any chance of adding a map similar to the link below that would show the location of the membership of the site?

http://www.chess.com/map/players

this particular example auto pins people by their IP address. This makes it inaccurate as it palces me near Kilmarnock. Even an option for people to pin themselves would be excellent and would demonstrate our increasing international membership.

A good idea. One for keveh to comment on, I think.

In a sense that facility already exists - if members are prepared to insert their long/lat in their profiles and those interested have Google Earth installed (or an atlas).

To prove the point I have entered my co-ordinates in the 'interests' section of my profile.

However, and this is a big however, many people do not wish to reveal their exact whereabouts, and understandably so, whereas it doesn't worry me - my weather web site pins me down anyway.

An interesting thought though, marshall_42, as even if members only insert an approximate grid reference (say the local town or railway station) it could still be enlightening. It must though be voluntary otherwise we will have a host of people living at the north and south poles.

How about everyone who wants to adds their location to a thread, as precise as they want to be, and then someone pinpoints these on 2 maps - one a larger scale map of the UK, and a smaller one of the world. Surely this could then be put onto a section of the site? Seems more straight forward than google earth related stuff anyway.

there's technical ways and means to do this so no one has to plot everyone manually. Just depends on whether Kev has the time or inclination.

I'm half London and half Bedfordshire depending on the day