Advanced Member Search: Location?

[buickyouth]

Hey Webmasters,
I just had a thought.
Is it possible to add an advanced search field for location of members?
I feel this might be able to help us get in touch with all our local XS1100 owners and be able to help each other out, organize small events (bbq's, maintenance and repair days, etc.) and rides.

Can we make this happen?

[Czekus21]

I'm not a WEB MASTER but in the member profile should be the loction of registered members, if they put that info in there.

[randy]

Guys,

I asked JP that question last week. His suggestion was to post something in the Rally Forum. As of now, there is no plan to create a search by location function.

Randy

[tommystinson]

What if everyone posted to a thread with their location? Then you could search the forum and then see who posted the location? For instance: oneida, syracuse. Maybe a little awkward, but it should work, right???

[tommystinson]

Uhh... I guess it doesn't take you to the specific posting- just the thread.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Tommy,

It's really a decent idea, provided EVERYBODY would post a message in it!? If you repeat that search for SYRACUSE, you'll find that it not only shows you the thread, but then when you scan the thread, it HIGHLIGHTS the search word inRED for easier location, so it looks like it would work to some degree!?

Perhaps, making a thread for EACH STATE to post your location in, that way you could search thru states close to you, and we wouldn't have to wade thru pages of replies just to find the highlighted few out of a thousand plus!?
T.C.

[Pain]

A method I have seen in other forum is to set up a new area (At the same level here as "Member's Lounge"), with a title like "Seeking Members." In that area you can have threads based on state or geographic areas.

If you think that this would be to cumbersome (As the system you are using for the forums allow it), you can add another trier of folders.. So

Idle talk>Seeker Xsers>Midwest>Wisconsin, with threads in the WI area for cities or just general yakkin'.

That said, I am looking for XS rider inthe Milwaukee area

[macnut xj]

I'd say that you would pretty much have to go by state instead of city. After all, if you search by "Syracuse", that might get someone in Syracuse, New York, or Syracuse, Indiana! Two entirely different parts of the country. And I'm sure there are other states that would have cities named "Syracuse". And if you just search for "Syracuse", you might miss someone who lives in a city just 25 miles away from you. Maybe we could have a "sticky" topic in this part of the forum where folks could post their location for easy reference?

[tommystinson]

Top Cat, your idea sounds pretty good. Even if it winds up being a stopgap measure that leads to a forum modification. I think a mutually agreed upon format for posting would be helpful. I.E. one person starts a thread with a particular state in the subject line, and others can post their city/town to it if they choose. That should streamline the search process somewhat. Comments/other ideas?

[TopCatGr58]

Hey Tom and others,

Some states have quite a few members, and others have but a few? One thread for each state = 50 threads alone, phew! Taking 1500 members, just dividing that would give 30 members per state, yikes, that's a lot of messages to scroll thru even by individual state!!

I was thinking of grouping lower population regions together, ie. Montana, N. and S Dakota, Wyoming, you get the idea. The bad thing is that even though these may be low population density states, they are fairly large size wise, and even though two people might be just "next door" to one another, their actual driving distance might actually be farther than from San Diego to San Francisco!!!!

And in the higher population density states like California and Texas which are also very large sized states, we might even need to divide them into local regions, again described in the header/sticky for that particular state(s)!? So that may mean that we might even need more than 50 threads to cover the extra regions for these large states!

And just like Macnut said, we would need to ensure a format for posting the reply/info searchable message to include both city and state, otherwise your search results could give you many states with the same city in it!

Okay, test data for test search:
San Diego, California
Houston, Texas
Orlando, Florida
New York, New York
Portland, Oregon

I want to see if we can do a search for both city/state together and see if it gets highlighted!?
T.C.

[TopCatGr58]

Search results!

Okay, just did a search for "Houston, Texas". It ignored the comma separating the two words, and yielded both this thread with BOTH words highlighted, but also another thread with just "TEXAS" as part of the search criteria!

I guess I need to read up somewhere about the search methods for this thing, if you can give it special boolean criteria like looking for ONLY both Houston and Texas for example!?!?

Okay, just looked in the Search tab, it does support Boolean:

Basic query: separate your search terms with spaces.

Advanced query: Join words with AND, OR and NOT to control your search in more detail.
Add asterisks (*) to use wild cards in your search (*bullet* matches vBulletin etc.)

Search by User Name:
Match exact name
Match partial name

************************************************** *

How about we put up replies with examples of a format to determine the minimum info we want available to search by. I was thinking we could include our phone area code, not the whole number, just the area code, that would provide possibly a more narrower search field!?

************************************************** *
Either real or XS11 handle or both!? The handle will be there from the persons reply in the thread, but is nice to search by handle vs. running thru the members lists?
Name: TopCatgr58; T. C. Gresham

Fully spelled out, no abbreviations? Or state abbreviations allowed since each locale/message will be by state!?
City, State: Portsmouth, Va.

Phone Area Code: 757

Any other criteria!?
T.C.

[Pat Kelly]

Don't forget Canada

[chevy45412001]

Pain

I'm from the kenosha area(well zion il. actualy) i'm up for a ride at times.e-mail for details,chevy45412001@yahoo.com. just be sure to mention xs-xj in subj. or i usualy toss it .

[randy]

I like the area code idea. That would narrow down the geographic areas and pretty much guarantee that the contacts are within a 1 - 2 hr ride from each other.

Randy

area codes 570 212 718 631 646 516 973 610

[Czekus21]

You may be able to devide the areas up kinda like the trucking companies do. Like : North East, Central East, South East, North Central, South Central, South West, North West, West Canada, Central Canada, East Canada, Etc...Etc. This would narrow things down to within one to two days ride.