Member location
 

I've noticed many members don't include their home locale in their profiles. It should be required, or at least recommemded. I don't know how many times I'm in a TMobile conversation and turns out its about TMoUK and not TMoUSA. Also, local customs and practices can help give perspective and stop people from assuming all of the time.

So please, unless you must be secretive, list your home location in your profile. I'd like to know who's from the Telecom Corridor in the North Central Texas/DFW, Texas area, or who's near Silicon Valley or Dubai. Without it, it seems that everyone is American, and that can't be possible. I'm sure there are Brits, Canadians, Mexicans, Spainiards, etc. Let's make it known, please.

Re: Member location
 

oh the wonders of free speech :) - or not free speech etc etc :)

But i know what you mean, tis kinda annoying when someone says "Will it work with T-Mobile" .... and you can't tell where they are from :(

Re: Member location
 

Wouldn't it be cool if Maemo.org was a social network, and therefore one's Maemo (N810 or N900 at the moment) device could give the live location, fed right from the device's GPS...

...whoops, wrong thread ;)

Re: Member location
 

We thought about that on Symbian Freak, but not everyone was for it. But a home listing could be a city or geographic region, even. Just not only a country. What is USA? Alaska or Florida? It would only draw users together. I know there are lots of Silicon Valley and Telecom Corridor/DFWites here, but most of us hide our location.

Re: Member location
 

Aw come on, that was an easy in for you to propose a new idea ;)

Maemo.org prefence panel
- Location
-- *Display Location: Yes/No
-- Type: Manual, Link to device (this would be a WRT-like widget/panel on the Maemo device)
-- Display: Coordinates, City/State (Province)/Region, State (Province)/Region, Region, Use Device's Saved Landmarks

*Upon clicking this, the person would be greeted with a prompt in their web browser asking them to download a WRT/widget/preference applet which would connect to the user's device. Bonus points for integrating with Ovi Maps on the device.

The more Maemo (as a site) and be a seamless experience to the devices and services, the better it would be for all folks.

And think about it, there could be *another* thread here based simply on location tags. Could make for some interesting meetup possiblities (online-offline mashups).

---
But yea, I get the core idea; it would help in some instances to see location.

Re: Member location
 

tmo Location awareness has been under discussion... may even be in Brainstorm (can't recall offhand).

I don't put my location in my profile but make a real effort to add qualifiers to international issues and companies, eg, T-Mobile US vs UK, et al. Does that work?

Re: Member location
 

Well, the N900 already optionally reveals device location via IM services, though I believe it's simply a status update, not XEP-0080. (I'd love to be wrong.) An XMPP-based location system probably wouldn't be too horrible to integrate into maemo.org.

(On the other hand, I had to disable IM location updating on my N900. It would run for hours without getting a lock, killing the battery. Perhaps if you never venture indoors it works better.)

Re: Member location
 

Well you see, next step after getting the location piece meshed with the devices & users, would be the idea of having a profile app/panel on one's device where things like company, etc. would be placed. And then web services and social networks would (like twitter, flickr and others) ask to be authenticated against your device to display this data.

Hard as all beans to code I'm sure, but definitely the meshing point that many mobile forums should have.

Re: Member location
 

i think that disclosing personal information should be up to the individual. I do nolt support the OP's idea about making it required. That goes for any personal information.

I've belonged to forums where it was required that you used your real name. The reasoning behind it was that people would think twice before getting into word-fights as..as we know...once it's on the internet it's there forever...and now with your name.

Re: Member location
 

Yea, sorry been around too long. Seen what happens when people know what city you live in.

Re: Member location
 

i don't support mandatory specific location info, especially not coordinates, but at least a country or province/state. If N900 becomes a hit, I'd like to know which members live closest to me to arrange meetups or discuss locally pertinent info. I mainly want it for users to relate to each other. I want to know who is from the major tech centers, etc. If an attack goes down in UK, I want to know which members to contact or be concerned.

Re: Member location
 

Start local meets via the forums then. Spam other local resources as well. Dont need to know where i hail from to do that. Ask and you shall receive. Seek, and you will find.

I understand what your'e getting at on a convenience stance, however i believe that info should be completely optional to divulge, and should be held close to the chest at very least. Too many stupid people give out info and get taken advantage of, so from a social responsibility/security standpoint im not for it. Sorry, we will just have to agree to disagree on this one brother =P

Re: Member location
 

In west sussex? I'm from Shoreham! :D

Re: Member location
 

Yeeears ago I was a moderator for AOL (ducks rotten fruit and rocks). One member was a detective and by cues left by others he started figuring out who they were and posted personal info in forums to taunt them. Scary. One of my first indicators of what was to come...

Re: Member location
 

heh.

yea.

Re: Member location
 

We had some plans on something like that. Maybe good time to bring it up in the sprint meetings?

Re: Member location
 

Here's how we did it for Qaiku.

Re: Member location
 

Would a minimum requirement of 'continent' really breach anyone's confidentiality? It would at least resolve the TMOUk v TMUSA issues. Besides which, most of us give that much away by our spelling...

(Ducks comments about those who may be incontinent)

Re: Member location
 

Tmo-UK-vTmo-France, etc? :P

Re: Member location
 

Tmo-France (or Orange-France) are not that far from the other variants on the same continent. The USA versions are... different.

Re: Member location
 

to keep up the OT discussion:

could anyone *please* confirm sjgadsby is wrong? i mean, i know that the N900-implementation does use status messages for location information (which is highly annoying), but not using XEP-0080 would be just... insane. :(

Re: Member location
 

How about if fields for "Service Provider" and "Device" are added to a members CP that can optionally show up in the line under the members name in posts. That should address the OP's valid concerns.

***

On a side note, but a point I think has relevance:

Members of many forums have seen posts like...

...enough times to be reluctant to post location details of any kind. :)

That^ kind of bluster doesn't much bother me personally other than my belief that it puts a damper on any fellowship a forum wishes to develop.

...you can't un-ring a bell.

Re: Member location
 

I would hope that sort of bluster would be treated with the contempt it deserves. I'm 4'8" and spend a large chunk of my time with 6'4" (psychotic) ex-cons. And I know which one of us gets scared. ;)

Re: Member location
 

You're a little plug of dynamite, aren't ya?

;)

Re: Member location
 

When you hold the power to damn someone to eternal hellfire, you tend to have their attention. That and good training the the therapeutic management of aggression and violence. ;)

Re: Member location
 

So you're a priest?

Re: Member location
 

Take a real martial arts class (none of that you get points for hitting a target and none of that only doing katas) with guys that are 6 ft plus that havehuge arms. =P. Though a heavy gi does reduce force (also makes training hell since it's heavy, and traps in heat). Try running around, doing push-ups, jumping jacks, and sit-ups in a gi all before you even start the lessons. :eek: It surprisingly gets better as your endurance improves.

And remember in a fight there are no rules. You can always kick men in the balls (and women in the crotch). Luckily the sensei(s) won't actually do it but they'll do it quick (punch, kick, or grab them if there's an opening) and stop right before they do that your going remember to protect them next time.

How true, I'm more afraid of my ex-gf (we broke up on good terms) than I am of my sensei(s). And most of them have either been in fights, are cross-trained in different martial arts, or are of the 6 ft + huge muscles. She's even scared off a psychotic (dishonorably discharged) U.S. Marine once. :eek:

Re: Member location
 

No offence, but maybe people don't want to be contacted because they live in a specific area? I for one know that there really isn't any point in saying I'm in a specific location, considering I'm moving way too much for it to make any sense. I'm sure there are others in the same position; people working in one place but living in another, etc.

How about we just go about it the old way. You get to know people, and then, at some point in the discussion, you will learn where they are based. Why would it interest you to know where someone lives if you have no affinities with them, and utterly don't care about them?

If you don't know where someone lives -- through interpersonal relations -- would you really care enough to know if they just blew up? If, as you put it, "there was an attack on the UK", would my first priority be to answer an IM from some guy on the other side of the planet to tell him I'm alright?

Again, no offence intended, just thinking out loud.

Re: Member location
 

Rather than continent, how about time zone (from the control panel options)?

Re: Member location
 

As far as I'm concerned - add fields for continent, country, state, city, street, hair color and bra size (women only please) - but keep them all optional.

Re: Member location
 

Not to mention you could always create an event in off-topic like I will in a few weeks for a get together in that region. Those who are interested in coming and are in that region will come or post in the thread. If they're not interested then oh well.

Re: Member location
 

That's transvestite discrimination!

Actually the reason I suggested time zone is that it is entirely separate from your profile. I agree that your location should be optional although I have no problem with posting mine (although I'm not saying it's accurate any more accurate than my birthday).

Re: Member location
 

Unfortunately it is only a status message. Nokians said in the Summit that they didn't do XEP-0080 because GTalk doesn't support it. Though as it works in Empathy I'd imagine it would've been available in Telepathy.

What is even a bigger shame is that Maemo Browser doesn't support location sharing either. But at least Fennec does. There is a brainstorm where you can vote for this.

Re: Member location
 

i'm all for disclosure of where i am in a discussion, but with all due respect, i hate those kinds of "localized services"... i spend months a year in different cities, countries and even continents, and there is nothing worse than those smug websites/services that redirect you automatically to a local service when you want to access their ".com" or international service... even worse when they just won't give you any option to change the local version... so sorry for being a party-pooper, i'm all against that crap...

Re: Member location
 

I raised the issue of an full-fledged maemo.org event calendar recently and it seems to be stalled. I may have to collab with bergie and see what we can do.

Re: Member location
 

Yeah, those are annoying. If I go to www.google.com I do it because I want the English version, if I wanted the German version I would go to www.google.de, or .fr for French and so on. Instead I'm getting redirected behind the scene, which is bad. And more and more sites are like that. And in some other locales I may not even be able to figure out how to find a version in English because I'm unable to understand enough of the displayed language.

Re: Member location
 

... now that's what I call a profound justification. :confused:

Wonder if some new frontend on top of the existing telepathy framework (a post of Empathy??) could fix this.