Thread: Member locator

Awhile back we had a member locator function?? Is it around anymore??

Sadly it is not.
I really liked the idea and do miss having it available.

If you go to the member list and then hit search and then advanced search you can use location as part of your criteria

How do u pull up members list

Originally Posted by Airportcopper

How do u pull up members list

under the Community menu in the navigation bar:

Go to Advanced Search on this window and you can put in a location to search

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.

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.

Another reason I think,under the screen name.Location should be mandatory.JMO

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Another reason I think,under the screen name.Location should be mandatory.JMO

You've brought it up before - every choice has consequences and the location being optional is what works best for SRP, so that is how it will remain until we find that something else works better.