Thread: Member locator

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

My experience with looking for members in a specific area shows that the system needs some refining. If you put in the State, you only get people that have listed that State. If you put in your city/town, then results are only that city/town and you would have to enter every city/town in your State to find all the SRP members in that State. We need a "you must enter city/town AND State you live in" if it is going to simplify finding members.

The location is a free form field, so everybody can put anything they want.
You could have a selector with predefined fields which would make the search much better. But that also means that setting your location would require browsing through a list of 150 countries and for each country number of states (50 for USA), and even more if you want the specifics of a city.

The current free form is so easy that over 90% of the members fill it out. Even a small increase in the difficulty level leads to big drop in that number (not speculation, that's what really happened when I tested it).

There is no ideal solution but I think the current one is the best among the available ones. SRP is not really a directory to be searched, it's a community. The most effective use of the site is participating in the discussions and if you need the location of any active member it's either right under their avatar or you could ask them.

Originally Posted by gugi

The location is a free form field, so everybody can put anything they want.
You could have a selector with predefined fields which would make the search much better. But that also means that setting your location would require browsing through a list of 150 countries and for each country number of states (50 for USA), and even more if you want the specifics of a city.

The current free form is so easy that over 90% of the members fill it out. Even a small increase in the difficulty level leads to big drop in that number (not speculation, that's what really happened when I tested it).

There is no ideal solution but I think the current one is the best among the available ones. SRP is not really a directory to be searched, it's a community. The most effective use of the site is participating in the discussions and if you need the location of any active member it's either right under their avatar or you could ask them.

I stand corrected. Your logic is irrefutable and your explanation is clear and concise.