UK/EU dominance in PM.net

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ray_parkhurst
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UK/EU dominance in PM.net

Post by ray_parkhurst »

This may have been discussed before but it seems that the majority of folks on this forum are in the UK or EU. Are there formal (and available) statistics of where members reside?

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

We don't keep any such statistics. I guess some information could be inferred from the IP addresses of posters, but otherwise we don't know anything more that what people put in their Location field.

--Rik

Chris S.
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Post by Chris S. »

Ray,

Ever since you raised this question, I've been pondering how to find an answer to it. A significant job of ad hoc database analysis could work, but would require more hours than anyone would likely care to perform.

The forum software does offer an easier--though less accurate--tool: A poll. Members of the admin team can create a poll that forum members can respond to. I'm not generally fond of polls on Internet fora, as most of them seem like meaningless noise. But a poll on this subject might produce modestly interesting information, so I'll volunteer to set one up, if we can figure out how to do it within a reasonable amount of effort.

The big question that puzzles me is: What choices for location should we list?

Setting up a poll with the forum software, each possible answer must be entered one by one. So, for example, a listing of all the nations of the world would take a long time to set up. Also, such a list would take so much space to display that it would be very cumbersome to use--so that is out. On the opposite extreme, listing the official continents would be pretty easy, but I doubt this would produce granular enough information to satisfy anybody's curiosity.

Between those two extremes, every scheme I can think of for listing locations would likely incite quite reasonable offense from forum members whose location is lumped or split in a way they deem inappropriate.

So I'll ask you and any other forum member: Can you suggest a list of locations that seems both useful and fair? If we can agree on a list that fits these criteria and is not terribly burdensome to create or use, I'll set up a poll with it. I don't think such a list needs to be perfect, but I do think it should be the result of an open discussion. If such a list must sacrifice perfection for workability, dissenting voices should at least have a chance to speak and be heard.

--Chris S.

dolmadis
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Re: UK/EU dominance in PM.net

Post by dolmadis »

ray_parkhurst wrote:This may have been discussed before but it seems that the majority of folks on this forum are in the UK or EU. Are there formal (and available) statistics of where members reside?
I am going to be pedantic.

Is the question "Are there formal (and available) statistics of where members reside?"

Or is it "are the majority of folks on this forum in the UK or EU?"

If it is the latter why is that of interest to us?

Would the answer lead to changes in the forum?

What changes?

BR


John

Chris S.
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Re: UK/EU dominance in PM.net

Post by Chris S. »

dolmadis wrote: Would the answer lead to changes in the forum?

What changes?. . . .
John, I can't imagine any results from such a poll that would lead to significant changes to this forum. Most of us love this forum as it is, and want to protect it as it is. We would need a strong burden of evidence to make a significant change; and even then, I'm certain the admin group would request advice from the members, and listen to such advice seriously, on how to incorporate any newly-ascertained good while least affecting all the things that are already good about our forum.

I tend to think that we have forum members participating from almost every continent on Earth, except possibly Antarctica. Personally, I love the wide range of our community--variety in location, variety in ethnicity, variety in interests and outlook. I'd have zero interest in reducing this variety.

As an example of a small change that might come out of such a poll: If a poll found that we had no members on Antarctica, I'd be tempted to invite macro/micro photographers on Antarctica to join our community. But whether or not this worked, I don't think it would change our forum much.

So to your question, John: No. I don't think poll answers would result in significant changes to our forum. From what I see, our forum is working well. Absent strongly contrary information, we should not be seeking to change it.

--Chris S.

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Perhaps marginally related to the topic, but 'what3words' is a pretty convenient way of pinning down exact locations. https://map.what3words.com/

APIs are available to map any 3 words in question to a specific country (name) or nearby town etc. and offers methods for selecting locations too (with auto suggestions and other aids). https://docs.what3words.com/api/v3/

As an example, a tiny patch of my back garden is referenced as "windpipe.task.rationed"

Chris S.
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Post by Chris S. »

Steve, thanks for suggesting "what3words". I've followed that effort with both interest and skepticism--the idea would seem to work well, but I don't get why it's better than standard latitude/longitude coordinates that have worked so well for so long, and are intuitive to understand?

I wrote the above out of general interest. For the subject at hand, problems with "what3words" seem insurmountable. To create a forum poll, I'll need to create every potential choice before posting the poll. Individually creating every "what3word" combination for a worldwide poll looks like a Herculean task.

Or have I missed something?

Cheers,

--Chris

ray_parkhurst
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Re: UK/EU dominance in PM.net

Post by ray_parkhurst »

dolmadis wrote:
ray_parkhurst wrote:This may have been discussed before but it seems that the majority of folks on this forum are in the UK or EU. Are there formal (and available) statistics of where members reside?
I am going to be pedantic.

Is the question "Are there formal (and available) statistics of where members reside?"

Or is it "are the majority of folks on this forum in the UK or EU?"

If it is the latter why is that of interest to us?

Would the answer lead to changes in the forum?

What changes?

BR


John
I was just curious, mostly due to the impact on trading with members due to shipping to or from the EU and UK from the US, where I reside.

Yawns
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Post by Yawns »

My feelins is like 90% or more of the "users" of this forum are lurkers.. I cared many times to look at the bottom of the main page.. for every 2-3 registered users online you have 60-80 "guests" peeping through the hole...
YAWNS _ (Y)et (A)nother (W)onderful (N)ewbie (S)hooting

ray_parkhurst
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Post by ray_parkhurst »

Yawns wrote:My feelins is like 90% or more of the "users" of this forum are lurkers.. I cared many times to look at the bottom of the main page.. for every 2-3 registered users online you have 60-80 "guests" peeping through the hole...
I think this is the case for most forums.

This one in particular is very accommodating to beginners, and very civil. There are other forums out there which are run and/or contributed to by folks with an agenda, or at least with closed minds. Beginners are made to quickly feel unwelcome in such environments.

So a shout out to those "lurking" on the forum...write and let us know what you're interested in!

Beatsy
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Post by Beatsy »

Chris S. wrote:Steve, thanks for suggesting "what3words". I've followed that effort with both interest and skepticism--the idea would seem to work well, but I don't get why it's better than standard latitude/longitude coordinates that have worked so well for so long, and are intuitive to understand?

I wrote the above out of general interest. For the subject at hand, problems with "what3words" seem insurmountable. To create a forum poll, I'll need to create every potential choice before posting the poll. Individually creating every "what3word" combination for a worldwide poll looks like a Herculean task.

Or have I missed something?

Cheers,

--Chris
As I said, it's probably only marginally relevant here. My underlying thought is that if forum members specified their locations using w3w notation (by looking it up online or via the app). Then the database would contain info that can be parsed and interpreted automatically by code. No pre-population required. Not a serious suggestion though - just musing out loud...

The only benefits I see over lat/long notation (in general) is that it's less prone to transcription error and easier to remember if not written down.

Yawns
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Post by Yawns »

ray_parkhurst wrote:
Yawns wrote:My feelins is like 90% or more of the "users" of this forum are lurkers.. I cared many times to look at the bottom of the main page.. for every 2-3 registered users online you have 60-80 "guests" peeping through the hole...
I think this is the case for most forums.

This one in particular is very accommodating to beginners, and very civil. There are other forums out there which are run and/or contributed to by folks with an agenda, or at least with closed minds. Beginners are made to quickly feel unwelcome in such environments.

So a shout out to those "lurking" on the forum...write and let us know what you're interested in!
..
Yes I agree with you .. the forums that I know or lurk myself are like this right now.
And I also agree that this forum is civilized and welcoming and patient with the initiates.

But at the same time it's intimidating.
The academic level, level of education, technical ability ... and material exhibited by the hardcore of the more active members is very high.
I can only speak for myself, .. what I find very difficult, about participating, in this forum is to be an "interesting" member .. to bring to the forum something that has some value, just because the level of knowledge / skill / equipment of the most active members is very high.
YAWNS _ (Y)et (A)nother (W)onderful (N)ewbie (S)hooting

rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

I'm sure there are a lot of lurkers, but the advertised number of "guests" should be taken with a grain of salt.

Most of those "guests" have IP addresses that trace back to internet indexing facilities, and they are frequently trying to do things that any human guest would quickly realize can't be done except by logged-in members. They're basically "clicking on links" at random.

As far as I can tell, the forum software makes no attempt to distinguish a human reader from an indexing robot.

--Rik

Troels
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Post by Troels »

YAWNS,

yes, I agree.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
Visit my Flickr albums

DesolateMirror
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Post by DesolateMirror »

Maybe the cold cloudy climate in the UK lends itself well to photo macrography.

I live in Australia but in a very cold and cloudy area which is what lead me here, particularly indoor macro work.

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