The discussion revolves around obtaining aggregate user location data from IP addresses in a Discourse instance. ganncamp and rogerdean expressed interest in gathering this data to organize in-person meetups, given their user base is spread globally.
Lhc_fl suggested using the Data Explorer plugin to export user IPs and then finding an external website to determine their locations. However, this approach raises concerns about user privacy.
Ed_S and merefield recommended alternative approaches, such as asking the community to self-organize or using the Locations Plugin, which allows users to voluntarily enter their approximate locations. This plugin can display user clusters on a map.
Merefield also mentioned the possibility of improving the Locations Plugin’s searching capabilities for user clusters. Westcan inquired about potential support for the Google API in the Locations Plugin, and merefield offered their services for implementing such features.
I’ve been researching the topic of “community” lately. Apparently a lot of online communities supplement with f2f gatherings.
Our user base is all over the world. and while I’m confident there are locations with a sufficient user density to warrant organizing an in-person meetup, I don’t know what they are.
So I’m wondering if there’s a way to harvest that from our instance via (I presume) user IPs.
I’m not finding anything obvious in the UI. Would I need to pull the data via the API & then do my own manipulations?
I think the best way is to use the Data Explorer plugin to export the IP of all users, and then find an external website to find out where these IPs come from.
Just a reminder - some users might be annoyed that you analyze their IP data. Possibly a better option to initiate geo-location voting in the community.
Yes, it doesn’t answer the original question, but I think asking the community to help self-organise would be worth a try. After all, some people can travel more, others less.
Use the Locations Plugin and encourage your users to enter, voluntarily, an approximate location within a reasonable distance of their real location, then you will see usable user clusters on the User Map.
I’ve been thinking how we might improve the searching on Location Plugin for clusters of users (and even topics). If you are interested in sponsoring that work, then please get in touch.
To answer the question, no I didn’t get anywhere with this. Not directly in Discourse. We spent some time looking at commonroom.io which would definitely help here, though.