Hey I've just joined EC and I don't know if it was just me missing it or not. But is there a members search option? I think it would be good if we could search members and find people close to us etc It would be great for learning about clubs and events and possibly meeting new friends and hanging out. Also I don't know if this topic has already been posted about so sorry if this is a bit of a repost and this has already been answered.
Howdy! And welcome to EC. :smilewave You can always use the Members List feature, is that similar to what you're talking about? Although it does display all members, including those who are no longer active...
Yeah. I thought it would be cool if we had like search criteria. So you can search for people in a certain area and it lists them.
Well... just to be clear, EC does not allow any form of off-site contact for people who are not full members, and we are really set up more as an online support community than a place to meet people in real life, and so allowing searching for people by location would tend to encourage breaking of our no-offsite-contact rules. Once you apply for and gain full member status, you can then PM members and contact them off-site, but, as I said, that is not the primary purpose of EC and so we don't particularly encourage that. Also, Many of our members, for privacy reasons, don't list what cities they live in, so the search by locale might not be particularly useful. Sorry to disappoint... but one of the things we constantly have to balance is the need to maintain security and limit any form of off-site contact -- which is the unique feature of EC that keeps it safe and creeper-free -- with the desire of people to cultivate real friendships. So the balance we've struck isn't perfect, but seems to work pretty well for most people.
Just to add on to what has been covered above, the reason our member list doesn't allow for searching via location is because it would be very difficult to develop when your membership base is worldwide. I've only ever seen that type of feature on one site specific to UK members, and to do this they used regional networks. However, we wouldn't really be able to do that here due to us not being specific to one country. The only way it would really be able to work would be if, for example, you could search by state, which isn't all that useful either. If you live near the top of California and a member you're talking to lives near the bottom then you aren't really that close to each other, so you'd then need to go even more specific by perhaps looking at counties, districts etc, and at that point you start encountering issues on whether it's appropriate for a support organisation to gather such confidential information from members (including from many who are under the age of 18) when it doesn't serve any purpose to the aims of the organisation. It all becomes a lot of work for not that much benefit, imo. I do, however, like the idea of having resources that can point members towards local LGBT groups within their community.
Ah yes I understand all that most definitely! I do like how the site works. I like how safe it is and respectful I appreciate it I also understand the tech part of it and how much work it would be to develop and the safety of everyone's information especially the under 18's. I think for me it's because I have been having trouble finding a way into the community where I am. Maybe there could be a forum for seperate countries and people could post about what's going on in the LGBT groups and the events where they are?
