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The European Parospromenus-diaspora is quite a special thing of its own. In our address-list we have at present only two Italians and very few people from eastern Europa, but quite a few from Britain and France and the Scandinavian countries, and still more from Germany and the Netherlands.
I live in Germany (Bielefeld, which is situatued somewhere near the middle). I know of one other friend of our fish in my town, but of four or six in the whole region. If one lives in the famous town of Heidelberg, you will have nearly ten times more people keeping and breeding licorice gouramis. We say in German: “There is a nest”. And this different picture holds for the whole country: partly more, partly less friends live more or less in close or less close neighbourship. Therefore the whole country is a mirror of the situation in the whole of Europe, but much closer together if you look in detail.
It would be nice to know more of the “Parosphromenus-diaspora” in y o u r country in Europe! Are there “nests” anywhere or somewhere, or is your experience more the “open space” ….
PeterHello,
I am brandnew in the parosphromenus-scene. Actually I am grabbing all informations about these fishes, how to breed them and to prepare a proper tank. It is a great network here that offers me the possibilities to find people who breed and care for paros, who live near my region.
It would be very interesting to me to see those “nests” on a map, to take a look at the places, where paro-friends are living.
As I saw the word “maps” here in the menu bar, I was hoping to find such a “map of nests”. The map I found was fascinating too, but not my destination. And now I ask myself, if there would be a way to create such a map? I think it could be helpful for people, who are interested in keeping paros but hesitate to do the next step, to visually see where in the region live other breeters/keepers.
Greetings,
SylviaThat would be a very interesting and helpful effort. However, it would take considerable effort to build the map and more difficult to maintain it on a current basis. It would be very helpful however if people would take just a minute and complete the first line of their profile. Just having City, region/state and country would give everyone an idea of where they reside. Providing that amount of information would not interfere with individual privacy.:)
One of the other forums I frequent has a ‘Members Map’ using Google maps which people add themselves too. I’m sure it would be very easy to set one up for PP as well, and once created perhaps add a link to it in the automated ‘Welcome’ email/message to encourage new members to add themselves. It does require people to sign up for a google account though (quick and free).
Here is the map for the other forum, as an example – http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=214046924149280268662.0004a029b2cb533998cf8&ll=52.295042,-2.120361&spn=3.541123,14.501953&z=7
OK, so I have just created the great Parosphromenus Project Members Map!
It is open access, so anyone with a google account can add themselves to it. Also, if you click the ‘collaborate’ button, then you can invite people to join by adding their email addresses. So Peter or Helene could email a link to it to everyone signed up to the forum, if they feel it is appropriate.
🙂 I appreciate any help on this :)… google accounts wasnt something I had thought about, – how do you actually add yourself ??
I have just been trying to add myself, it somehow does not seem obvious …We will have to look a little bit into this in order to see if this is a way to move forward with this.
You have to be signed in to your google/gmail account first (sign in/sign up button should be top-right of the screen).
Then click the ‘Edit’ button in the left hand column. You should then be able to right-click where you live on the map and select ‘Add a placemark’. This then opens up a little box for title and description. I would suggest your name as the title, and what species you keep in the description.
I think we have to look more into it, – it might be an option, – but any option we choose should be tried out for ‘user-friendly-ness’ as well as the different other things regarding privacy etc.
I don’t think it is too difficult to work out, and it is only something that each member would need to do once. It would also be entirely user driven (other than perhaps pointing people towards it – you could add a link to the navigation bar at the top of the site), so wouldn’t require maintenance on the part of the admins.
Also, people can choose exactly what information about themselves they put up. And anyone worried about revealing what street they live on can just place their marker at a city center location, or whatever distance from their home they feel comfortable with!
Finally, it could also be made a private map, so that only people who have been given the URL can find it (ie it won’t show up in search results, etc).
Was just an idea anyway, as people were requesting some way of finding other members 🙂
Big Tom, you did a big thing, just not asking but doing!
But I think one information should be added to each name: (nearest) town. Not more, no detailed address; that would be problematic in respect of data security. The nearest town would suffice and be enough. If there are special enquiries to contact the nearest Paro-friend, we could inform the person asking that question just as we do at present. But for many people it would help to see the clusters and the diaspora at one glance.
Tom, you added your spec. Sentang. Well, that might be done, too, but this personal stock will vary more or less rapidly; I fear a bit too old informations on that. The town is much more needed than the specific species, I think. But why not as an additional information? One only has to bear in mind that one should renew that species names if and when necessary.
I think it’s a very good idea to add a category “location” to the log-in-informations. Of course, we had to supplement that information for the hitherto members, at least we should try to achieve that goal, but all new people would see that category as obligatory to be filled out. And indeed, the usefulness of our network would be much more obvious to all who come new.
Then, when it’s quite filled up with names and locations, we could place it under the “maps”-button.
Helene, what do you think? That’s the solution, I think! Thanks to Sylvia, Bill and Tom! Or what do you think?
And then of course do the same for America and Asia!No need for separate maps for the other continents Peter, you can add a marker to anywgere in the world. I like the idea of a single global map. Up to you of course though!
Peter and Tom, I think its great, I actually also managed to insert my own details.
So what remains is to insert links to it, and a good manual so people who are interested could use it as they wish ..
Is that not what we should do next ?I quess, that it would be the ‘owner’ of the map, who should edit whether its private or open, ?? I think it should be private yes, and everyone who register should be made aware of it. It is also possible of course to insert a menu point here – to a registered page (only members see that) in which the link is shown.
I think perhaps you or Peter should be owner, Helene. I don’t think it is possible to pass ownership over to you from me.
However, if you were to create a new map – My places > Maps > Create – you can then import the details from the map I have created by pressing the ‘Import’ button and entering the URL of my map – http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=203176248104282074125.0004b71d5b1ea074f7a6a&msa=0
I would then delete the old one
PS, am going out for a little while now, will check back later if any problems!
Helene, please explain to everyone here how to do it: What should I do in order to place my location into that map? (And Tom: of course a single world map!).
After having discussed it here and found the best wording, we should repeat that manual in the general informations and the rules concerning the maps-button.
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