Why no state?

I'm from Alabama and don't mind having anyone know. I've watched threads appear and disappear and read input from many Ventureriders. Some, it seems that I might click with due to similar interests, philosophies, occupations, etc. and if, within reasonable riding distance would like to meet them or get together for a ride. But there are so many that do not list the state, so how do I know who is close in distance and who is not. Makes me wonder. Is there just enough distrust within the membership that it makes a person antsy about putting there state along with their city or is it site policy for the protection of all members, "just in case"?

Actually You can go to the "Members List and select only your state for a listing. It shows there are 88 members in that state

Just as a side note there are 143 pages of members and only about 10 pages where the have not filled in a state and that maybe that some of them are not in the US.

Hi Marv,

How you been? Great I hope.

I have asked the same question, and come to realize that when a new member fills out thier profile page, some new members are a little reluctant (as being a new member would be), to fill out all the boxes, because of the uncertinty of what they are getting in to...maintaining thier privacy...

And after being a member for months, they dont go back and add the info to those missed boxes.

I too would like to know what state new members were from, so if they were close to Huntvsille, I could send them a p-email welcoming them to the site, and asking them if they would be interested in joining us for a meet & eat or whatever just like I sent the p-email to you. I hate sending emails to someone only to find out they live in Alaska or some state many miles from here and i wasted my time....

It sure would be helpful if those members who do not have the state listed that they are from would go back to thier profile and fill in the state block, but again, some dont want to for privacy or other some other reason unknown to me....

Just as a side note there are 143 pages of members and only about 10 pages where the have not filled in a state and that maybe that some of them are not in the US.

/quote]

 

 

OR...Just haven't taken the time to fill in their profile completly.

:whistling:Or, even what there riding under there handle. model / year / etc:whistling:

It's rare that I don't see a state flag in someone's post. The problem is that I don't know all 50 states' flags.

If you move your pointer over the flag, a little box will popup and show the name of the state or province.

Most people do set their states but some just never go to their UserCP and set all the available options. When I first added the flags, I started to make it a required field during registration but the problem with that is that we have a few members from other countries as well as the US and Canada and there is no way that I can add ALL the flags from all states, provinces and etc. of all the countries in the world. So making it a required field would force them to choose a place that they don't live.

For anybody who does not have their flag showing, you can go to UserCP, Edit Profile, scroll down to additional information and you'll find a drop down box to select your state or province.

If you move your pointed over the flag, a little box will popup and show the name of the state or province.

Wow, that's fantastic. I do like the popup info boxes on this board. I use them in other areas, but I hadn't figured that one out. Are these popup boxes a feature available with this particular board software that you purposefully turned on? I wish that other boards had that feature, but very few seem to.

Don, you have put a lot of thought and experience into this site and it clearly shows. I didn,t know that feature about the flags...cool! Thanks again for all of you hard work.

Wow, that's fantastic. I do like the popup info boxes on this board. I use them in other areas, but I hadn't figured that one out. Are these popup boxes a feature available with this particular board software that you purposefully turned on? I wish that other boards had that feature, but very few seem to.

Most software has the capability. The problem is that some site builders just don't take the time to do it. Anytime you create icons, graphics, etc. and use them for links there is a box in the creation process called "alternate text". If you don't take the time to fill it out, the images will work fine but there is no text to show.

Don, you have put a lot of thought and experience into this site and it clearly shows. I didn,t know that feature about the flags...cool! Thanks again for all of you hard work.

Thanks. I've tried to make it as easy as possible for us. There are still some things that are a bit confusing to new users. Picture resizing and etc. The software DOES have automatic picture resizing built in but it is not perfect. If the pictures are WAY BIG, it will time out and fail.

This is good software as purchased but I have done a lot of customization on it. That gives us a lot of nice features but the downside is that when it comes time to upgrade, it makes it a very time consuming task. If I just left it as it was designed, I could install new updates in about 10 minutes. With all my customizations though, it can take me 4 or 5 hours to update and longer if something goes wrong. There is a new version in the final stages of release right now and I will be installing it here soon. It is the biggest change to the code that I've seen to this software since starting this site. Most of the customizations that I have added here will have to be completely redone. It's really going to be a pain. I actually installed it this week on my touringhogs site. I started there because I don't have that site nowhere near as customized as this one and so knew it would be easier to do. Still took me a few hours and the site was down for about an hour. When that happens here, I will get about a million emails from the members telling me that the site is down.

The new software offers some new features that I really don't even care about and most I will probably disable. So why go to the trouble to upgrade? The problem is that hackers and other deviants are always searching for ways to trash sites. There are always new security measures being implemented and you have to download and install the updates to stay on top of it. While they will release security updates for older versions for a while, they eventually stop supporting the older versions and you have to update sooner or later. It is easier to stay on top of the updates as they come out.

Once I install the new software, I will likely ask for the members input on a couple of new features that I really am unsure that I want to use. It actually has a "social networking" feature built in. What this means is that members would be able to have their own groups, sort of like "MySpace", where they can have public messaging between the group members, almost like little mini forums. I can see where that could be useful in that people from certain areas can have their own place to discuss meets and greets and etc. but to me, it sort of takes away from the general forum here where we are all one big group. I will have to really give it some thought.

The other thing is that folks will be able to customize their profile pages. Pictures, colors, backgrounds, etc. Not sure how many will actually use that feature.

Basically a lot of stuff that I'm not sure I want and like I said, the upgrade is going to require me to re-write a LOT of the customizations that I use here. The flags, the ability to hide threads that you don't wish to see, the ability to hide topic areas, the favorite smilies and even moving the smilies to the bottom instead of at the side. The embedding of the videos....MANY other things are all customizations that will have to be redone. I'm not looking forward to this one.

You Da Man!

Dang, now I have to learn all the abbreviations for the states?

Here ya go *LOL*

http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/abbr_state.txt

http://canadaonline.about.com/library/bl/blpabb.htm

Well - you folks on the north side of the planet will complicate things for yourselves. Down under, on this fantastic island continent, Oz has the same land mass as the good ol' USofA but to make life a lot simpler we have only 6 states and 2 territories (same as a state). You can ride from one side of Australia to the other and only have to ride in 3 states. In fact, to ride from the east coast to the west coast you only pass through 1 state (other than the one you left from and the one you end up in).

Makes a lot of things a lot easier. We have only one Police Force in each state (no city police or sheriff's departments etc) and there is a Federal Police Force - a bit like the FBI I suppose, that is responsible for Commonwealth laws governing the entire country.

When we have federal elections the campaigns run for around 6 weeks. That's it. None of this grand-standing and spending of billions for nearly a year by would-be has-beens (hello Hillary!) trying to make it to the big house on the hill.

Damn I love it when life is so simple.

Then we must add this as well,

http://rateyourmusic.com/wiki/Official%20Australia%20State%20Abbreviations

Who had a clue about all that semi-tec stuff. Thanks for the explanation. Everyone fix your info. Freebird for President! DNB in Denver, CO

 

Freebird for President!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

You have my vote.......

Yea...like I want the media digging into MY past.

Yea...like I want the media digging into MY past.

Do you have any History ??

Better not when running for President ... :rotf::rotf::rotf:

Better you unveil it now than have the Media dig into it ....

Besides that, you sure would have my Vote, now, if i only could vote for you in Presidency....

But He Never In-Hailed *sheesh*

you wanna bet?

I wanna know if you ever smoked cigars.....

Makes me wonder. Is there just enough distrust within the membership that it makes a person antsy about putting their state along with their city or is it site policy for the protection of all members, "just in case"?

Another consideration for some members might be first hand knowledge that insurance companies and employers regularly check out websites like ventureriders.org. So...let's say you crash the bike, don't show up for work, call in sick, put in a claim on the bike, whatever, but you post in here that you are out riding, or fighting with the company, or taking off all the chrome, blah, blah, blah,...it all could create a messy situation and give some a reason for those who are not wanting to "fill in all the boxes".

Damn I love it when life is so simple.

When are you going to get rid of that mis-informed government and get your guns back?