Search Users By Location

Idea Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by rmalinowski4, Feb 23, 2012.

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  1. rmalinowski4

    rmalinowski4 Pundit (753) Oct 22, 2010 Illinois

    Could it be possible to see what users are in a given location, say by town name or zip code? Ex. I want to start a tasting group in my area but have no idea who is close by.
     
  2. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    We didn't have this before. No plans on adding it either.
    1. Great tool for spammers.
    2. Not everyone puts their actual location in their location field; even mine is an example of this.
    Your best bet is to post in the regional forum and/or create a calendar entry; once that's back up.
     
  3. rmalinowski4

    rmalinowski4 Pundit (753) Oct 22, 2010 Illinois

    Ok, didn't realize that. Spam isn't fun.
     
  4. MrVonzipper

    MrVonzipper Initiate (0) May 9, 2011 California

    We should be able search through letters like a phonebook because it's virtually impossible to try and find someone if you don't remember someone's name down to every character, which is virtually impossible in itself!
     
  5. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    You don't need to know every character. Start a new conversation. Start typing a couple of letters. It'll start pulling up names. It even shows pics in case your memory is really that bad. :wink:
     
  6. MrVonzipper

    MrVonzipper Initiate (0) May 9, 2011 California

    I actually tried that and got lucky with a super tough name
     
  7. EricCioe

    EricCioe Initiate (0) Aug 7, 2010 Montana

    At least can the locations under the username come back? This would make figuring out whether or not someone is a potential trade partner a little easier.
     
  8. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    This has been covered several times already. We're not eager to add it as far too many have abused the location fields in the past. Meaning they enter in garbage that has nothing to do with their location. That's not to say it'll never happen.
     
  9. stupac2

    stupac2 Pooh-Bah (2,031) Feb 22, 2011 California
    Pooh-Bah

    While I understand that rationale, it seems like overkill. Most users (that I've seen, anyway) put in an actual location. And it was pretty handy to be able to see in the old forums. I won't cry if it's gone, but I think that keeping it would be good.
     
  10. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Not really. With the old forums city was a free field, whereas state and country were fixed to the selected state and/or country. We never display the city (just state and/or country) for the same reasons I'm bring up now.

    With the new system, location is a free field. So whatever anyone puts in it would get displayed if we switch the option on.

    We'd switch it on immediately if we could restrict it to state/country like before, but currently we can't.
     
  11. stupac2

    stupac2 Pooh-Bah (2,031) Feb 22, 2011 California
    Pooh-Bah

    Huh, I really thought that it showed the full "Union City, CA" when I posted before. Maybe I'm just being forgetful. Either way, that makes more sense. I'm a bit surprised that you can't make a drop-down box for profile info and have it available. I think it's neat, but not neat enough to spend a day tracking down.
     
  12. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    It did on the old who's online page and user profiles, but we removed it ages ago from other areas of the site due to abuse.
     
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