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| Topic Started: Oct 9 2011, 02:49 AM (103 Views) | |
| equazcion | Oct 9 2011, 02:49 AM Post #1 |
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I've seen forums become messy and unmanageable when they attempt to incorporate a precognitive list of geographic location categories for people to choose from. In practice it doesn't tend to work out for forum settings (at least in my experience). Even a list of the 50 states is pretty overwhelming in a forum. I rather think geography should be handled by the posters. In a section dedicated to geographic topics, the rule will be that users must name their new threads as "State, City", and search the section first to see if a thread for their location has already been started. This is generally how I've seen the issue handled effectively in other forums. Edited by equazcion, Oct 9 2011, 02:51 AM.
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| revg33k | Oct 9 2011, 12:03 PM Post #2 |
Reverend G33k
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But here we are also dealing with people who may be new to message boards, even getting seasoned forum users to use the search function can be a pain in the ass, these people might not know forum etiquette. I think starting with a state level planning forum, then adding individual state forums as needed will cut down the big mess. |
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| Landon | Oct 9 2011, 02:38 PM Post #3 |
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this is one thing that the main OWS forum got right. It wasn't handled through the forum. just click your location on the map and it is taken care of, I think that is a google maps applet. Perhaps see if something is available like that compatible with PHPBB |
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| equazcion | Oct 9 2011, 02:43 PM Post #4 |
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That was just for people to post their locations in their user profiles. We're talking more about forum sections where people need to post regarding a particular location, like a bunch of Iowa users coordinating an Iowan protest. Offhand I don't think there is a maps applet for that (though I could be wrong); and it still might result in overlaps when one user chooses to zoom in to their town and another chooses only their city. |
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| Landon | Oct 9 2011, 02:56 PM Post #5 |
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it wasn't just that, it showed me a list of the people closest to me in my profile and gave me a means of contacting them. In many ways that is better than digging through and finding a forum related to them. Most locals already have their own forums anyway. |
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| Landon | Oct 9 2011, 03:04 PM Post #6 |
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yeah...this google page talks about a google maps add on for PHPBB http://groups.google.com/group/google-maps-api/browse_thread/thread/80e2a2f8f0dc333f |
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| equazcion | Oct 9 2011, 03:09 PM Post #7 |
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I forgot it did that. Ideally it would be great if a user's location would automatically generate links, in their profile, to threads regarding their locality (rather than only showing them other users close by, though that might be a good thing to have too). I doubt that could be done without some more serious custom scripting though. Though regarding those locals' forums, I think part of the plan here is to make something more central and visible where local planning can also occur. Those individual local forums you speak of wouldn't be as easy to find as a large central one, and I'm sure many locals interested in joining probably aren't able to find them easily, if they even know to look for them. Edited by equazcion, Oct 9 2011, 03:10 PM.
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| alea-materia | Oct 9 2011, 04:22 PM Post #8 |
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The map image is what I had in mind. Does anybody know if there's any sort of app that can be easily incoporated into the site's oranization, or would that be something someone would have to put together from scratch? |
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