Involuntary update of user location would be a big departure for this plugin as to date it’s been reliant on voluntary submission and therefore individual user buy-in.
But I can see the case for it. It would make gathering user location much more reliable and less dependent on user action.
There’s already a Post label for user location on every Post. So I think this part is already covered.
I think automated update of user location as a site option during posting is feasible and reasonable so long as:
- Sites update their T&C’s
- The location is sufficiently approximate, perhaps to the nearest city? To me tracking people to the street is unlikely to endear users to the site! Perhaps you’d want an option to set granularity to city, province (if generally feasible via data) or country. I’d be interested in other admin’s opinions about this.
It would be optimal if we could standardise on MaxMind, which is the standard IP Geolocation service native to Discourse core.
I would be happy to consider sponsorship to add back end automation as a site option. I’ll contact you via PM to see if we can reach agreement.