all member should provide a gereral location

[Jeff]

Hello, after review many posts over the past couple months, one item remains frusterating. People discuss many issues where your location
in the world is important. We have so many post which discuss price,
available discounts on new and demo stock, availability of product, etc.
When members do not disclose their location, you cannot give their post
any consideration as they may be located on a different continent! It's as if their post was a waste of time.

One of the great things about this site is you can discuss you passion with people of the same interest all over the world. But to have a more productive post and discussion, location is sometime essential.

I would like to recommend the location field of all members addresses require at least the country of where they're from. If they would like to provide more, great!

Thanks for your consideration. Jeff

[Lex]

I would agree with that Jeff. I think a state or country would be good. As soon as Kevin is more available, we will take a look to see if the software allows it.

thanks,
Doug

[George Bellefontaine]

Jeff makes a good point. I'd like to see his suggestion put into effect as well.

[Kevin P]

I can set the field to be required, but I can't enforce the contents. People could still put in "Earth" or "home" or something equally useless.

If you'd like me to, I can set it to required in a matter of seconds. I can also make it appear at registration time but not required (it isn't set to this at present).

I did add to the description of the field: "Please fill in a country at the very least, so we know where you're from"

[aud19]

I agree, depending on where you live different brands of speakers etc are sometimes not even available or might be cost prohibitive and as such a waste to recommend. There's been quite a few times someone's requested suggestions on speakers or recievers etc and depending on if they're in Canada, US, Europe or Asia etc it can make a big difference on what to recommend. You'll likely get a better price on UK speakers in the UK and Canadian speakers in Canada etc.

[Foxman]

Some people just simply don't trust that info to be released. I can see the point of the concern and I will change mine to be more accurate although I really liked what mine said "oz" as in not in Kansas any more, but no one gets that.

[Jeff]

Kevin, to prevent a usless entry, a drop down list of all/most known countries could be done. This this similar to some mfr's sites I've visited. I'm not sure of the man hours needed to accomplish this. Assuming this web site will be around for some time to come, perhaps the extra time would be worth it.

Could a friendly "update your location field" email be sent to all current members once the update was in place? You could even referrence this tread so they would have a better understanding of the request.

Thanks!

[Chris D]

Good call, dude...

[Andrew Pratt]

I could get you a list of countries pretty easily if required.

[Kevin P]

To add a drop down list would require some custom coding. With my present circumstances I wouldn't have time to do this for some time.

UPDATE: I was just looking, there may be a way to do a drop down list in a user profile field already. Let me play around on my test box and see how it works...

UPDATE 2: Yes, I can do a profile field with a drop down list. I'd need a complete list of countries in order to set it up. There are a zillion countries out there, maybe it could be broken down into continent/region (e.g. Middle East instead of the many countries that make up that region).

Doug, please respond with your thoughts on this before we proceed.

[bimmer528]

To add a drop down list would require some custom coding. With my present circumstances I wouldn't have time to do this for some time.

UPDATE: I was just looking, there may be a way to do a drop down list in a user profile field already. Let me play around on my test box and see how it works...

UPDATE 2: Yes, I can do a profile field with a drop down list. I'd need a complete list of countries in order to set it up. There are a zillion countries out there, maybe it could be broken down into continent/region (e.g. Middle East instead of the many countries that make up that region).

Doug, please respond with your thoughts on this before we proceed.

If you wouldn't mind, you can also do a drop down for the 50 state's and make that manditory so it will narrow it down to the state at least :P

Have the script check the drop down.

51 variables
-50 states
-default set to "Select State"

Forum check

if ($statedropdownfield == "Select State") {

echo something

} else {

insert mysql statement

}

something along those lines.

Edit- If you really want to make it simple. Add the drop down's and change the required fields menu color's to red letting the user's know

"Red fields are Required for registration"

Even though u don't have a registration check code. The user wont know that and will probally enter the right info so that he doesn't get an error on registration :P

[posix]

- It's as if their post was a waste of time. -
Time is of no concern to us. Stop living fast. Slow down. Chill out.

It is completely irrelevant where someone comes from. If they ask a highly localised question and don't provide their location simply choose not to answer it. Anyone with a grain of salt for brains would provide their detailed location information when enquiring about pricing, for example. Why am I even discussing this?

[Jeff]

Hey guys, I was just looking at a public profile of a new member and was hoping to determine what hemisphere they were in. Was this idea dropped?

Thanks, Jeff

[Patt]

I wonder how many times I've made a recomendation to "go to your local Home Depot" for something.
Heck, I bet some people around the world never heard of it and dont have a clue as to what I'm talking about.

If I knew they lived on Mars or wherever I would try a different approach.

[Aussie Geoff]

Hi,

How about - Country as mandatory (drop down list) and State and City as optional free form. That way people could add more if they liked. For those that really wanted privacy we could have a "Anonymous" Country option (and we could ingore them for posts then )

Geoff

[Lex]

Actually Posix, it is not completely irrelevent, as Administrator and owner, I know a bit more about this. There are frequent discussions where a point of reference is good, and the just don't answer approach isn't of real value to a forum where helping is what we do.