I don't think I would be supportive of that. I like the idea that we're all just world citizens on these forums. You can declare in your profile where you're from if you really want to (I didn't know where Acadiana was until 10 minutes ago ). In the cases you mention, posters can be asked where they live before giving such advice, and it's up to them whether they want to proceed any further.

I have noticed that a person's country of residence hardly comes up in the Linux-related threads, albeit a bit more in the general discussion threads, and I don't think that this information should be forced out of people if they don't want to provide it and it isn't needed.

I really didn't think it should be forced on members, there should be a possibility to opt out. Currently it seems most members simply don't care about filling that field, not that it would invade their privacy somehow.

Oh sure! Next you'll be wanting real names, and the Planet where we are. What then?! What happens to anonymity, er, eh, privacy, ya, that's it, privacy then?!?! ;-)

Is that what I said?

I think rigor may have been being sarcastic and actually agrees with you (and disagrees with those naysayers such as myself who would rather keep such info private). Sarcasm unfortunately is one of those types of humour that doesn't translate to the written word, and across cultural boundaries, very well.

Might be ... english is fifth language for me ...

Hi...

I disagree, some information, including this, needs to stay private.

Regards...

1 members found this post helpful.

Uhm, why?

no ip addresses.
while these are visible to the forum management, they should NOT be visible to everyone browsing LQ.
same with countries.
that should be up to the poster to supply that.

i can see the point, but usually the posters give themselves away anyway...
if anandpradip asks a question about a rhel 4 dinosaur, addressing us as "Sir"...

Well, I have a somewhat different view on the Stack sites.
I found them to be "cute" but IMO and my skill set, completely unnecessary.

They do serve a purpose but I too don't like format.
I still refer "users" to articles there.
</opinion>

Originally Posted by Emerson:
"IP address should stay private, but the country could be displayed. It would help when advising hardware purchases, sometimes also with internet connection issues."

In what I posted, that I've quoted above, I used a smiley face emoticon to indicate humor, or an attempt at humor. But beyond that, I did not spend enough time on my message. I should have been more specific. I should have only quoted "the country could be displayed" which hopefully would have made much more clear, to which idea I was responding. I suppose someone might translate "the Planet where we are" as "where on the Planet we are", but I meant it to be "Planet of Origin", as in "the Planet on which we were born"; I expected that would be interpreted as an attempt at humor, except perhaps by anyone from another Planet. :-) I also thought the "mock stammering", "er, eh" would be a bit of a give away, because I wasn't speaking, I was typing, and so did not have to include that, unless for effect.

To me, the current topic seems a bit beyond the original purpose of the thread. But as to visible info. about a poster, I can see some merit to both approaches. I can see that it might be helpful if some info. about the poster, is visible. For example, by way of understanding a question, or as some people have pointed out, making suggestions that might be relevant in a particular country. Yet I can also see some desire for privacy, as long as some info. is visible to the folks operating the forum, that seems all that is necessary. In particular, offhand I don't see how IP address would be much help, in most cases.

But in a way, that seems to get into the overall idea of understanding the context of a question. Often, there can be so much information that isn't known about the context.

I used to work as a Unix Kernel Engineer, not Linux, Unix. I worked on the insides of the Unix Kernel. Even though the source code of the Linux Kernel is different than that of Unix, I generally find that I can often apply the concepts of Unix to Linux, in one way or another.

When I started asking questions in a "Linux Newbie" forum, people would often respond with really simple information about concepts. Yet that was the last thing I needed. What I really needed was the rote information about the rote differences between Unix and Linux, such as, if I used the "nettl" command on HP/UX ( a Hewlett Packard form of Unix ), to do something similar on Linux, I might instead use something like "tcpdump".

There may be all sorts of things that might help other people understand a question that someone is asking, by informing people of, in what context the question is being asked. But there are so many different perspectives from which someone might ask a question, that I feel it still comes down to the person asking the question, making very clear what they need.

Well not necessarily as there will be tor or i2p users, travelers, such as people on holiday etc, etc. The old adage "it's dangerous to assume" springs to mind. It's probably best to ask (if it's relevant) or people will just jump to conclusions if it's anything based on IP address. Over the years, I've seen all sorts of speculation going on just because someone has filled in their location on some forum profile.

I only asked ONE question on StackExchange (or SO, I don't remember). My question was edited about three or four times and the final two edits made the question different. Also, they "corrected" my spelling in favour of AmE. Feckers.

;-)

FTFY