Improve member location and search on location

[Peter B]

It would help if when joining members had to enter more postal details on location so that it is possible to search and group on the area where I live. My location on Testmy.net is taken as Andover, Hampshire, GB(UK) but I live a long way off in Welwyn, Hertfordshire.

So any grouping of speed tests in my area is impossible as you only appear to group by the ISP.

I know that my problems are upload related and probably between the exchange and the ISP so grouping results at the location where the ISP links to the network does not help me with identifying users in my area who I would like to group together. This is because the issue may be telecoms carrier related (British Telecom Openreach) rather than the ISP. I know its not the line as this has been changed all the way to the exchange.

If there is a search already that would help me identify members close to me it would be great but I can not see how to do this.

[CA3LE]

Thank you for the suggestion.  In the next version I may have a 'refine location' function, where you can manually select alternate cities within 100 miles of your detected city.  Hopefully this helps in those situations.  It may also ask you on your first visit, "Is this location correct?  Do you want to correct it?" 

 

I aim to make the database a a whole much higher resolution with many new ways of cross referencing and aggregating the data TMN has amassed.  I hope you stick around to see the development.

[Peter B]

Thank you for listening to my suggestion. 100 miles covers a lot of areas (population) in the uk but I appreciate trying to get a smaller area/more granularity on geographical locations may increase data and search performance.  In the UK the Postal Code would narrow it down much more. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdom

Postal codes may not be easy to use as countries vary.

 

Regards

[CA3LE]

I could do that for some countries but would have to ask users to enter that information.  I think only a fraction of users would participate unless it were forced on them.  But there still may be an option in the future to refine.  If I were to do it on the detail of postal codes, I'd probably opt of GPS and map selection instead.  Options I've already worked with in development.  If postal codes were more standardized across the world it would be different.

 

The 100 Miles I was talking about would just limit the user to selecting a more refined location within that area.  So that someone outside of that area doesn't come in and skew the data.  Because most likely, the IP location detection TMN uses now has placed you pretty close to the general area... just not pinpointed. 

[Peter B]

Must be challenging to get something that works for all countries. You have detected Andover which is only 70 miles from my actual location but that's 3 counties away and is the other side of London. I would say that in the UK besides the good way in which you are able to identify the ISP we would need to go by Cities and Counties to get more meaningful locations. So this would depend on either post codes or users identifying counties or as you say geo locations and a radius from your point if that would work. Happy to stay in the loop on this as I do have another suggestion on the speedtest regarding data/packet loss. Shall I start another suggestion thread on that.

[CA3LE]

That would be great, post another suggestion under https://testmy.net/ipb/forum/9-got-any-ideas-to-make-testmynet-better/