Faulty display of members' country - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2025, 02:52:46 am
content: Something that's bugged me for a while about this forum:Why do some members' countries display incorrectly?Like, f'rinstance,this member?(You can't see it in their profile, have to look at one of their posts.)Not singling them out, just happened to see that their country shows mangled, like lots of others here.Not a biggie, but still something wrong.

author: Ian.M
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2025, 04:33:09 am
content: IIRC a fair few years back there were some non-countries in the countries list which have since been removed. I suspect that accounts which were set to one of them now display incorrectly, rather than the unset default of not displaying a country that quite a few prefer for privacy reasons. Alternatively it may be SMF doing something wrong when you change from a country on the list to blank. I have *never* set the country, nor do I ever want to. If colorburst can confirm that their country is set to the blank top entry, and whether or not they previously had a country set, it may help shed some light on the issue.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2025, 05:10:02 am
content: Note: please stop abusing this knowledge; seethis comment.The CountryFlags mod uses a two-character code to indicate the country. That code is blindly pasted into the URL for the image.“00” is used to indicate the empy position, the “no country” value. So if the user sets this value, it ends up trying to display “Themes/default/images/flags/00.png”. But that flag doesn’t exist. I temporarily set my country to a smile to give you the idea.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2025, 05:11:35 am
content: The country symbol is hard to see and virtually impossible to hover over on a mobile or tablet.hard to see the country.Even so, some members have "no country" or "Antarctica", perhaps fake, trolls or have reason to hide their location?Country will affect BUY/SELL.WANT posts or other topics,Recommend that moderators /Dave should consider removing the "no country and Antarctica country options.Make it easier to see the country when hovering cursor over the TINY flag symbol.Many thanksJon

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2025, 05:17:52 am
content: Yes, because fake accounts absolutely can’t set arbitrary country! /sWe never seen the spammers using Bangladeshi or South African flags.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 16, 2025, 11:30:12 pm
content: I changed my flag to a ☺ only to illustrate to Analog Kid, how this works.Seeing some people now copy that idea, I’d like to ask to cease. It causes unneccessary requests to the server, produces 4xx noise in the logs and may trigger false positives in IDS, and interferes with small-image optimization the server seems to be employing. It also elevates an irrelevant and obscure error. Seriously, I believe admins can better allocate their efforts than addressing an issue which could otherwise be safely ignored.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 18, 2025, 06:47:02 pm
content: I would recommend installing a 1×1 transparent GIF ashttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/flags/blank.gif, and a 16×11 transparent PNG ashttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/Themes/default/images/flags/00.png, for both visual and server logging reasons.For ease of use, I've attached candidate ones to this message, created in Gimp and PNG optimized usingpngcrush -brute, so they're just 43 and 89 bytes, respectively. The PNG is transparent white, so if converted to non-transparent formats, will yield a plain white filled rectangle the same size as all the other flags.

author: jonpaul
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2025, 05:51:57 am
content: suggest to remove "Antarctica" country used by spammer and change the 00 no country to displayLOCATION HIDDENor just HIDDENJon

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2025, 10:44:20 am
content: By what spammer exactly and how do you imagine that changing an image prevents spam?

author: coppercone2
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 26, 2025, 10:55:12 am
content: I think its fun to put something else there its not like we are in the military with emblems on the shoulderdamn hippies with their peace pins and long hairI actually am not certain but I believe the only place on earth where you are kinda required to wear a flag is.... a battle field. I believe you are liable get shot as a sabatour or insurgent or something if you don't have one, legallyish... (you know, the little green camo flag)