Forum Suggestions & User Assistance - List members by Location?

Hey Joe,

Is there any way to list members by their locations?

The reason I ask is trying to find other member within short traveling distance, perhaps to find a riding partner.

Another idea is to have regional BikeForum Gatherings.

Just a thought!

L8R

I think that's a Great Idea!

Yeah, this comes up alot :) I have no idea how to do it, other then creat sub forums for each area (west, mid-west, east, uk, austialia etc...)

Awsome ideas guys! (just please don't leave out canada lol)

On a similar note, I wish everyone would fill in the location field on their profile, just for everyones' interest, and it would facilitate this type of search.

Exactly! I wish i could find someone in sudbury!:mad:

Originally posted by urbanking
Exactly! I wish i could find someone in sudbury!:mad:

impossible..

what makes u so sure?

i was just kidding lol......arent there any good bike shops up there? Hang around one for awhile and your bound to find somebody!:D

When new members are greeted by the welcoming committee, it might be mentioned that they are "encouraged" to fill out their profile --at least as far as location. Many members will mention it in their threads, but almost never on the profile.

Ok, i have looked at a few applications that allow you to list members by there postal code / zip code, then search by yours, and find members within X many miles.... However, at $449.00, its a bit out of my budget :)

How about a Get Local section, with forums for each state, province, major country? If we set up this, it would be very easy for me to link exchange with club websites, or smaller local websites.

What do ya think? :)

sounds great joe!:D. Do you ever stop thinking?;)

Hey Urbanking

You are the closest one to me yet. I live in Matheson, Ontario which is just east of Timmins.

I know we are still 4 hours apart but that is the closest member of BF's that I have seen.

I get to Sudbury once in awhile and my parents still live in North Bay so we are there a lot.

What kind of biking are you doing? Mountain and/or Road?

We do both.

Originally posted by Joe Gardner

How about a Get Local section, with forums for each state, province, major country? If we set up this, it would be very easy for me to link exchange with club websites, or smaller local websites.
Sounds good, but do you really want to add another 60 or 70 forums, none of which will get much traffic?

Wouldn't it be better at this stage to go with the suggestion (I forget who's) to add a single 'riding partners wanted' forum.

I like the rideing partner wanted forum section works too though. We can all celebrate when the first mariage comes out of the forum section. :beer:

BTW: I swear I'm the only person here from Edmonton Alberta.

Originally posted by Captain Crunch
Hey Urbanking

You are the closest one to me yet. I live in Matheson, Ontario which is just east of Timmins.

I know we are still 4 hours apart but that is the closest member of BF's that I have seen.

I get to Sudbury once in awhile and my parents still live in North Bay so we are there a lot.

What kind of biking are you doing? Mountain and/or Road?

We do both.

I do a little of everything. As you know sudbury has a little bit of urban riding, and alot of trails. But mostly i prefer urban freeriding, it doesn't require me to go too far for good ridez.

I like the idea of a regional board, but I understand the complications that can arise. I also like the idea of a "Looking for Riding Partners" Thread, but I'm not sure how that would work.:confused:

I was hoping to have another column in the Members directory in which to search, but I don't have the extra $449 either.

Perhaps a regional section would be the best. But how do you seperate the entire Globe into the regions represented by our members?

There could be 4 regions for the US, 2 for Canada, 2 for Aussie, who knows how many for Europe! ....the dilemma continues.

Joe,
How do you link people by location when most members leave their location blank?
I like ljbike's suggestion of encouraging new members to add location information to their profile.

Originally posted by RonH
Joe,
How do you link people by location when most members leave their location blank?
I like ljbike's suggestion of encouraging new members to add location information to their profile.

Good question, the software i was looking at did it by Zip or Postal Code. It could track users world wide.

I still like the idea of sub forums for each state / area. Yes, it would take up alot of room, however from the main index page, you would only see one additional forum. Sub forums would be under that.

I think if i work on promoting the local forums with local cycling clubs, link exchanges etc, they would work great. I'll think about it some more before i do anything else, its still just a thought! :)

EVERYONE! Keep thinking:D !:beer:

Hi Joe & Fubar -

A getting local section might do it. That way you would be giving people the option of getting as involved with BikeForums as they desire. There are some really private people (I'm not one) who would prefer not to reveal this information until they are ready. It would be a good and proper thing to respect this. The "Getting Local" thread would be the solution.

Hey - while you're at it, want to add a "Biking Solo" section, for those of us who are so very single? LOL, LOL - that's just a joke, but it is an idea........

Resurrect this from the dead! Couldn't you simply add another field to the "Adv Search" in the member's field? there's already a huge list of "username contains _______ all the way to number of posts is greater than _____ and less than ____. Wouldn't it be simple to add another field something like "location contains" _____

It'll just be dependent on the user to fill out the profile and to use consistent terminology, but the implementation shouldn't be hard, no?

Jay

Jay's idea sounds good to me. Of course, I dont know anything about getting the computer program to do what you want it to do. The idea of finding people close by is appealing though.

I don't like the idea of adding regional forums. Too complex. Besides, there might be regional confusion at some point.

However, there might be other ways to solve the problem. Here are a few ideas.

1. Simple listing.
Get as many names as possible on a single page (100, 200, 500...)
Change the columns so the actual e-mail address (if listed) and homepage appears in their respective columns, and that the location appears.
Then people could use CTRL-F to find whatever is listed on the screen.

2. Advanced search.
Either change or add criteria. The # of posts has no real importance and the dates (joining date, date of last post...) aren't really important. But a search with "Location contains" would be great.

I'm not suggesting making "regional" forums, I'm actually suggesting what you write in #2, putting a field to search on Location. Whether it is added or a current field is changed is no importance. Therefore the people who want to find somebody from say TN can put that in the field and the people who want to remain anonymous wouldn't put a location in the field anyway.

Jay