Force location on profile

So much about internet marketing is location specific.

You see a lot of posts on the board where they simply say in my country (and you think where the hell are you from). Or you are talking to them and then realise from there broken English that they are not a native speakers.

I realised location can be gamed with proxys but honestly the majority of people on here are not going to try and hide there country unless they are trying to scam or defraud on here.

This kind of request makes me wonder how exactly we would do this. For instance, if we went by IP address, then you pretty much covered the issue with that idea: members could just use proxies to get around it. Then there's another issue with going based on a member's IP address: does their location automatically update when they travel or if they move?

Then we'd have to consider whether or not we would be violating the privacy of some of our members who don't want their location disclosed at all. At the country level, I can't imagine too many people complaining, but I know I personally don't want every member of the forum to know which city I live it.

Still, I understand why you suggested this. I've seen some members pretend to be from the United States or the United Kingdom, even going so far as insisting to other members that they live there when it's quite clear they've stepped foot of their own country.

we dont all lie about our location - but theres prob a few that do.
the location box has always been optional either way.
hay boss - been working on dog, again.

There's a xenforo addon called "country flags by IP address", it shows the country with a flag by the members profile, obviously won't be accurate if the user uses a proxy but might be worth looking at.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/country-flags-by-ip-address.3080/

malky66 said:

There's a xenforo addon called "country flags by IP address", it shows the country with a flag by the members profile, obviously won't be accurate if the user uses a proxy but might be worth looking at.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/country-flags-by-ip-address.3080/

Click to expand...

I use that addon on my forum and its only for fun. We don't really care where you're from but the members asked for it so we implemented it. Nothing fancy and it puts the flag in the avatar. Not the best-looking thing to see.