Suggestion for "Location" for new registering members.

[Mr Bruce]

Can text similar to:

"If you live in a rural area or small town please use the nearest large metropolitan area or the region of your state (e.g. Upstate New York)"

be added to the registration screen for 'Location'? I have seen several locations I have no idea where they are and have to click to open Google Maps and then zoom out - out - out ... oh Onionville is near Raleigh, NC!

Just a thought.

 

[jblizzle]

Can text similar to:

"If you live in a rural area or small town please use the nearest large metropolitan area or the region of your state (e.g. Upstate New York)"

be added to the registration screen for 'Location'? I have seen several locations I have no idea where they are and have to click to open Google Maps and then zoom out - out - out ... oh Onionville is near Raleigh, NC!

Just a thought.

Everyone thinks their town is obvious, but that is often not true for people in a different part of the country.
I have no idea where Greenville, SC is.
So, should you be using something more descriptive?
I would guess no as to me the climate across SC is probably the same so it does not matter.

If someone said they were from Show Low, AZ ... would that mean anything to someone not familiar with AZ? Nearest large Met would be Phoenix, but the climates are completely different.

I understand your desire, but it is often easier sad than done.

 

[Arizonarob]

I’m changing my location to “First rock from the sun”.

 

[proavia]

As Jason pointed out, many states can have different climates throughout the state. Clicking on a members location to open Google maps only takes a few seconds.

Locations that don't help are:

• "earth" (yeah, someone actually has that listed )
• just the state
• only a zipcode (cause we all have every one of those memorized )
• nothing (cause they didn't put a location in their profile)

Being specific helps us to better help you.

 

[YippeeSkippy]

I like to say "As this forum has international readers, please add your location with city/state/province/area as this helps us answer your question" or something like that?

Maddie

 

[Mr Bruce]

Everyone thinks their town is obvious, but that is often not true for people in a different part of the country.
I have no idea where Greenville, SC is.
So, should you be using something more descriptive?
I would guess no as to me the climate across SC is probably the same so it does not matter.

If someone said they were from Show Low, AZ ... would that mean anything to someone not familiar with AZ? Nearest large Met would be Phoenix, but the climates are completely different.

I understand your desire, but it is often easier sad than done.

State would be an improvement. I think the one that was the last straw was "Gilbert", no state included.

Also, I'll have you know

Greenville (/ˈɡriːnvɪl/; locally /ˈɡriːnvəl/) is the largest city in and the seat of Greenville County, South Carolina, United States.[3] ...The population of the surrounding area was 400,492 as of 2010,[6] making it the third-largest urban area in South Carolina as well as the fastest growing. Greenville is the largest city in the Greenville-Anderson-Mauldin Metropolitan Statistical Area. The MSA had a population of 906,626 in 2018,[7] making it the largest in South Carolina and the third largest in the Carolinas.

I am actually in Travelers Rest, South Carolina - Wikipedia but I realize nobody will know where that is without looking. I changed it to Greenville, SC because that is slightly more useful.

I admit I originally had "North of Paris" because I live in the shadow of Paris Mountain, but I realized that was unhelpful and useless so I changed it to Greenville.

 

[Bama Rambler]

As you can see I have Southwest, AL. I gave that because I think it gives people a clue as to the climate I'm in, and to me that's what we really want to know. Besides nobody knows or cares where Burnt Corn is!

 

[Wobblerlorri]

I put a little bit of info on my Location, I have a basic location of Bremen in relation to Atlanta, which is what everyone does. I like the idea of being a little more specific with location!

 

[Teald024]

While I understand @Mr Bruce's concern, unless you are a geography wiz, any specific city really isn't useful.
Without looking at a map, can you tell me how much further north LA California is than Las Vegas, Nevada? Why should Upstate NY be any different than Long Island NY? Why do I care if you are from Phoenix, Tucson, or Vegas? Wouldn't desert SW USA be just as descriptive? People who put specific locations are just saying where they live. Wouldn't North Carolina have been enough or did it really matter where Onionville is that it required you to look it up?

 

[Mr Bruce]

I actually agree. I was going to say maybe change "Location" to "Location (City, State)" to rule out the cute answers but clicking on 20 random threads I couldn't find a single example of "Onionville", no state.

Maybe this is a non-problem after all :/

 

[Bama Rambler]

City and State are good guidelines to stay with because if we asked for general geographic location some would put earth (and we have some of those anyway) and I think we'd get a lot of USA's.

What we normally need is climate info, so general geographic location is fine. In some specific instances we need to know city and state because things are available in one place that are not available in another (i.e. in the southwest when someone inquires about R/O treatment), but we can always ask that as the need arises.