User Maps

Scott Hardie | March 17, 2004
As users of this site, would you be interested in any of the following user maps?

A) A plain geographical map of the United States and southern Canada, with small user icons placed on the cities where we live? This would give us a sense of the geographical spread of the user base.

B) A diagram showing how users of the site know each other? This would spread out like a brainstorming web, probably with myself at the center because, well, duh.

C) A customizeable chart allowing you to compare users of the site? You could see how players rank as GOO players vs. TC authors, sorting by different criteria such as longest current GOO streak and so on. Right now, the only way to compare users (except manually look up each one and draw your own chart) is to check the list on the sidebar of each section menu, and those are neither comprehensive nor customizeable.

I definitely plan to program C, but I will only bother with A and B if there is significant interest.

Anna Gregoline | March 17, 2004
I'd be curious about the geographic map.

Erik Bates | March 17, 2004
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Melissa Erin | March 17, 2004
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Dave Stoppenhagen | March 17, 2004
I like A and B as well.

John E Gunter | March 17, 2004
Well, for C I'm non-existant in some categories, but have a presence in others. But it's be kind of interesting to see.

As far as A is concerned, then people would know where I live! ;-)

I'm thinking, all 3 need to be done, you just don't have enough to do Scott! ;-)

Lori Lancaster | March 17, 2004
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Steve West | March 17, 2004
ABC

Anna Gregoline | March 17, 2004
It's easy as 123

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
"B" is finished and online. I have revised it eight times in the last twenty minutes, which tells me there are probably still other bugs (missing connections, incorrect line colors) to be fixed. Please let me know if you spot any more errors for me to fix. I do not mean any insult by overlooking a connection; it is a genuine mistake.

I may convert this into an imagemap later, but it took a long time to create it as an ordinary image, so don't hold your breath. :p

I have decided to restrict blue lines to people who have actually met in person... Sorry, Erik.

Melissa Erin | March 18, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | March 18, 2004
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Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
Good points, Lori. I have added your connections. My mom has also met Andy Hubbartt and Erik Nelson (and Denise?), but I'm not even going to bother trying to draw those connections.

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
Yeah, "acquaintances" means they have met at least once, or have had significant online contact (unrelated to this site).

Erik Bates | March 18, 2004
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Lori Lancaster | March 18, 2004
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Jackie Mason | March 18, 2004
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Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
Consider it done. Because of the small rush of zip codes I expect to receive for the rest of the day today, I won't make the first update until tonight.

Dave Stoppenhagen | March 18, 2004
I like it Scott, let me know if you want a colored map, I think I have one that I did for the company website.

Scott Hardie | March 18, 2004
If you don't mind helping, what I really need is a big map. It needs to be big enough so that Chicago users can all fit, without it being gigantic. The map I'm currently using is not big enough, imo. Thanks for any help you can give.

This map was originally colored, but I turned it to greyscale to make the faces more prominent. I may or may not use a color map later; depends on legibility.

John E Gunter | March 19, 2004
You could always have the Chicago area be a link to a map of just the Chicago area and put those people on the enlarged one. Just a thought.

Jackie Mason | March 19, 2004
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Anna Gregoline | March 19, 2004
I like this idea, it's really fun. TC Networking.

Scott Hardie | March 19, 2004
John's right; the Chicago area is probably going to have to be bigger, or be put on a separate map. People living near each other elsewhere (John and myself, Jeff and Denise) require the icons to be small, but it's the high number of users around Chicago that make the icons really tiny. I'll work on it later today.

Anna Gregoline | March 19, 2004
I don't know where to get a good map - I've looked for such things before for my own purposes, and was surprised how hard it is to find a good state map online.

Scott Hardie | April 2, 2004
Well, it's a couple of weeks later than I had planned, but the customizeable User Chart is done. Go nuts.

Steve Dunn | April 2, 2004
Dude, where's the line on your chart for people who randomly stumbled on the site and just started talking?

'Cause that would be me.

Maybe you could have a constellation of unconnected people floating around on the periphery somewhere?

Erik Bates | April 2, 2004
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Steve Dunn | April 2, 2004
I'm not worried about it. After all, once you're known as a "friend" there's only one direction that can go... "former friend."

Former friend?

And what's up with the "enemies"??

It's funny - when I first came upon this place, I was struck by the friendly vibe. It took quite a while for me to realize that so many of you are actually, like, actual friends. I just started writing like everyone else because I figured that was the thing people did here.

I'm comfortable with the role of "random internet guy." I think it fits.

Erik Bates | April 2, 2004
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Scott Hardie | April 2, 2004
Me!

Actually, the original "Goo World Tour" was going to be Matt Preston and I driving across the land visiting people from the site, since we had such a great time one night when he met D. R. and Angela Rehn. We would have started here in Tampa with John Gunter and the rest of the little pentagram, driven down to Miami to see Dave Mitzman, driven up the east coast visiting people till we reached Nadine Russell in New Brunswick, driven through the midwest visiting people till we reached Denise & Jeff in Fargo, then down south to Erik in Texas and back here again. We had ideas for how to pull it off, like arranging volunteers to put us up for the night instead of staying in hotels for fifteen nights, but unfortunately Matt lost his nerve. I have thought about doing it by myself, but that's a hell of a lot of driving for one person. So, if anybody wants to join me...

Scott Hardie | April 2, 2004
I created the "former friends" line out of an honest acknowledgement that some people aren't friends any more, and the blue line would not be appropriate in those cases. I did not want to draw a cyan line between Andy Hubbartt and myself because I have nothing against the guy, but we haven't even sent an email to each other in two years now. As for the purple lines, I had fun drawing those. It's just me. :-)

I hear that one of the things that ruined Friendster was people "collecting" friends, trying to rack up more than everybody else. It was a game. I'd hate to see my little Legend go the same way... partly because I don't want to draw all those frickin' lines.

But Erik is on to something. You're bound to get to know better any virtual friends you make from this site, as opposed to "gxlrt251" on some other site. So send an instant message or an email to someone on this site and see if it doesn't turn into something.