Region Specific flags (somehow)....

[Chris Soucy]

Been pondering this for quite some time, but it came to a head a week or so ago when I was trying to drum up some interest from NZ/ Aus members/ visitors in particular.

Before that I had found it exceedingly frustrating to trip over a NZ poster who'd been on the boards for years but I was totally unaware of as I'd never caught any of their posts.

There seem to be shed loads of bods from NZ &or Aus here whom I cannot engage because I can't "get at them"

Before I start, here's what I'M NOT trying to suggest:

Start new "region specific" forums - I believe there is a better way.

Have a way to contact "region specific" members only - my proposal makes that easy without actually doing it (if that isn't a contradiction in terms).

How To:


So, "the system" knows where I'm coming from (geographically, if nothing else).

OK, so, lets say the "thread starter / post box" had a tick box for "region specific flag" (haven't figured out how to handle if you want to select a region different to your own, but early days).

If I tick the box, when the post is listed, it has an asterisc, star, red flashing light with klaxons, whatever against it, that only appears for any other member of the selected region [ before anyone has a cardiac arrest - every other member of DVinfo sees it - just no asterisc, star or klaxons]

Thus, someone in NZ/ Aus going through the listings will know there is stuff there (particularly) specific to their region. Everybody else still sees it as normal, just no asterisc, star, klaxons etc.

This "flag" would need to be "nested" in that an entire Forum would show it, then the sub forum etc etc so a casual glance through the site makes it obvious there is "regional stuff" there and you'd better start burrowing.

Genius. No new Forums etc etc etc and if I want to attract the attention of a specific regional group I can without ending up fragmenting the forums.

Take a case in point: One of todays latest recruits finished his post with "Anyone here from Norway"?.

If the "region flag" was available, every member in Norway, Sweden etc sees it's particularly relevant to their region (not sure what the Swedes think of being lumped in with Norway, hmm, maybe not).

Quite how this would work in North America I shall leave to others, can imagine local (state?) groups may find it handy for close quarter communication, then I suppose E/W/N/S/Canada etc or something similar.

Just wish I had worked out a (elegant) way to select a region other than my/ a posters own.

Hmm, I'll get there.

Actually, thinking about it, for the number of times any particular poster will use this function, the usual "drop down list from hell of every country in the known universe" (for international posters)/ US States/ Canada or International (for North American posters) may be the way to go.


Anyway, what does the team think of this idea?

Any merit?

More to the point - any chance?


CS

[Chris Soucy]

after more consideration, I'm going to change my statement and suggest THERE SHOULD be an extra forum entry on DVinfo after all.

I would suggest that the "DVinfo Community Contests" forum is amended to "DVinfo Community & Contests" with the inclusion of a "DVinfo Community Notice Board & Social Networking" sub forum.

With the exception of "DVinfo Net Announcements" & "These are the people............", neither of which stand out as appropriate venues, there is nowhere obvious for any discussions which are "social centric" as opposed to "all about the kit".

I'm talking about things like trying to set up a local/ regional video group for example, but am sure if people thought of it there would be a shed load of other things that would fall into it.

This would make best use of "regional flags" if they were ever to happen, although they wouldn't be confined to this (sub) forum.

I'm not suggestng we start using DVinfo (or any part thereof) as a "natter forum" by any means, just a corner where the more social aspects of our mutual interests in video can get an airing.


Just a thought.


CS

[Chris Soucy]

How's about a

"Search Forums by Selected Region" option.

or similar, so that you can troll through all the posts/ posters from, say, Norway (again) or India or The Bronx or even, dare I say, NZ.

Do I hear a "whattheheckfor"?

Simple.

I'm planning on going off touring around these islands sometime soon, it would be great to see how many like minded people (about vdeo) there are in NZ who might like to hook up during the tour for a spot of whatever. Going to die of old age waiting to catch them when/ if they ever post on DVinfo again.

If I can find 'em in one go I can either send 'em a mail via DVinfo or use the

"Region Specific flags" outlined above to send a general "Hi guy's/ guyesses" via the Community Forum (also outlined above), and hope they're regular visitors.

I've also got a trip to India in the pipeline and would like to do the same there.


There must be shed loads of DVinfo members planning trips for whom this info would be invaluable.

Also make the decision about setting up a Local/ Regional Video Club or somesuch a lot easier to boot.


CS

[Chris Hurd]

It's definitely a good idea. One way to do it would be to implement a thread prefix option which would as you suggest flag the country or region of the person making a post. Or maybe not an end-user option, but automatically derived by the forum software looking at the IP address of the poster. We'd have to agree on a not-too-overwhelming list of countries or regions which is diverse enough without overdoing it.

Such as US / CA / MX / UK / EU / AU / NZ / JP and so on... This list is probably too confusing: http://www.theodora.com/country_digraphs.html but if we kept it to a dozen or so, it would probably be pretty useful.

[Chris Soucy]

Glad you agree.

You're right, that list in the link is way too complex.

I think using the IP address for "flag my region" is great.

Where I'm struggling is with the "flag selected region", which either seems to be back to some sort of list OR the "click on world map" type thing.

The list has the advantage that you nail it with one clic, the disadvantage, as you point out, of getting a bit tedious the more regions/ countries are included.

The "click on world map" in my experience, unless done extremely well, requires sometimes three clicks & downloads to get the accuracy.

I have come across one version (wish I could remember where) which was real clever:- when you clicked on "select region", it downloaded the usual world map, but clicking on a specific country or region didn't initiate another more detailed download (with yet more graphics which take the bulk of the time) , but immediately threw up a list (alpha numeric) of all options available for the selected country/ region. Obviously, being a sub set the list was very manageable with no scrolling required.One more click and it was done.

Still a 2 click feature but allows infinately better targetting.

Interestingly, the one place I couldn't get any traction with at all was the USA. If someone in the States wants to "flag" a post, would they want local (city/ town/ etc), state, group of states, what?

Beats me, only because I don't know how people in the States "see" themselves geographically.

Guess that one will have to be worked out by someone with local knowledge.

One thing that has me really intrigued about this thread - how come we've got it all to ourselves? (so far)



CS

[Richard Alvarez]

I'm all for setting some sort of region specific code to postings. Anything that will help a searcher/poster communicate more effectively is good.

As to why you two have the thread to yourselves... the heading is ITSELF a bit confusing. I thought it was about DVD REGION SPECIFIC CODES, and the "Flags" that are placed on DVD's by burners to read them!

[Chris Soucy]

Well, you may have a point about the thread heading, although why a thread refering to DVD regional codes would be in the DV Info Net Announcements forum has me at a loss (thinking about it, with the number of posts that start off in totaly innapropriate forums, it wouldn't be suprising).

[Think the mods would have been on it in a flash if so]

I'm all ears as to what you think this thread should be titled. I'm really not fussed one way or another about it as long as the subject gets a decent airing and as many points of view as possible.

However, when I wrote the opening post, I struggled long and hard to come up with a heading which reflected it's purpose without turning into a saga all on it's own (well, it's a pretty esoteric subject, if you think about it).

All suggestions gratefully received - what would you have titled it?

CS


PS. Thanks for posting!


PPS. OK, I'll come clean. The working title for the thread was, in fact,

"Pamela Anderson pregnant. Chris Hurd father............",

the first line of the first post should have read "of DVinfo."

Now, there were just a couple of problems with that title, as you can possibly imagine.

I know Chris has a pretty wicked sense of humour, but not entirely sure it's quite that wicked, and the thought of my membership of DVinfo being ceremoniously burnt at the stake was enough to give me pause.

Sure fire crowd puller? Oh yeah! Be the most read thread ever to appear on DVinfo. That my ass would probably get sued from here to kingdom come was, however, a bit of a bummer, and definately an incentive to go for something a tad less, er, exotic.

However, if any of the mods are looking for early retirement, feel free to re - instate it, I'll simply deny all knowledge.

CS

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

help sort this out...

[Chris Soucy]

back from the dead after all this time.

Two plus years, my, doesn't time fly!

Interestingly, despite a veritable shed load of hits, this thread got very little feedback at the time.

Never could work that out, but put it down to either the subject being a bit too esoteric or bods thinking it was a solution looking for a problem that they couldn't quite see.

I still agree with the general thrust of the thread, perhaps even more so with the passage of time.

I hope there'll be a bit more feedback this turn around the block.

Either that or Jeff just makes it happen.

Take your time Jeff, any time this week would be good!


CS

[Chris Soucy]

troops to come to the aid of the party.

This has surfaced again and this time I really don't feel like letting it sink without trace.

So, as it is pretty apparent that input from the home base (USA) is "missing in action" for reasons unknown, it's up to us to scare up some feedback and input.

You guys/ guyesses MUST have an opinion on this subject, for or against.

Did I get this wrong? Did I get it right? Did I miss something really important out? Did I make it too complicated?

I need all of you to park those bums on seats and hit that keyboard and POST!!

I can threaten Jenn with force feeding her Coors till it comes out her ears, it won't help if:

a. She's pissed as a brewery rat

b. Nobody else gives a FF.

I think this would be one of the best moves DVInfo could make, but I cannot make it happen on my own.

DVInfo NEEDS your input on this. Come on, it isn't rocket science, and for the International members at least, a boon of untold magnitude.

Why it isn't rocking the socks off the USA members has me totally bewildered, but heck, I don't live there so I have to look after my and other International members interests, not theirs.

Come on, let's hear what you think.

Post!


CS

[Andrew Smith]

It makes sense to me, but I don't know how it could be best done. Perhaps a flag graphic in the left hand side against our names?

On a side note, I sometimes get tripped up between the join date and the post date for individuals. Actually it happens just about every time I look. Is there a way we can give visual priority to the date of the post?

Andrew

[Jenn Kramer]

One option might be to take the people in your neighborhood board, or create a new one, and sub-segment it by region. The problem we run into is that the forum list is already really long, but it might be worth having a place that's more directed than 'the world' to talk about specific things. Something like: North America, Central & South America, Europe & UK, Africa, Asia and Australia & New Zealand.

[Sareesh Sudhakaran]

i propose:
Canada
East Coast USA
West Coast USA
Rest of North America
South America
U.K.
Western Europe
Eastern Europe
Africa
South Asia
East Asia
Australasia

For starters...add or take a few depending on demographics...the admins should have that infor anyway. The number of posts will remain the same, but it just takes one more forum subdivision. Makes it more practical. Otherwise, what's the point?

[Andrew Smith]

Australasia might as well be changed to "Australia" as New Zealand is pretty much just an extra state for us.

Andrew

[Chris Soucy]

Er, Andrew:

much as I realise that the "facts on the ground" may support such a move, I think a majority of those (few) Kiwis actually still living here might be a tad miffed.

The popular sentiment here is that due to the vast number of Kiwis actually living in OZ, Australasia is renamed New Zealand: South Island, North Island, West Island.

Jeff & Sareesh:

Simplicity is probably paramount at this point.

My suggestion is to put a new Forum in the "And now, for something Completely Different" section right down at the bottom of the Index page.

Working title of same: Region Specific Threads - Any Topic (except trading).

For this forum (and this forum only) clicking on "New Thread" brings up the standard post page with the addition of the usual drop down "list of all countries in the Known Universe" BUT with the addition of the "Super" groups both of you have identified at the top of the list.

This allows a poster to either select a "SuperGroup" or burrow down to a particular country if they so desire (everybody's happy!).

In the list of threads, the Thread title and posters name are displayed as normal BUT the last half acre of the thread title box is given over to the Supergroup or country selected IN BOLD!).

(This is a country mile from my original wish to have people notified automatically but "for the moment" it's better than nothing till we see how well this baby is gonna fly!).

Back on the Index page, the same format for "Last Post" is used EXCEPT that, as with the list of threads, that last half acre of Thread Title is used to prominently show the Supergroup or country targeted***

*** Having posted this I realised that there simply isn't any room in the "Last Post, Thread Title" area for Supergroup or Country, it will have to park in the last half acre of the Forum name box, which in many cases is empty and with the Forum Title proposed, will be as well.

The beauty of all this is that the "thread starter" only needs to select the Supergroup or country ONCE and any and all subsequent posters need do NOTHING different to normal.


NOW:

Having got that far, I am restrained by my utter ignorance of what you can and can't do with this web site with regard to identifying what region a page is going to.

For example, if I click on either a Forum to start burrowing OR the Last Post for same, can you (as in "the management or system") know where that requested data is going?

[ I must assume yes, which is why Sony USA keeps telling me to sod off and go look at Sony Australasia!]

Ah, but can it tell if I simply log on or request a refresh of the Index page? Yes?

If this is true, having established "home base" with the above changes, it must be a "relatively easy" (slippery slope, that one) job to put in a routine which identifies that there is an unread post in the "Region Specific Threads" Forum addressed to the Supergroup or Country the data requestor is living in, then flag the "Region Specific.." forum with a flashing star or whatnot.

Possible?


OK all, that's the best I can do for now. Whadaya think?


CS