Members' location

True Im not sure that I want my position known beyond say Wellington but there already starts a problem. I have a rare name. You wont need to make 3 phone calls in Wellington to find me. There is only 3 of us in the book and I have never met the others

What's the reasoning for wanting to know where people are? Would it be of any more use to let people indicate which parks and/or regions they most identify with and treat as their back yard, if any?

Ive tried to stay away from that question. Maybe its because the world we live in seems to expect us to be findable at all times what with facebook posts of ones half eaten macas burger being the norm and this is one of the last places one can hide

everybody submit your GPS coordinates :P

I just thought it would be interesting... in the same way that profile pics are. I guess not.

Oh I wasn't meaning to suggest that it wouldn't be interesting. If there were an optional field that people can fill in, and make stuff up if they choose to, which the website will display next to usernames, I don't see the problem. Having the website verify and enforce accurate location reporting as has also been suggested in the thread, though, would seem like lots of work for @Matthew for very little benefit. For me when I'm reading content from people, given the theme of the site is about visiting places other than home, I think maybe it's more interesting to have an idea of where people have been and know about rather than where they live right now. I'm fairly sure we have members based in Australia and perhaps elsewhere who are probably more familiar with and knowledgable about certain parts of New Zealand than some of the locals from those areas. I'm just making stuff up, though. I haven't thought anything through.

"I think maybe it's more interesting to have an idea of where people have been and know about rather than where they live right now. " Too be honest I agree completely with this. For me to write up a trip up the hill behind Kingston the fact I live in Wellington is hardly relevent. The other forum Im on (clasiccampstoves.com) has 2 parts to its location service. There is a location field in your profile which is optional and unchecked as it is here but it does have the option of having this appear below your name when you post It also has ip checking and displays the flag of the country you posted from. For the manually entered location I have to ask if there is no check to see its correct why bother but at the same time how do you check. For the flag what benefit does it bring to a forum where at least 80% are nzers and 95% of posts are about New Zealand

just between you and me, I'm from Alpha Centauri

Thats closer than me.

Hi everybody, There are basically 3 aspects to location: * Location based on IP. This is generally quite accurate at the country level. It could be useful to target particular types of content at overseas visitors, e.g. "what you need to know to keep safe!" It's not reliable enough for any more than that IMO. * Location based on geolocation. This is very accurate, but requires you to opt in. This is great for showing what's around you right now. This is of course also very private information because it is precise to metres. * Location based on information you provide. Currently, this site asks for an optional location field which takes a coordinates. I don't think this is actually used for anything at the moment. Obviously it is very private as it could be very specific. In theory this could be useful in showing tracks that are "in your backyard" (i.e. for me Arthur's Pass and the Canterbury foothills). However, I think that the rise of live geolocation functionality makes this less useful. In regards sharing info, privacy needs to come first. Sharing an optional location in the forums might be a nice feature I think, but it would be a text field, because of course @Waynowski is from Alpha Centauri. So, I am inclined to pull the coords and replace with a text field. Uh so there is a heap of work that needs to be done in terms of sharing where people have been etc, and my life is not very compatible with getting work done at the moment. Working on that!