
A way to find other Y Combinator readers in your area - dottertrotter
http://www.hackrtrackr.com
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staunch
How about a little custom(?) microformat on our "about" sections that you
fetch and refresh every X days? That solves the authentication and updating
problems. That's not my idea either. It's what the Perlmonks starting doing
maybe 7 years ago.

<!-- location:latitude=34.05.14,longitude=-84.16.05 -->

<http://tinymicros.com/pm/index.php?goto=BigMonkMap>

More inspiration from the Perl Mongers:

<http://www.pm.org/groups/map.html>

~~~
jey
Good idea. I've added it to my user page, except that I am using degrees
rather than degrees.minutes.seconds. (Doesn't that make more sense?)

There might be a bit of a problem though: there's no easy way to enumerate
user IDs except by crawling the threads. Maybe for simplicity we should still
have to add our usernames to HackrTrackr if we want to be included.

~~~
dottertrotter
I think this combination is a great idea. Thanks guys. I'll rework some stuff
to make this possible. I really appreciate all the suggestions that have been
made over the past 24 hours. I thought only a few people where going to sign
up and already 130 have submitted their user names. Also based upon the
suggestions, I'm going to add a location based forum, as well as rework the
interface to show the selected user's information in a pop up bubble, with a
link to the state list instead of instantly redirecting people. Thanks, again
for the suggestions and please feel free to keep them coming.

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epi0Bauqu
For the rest of the world and/or the US, just let people type in a location
that works on google maps (city, country/zip code/even street address). Then
geocode it with Gmaps API, and use that lat/lon to display thereafter.

~~~
tsx
Or use the MaxMind Geolite City database

~~~
epi0Bauqu
I use the real one, and it still doesn't have enough coverage to just use it
and not look back. I would advocate using it for a default string, though.

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dottertrotter
Recently there have been quite a few posts on here, from people trying to find
other hackers in their area to meet. Because the posts tend to get long and
drawn out I created this. It's simple and just a start, but it should provide
us a base for finding others in our area. If people use it, I'm thinking about
adding a location based forum section.

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jey
Feature request: clicking on a marker causes a bubble to show up (like GMaps)
instead of navigating the page away from the map.

~~~
dottertrotter
yeah, I thought about that, but I wanted to list all the others in the state
as well as the one you selected, and I thought that list could get to long for
the bubble pop up.

~~~
jey
Decouple the "look at a single user" action from the "look at all users in a
region" action. Maybe add a link in the bubble that takes you to a page with
all the users in the same state?

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Darmani
You might consider asking for a zip code rather than a city. I personally live
in an unincorporated area of Saint Louis county, and I was quite tempted to
name one of the three surrounding suburbs (all of which are politically
considered a city). While the decision to just put down "Saint Louis" came
easily, I'm wondering how much internal debate I would have had had I lived in
an unincorporated area in the middle of nowhere.

And then, of course, there's also the reason that just typing in a zip code is
easier.

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sharpshoot
You forgot the UK.

~~~
danw
And the rest of the world

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bootload
_"... find other Y Combinator readers in your area ..."_

Didn't work for me. Does anyone below the equator get listed? ~ Melb, Aus. Is
there any other way to submit your location aside from form submit? What about
a set of lat/lons, or selection by clicking on the map, or a drop down for
instance?

There's gotta be more ways to enter than just by IP. I can understand the
reasoning as it's verifiable but it should probably used to weight user entry
of data.

~~~
dmnd
Didn't work for me either, but this comment thread did. ~ Melb, Aus.

~~~
bootload
_"... but this comment thread did. ~ Melb, Aus. ..."_

brings it to about 4 I think.

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sri
there is no way to delete entries -- i created 3 by accident -- and also no
way to delete entries when you don't want you location connected your username
anymore.

~~~
dottertrotter
I realize that it is lacking in some features, but I wasn't sure it would be
used, so I only spent a few hours making it. More to come.

~~~
dottertrotter
And I'll go ahead and delete the first two users you created.

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palish
dottertrotter made hackrtrackr. That's poetic.

Doh! It couldn't find the location for my IP, and it only allows me to pick my
state, but not my city (the textbox that should allow me to enter my city is
oddly vanished).

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edu
Reading from Barcelona, Spain... It does not work :(

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adnam
I'm in BCN. Think we might be the only two, or ..... :-)

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vlad
First on the list after you :) My city is wrong because the city ajax dropdown
list appeared only after I had already clicked OK.

~~~
dottertrotter
sorry, bout that, I meant to add a loading notice. Just add yourself again and
I'll remove the first one.

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epi0Bauqu
Feature request: on the state/country view, allow announcement postings of
some sort. For example, in the Philadelphia area we are starting a hackathon
group (<http://www.groupomatic.com/haqsm3vj>), and new people putting their
info in would benefit from knowing about it.

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epi0Bauqu
Feature request: give us a text box that we can use to zoom into an area we
type in. That is, if I just type in Pennsylvania, it will take me to that
area. This will be even more needed when you start from the world view. And/or
capture the click event through the GMaps API and recenter and zoom in one
tick every click.

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jey
Feature request: validate usernames by issuing a HTTP GET to
<http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=%s>

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ncouture
I'm from Montreal in Canada so it's impossible for me to be found on
hackrtrackr!

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danteembermage
Our club is a little more exclusive than I thought.

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zeantsoi
cmon gotta be able to delete users. this is not considered a "feature".

