Do you think the place should be an open text field so that someone could add any real or fantastical location (eg “Hobbiton, The Shire, Middle Earth”) or be a search field restricted to iNat standard places (which would be my preference)?
Standard places please.
On Google Plus many people ‘lived in Antarctica’.
Opt in, so people are not forced if they - prefer not to say.
Search field for iNat standard places.
Yes I would agree with this.
Wow, Google Plus - deep cut!
any iNatters in Antarctica?
And add you can search users based on the location. In the location profile page, we can add new tab that list every users that’s from the location. You can sort the list by name, observation numbers, identification, date created,etc.
This is going to be a very significant change in the community if implemented.
Good idea!
IMO some sort of search function that uses this is probably has the most potential benefit. I mean, there’s nothing preventing anyone from saying where they’re from right now, it’s just not in a separate field.
Search function on profiles would be wonderful.
I know there is someone who specialises in African freshwater crabs
or moss (and based in Cape Town)
But, so hard, to find them again.
Perhaps being searchable would encourage people to provide more useful info on their profile.
So it’s intended for users to describe their specializations.
In that case, maybe you should be able to set a prefered taxon (e.g. Beetles) as well?
That may be a good idea although the “Favorite taxa” list already lets you do that to some extent.
Yes, see mine:
There absolutely are! I’ve found a few frequent observers from that region
