What revisions/additions would you like to see to the Chicago Stolen Bike Registry?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by BalloonBiker on September 14, 2010 at 10:23am

Any kind of way to see the listings in a database view would be great. Make, Model, Color, Then Size, Serial would be great to start with links to the full report.

Also, it would be nice to note to people creating reports that the more descriptive they can be, the better. Reasons for that could be that bike shops and people who see suspicious bikes can check the directory...and that people buying used bikes can check the directory to make sure they aren't buying used stuff.

Anyway, it's great to have this resource!

Permalink Reply by Seri97 on September 20, 2010 at 3:22pm

Think about changing the Name of the Site from Chicago Stolen Bike Registry to Stolen Bike registry or Illinois Stolen Bike registry. This suggestion is slightly loaded with additional storage space and opens it up to others outside of Chicago listing their stolen bike. I live in Park Ridge IL. Although my bike was stolen in Chicago, it would be great to know that the site was open to all stolen bikes not just Chicago Stolen Bikes.

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on September 20, 2010 at 3:32pm

Interesting idea, thanks.
There is actually no "cost" to the site to include a broader area . . . I suppose Chicagoland might work?
FYI when Paul registered stolenbike.org and set up chicago.stolenbike.org as a subdomain he envisioned offering to set up clone sites for other cities, but none have approached us as of yet.

Seri97 said:

Think about changing the Name of the Site from Chicago Stolen Bike Registry to Stolen Bike registry or Illinois Stolen Bike registry. This suggestion is slightly loaded with additional storage space and opens it up to others outside of Chicago listing their stolen bike. I live in Park Ridge IL. Although my bike was stolen in Chicago, it would be great to know that the site was open to all stolen bikes not just Chicago Stolen Bikes.

Permalink Reply by jlj on January 24, 2011 at 8:25pm

I've been playing with the idea of the date ranges and have found a possible way to do this easily if the calendar could be exported to a google map.  (current issues with export to .ics make this difficult)

http://chadnorwood.com/gcm/

 

The above link leads to a Chicago gentleman whom created a google mashup to enter calendar entries from google maps and then view placemarkers based on date ranges.

 

I've reached the end of my tech abilities in trying to make this happen, can someone else make this work?

H3N3 said:

My number one desire would be to be able to color-code the gmap view balloons either by lock type or by age of theft, in order to show trends--and also to be able to filter by same. Let's say you wanted to get a sting operation going- the map view would be the best way to see where the hottest spots are, but you'd really want to be able to view only the last 3 or 6 months. You might also want to look at the map in different time windows (e.g. 0-6 months old, 6-12 months old, 12-24 months old) to spot trends.

Also we've recently had a number of requests to output thefts by police beat or district for people to take to their beat meetings to ask for attention.

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on March 15, 2011 at 11:07pm

From KC (and the Sunshine Band):

Here's the only thing I want for CSBR;

Search function needs to be "smarter"

If I search for "Gary Fischer" or "Gary Fisher" or "Cannondale" or "Canondale,"or "TriCross" or "tri cross" or "Tri-Cross," I'd like to have the same results come up. If I search someone's serial number, i.e WT 3865794 324, and I'm spot on, I get a hit. If I search without the space in the right spot, I get bubkis.

Other than that, yeah, I'd like to have more Fields for locking options, yadda, yaada, yadda... But really, search should be the focus.

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on March 15, 2011 at 11:08pm

My most basic desire is to have the color visible in the first view after searching a model.
E.g. if you search "Jamis" the first page of hits should have the color field immediately visible.

=maybe= the size field too.

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on September 17, 2011 at 2:51pm

Bob Kastigar wrote:
> Would it be possible to set up and automatic email post to users who want to register for this?
>
> The option could be to send the email with each new posting, or to seen a daily or weekly digest?
>
> Unless someone checks frequently (I don't) many aren't even aware of new stolen bike entries.
>
> Thanks.
>

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on July 25, 2012 at 11:55am

Resurrecting the thread to discuss the Drupal upgrade mentioned here: http://www.thechainlink.org/forum/topics/comrade-cycles-may-have-re...

A drupal upgrade can be non-trivial, but it isn't exactly rocket science.

Is bikegeeks no longer a thing? Or are the drupal people no longer available?

Permalink Reply by h' Zerocats on July 25, 2012 at 9:53pm

Do you know drupal Tony?

Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on July 26, 2012 at 11:55am

Sorry I wasn't Following this and forgot that group messages don't show up on the front page.

I do not know drupal per se, but I've worked on sites that use it and on a couple of occasions did a drupal upgrade on those sites. It was tedious and a PITA, but I got the job done.

If you are looking for volunteers, I'd be happy to give it a shot, especially if you are at the point of hiring the job out - but I'm pretty swamped so I would not be able to get to it in a very timely manner.

Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on August 10, 2012 at 9:41am

Yesterday, I spotted a mapping error, which Kevin quickly fixed.  An address that was clearly in Wicker Park showed up on the Google Map as being in the center of the Loop, the result of the theft victim adding "the Wood Street side" in the address field.  I'm suggesting we structure the address fields tighter to prevent this, possibly providing a text box for helpful comments like "the Wood Street side" that could be read by humans but ignored by Google.  Pull down fields for block numbers (100, 1200, 5200, etc.) plus pull down fields for direction (N, S, E or W) and pull downs for street names (so you always get "Wood Street" and never "Wode Street").  The complexity arises, of course, if you deal with suburban thefts as well, where a different street database would have to load as soon as you provide a town name or zip code, so this is perhaps not practical.

The ability to filter map results into user configurable reports would be good.  We might like to see all the thefts in our ward for the alderman to see, or a specific police beat for a CAPS meeting.  We might like to see the monthly trend over a year in one area or be able to see just where angle grinders are cutting U-Locks this week.  Right now, thefts in close geographical proximity, but spread out over many years, just clutter the results without being useful.

It might be useful to be more specific with lock brands and models, to see if a particular Kryptonite or Abus is being regularly defeated.  This would be a problem if we were sponsored/funded by a lock company who wouldn't want to be called out on a defective lock, but I don't think we are funded.  (Have we tried to get them to spring for bucks?  A stolen bike registry would seem to be a natural charity for Abus or Masterlock I should think.  Kryptonite's already hooked up with a national registry.)

These comments relate only to mapping and theft trend-seeking.  The more important changes, to quickly match up a suspect bike that shows up at a swap meet or bike shop, are more important and have been suggested by others, above.

Just my two cents.

Permalink Reply by Justin B Newman on September 9, 2012 at 4:15pm

I would be interested in knowing how folks use (or would like to use) the Registry. Do you find yourself paging through the listings? Looking at the calendar? Using search? We've gotten pretty good feedback re: mapping and searching, but not much about browsing.

I'm aware there's a desire for mobile friendly, and perhaps printer friendly (Swap-o-Rama "cheat sheet").

Other thoughts about the "user experience"?

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