Actually, this feature is implemented, you go to the Monks Map section, set yourself as "Monk of origin" and sort the list by 'Distance closest'. I know now that davorg is the closest monk from where I live.

Okay, he lives 204 miles from my home, quite a walk to have a beer. I'll stick with the paris.pm guys for now!

While I commonly check out the Monk Maps section on the stats page, not every monk has his/her location listed since it is entirely up to the monk to type in the special location tag that jcwren checks for. Likewise, you mention that the closest monk to you is 200 miles away. I'm 90 miles from the 2 monks closest to me that have bothered to take the time to list location. I really don't believe that the 2 closest monks are 90 miles from me.

What tilly brings up is very valid. Not all monks have a static location, so by being able to post in this gatherings section, he could announce that he is able to hang out with any monk swinging through town. So, I'm not really sure that anyone has given valid resistance to adding such a feature. That is not to say there aren't valid reasons, but if there are, nobody has successfully voiced one.

ALL HAIL BRAK!!!

I suspect the problem is many Monks aren't aware of the existence of this Tag, as I wasn't until this thread. Probably because the Monk Stats aren't an official part of Perl Monks, and isn't mentioned in the Faqs or anything. It might be good to include it as well as a Faq on what tags are available to toss in the user's home page and what they mean.

This is definatly the major problem with this particular solution, since my location will place me about 10 meters from PsychoSpunk whenever I get back to the States.

Of course, I kinda like the Gathering idea as well, although I don't think we need a whole board for it. Perhaps we need some sort of "Meta" board?

Sweet... I will setup my thingy for it now. Why is this not location.perlmonks.org or something?

Cheers,
KM