By stormer on

Thanks for dropping into my problem and helping out. I desperately need to resolve this over the weekend and am hoping that someone in the Drupal community has some useful insights.

So here's the problem: I am putting together a site that deals with groups of people based on their zip codes. As such, a visitor interacts with and views the site content dependent on zip code. The obvious solution to segregating and filtering the content and (most importantly) the forums would be Organic Groups but I am wondering whether there is a more efficient of doing this? My concerns are:

1/. there is obviously the potential for a VERY large number of groups (one for each ZIP code) - can OG deal with this?
2/. the recent comments re. OG in this post: http://drupal.org/node/116578 - would the site grind to a halt?

Initially I thought that Views might be able to help in this case but how would views display only forum topics belonging to a given Zip code?

Many thanks in advance,

Ole

Drupal. 5.1

⋅ Categories: Drupal 5.x

Comments

vm’s picture

vm commented

personally, I think you should hire a consultant for this project because of the specifics you want.

however with quick thought, I may choose to set up a taxonomy based on zipcodes. each zip a container with categories pertaining to that specific zip code. This method would open up views.module possibilities.

stormer’s picture

stormer commented

- however, would this allow you to filter Forum posts as well?

vm’s picture

vm commented

off hand i can't be sure. my best guess is i don't think so. I've not found a need for the forum.module to be be honest. most conversations take place in the content itself by way of comments about the specific content published.

the forum is basically a content type (forum entry) tied to a taxonomy. with that in mind, in theory you can create an entirly new forum system, using CCK and views and not use the forum module at all.

benc’s picture

benc commented

If you choose to do it the taxonomy way, you can then restrict access to zip codes by using the taxonomy_access module. HTH

"Drupal and the Power of Categories (Taxonomy)"
http://digitalsolutions.ph/couchkamotereviews/power_drupal_categories

anders’s picture

anders commented

You can create a module that stores the users zip code with the user account (if you haven't allready), and then create content types that has a field for zip code too. by then, it would obviously be easy to select the relevant nodes ;)

mike stewart’s picture

mike stewart commented

I tend to agree with the above comment.

you should also seriously consider looking at CiviCRM - a 3rd party package that integrates with drupal - entirely based on community / groups management - has some good membership & GIS tools built in. (disclaimer: this might be of no use to you,,, don't know enough about what you're really trying to accomplish - but thought I'd suggest you go take a look & play with online demo. prob worth 15min of your time).

also, i wouldnt worry too much about the number of zipcodes as much as i would the number of users... i suspect the number of users will start on the lower side... if not, you should defintely be working with some consultants that can help you,, becuase you'll may need a custom module in order to take advantage of advanced caching, etc. in order to handle the load - but a pro would be able to help guide you.

Michael Stewart
www.MediaDoneRight.com

stormer’s picture

stormer commented

some very useful insights.

As to being more specific:

1- users register under their zip code
2- when they return they are presented with posts/nodes relating to their zip code, though they do have the option to switch to a different zip code. However, content is always presented according to zip code.
3- users can submit content - this material would automatically need to be 'tagged' with the zip code under which it was submitted
4- users can communicate via the forum though conversations are restricted again by zip code - as such the conversations you would be having would be with people registered under the same zip code.

Thanks again.

stormer’s picture

stormer commented

when you say create a module that stores the user's zip code - do you mean create a field in the user profile?

As for creating content types with a zip code field, ideally content should automatically be assigned to the zip code under which it was created - for example, I register with the zip code 3122. Whenever I submit content that content is automatically assigned to the zip code 3122.