Turn on member location by default

I think it would be good to have everyone's location showing up below their name in forum posts. Much easier than having to ask, or clicking on their name only to find out they haven't turn their location on. All the other forums that I use have the location turned on by default and allow members to turn it off (rare), or, more commonly, the paranoid can enter a bogus location.

Perhaps it would, Mike ... but we have been promised [threatened with] completely new forum software for quite a while now, and I don't think there is much chance of the existing software being tweaked.

MichaelG.

I'm ok with site administrators knowing my location through my IP address, and I'll happily share it with other members on an ad hoc need-to-know basis, but I would prefer not to have my location blazoned on every post I write.

What is to be gained by it (for the individual concerned, I mean)?

Hi MikeK, well you can turn that around and ask, why are people so obsessed to what to know everyone's location.

Regards Nick.

[This posting has been removed]

MikeK's location is apparently Pennsylvania, USA, with an area of some 117,000 km sq so he's not exactly pinpointed.

When posters ask for advice or help, or advertise things, I often find myself wishing that I knew whether they were anywhere near to me; mostly there is no profile to give an approximate location.

That new software is a long time coming!

Been done to death in the past. Most seem to think that an individual's privacy is up to him/her rather than being imposed.

The flag I've started using (thanks Thor) may help slightly but the same theme wouldn't do much for the majority of (UK) users.

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 30/01/2022 17:38:36

I hoped I'd covered that with my point about a "need-to-know basis".

I'd like to think that users who advertise things or ask for location-dependent help from others without at least indicating their own general location have, in most cases, simply let the need to do so slip their minds.

Your IP address is not a very good indicator of your location. Did you know that when you switch off your router, you are allocated a different IP address when you switch it back on. When checking my supposed location, I have been in Barnoldswick, Skipton, Halifax, York and other places totally different to where I actually am. Good for us who are paranoid.