Bring back “user location.”

[Tibby]

I’d like to see a return of user location and have it displayed next to or under the username in thread posts. I don’t believe I’m alone in lamenting the demise of this feature. Knowing where posters reside helps put many of their posts in context, and it’s interesting to know in and of itself. Divulging your country of origin is hardly a breach of confidentiality, but for those not wanting to share this information “not listed” could be an option.

Questions:

1. Could this be easily be re-implemented in Discourse?
2. Who else would like to see this feature implemented?
3. Any valid reasons why this should not be implemented?

[needscoffee]

@LSLGuy had a voluntary workaround:

I Locationed - Have you? A thread with a Community Benefit

Hi folks - Just like vBulletin, Discourse has a place for you to enter your location. Which will be displayed if somebody clicks on your avatar. Try mine and look just below the big pink/purple L. Back in vBulletin most of us put something in the location in our profile. Some as a joke, most as legit info. During the conversion to Discourse that info was not transferred. So nearly everybody now has a blank location. And nearly everybody doesn’t know that, and also doesn’t know that they can…

[needscoffee]

@Tibby

Who else would like to see this feature implemented?

I’d love to see it implemented as an opt-in feature.

[I_Love_Me_Vol.I]

Very much I’d like to see people’s location if they choose to share it.

Perhaps that would put an end to the hundreds of posts where people say something like:

"When I lived in NYC the bars were open til 4am. But here they actually close at 7pm!! It’s crazy!"

Or

“When folks visit here they fear for their lives.”

And then they don’t say where “here” is! It’s the damndest thing. It’s as if there are a lot of folks here that think everyone remembers they live in Oakville, Kansas because they mentioned it once 10 years ago.

When you post, please, please do not refer in a post to “here” without saying where “here” is. Thank you.

[engineer_comp_geek]

@I_Love_Me_Vol.I

Very much I’d like to see people’s location if they choose to share it.

Discourse does have a location field on your profile. It doesn’t show up on each post like it did in vBulletin, but it does show up if someone views your profile. As @needscoffee quoted above it is also visible if someone clicks on your avatar on the left side of your posts. So it is available on every post, it’s just not automatically displayed like it was in vBulletin. You have to click on the user’s avatar beside the post. But it is there.

You should fill yours in.

To fill in or change your location, click on your user icon on the upper right side of the screen, then select Preferences (the little person icon on the right), then Preferences again (a gear icon this time), then click on Profile on the left. You will then see a field for Location that you can edit.

[Tibby]

@engineer_comp_geek

Discourse does have a location field on your profile. It doesn’t show up on each post like it did in vBulletin, but it does show up if someone views your profile.

Ah-ha, I now see that clicking on the avatar does show location. Before posting, I tested a couple of user avatars and did not see their location, but that must be because they did not provide it in their user profile. Perhaps this thread will encourage more to do so. It does enhance the browsing experience.