Let's do city, state, country

I mentioned to a newcomer today how it would be helpful to himself as well as to others to know a bite of detail beyond City: XXXXX as seen under whatever avatar is chosen. But when you think about it, most people registering here for the first time are going to follow the bouncing ball and fill in the blanks with the information suggested by the blank's title.

Can we not have City, State, and Country as standard registration blanks? I realize we will get "State: Confusion" and "Country: Chaos" entries, and that's ok for those wishing more anonymity or who just want to be cute, and that's OK; but at least most will make a reasonable attempt at a proper entry.

And for you guys who boat on different planets, well, TF isn't sent there; so scoot on back home.

Rich,
I’ve put in a plug for basically the same for years.
You start reading a post and there’s talk of a body of water that you’ve never heard of and it’s very relative to the content of the post. We should be able to know (at least) what country the guy in the post is from.
About half (or so) of the cities listed are smallish cities or towns I’ve never heard of. Have no idea where the poster is. And geographical location is very related to where the poster is or where he (or she) boats. One can only hope there’s something in the post that identifies the location relative to the information in the post.

Country (if not from the US. Country and if from the US State.
Would be nice


At a minimum the form should ask for 1. Country. 2. State 3 Town/City

Nomad Willy said:

At a minimum the form should ask for 1. Country. 2. State 3 Town/City

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I'd be happy with Country / State. That should still be safe for the member and would keep the post relatable and relevant.

I reported the OP idea to the moderators. We will discuss it and see if it is feasible. I am a fairly new moderator so I can’t say if it is doable or not. We will let you know what we find out. I agree that it would be very helpful.

Comodave said:

I reported the OP idea to the moderators. We will discuss it and see if it is feasible. I am a fairly new moderator so I can’t say if it is doable or not. We will let you know what we find out. I agree that it would be very helpful.

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Thank you for your service here.

City, County and State often will not tell you where a persons boat is kept.

pete

If my boat was kept at a very great distance from a dirt home, I'd list the boat's City, State, etc or make it clear some other way.

There are people here with easily found backgrounds and more...yet others don't believe what they say.....

Others stay mysterious and are possibly believable.

Then there are those with little background info and hardly believable at all.

This place is one step above Alice in Wonderland in some ways and some days...other times a handy tool and valuable resource. Even entertainment sometimes.

Wanting info in a profile would be nice, but .......

Greetings,
Mr. ps. I like to remain between possibly and hardly believable, thank you very much.

Unlike me, most TFers desire anonymity.

See, 2 posts and I am wrong?

As a moderator, I've tried hard, in the background, via PMs to newbies, to explain why more profile info would help a lot in promoting good communication, but to no avail thus far.

I think there is now, sadly, an excessive level of paranoia about personal details, and the possible consequences of that, far and away above the real and actual danger of any issues this may give rise to.

So, I once again implore everyone to examine their profiles, and see if they can't make 'em a bit more informative - entertaining even..? We don't need or want to know where you live - just where your boating activities are based, and your boat. I promise you, the sky will not fall on your head..!

What about boats that don't have a permanent residence? I list Ft Myers, FL in my avatar but that's our dirt home. We spend about 50/50 during the year between boat and house. Tomorrow we leave the marina where we've had the boat for the past year (Northern AL, Tennessee River) and will begin our summer season. Hopefully heading up the Ohio to Pittsburg before going south on the Tenn-Tom to somewhere on the Gulf for the winter.

Sooooo, is the Country/State/City supposed to be the boat location or where we actually live and vote and get mail? I'd be happy to change my avatar info every few months if you're looking for the boat but I assumed it was supposed to be our "home" address.

I guess we may be one of the few that actually keep the boat and house in different locations so I'm open to whatever the forum decides is the correct protocol. I assume liveaboards and snowbirds have the same dilemma.

Standing by.....

Spike,
All other members should know is where you boat and most always that’s where you keep your boat ... home port. But if you’re only going to put one thing make it your State. 98% of the time that’s all others need to know to post on the forum. Just like the name on the stern and the home port. Nobody gives a rat tail where you live whether the’re looking at your stern or a post on TF.

You would still have the option of filling in what you like and not filling in what you don’t want to.

Understood Eric, Thanks.

I'll update our location anytime I'm in a place for more than a month or so since that will become our "home port" for a time.

I do try to be clear whenever a post has a geographic reference so others know what I'm talking about or asking. Since I only have about 100 posts over 11 years I guess it's not much of an issue. I've learned so much here over the years but still don't believe I have much to add to the conversation. The old "God gave me 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason" adage.

Thanks again.

A bunch of members put city and state info in the "Cit/Town" column, and maybe a state in the "State" column on the members list. That gets confusing to sort/search. I'm one of the guilty parties on that. But my dirt home is elsewhere.

How about making the column titles in the members list hot buttons that will sort up/down alpha numerically? That would make it easy to find members/boats in my area.

rgano said:

If my boat was kept at a very great distance from a dirt home, I'd list the boat's City, State, etc or make it clear some other way.

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That makes most sense, a good balance of where the TF member is actually cruising or ask members to state where they are cruising, PNW, gulf coast, NE etc. wh Ed n they post.

RT Firefly said:

Greetings,
Mr. ps. I like to remain between possibly and hardly believable, thank you very much.

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That's just fine as well.

Easternshore said:

That makes most sense, a good balance of where the TF member is actually cruising or ask members to state where they are cruising, PNW, gulf coast, NE etc. wh Ed n they post.

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All that information is in the profile. City, State, Country, Home Port and much more. It just doesn't all transfer to the forum pages with the posts, but easily checked if people have filled it out.

We did not fill in a separate home port, perhaps should, but our cruising is everywhere. Fort Lauderdale is our home port, but right now we're in Croatia. We don't worry about that disclosure because 1-We haven't disclosed specifics of our home, 2-We live in a secured community with guard, 3-Our home is gated, 4-There are people there watching it for us.

However, if we'd shown photos of our home or if our home was in our names and we'd disclosed our names or various other things, then there would be greater risks.

The point is one just has to weigh what they are comfortable disclosing and to whom. Then others should respect whatever level of privacy they choose. There may also be reasons they can't disclose or don't feel comfortable disclosing.

Suggest this profile info:


City:

State/Province/Country: (Dropdown menu provided)

Present location: ("Cruising area?")

[No need for First Name or Zip Code. "Present location" should be updated as it changes.]

rgano said:

I mentioned to a newcomer today how it would be helpful to himself as well as to others to know a bite of detail beyond City: XXXXX as seen under whatever avatar is chosen. But when you think about it, most people registering here for the first time are going to follow the bouncing ball and fill in the blanks with the information suggested by the blank's title.

Can we not have City, State, and Country as standard registration blanks? I realize we will get "State: Confusion" and "Country: Chaos" entries, and that's ok for those wishing more anonymity or who just want to be cute, and that's OK; but at least most will make a reasonable attempt at a proper entry.

And for you guys who boat on different planets, well, TF isn't sent there; so scoot on back home.

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Rich, what is the significance of the city, state and country, all of which are asked in the profile.
Myself like others do not live near the marina where the boat calls home or the boating area. Locally, I have come to see many American boats moored so how would it help to know their dirt home location. I have noticed several from Calgary Alberta keep their boats in Georgia Straight, again knowing their dirt home address is less important than their cruising area.
As others thought I would agree more with cruising area as being more descriptive. That is why I have Gulf Islands. I can add BC Canada if needed. That is my primary cruising area. I have cruised from Puget Sound to Desolation.
There is a question Port Captain in profile, that would be helpful under the avatar if one is planning a trip.

Steve, I think the real issue which rgano was trying to address, as have I many times, is that the profile data only appears in the ID info under the avatar alongside posts in a sort of abbreviated form anyway, and if folk don't fill out all the relevant boxes when registering in the main personal profile, it ends up never getting done, and ends up even less informative in posts under the avatar. So, one is often left wondering, for example, which Venice we are talking about. One of several in the US, or THE Venice in Italy..?

Sometimes we are only seeing an abbreviation of the town/city/state. Maybe most US folks know the abbreviations, but many of us don't, bearing in mind this is an international forum, even though a majority of members are from North America.

The point being most will not be bothered to try and elicit more information by clicking on the avatar and going into the poster's personal profile to find out where they are. Bear in mind also, that although some newbies post more about themselves and where they are and where their boat is in that first Welcome Mat post, thinking that's all they need to do. Not realising maybe, that once that post falls off the newest post list, it's gone - history - often never to be seen again. Unless it also appears in their avatar info., that is...

This is why we are raising this here again, and trying to get a consensus as to how to make it possible to get a handle on, by a quick glance at the avatar info with a post, where someone is coming from, in terms of roughly where they are, and on what vessel, if they have one.

Stop press..! Perfect example has just come in here...

https://www.trawlerforum.com/forums/s53/hello-sunny-thailand-58213.html#post1009147

...and sorry kcallagmy, not picking on you, and no offence, and please forgive me for using your post as an example, but your first post is a beautiful illustration of what we are discussing. You announce yourself as 'Greetings from sunny Thailand', but all that is visible in your avatar is the city of Sattahip. The sunny Thailand bit will disappear once this post falls off the scene, leaving only the Sattahip...

Who would know where that is from his next post on another section of the forum..? Yet the information re the province and Country would be of interest to many, myself included, as my In-Laws were Missionaries in Thailand for many years.

Please feel free to go back into your profile, and tell us a bit more about yourself, and the province/region/country, maybe reason why in Thailand, etc, excluding any personal ID, and putting whatever you feel comfortable with. And thanks for joining Trawler Forum. It is a great community.

Thanks Peter. Support any info improvement. I always wondered why so many are looking at my profile. Maybe a poll asking what info you would like at a glance with list of choices.

For some reason I knew Qld is Queensland but I had to look up where Panama city was, if that helps.

Ok, dear people, there's more to this than initially meets the eye. Thanks to the very helpful cooperation of kCallagmy, whose post I seized on there to illustrate the issue, it has become clear that the non-appearance of some of the profile info might be a software glitch after all. Because he had put it all in the correct boxes. I have checked out his public profile and can confirm that. But since he was made aware, he found to get it to appear in the avatar info, he has had to cram all his info into the 'City' box..! I have also noticed that the 'Country' box has the word HIdden (yes - with typo) next to it.

One suspects this was inadvertently caused by the web master when doing the software re-jigging of that area to accommodate the Port Captain facility. I will alert the mods and admin to this, and hopefully get a fix. Watch this space, as they say.

Update re the above location info.

Dear all, it appears there are practical software issues with respect to altering the input boxes when you register, so more comes through to the poster's avatar info that appears with each post.

As an interim solution, please continue to fill in all the boxes as listed, but also fit in the town or city/state/& country into the 'City' box, as strange as it may sound, only info from that box appears with the poster's avatar.

Peter B said:

Dear all, it appears there are practical software issues with respect to altering the input boxes when you register, so more comes through to the poster's avatar info that appears with each post.

As an interim solution, please continue to fill in all the boxes as listed, but also fit in the town or city/state or province/& country into the 'City' box, as strange as it may sound, only info from that box appears with the poster's avatar.

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Wifey B: As a willing student, I have complied, although I must note the administrator issuing the request has not as he is still missing the country.

I did too, but city, province & country.......................

BandB said:

Wifey B: As a willing student, I have complied, although I must note the administrator issuing the request has not as he is still missing the country.

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Touché, guilty as charged, and attended to, thanks.