One thing we had on our old (home made) forum was little flags showing where each user is from. We have members from all over the world, so that is now our #1 most requested feature on Discourse.
Would this be hard to implement? Best place for it would probably be the user card.
Thanks,
Gunnar
It would make a good plugin. Some things to think about, is this set from signup IP, or is it something users have to configure themselves?
I was thinking based on what the user enters about themselves in their personal information/profile. That way itâs voluntary.
Gunnar
Hi Jeff,
I am working on the same site as Gunnar.
From a user viewpoint, the benefit would be that the user could quickly get an idea of location (and therefore timezone, language, and currency) with a single click on the user symbol. Our site pretty much spans the world, so this would save users asking.
Some of the other sites I use have user selectable flags, but on many of them the user can select any flag they wish. This may allow them to express some personal allegiance, but it kind of defeats the main benefit to be had from having this kind of information.
I would say detecting it from ip addy would be a bit too much overhead if you have to do a lookup at every user login (Which is pretty much what you would have to do to handle the case of a user who is travelling), so linking it to the userâs country as defined in their profile would be my choice.
Forgive my imprecise use of Discourse terminology, until a week ago I had never used Discourse. Iâm not really quite as obtuse as I initially appear to be. (In fact, itâs a lot worse once you get to know me.)
Andrew
No, I meant once at first logon.
It would be better if user choose the proper flag. Not all people living in there countries and some may have more than one nationality. A nice feature to add 
How about:
Assign it based on IP on first login.
Make it configurable so that you can make it a mod_only, or User editable.
And since Iâm in wish concert mode:
If a user wants to change it, and youâve allowed âCountry_Flag_may_mean_nothingâ, then pop up a (stern) warning to the user if the flag doesnât match with the ip addy.
Andrew
Agree.
Related wish some time ago:
Indeed. For us itâs not so much a question of identity or roots, as it is a question of current location for practical purposes.
For example, if a user posts âI get 20 mpg in my Jaguar XJ12â, and another user canât get more 16 mpg in his identical car, it would help to know that the first poster is in the UK (1 gallon = 4.5 liters) and the second is in the US (1 gallon = 3.8 liters). 
I like the idea of initially populating it from the IP address though. At least weâll have something to go on, until the user updates it.
Gunnar
I had a go at this.
I believe OP was talking about a plugin for phpBB. I used the same plugin on my forum before we changed over to Discourse a couple of weeks back. A few of the members mentioned they missed the flags, so last Friday I decided to jump in and have a go at a plugin for Discourse.
In its current state, itâs fairy âhackyâ and thereâs plenty of room for improvement. Iâd appreciate some help with the code if anyone is willing to offer their assistance!
Iâm sorry that I am unable to contribute any code, but I wonder whether it would be too much trouble to extend the functionality to allow users to add multiple flags. I guess the reasons are obvious but let me just give an example: I am about to build a website for a global community of people who are themselves often highly mobile internationally so that it makes little sense to them to select a single national identity, such as âI am Germanâ or âI am from Germanyâ. What makes sense in this context (and I think increasingly for many people) is to say âIâm of German descent, born in Indonesia and living in the UKâ. Putting three flags would nicely sum that upâŚ
@Ebs you are in the plugin_authors group, feel free to post a dedicated topic in the #plugin category with some screenshots
Thanks Sam, I posted the reply first before I applied for #plugin membership so I had something to show for it first.
Iâve just made the post - National Flags - Display user nationality in Discourse
