I am working on a number of site upgrades currently. One of the first that I'm 90% done with is adding regional maps to VAPS that can be brought up for each state and major countries. The Google maps will show where are users are from. I'm posting here to see if anyone has any comments before it goes live.
Notes:
- Only VAPS members will appear on the map. If a user is only a forum member, but not a VAPS member, that member will not appear (at least not at this time).
- In VAPS, a member can select to 'hide' their city. In such a case only their state name is listed. Any members that have selected 'hide city' are being excluded entirely from the maps.
- To protect the privacy of our members, I'm skewing the location slightly. A member will show up on the map up to 3 miles from their actual location. Next time the map is loaded, they may show up at a slightly different location. The skewing factor isn't just random so someone can't just figure out a location by reloading enough times. "Dealer" VAPS members' locations are not skewed and show up accurately. There are less than 1/2 a dozen 'dealer' vaps members.
- The map uses a different color icon for VAPS members that are also forum members...
Thoughts?
(This thread is starting out life here, and then getting moved to 'Admin and Moderator Initiated Topics').