Can international users be added to the 'users near you' feature?

December 22, 2004 6:19 AM

How about adding some mechanism whereby we Canadian users (and/or further abroad, but I don't know how complex that could get) could join the "Users near this user" crowd? Obviously we would have to provide postal codes, but the mechanism must exist, since it is used on several other site.

As far as integrating it with the US one, well, I don't know if that would be possible, let alone plausible, but it'd be a nifty addition.
posted by ChrisR to feature requests at 6:19 AM (18 comments total)

Search Metatalk for "near this user" and you get two threads dealing with this exact question.
posted by Plutor at 7:38 AM on December 22, 2004

Don't all Canadians live within, like, 20 minutes of each other? I mean it isn't like it's a big country or anything...


</jest>
posted by Doohickie at 7:42 AM on December 22, 2004

One idea we were talking about at the last Toronto meetup was that mathowie could assign each Canadian province an unused U.S. zip code (apparently there are roughly the right number). Then we'd at least know who lives in the same province.
posted by orange swan at 8:33 AM on December 22, 2004

Like the previous threads suggested, there really just needs to be fields for lat/long.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:31 AM on December 22, 2004

Plutor: Urgh. Should have seen those, I did a cursory search but not that one, obviously.

My bad.
posted by ChrisR at 10:32 AM on December 22, 2004

Believe it or not, the USPS actually assigns ZIP codes for other countries. Almost anything I get from the U.S. has a POSTNET barcode with 00144/1000 printed at the bottom. I've put 00144 into my user information, but since it's not in Matt's database, it won't display nearby people. :(
posted by grouse at 10:34 AM on December 22, 2004

That reminds me of the story I once heard of a Canadian student at a US college who had to register with the draft board as an "Alien: Living Abroad," which is a pretty big category if you think about it.
posted by timeistight at 11:11 AM on December 22, 2004

It's true this has been asked before, but I think it falls into the category of "Matt needs repeated goosing to remind him of the pony he promised back when the world and MeFi were young."

And here's some small type for nthdegx!
posted by languagehat at 12:16 PM on December 22, 2004

Almost anything I get from the U.S. has a POSTNET barcode with 00144/1000 printed at the bottom.

My suspicions are confirmed.

Mail I received from the U.S. when I was in Germany this summer had "00149" printed at the bottom.

44 is the UK's (telephone) country code. 49 is Germany's. This may not hold for countries with three-digit codes, but I bet it holds for those with two-digit codes.
posted by oaf at 1:57 PM on December 22, 2004

Don't all Canadians live within, like, 20 minutes of each other? I mean it isn't like it's a big country or anything...

Yup and we have the annual "kill a polar bear day" in TO, wear mukluks, live in igloos and yell "mush puppie!" to get our dog sled's to move faster and we send our senior citizens out on ice flows at the end of their lives. :)

I prefer the lat/long suggestion myself.
posted by squeak at 5:34 PM on December 22, 2004

you left out that you only ever eat poutine and Tim Horton's, covered in maple syrup. ; >
posted by amberglow at 5:57 PM on December 22, 2004

You're from Canada? Say, do you know Jimmy, Sally, or Susie? They're really, really nice.
posted by fandango_matt at 6:49 PM on December 22, 2004

No, I dab the maple syrup behind my ears, in the hopes of attracting some hot liberal Yank:-)

Seriously, I have a 4 litre jug sitting in my fridge right now. Have to use it up somehow.
posted by orange swan at 6:53 PM on December 22, 2004

My postal code is 545-090 in Korea. Korea translates to 00190-2000 in grouse's crazy moonlanguage.

Geographer, please hope me.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:20 PM on December 22, 2004

Thanks for the zip tip, grousarino! Say, Matt, how's about adding those to the database?
posted by squirrel at 7:50 PM on December 22, 2004

In addition to ZIP codes, what about entering latitude and longitude? That would work for everyone, wouldn't it?
posted by fandango_matt at 8:05 PM on December 22, 2004

whoops, I missed the lat/long comments above. I was looking for the itudes.
posted by fandango_matt at 9:05 PM on December 22, 2004

I agree, the best solution to this is latitude/longitude entry with a link to a map so people can figure out those numbers.

This way it works for anyone at all, anywhere, period, and doesn't take a ranch of ponies to code.
posted by shepd at 3:44 PM on December 23, 2004