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I posted my first question yesterday, and the person that answered my question added my location as a comment to my question. I found that just a tad bit strange considering this is the interwebs and everything. A follow up comment explained that the location would be useful in answering the question.

The first thing I did when I saw the comment "revealing" my location (its in my profile so its not like I care) was to look at the help center. In hind sight I should have also searched meta, but I think most users generally avoid meta but would hit the help center.

I think the site can benefit from 1. having the "How to ask a good question" section expanded and 2. show up on the front page instead of having to click more to find the how to ask a good question link. The site mods should be able to update the help center, in this case, either @Niall, @Tea, or @wax should be able to modify the stuff in the help center.

Some other attempts at a solution for the same "problem"

Location is vital to most gardening questions, should location be a tag?

Include geographic information in user summary

Can we ask new users where they live?

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    I agree with having the "How to ask a good question" section expanded. Second to photos of the plants, location is usually about the most important information someone can give when asking a question.
    – J. Musser
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 19:45
  • LOL i'm glad I got one thing right.
    – anon
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 21:15
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    @J.Musser unfortunately "How do I ask a good question" is not one of the pages we can edit in the help center.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 15:28

2 Answers 2

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As you can see this is a long running issue for us on this site.

The best we can really do is ask folks to provide the information when it's relevant and if it's missing and important, we need to close their question.

I'm in favor of updating the help center pages with some text about adding location data when it's important, and we've already updated a bit about pictures I think. We need to work out what the text should be and where it goes (that needs to be a new meta question though).

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I agree that it's important to have some kind of location data for questions. In most cases, I don't think we need anything so specific, just the general plant zone that the person is in.

For questions like identification requests, that's where it would be useful to have more specific locations. I'm not sure we ever need to have anything as specific as the city, but just the state in case it's a plant, or even animal, that's only found in their state.

Unfortunately since the site is still in beta, I don't think there 's a whole lot we can request for the site changes, but I think it would be nice to have a little popup reminder to add the location information for the first couple questions that a person asks. Sort of similar to how the downvote popup works.

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  • The plant zone is important, but so is the yearly precipitation, and the average length of the winter period, and the altitude, normal humidity temperatures, all that good stuff. It all helps me answer questions, believe it or not, and the easiest way for them to give me that information is to post their location; the more specific the better.
    – J. Musser
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 20:29
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    I like the idea for the popup thingy. :)
    – J. Musser
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 20:29
  • I wouldn't even know where to get that information, should definitely add that to the help center. Doesn't this site have some kind of Moderator Pro Tempore to take care of that stuff?
    – anon
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 21:18
  • Yea, that's in the help center, too. Updated the question.
    – anon
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 21:22

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