather than an option? So often we get new people saying 'Where can I do so-and-so?' and the first thing a regular has to do is say 'tell us where you are and we might be able to help'. ...

 

Also it's useful for general chat to be able to see what time zones people are on, whether they're likely to be within striking distance etc.

Not a bad idea. I'll have to see if this can be done in the software used for the site...

Forcing input of the time zone would be especially helpful, because it could reject invalid entries, while having a "default" value for that makes no sense.

 

For "Location", I think the most you could do is require non-blank input, since I doubt there's a way to validate names of towns, and some folks who want to remain anonymous might be identifiable by their location alone. So "NA" -- or even "third swamp on the left" -- might be allowed, but requiring some input would at least bring the enrollee's attention to the fact that the information is desired. I think too many members didn't even notice some of the fields that could be filled in. (So long ago for me that I don't even remember what the signup process looked like.)

 

Then if you do start requiring this information of new members, we could discuss what should be done about existing members.

 

It's not too sinister a thing to ask, is it?

Besides, one could enter false details.

[Leo]

Isn't time zone available now in the profile under:

Active Stats

User's local time

 

Or is that for something else?

 

Thanks

Leo

[JimLucas]

Isn't time zone available now in the profile under:

Active Stats

User's local time

 

Or is that for something else?

There's something there, all right, but I believe that if the member doesn't set it explicitly, the setting defaults to Paul Schwartz' time zone. So there are plenty of European (even Australian?) members whose "local" time currently appears on the Forum as North American Eastern Standard Time.

[Leo]

AH! Found it. Under Options, Board settings, Your base time zone. Didn't remember the default setting. I forgot about manually setting it, or whether it defaulted to my computer clock, or the forum home. Interesting.

 

Thanks

Leo

Edited February 16, 2007 by Leo

[Takayuki YAGI]

I have succeeded to set my local time properly . I felt some inconvenience about displayed time in different time zone before.

 

Many Thanks,

Taka