@rimu Hey Rimu

I'm running this in an iOS simulator just to show the mobile theme, but this is 100% a web app.

There are many uses for this kind of geotagging. I won't be hosting a public Atlas server, but others communities/organizations can launch their own for whatever purposes they need.

@ben Yeah, I really wanted to post comments on some billboards I saw on the freeway. Augmented Reality is beyond my current skillset -- and to make it work, we'd probably need to build out an AR ecosystem on the Fediverse, too.

Hopefully tagging addresses/locations is enough of a step forward that we can find some good uses for this.

@benpate I think the federation is the hard part. I think writing the actual AR application is probably pretty straightforward, at least for developers who are already familiar with their AR platform. (I don't know visionOS or whatever Meta uses, but I know iOS and I doubt it's that much different.)

@sl007 Yes, I'd love to work together on geocoding, too.

Right now, there's not much to it..

I'm using commercial geocoders to translate addresses into Lat/Long, then including that in 1) the ActivityStream document, and 2) the search results.

I'd love to work with https://places.pub in some way, but I'm not sure (yet) what that integration would look like, or what we'd get out of it.

So yes: let's keep talking about how we make this seamless. There should be one standard, not six

@julian @evan

Hey Julian..

I would love to integrate with places.pub, and I have this on my list of bookmarks for research.

I'm not sure what that would look like, just yet. Right now, the `Place` isn't its own actor, but just an extra set of data on a `Note`.

Maybe I could use places.pub as a datasource to look up previous addresses? I'm still researching, and would love to get your suggestions

@computersandblues

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

@RossA Yes. And this is a really good point.

I'm planning to use Emissary's "Circles" for this (https://emissary.dev/circles) which let you limit posts to certain people. I'll show this in the next video.

And right now, Atlas also has disappearing messages that auto-delete after a set period time.

Nothing on the Fediverse is 100% private; it's always possible a remote server might share your "private" posts with unintended people. But this should help limit comments in most cases.

@decibyte Sorry about the README. Right now, Atlas barely runs on my own development laptop.

I've added a lot of new stuff into Emissary to support geolocation, and that still needs to be merged and posted to Github.

But, I'd love to work with you to see this run on your machines - even if it's still an early draft.

I'll have a super-rough-preview release ready in the next few weeks. Let's try to talk then and I'll help you get it running.

@osma

Hey Osma There are lots of uses that I'm still exploring. I could see us using this like Foursquare, Yelp, geocaching, and even local cityguides and journalism.

Hopefully we can find the right balance of features that can cover many.

@osma

Regarding location privacy, this only requires *A* location, not *YOUR* location. So, you could always just type in an address you want to share.

I'm working to build in something for people to use the location services on their device to look up their exact location, but this would be something users would opt-in to for every post.

But to show up on a map, SOME kind of location will be required. Otherwise, you'd be better off posting from Mastodon, and not Atlas.

@osma And regarding Identity: This will be its own server with a separate identity/account from your daily Mastodon ID. Although you could always link the two with rel=me tags, I don't have an easy way for you to use this to post from a remote server.

But interestingly, @julian has been championing the use of the ActivityPub API for more sophisticated emote interactions. Perhaps in the future we'll have a way to do this.

@julian @osma

This. If you're posting on a mapping site, you need to include SOME location. Otherwise, you're better off just using Mastodon. Or... NodeBB

@mradcliffe @julian @osma

This is exactly right. And, it's the way Atlas currently works. You can just type in any address you want to share. You don't have to be there to do it.

I'll eventually add a widget where users can share the geolocation data from their device, but this would be opt-in for every post, and never required.

@osma @julian I've seen headlines like this in the past.

It's hard to account for every crazy thing people will do with the tools we make. But I'm planning to make it so you explicitly choose to look up your actual location with every post. I'll have to get into the actual code to see what's possible, but I believe this will be enough control that it should avoid accidents like these, yes?

Let's keep talking about location and privacy. It's important that we get this right.

@DePemig Thank you Gilles I'm adding this to my bookmarks.

@phil Yes, I think it could be. I know *about* geocaching, but am not really familiar with the details. Do you have any suggestions on where I should start researching?

Popularity requires convenience. Convenience invites mistakes. A system design could try to minimize the cost of those mistakes. One of those design decisions could be to detach location from identity - which is why I asked about your thoughts on that.
@benpate @julian

@benpate @osma @julian

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

@ben Ha! I'd have figured the exact opposite

Even as someone who'll never stop whining about how hard it is to get ActivityPub going, 3D graphic and Augmented Reality seems (to me) like another level of work altogether.

So, if you happen to know someone who could take a list of addresses and map it into a 3D space...

Let me know if you're interested in this? I could easily give you a JSON file of annotations tied to your current location.

@osma @julian

Yes. Great point. And UX and privacy are both top concernse of mine.

So, #Emissary's default registration options ask for very little information: name you want to use, public-facing username, and an email address where you can receive notifications.

This should be enough to provide anonymity for those who require it, while still allowing them to build trust and reputation with their community via this new identity.