Pseudo-City Designators for Large Metropolitan Area Directory Searches

[kaon]

Title

Pseudo-City designators for large metropolitan area directory searches

Short, concise description of the idea

A "pseudo-city" designator allows a directory search of many city locations with a single city "name" allowing a wider area to be searched with a single search through the directory.

Full description of the idea

Searching for other

Comments

[riffraff]

I like this. It does seem slightly involved (especially the grouping together of communities into pseudo-city groups), but worthwhile. If anyone needs assistance, let me know.

[eyenot]

that idea rocks. i think the users could write the code themselves...

"City: _________________"
"Nearest Landmark City (We ask so people can also locate you by greater city area and nearby high population centers, nothing against your small town per se: )________________"

or even
"We provide two city entries so you... [informational or link to FAQ entry...]"
"City:_______________"
"Pseudo-City:_______________"

Lansing is like that, too. There are about 20-30 townlets, divisions, townships, villages, towns, and cities that make up the Greater Lansing Area. a person in Okemos might be tempted to say they are in Lansing just to be found.

[mart]

The code behind that certainly seems simple enough. The difficult part will be rounding up a set of volunteers to maintain the groupings. Bearing in mind that these entry boxes are currently freeform and arbitrary (ie, the user can enter whatever they want) maintaining these lists might prove tricky over time, especially with people having made-up locations.

There is also the need for people from various locations to maintain this. Someone in Dallas might be able to maintain the list for Dallas and possible other areas in Texas, but would they be able to maintain the list for Washington? What about London, UK?

These are definite issues which need to be resolved before this feature can be implemented. A poorly-maintained major grouping system would, I feel, be more annoying than none at all.

[kaon]

The difficult part will be rounding up a set of volunteers to maintain the groupings.

Yup, that's true. So, how difficult would it be (codewise and tablewise) to maintain such lists on a user by user basis? IOW, if the user wants to use such a feature, let them build and maintain any groupings they care to use.

If this is cost prohibitive (processor, disk-space wise), perhaps this can be a feature of paid accounts?

Bearing in mind that these entry boxes are currently freeform and arbitrary (ie, the user can enter whatever they want) maintaining these lists might prove tricky over time, especially with people having made-up locations.

See comment above, re: user maintained lists.

Consider: the field being free-form and containing made-up locations, those locations probably aren't candidates for the pseudo-location rollups anyway.

But if people do use the names of the communities in which they live, then the rollups work and are useful.

Someone in Dallas might be able to maintain the list for Dallas and possible

[mart]

So you would like for there to be a predefined grouping list which each user can choose to select one of the large areas from? That would be workable, so long as enough people actually specify it and understand the option.

Someone would probably need to manage the list, so that people from areas not covered by the groupings would have someone to suggest to. If users are free to add whatever they want, I can see it becoming as much of a mess as the current freeform city field.

This sounds like a useful option so long as it can be managed properly.

[kaon]

There are two approaches to the issues surrounding the maintaining of the lists:

1. Global lists that are available to everyone.
   These lists would have to be maintained by volunteers who live in the metropolitan areas represented in the lists. As I noted before, I wouldn't even begin to know how to handle a city like London. But I do know how to handle Dallas-Ft. Worth.
   


2. Private lists that are available only to the LJ user who created (and by extention, maintains) the list. They can add the cities they want to be part of their roll-up list.
   If they want to make a mess of it, that's okay, that isn't going to affect anyone else.
   


You are prophetically correct when you say If users are free to add whatever they want, I can see it becoming as much of a mess as the current freeform city field. One approach that comes to mind regarding the maintenance of globally available lists falls back into hands of communities. There are a number of communities that exist to bring together LJ users who live in the area, "dfw-lj" in my instance. Perhaps

[anath47]

i like this idea a lot, but then again, cant it just be done my zip code?

anothr problem is the directory is always down as is, this would only complicate matters

[kaon]

Zip codes would work as well. I'd suggested city names as they're a little easier for people to find and group.

martmart says that the development folks (he specifically mentioned bradfitz) already have some geographical locator feature in the works.

Think globally

[aliza250]

Zip codes only work within the US. They also don't match perfectly to location names.

"Closest international airport(s)" might be a good way to clump locations together, especially for people who don't really live in any metropolitan area. It would be particularly useful because areas with a lower density of Internet users/LJ users also tend to have fewer international airports.

(Oh, and in case you ask, YLW.)

Re: Think globally

[kaon]

Thank you, excellent suggestion.

However, this idea has pretty much been panned by the folks at LJ. Sorry you wasted your time on it. :)