I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse.
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The hoods have then all the street addresses, relations, boundaries like places.pub (with icons cached static etc. pp).
So, you know all the administrative parents from any address -
but what makes it really special is that any taxiteam instance could add info to any address (just as with your annotated places …).
As said, described it just very briefly in https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/582
It includes federated _reverse_ geocoding too but Lat/Long would not be cool for this, so we use geohash for the Service Actor.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geohash https://geohash.softeng.co/Let's see a practical example:
A new fair
taxiteam forms in any city to "FCK UBER". They install an instance and choose a geohash they would like to geocode.
E.g. the square for Hamburg and some other cites.
These might overlap, it doesn't matter cause geohash is strictly hierarchical too.
We do also have a server for all Germany by default, anyway:
The instance once fetches the cache of needed infos up to street addresses.
🧵 2/3Then it once sends an Update to all attached taxiteam machines meaning „Hey there, we are new and geocode ["u1"]“ (or ["u1r","u1w","u1x"]) then the network knows.
Now any taxidriver can add infos, warnings etc. directly.Next time when a user clicks on a map, we once decode Lat/Long to geohash, if your own instance doen't have it, it can ask the best suited option (e.g. serer proximity, load or trust).
As smaller the instance area is, as more detailed infos about em places ith might have
User now knows "You clicked on Fischmarkt Hamburg but unfortunately the area is currently flooded. Flashflood warning, go away" -
well, or maybe " … and your cab arrives in 1 minute" or "… cool exhibition nearby" or whatever.Sorry if I got either too complicated or short
We have frequent team mmetings, next is Saturday but I am also looking forward to the dev meeting with @reiver re. https://digitalcourage.social/@reiver@mastodon.social/115317680720978044🧵 3/3
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Interesting point. Age verification laws around the world are going to make everything a lot more tricky.
Though Mastodon's argument doesn't make sense to me: IP addresses inherently map to location data, so we all receive *some* location, whether we're listening or now.
I don't have a good solution for this, right now.
It'll probably need to be baked into new user registrations, which admins would need to choose in some way.
Do you have a solution you'd recommend?
@benpate
no idea, I imagine a lot of my answers involve fixing the laws themselves haha.Bluesky offloads some of that responsibility to the PDS (i.e. I can tell my PDS that I'm an adult and it'll tell Bluesky that I'm verified) so (very) long-term I think I'd like that sort of service provided by the C2S server, so clients wouldn't have to think about it.
But yeah, I'd assume you'd have to implement it during the registration process and have admins use a method of their choice for verifying age (and optionally let them turn it off entirely if they can confidently say that nobody from XYZ location will ever be using the site)
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I'll build whatever people say is most important. These policies will likely be up to individual server owners.
After spammers found Bandwagon, I've been kicking around ways to do moderation before profiles and posts become public.
But whether we're using maps or toots, the issues would still be the same. Bad actors will need to be identified quickly, and dealt with decisively.
I'm adding this into the project board. Feel free to pile on: https://github.com/orgs/EmissarySocial/projects/3/views/1?pane=issue&itemId=135226795&issue=EmissarySocial%7Cemissary%7C566
benpate@mastodon.social you may want a way to gain consent before allowing posting of a location + mentioned people. The other thing you may want to do is have moderation UI that allows searching for all notes for a specific location, and potentially banning the usage of certain locations in notes. i.e., if you see a doxing, then your mods can prevent that location from being tagged, and delete the note. If a person is tagged as at a certain location, they should need to accept the tag before that shows up in the Note.
You could also do things like limit posts being added within a certain region to a certain radius (based on geoip).
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Somewhat relevant, I believe mastodon's argument for not supporting age verification is that they don't collect location data and so there's no way for them to determine if their users are somewhere where age verification applies. I don't know how well that works on legal grounds, but probably worth thinking about if you're building social apps that require geolocation
tom@tomkahe.com said in I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse.:
> Somewhat relevant, I believe mastodon's argument for not supporting age verification is that they don't collect location data and so there's no way for them to determine if their users are somewhere where age verification applies. I don't know how well that works on legal grounds, but probably worth thinking about if you're building social apps that require geolocationYeah, this justification just doesn't pass scrutiny. Mastodon does collect the user's recently active IP addresses, and from that you can use geoip to resolve to a country/state. This could also all be handled by a FASP.
In other words, Mastodon could indeed implement age verification, the only remaining question is: what would that gate access to?
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Agreed, even if they didn't collect/save IP addresses, I don't think you could get around it just by telling a court you didn't want to collect that data. I imagine they'd just tell you that you need to collect it.
(looked up the source so I'm not just randomly attempting to quote things from memory https://techcrunch.com/2025/08/29/mastodon-says-it-doesnt-have-the-means-to-comply-with-age-verification-laws/)
The social nonprofit explains that Mastodon doesn’t track its users, which makes it difficult to enforce such legislation. Nor does it want to use IP address-based blocks, as those would unfairly impact people who were traveling, it says.
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@thisismissem @benpate i was also thinking how this is solved by the foursquares etc., aside from moderation. limiting notes to pois instead of arbitrary latitude-longitude-tuples may also be a viable strategy, and that might make it easier to figure out whom to even ask for consent, or who may be able to manage allowlists or similar mechanisms. not arguing to replicate that exactly, but remember foursquare mayors? the fediverse might have elected janitor groups.
i'm aware that i'm sharing half-finished thoughts, and i hope i'll find a bit more time for this.
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@thisismissem @benpate i was also thinking how this is solved by the foursquares etc., aside from moderation. limiting notes to pois instead of arbitrary latitude-longitude-tuples may also be a viable strategy, and that might make it easier to figure out whom to even ask for consent, or who may be able to manage allowlists or similar mechanisms. not arguing to replicate that exactly, but remember foursquare mayors? the fediverse might have elected janitor groups.
i'm aware that i'm sharing half-finished thoughts, and i hope i'll find a bit more time for this.
@computersandblues @thisismissem
Half finished thoughts are the best!
And, I know I'm dipping into some choppy waters here, but I think "consent" relates to what content the server wants to share, and not consent of the "property/location owner."
I recognize there's potential for abuse (i.e. doxxing someone) but that exists outside of a mapping app, too.
But there's also cool use cases for non-consensual digital graffiti.. something in the spirit of:
Indigenous Artists Use AR to Rewrite the Narrative in the Met’s American Wing
Amplifier’s ENCODED is not intended as a protest but as a precise act of cultural negotiation that reclaims erased histories.
Observer (observer.com)
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@thisismissem @benpate i was also thinking how this is solved by the foursquares etc., aside from moderation. limiting notes to pois instead of arbitrary latitude-longitude-tuples may also be a viable strategy, and that might make it easier to figure out whom to even ask for consent, or who may be able to manage allowlists or similar mechanisms. not arguing to replicate that exactly, but remember foursquare mayors? the fediverse might have elected janitor groups.
i'm aware that i'm sharing half-finished thoughts, and i hope i'll find a bit more time for this.
@computersandblues @thisismissem
But back to your original point, it could be interesting to roll up all of the notes about a particular POI, to say something meaningful about what's going on there.
That's probably out of scope for me right now, while I'm just learning how to make maps. But I'm making a note to research this some time down the road.
Fortunately, we have a lot of "closed source" research that we can lean on, then just cherry pick the best ideas and make them "open."
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@computersandblues @thisismissem
Half finished thoughts are the best!
And, I know I'm dipping into some choppy waters here, but I think "consent" relates to what content the server wants to share, and not consent of the "property/location owner."
I recognize there's potential for abuse (i.e. doxxing someone) but that exists outside of a mapping app, too.
But there's also cool use cases for non-consensual digital graffiti.. something in the spirit of:
Indigenous Artists Use AR to Rewrite the Narrative in the Met’s American Wing
Amplifier’s ENCODED is not intended as a protest but as a precise act of cultural negotiation that reclaims erased histories.
Observer (observer.com)
benpate@mastodon.social there's multiple levels of consent. If you create a post with me mentioned in it with my location, I should probably have to accept that post for me to be mentioned in it. Otherwise someone can see me out and about, and create a post without me knowing that gives other people my location.
Hence, to tag other people at a location, they should have to accept that tag:
- Allow anyone to tag me at locations (potentially unsafe)
- Allow my followers to tag me at locations
- Allow my following to tag me at locations
- Allow this specific collection of Actors to tag me at locations
- Don't allow anyone to tag me at locations.
This could be achieved through an interaction policy on the Actor (though that's not yet a thing? I think interaction policies in GTS are only on Notes/objects)
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I'm expecting this kind of street-level annotation to have lots of uses, from groups of friends replicating #FourSquare, to communities organizing events, or citizen #Journalists recording what's going on in their neighborhood.
Please share this with anyone who might benefit from sharing location notes online. It's time for me to start collecting some needs from real-world users.
GitHub - EmissarySocial/atlas: Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse
Annotate real-world locations on the Fediverse. Contribute to EmissarySocial/atlas development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
@benpate @yala
Great idea ! My first reaction is : why not integrate it in @mobilizon ? That should be useful at the same time for their normal calendar of events and for conversations about discoveries on their system. -
@benpate @yala
Great idea ! My first reaction is : why not integrate it in @mobilizon ? That should be useful at the same time for their normal calendar of events and for conversations about discoveries on their system.This should integrate WITH @mobilizon very nicely. I'll need to verify, but Emissary should be able to index events in Mobilizon easily - if the server owner chooses. I think this is probably what you mean?
On a technology level, this uses a completely different technology and language that can't just be written into an existing app like Mobilizon.
Fortunately, the PROTOCOL matters, not the LANGUAGE, so we should be able to work together over ActivityPub.
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@thisismissem Yes, you're raising some important points that we should cover. And, it's easy to see the potential for someone to post harmful content on a map.
But I don't see it being any different from posting harmful content in any other medium they have. Witness the dude live tweeting celebrity plane locations.
Fundamentally, people *should* be able to talk about others behind their backs. Maps or not, if they post data they shouldn't, then it's probably an issue for server mods, yes?
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I read up on Interaction Policies. They're a great idea, but it looks like these are requests that only work if other servers enforce them.
I'm suspicious of things like this that can't be enforced beyond my own server because (as we've seen too many times) only the good guys will follow the rules, leaving the bad guys with an unfair advantage.
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This should integrate WITH @mobilizon very nicely. I'll need to verify, but Emissary should be able to index events in Mobilizon easily - if the server owner chooses. I think this is probably what you mean?
On a technology level, this uses a completely different technology and language that can't just be written into an existing app like Mobilizon.
Fortunately, the PROTOCOL matters, not the LANGUAGE, so we should be able to work together over ActivityPub.
@benpate @yala @mobilizon
I think I understand the insisting point of "WITH". I guess it would be really nice. So, there would be two associated posts on two different servers, those two posts being linked by some sort of threads if I don't misunderstand. -
@benpate @yala @mobilizon
I think I understand the insisting point of "WITH". I guess it would be really nice. So, there would be two associated posts on two different servers, those two posts being linked by some sort of threads if I don't misunderstand.Exactly
And that's really the magic of the Fediverse and ActivityPub. Right now, you're posting on a server running GotoSocial, and I'm posting on a server running Mastodon, but our conversation is seamless.
Atlas work with Mobilizon in a similar way (though a slightly different mechanism). Think of the "map" in my demo as a search page - displaying ActivityPub posts from all sites that the admins choose to index.
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I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from crazy on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me annotate any location on the globe and share it over #ActivityPub
There's still a lot to do. But there's enough here for me to ask for your help. I would love to hear what you think of this short video, and to start talking to everyone out there who's interested in making maps on the Fediverse.
Atlas Demo #1
I'm really pleased with my progress on #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse. In about two weeks, we've gone from tooting an 85mph brainstorm on I70 to a fledgling app that lets me a...
clip.place (clip.place)
@benpate great idea! I loved using Foursquare back in the day
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@benpate great idea! I loved using Foursquare back in the day
Exactly. I’m still putting together features, and looking for input from the community on what it should look like.
So, what should it look like? Ratings? Rankings? Badges?
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Exactly. I’m still putting together features, and looking for input from the community on what it should look like.
So, what should it look like? Ratings? Rankings? Badges?
@benpate I enjoyed the "mayor of" aspect of foursquare which you could earn after checking into a location more frequently than others during a period of time. Ratings would also be a useful addition
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@benpate I enjoyed the "mayor of" aspect of foursquare which you could earn after checking into a location more frequently than others during a period of time. Ratings would also be a useful addition
Thanks! I’ll have to figure out how to get this done. Right now, #Emissary is pretty light on stats and analytics, but I can see how this would help make it fun for people to use
