Limiting spaces used for location

Have you ever thought of limiting the amount of spaces that can be used for the User Name and Location?

For instance:

If I posted my location as " somewhere South East of Tucson, AZ" I have used about 34 spaces....all on one line....this makes the amount of room for the post to be cut down a lot!

Just my idea. Jo

I've thought the same, especially now that we're losing some space to the right hand directory box. The username already has a limit - I found that out yest when I signed up a friend and had to cut down on the name.

Jo, AMEN some people have just gone too long with the name they are using for a location.

Judy

I respectfully concur ;o)

A single word (e.g., "central") or short abbreviation (e.g., "NE region"), followed by the state should suffice for those who don't want their actual burg, hamlet, village, town or city name displayed in their location info.

Great suggestion Jo.

That is where the time zone would come in handy. 7a central

I shortened mine - hope it's O.K.

Very nice, Kathleen! Thanks. Jo

I have to agree. I ran across one the other day and I thought say what? If you don't want to tell your location don't put anything.

Shucks, just when I was thinking of changing mine to "Between a rock and hard place, North America" to keep up with the crowd.

chuckle...good one Farmerdill!

Hm, mine is a little longer than many but not as long as some. LOL I'll be happy with whatever is best for the majority of DG members.

Mystic, yours is long too because it lists PF and BF admin and Uber on 3 lines with space above and below.

Can;t win them all

Farmerdill, that was a good one!!

Judy

Maydreams27, I think what they are talking about is where you come from.

Who do we think cares just exactly where we are......except to know if a particular plant or such can survive. Some people are just too paranoid. I'm so insignificant that don't think knowing where I am would make anyone any difference. Just ask me and I'll tell you anything and more.

Just because you're paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't after you! :-)

I want CA people to know where I am - I say Bonsall and they say where? Even some SD folk don't know where Bonsall is. And if people are in San Diego, they'll know I'm in NORTH SD, which is kind of like another state. :-).

Everyone has their own reasons for what they do - I have a neighbor who is a policewoman and a cousin who is a sheriff's deputy - they never give out their locations.

If there is a set limit of letters, I'll work with it. I think it's a good idea.

Farmerdill...I think I like that address for ME! Jo

Good suggestion Jo! Some do get a bit carried away. If those people would only put their State and zone, that would be enough to know if you had the same plant needs.

Upon re-reading my post this morning.......I owe an appology......sounds so sarcastic and I did not mean it to be. Another case of black and white not being the same as voice inflection. I'm sorry and will be more careful in the future.

Christi Lou

Nah, you're fine Christi Lou. :)

Your "insignificant" line set the tone for me, Christi Lou! That's not sarcastic. :-)

My message wasn't meant to come back at you, either, just give a few reasons why a broad location isn't always enough, or why someone might not want their location known. Both views are valid, IMHO.

Kathleen

I agree with the idea of limiting this. I have changed the system to only show up to 20 characters in the city field.

dave

Yipee!!

Farmerdill....I guess we don't have to fight over the Rock and the Hard Place.....LOL

Thanks Dave!!

So it must be Rock-n-Hard Place?

Sue...that would work....LOL JO

Thanks Dave, for making "short" work of that request!

Maybe silly question here, but I am confused. Does this mean that "locations" longer than 20 characters are going to change? I hadn't intended to be overly long with mine - that's just where I live. If I put MI, it would be misleading...and I don't really want to change it....so, what happens?

I don't think it's a silly question at all. Personally I didn't see what the big deal was before the change.

I think it's only the city field that Dave limited, not the country so Marshall Islands is fine. Anyway it's already done, so if there was going to be something weird with how your location was going to display, you'd already notice it.

Nobody knows where I am anyway....I suppose "smack dab in the middle of the pacific ocean" would have described it better, but for ease of gardening commonallity the Zone 11 makes that pretty clear. So what is this change for? We aren't really going to gain any more space on the screen are we? I don't get it.

So I guess I don't have to go change? Good. I wasn't looking forward to that. Thanks, Liz.

Islandshari - shorter locations will lengthen the amt of words in the body of the text. It appears your location is the widest on this thread, therefore, it dictates how wide the body of text will be as there is a finite amout of letters across a page.

ecrane3 posted directly above your post and you can see that her location is very short so if all the locations were shorter or as short as the date, that is where the horizontal line would be that starts the post msg. Does that make sense at all?

I think maybe the only abbreviation that would work for your location would be (Marshall Is.) and then people still might not understand it. Some spots just gotta be long. :)

I guess I understand. Thanks for the explanation. Sorry if my location causes problems for some folks....if it gets too bad, I'm sure Dave will let me know.

Definitely - no news is good news. :)

Shari, I think dave has already done the adjustment. Some locations were a little "whimsical". lol Mine is longer than many and I would figure a way to change it if needed. When the box was added on the left the longer addresses really bit into the actual content of the messages in threads.

Doesn't affect me one way or the other. However, since the "chatterbox" increases to accomodate me because I don't know when to quit, I fail to see why it matters. I really like knowing a person's full location. It has been a very good geography lesson as I frequently look it up on mapsco or some such. The posts from literally all over the world is comforting to learn just how much more alike we are than different. DG is most definitely better than the United Nations.....seldom, if ever, a cross word. See what I mean......the box is getting longer and longer.

Happy day to all of you.

LouC

Usually it's not the people who are listing their actual city that cause the length to be really long (and if they do live in a city with a very long name I'm sure nobody would mind), it's the people who are for privacy reasons trying to not quite give their real location, but in the process get into a kind of lengthy description. An example would be if I didn't want people to know exactly what city I lived in, I might change my city to "Eastern part of San Francisco Bay Area" (which of course would be truncated now with the change, but you get the idea, I'm sure you've seen some people with locations listed like that)

Lou, I think the problem is/was that if - in lieu of an actual town name - you put a description like this in the "city" field:

Guess I'm thankful I don't have to abbreviate this name:
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch. It means; "St. Mary's Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave." They abbreviate it to Llanfair P.G.

And the longest town name in the world is... (drum roll)... (163 characters).... (located in Thailand)...

Krungthepmahanakornamornratanakosinmahintarayutthayamahadilokphopnop- paratrajathaniburiromudomrajaniwesmahasatharnamornphimarnavatarnsathit- sakkattiyavisanukamprasit