I'm excited to show off #Atlas - a social mapping server for the #Fediverse.
General Discussion
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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:
https://observer.com/2025/10/artists-indigenous-ar-intervention-met-american-wing/
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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:
https://observer.com/2025/10/artists-indigenous-ar-intervention-met-american-wing/
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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@ddlyh Cool. And thank you. I'll check it out. I can't really compare features until I've done the class reading --but Atlas is pretty bare-bones right now, so I'll have a lot of catching up to do for anything that's already out there.
The good thing is that Atlas is an empty slate, and we can make it do whatever we need.
So, for favorites: is this to mark locations in your inbox as "favorite" locations to review later?
What are the important things we should put into this app?
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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.
@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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Found it here: https://codeberg.org/openEngiadina/geopub
I'm checking it out now. Thanks for the link!
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Found it here: https://codeberg.org/openEngiadina/geopub
I'm checking it out now. Thanks for the link!
@benpate
Hey Ben,
just for reference, this was initially planned in AP …
pukkamustard made a Talk in the first official ActivityPub Conf, I organized in 2019 i Prague. We have a video channel in peertube https://conf.tube/c/apconf_channel/videos - you should find it there.
Re. todays team meeting we talked mainly about how to integrate Public Transport from GTFS feeds, like https://transitous.org/ - anyway.
In the model which I described for federated geocoding, the difference to geopub is that geoohashes are ActivityPub Collections.
@yala @ddlyh -
@benpate
Hey Ben,
just for reference, this was initially planned in AP …
pukkamustard made a Talk in the first official ActivityPub Conf, I organized in 2019 i Prague. We have a video channel in peertube https://conf.tube/c/apconf_channel/videos - you should find it there.
Re. todays team meeting we talked mainly about how to integrate Public Transport from GTFS feeds, like https://transitous.org/ - anyway.
In the model which I described for federated geocoding, the difference to geopub is that geoohashes are ActivityPub Collections.
@yala @ddlyh -
@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.
@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 :)
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@Edent wow, that was fast, thank you!
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@Edent @silverpill don't use nulls. Just omit it.
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Maybe #bovine is, what you're looking for.
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@threkk the bot can now send Delete messages. They're processed successfully by Mastodon.social - so I assume they work elsewhere 🙂
Will have a think about editing.
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@edent@mastodon.social :shrug: I was passing null around like candy but some implementations choke on that. In general, tolerance of odd values in cc is well handled, but I would just omit or send [].
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@silverpill @julian @general
Ah, I assume that `cc` should also be null if it isn't copied to anyone?
