Community Mapping
There are three ways that a Community has it's area defined within Freegle.
Core Community Area (CGA)
This is the exclusive area that a Community is approved to cover, decided with GAT when a Community is affiliated within the Freegle Affiliated Community Area Guidelines.
Default Posting Area (DPA)
This is the area that Freegle Direct recognises as the posting area for each Community. Our system works on postcode recognition, so when someone joins the site they will be offered the Community that covers their DPA first. They are, of course, welcome to join whichever Community they want, but if they subsequently post a message on the site without logging in first, the system will default to the DPA to place their message on the relevant Community. Once logged in, a member can easily choose which Community they wish their message to appear on.
DPAs are defined by each Community and can be adjusted via Modtools in Settings/groups option and the new polygon details sent to geeks@ilovefreegle.org. The Support team (support@ilovefreegle.org) are very happy with remapping DPAs for any Community. DPAs can't overlap, so there might need to be negotiation between abutting Communities to make sure everyone is happy with any changes. DPAs can extend beyond a Community’s Core area to cover areas not covered by any other Community’s Core or DPA.
Catchment Area
This is the area that each Community are happy to accept posts and members from, which can be as wide as they like. It is not affected by the Core area and DPA, but is down to each local team to discuss and decide how large an area would be beneficial to their Community members.
Changing Location on Freegle Posts
To change the location displayed on Freegle Direct posts go to settings > community > mapping > view areas.
You will see on this page the region the group is in, the Core Group Area and the Default Posting Area reading from the top of the page down. These settings are not to be changed without consulting the New Groups Team or Tech/Geeks as they are tied in with a lot of other settings and maps that you can’t see.
Below the Default Posting Area you will see a button ‘View Areas’. Click on this you should then see (it takes time to load) the designated named areas within the boundary of the group, you can pan and zoom this map to find the area you want but be careful not to double click anywhere. If you get the correct zoom level you should be able to see the boundary of the group and the various named areas inside it. This is where it gets tricky for a new user, you need to zoom in one time from that level so that the group boundary disappears and you are just left with the named areas. Then click once on one of the named areas and the blue border of the area will turn red and the details of the area will be shown in the right hand column where you can edit the name or delete the area. If you click the area a second time you will then get the points of the drawn polygon which can be dragged to change the shape but you need to be careful not to cross the lines.
In summary: To change an area double click on it, drag the points to the right place and don’t forget to save. The Rightmove website is useful to check areas if you’re not sure (search for an area, this area only and view the map. Beware they may overlap slightly.)
To remove an area click on the polygon then click delete in the box to the right.
To add a new area click on the polygon symbol at the top right of the map to draw a new polygon, you will need to name it and save it in the box on the right.
You can check a postcode here too. Once changed some will change existing posts straight away, some need overnight to update. You really need a laptop or PC, it doesn’t work at all well on the app.
On Trashnothing you’ve got local area and short postcode as preferred subject line location, there is now a strictly enforced version of this which prevents them posting just a short postcode or just an area. You can get to TN settings from the top of the settings page.
