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2025-10-23 02:23:53

benpate@mastodon.social

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.

https://clip.place/w/4JHMF5FQoZw58UPwL6BLyv

2025-10-23 02:24:45

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

benpate@mastodon.social

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.

https://github.com/EmissarySocial/atlas

2025-10-23 02:46:53

Olivier Forget

teleclimber@social.tchncs.de

@benpate This looks very cool. I can see it being handy to get on-the-ground info of events like protests, etc... I hope it takes off.

Too about the timing around the name though, ooff.. 😖

2025-10-23 02:58:25

DHeadshot's Alt

ddlyh@topspicy.social

@benpate
Does it support the location tagging #Honk has had for many years?

2025-10-23 03:07:35

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

benpate@mastodon.social

@ddlyh I'm not familiar with that one. I've studied apps like FourSquare (and others) though.

When I go searching for Honk, I only see an app for parking lots. Where can I learn more about Honk?

2025-10-23 03:18:32

DHeadshot's Alt

ddlyh@topspicy.social

@benpate
#Honk is an existing microblogging Fedi software that also allows for the tagging of posts with locations as one of its features. I investigated it a while back with an idea of setting up a server, but was put off by the lack of favourites etc..

2025-10-23 09:34:37

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@DHeadshot's Alt @Ben Pate 🤘🏻 By the way, Friendica, Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte have a similar feature that lets you add a location tag to your post. It can be an arbitrary string, but it can also be something that OpenStreetMap recognises. If you or someone else has the appropriate OpenStreetMap add-on installed, the location can be shown on a map.

You have two options to set a location. One is to define a default location for all your posts; it can be overridden as well as cleared for specific posts. The other one is to define a location for a specific post. I think all four can actually automatically tag your posts by figuring out your current physical location if you want them to.

At least Hubzilla also has an add-on that randomly tags posts with planets from the Star Wars franchise, and (streams) and Forte have one that randomly tags posts with real-world cities.

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte #OpenStreetMap

2025-10-23 15:42:53

Ben Pate 🤘🏻

benpate@mastodon.social

@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?

2025-10-23 07:38:41

decibyte

decibyte@social.data.coop

@benpate Super cool! I wish the README had instructions on how to run this :)

2025-10-23 11:30:49

Gilles DePemig :TwinPines:

DePemig@social.coop

@benpate This is really great! One project that could very well be a nail for this hammer is https://wanderer.to !

2025-10-23 15:08:37

Whiskers The Great and Terrible

phil@social.thesatelliteoflove.com

@benpate this could be fun for geocaching

2025-10-25 13:29:48

@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.

2025-10-23 02:44:21

FinchHaven sfba

FinchHaven@sfba.social

@benpate

"EFF’s Lena Cohen told USA Today, but “when you're using the Atlas browser for day-to-day tasks, it's easier to forget that all of your activity could be sent to OpenAI.""

'the Atlas browser'

Dude, you have a very serious namespace collision with an OpenAI ChatGPT web browser that you do *not* want to be confused with, in any way

May be time to rethink something

Here: https://mastodon.social/@eff/115420641503839894

2025-10-23 02:47:09

Alison Wilder

alisynthesis@io.waxandleather.com

@benpate I love it! In fact, I love it so much that I'm wondering if you plan to allow for private notes as well as shared notes.

This will be super fun as a social app, and I would also use it for my own private purposes, especially if there were a way to export the notes.

Awesome work as usual.

2025-10-23 03:17:54

Johnny Than

johnnythan@tuebingen.network

@benpate This looks great. Looking forward to using it here in Germany :)

2025-10-23 03:58:03

Rimu

rimu@mastodon.nzoss.nz

@benpate Sounds like it could be used for reporting ICE? Like those apps that were banned recently.

2025-10-23 04:00:39

Ben Cox

ben@s.djehuti.com

@benpate This is awesome. I've been toying with an idea like this for years and it will IMHO be a killer app for AR.

2025-10-23 04:00:49

Sebastian Lasse

sl007@digitalcourage.social

@benpate

Sure, doing taxiteam (German yellow cabs). Described some aspects in https://github.com/w3c/activitystreams/issues/582

Would be interested e.g. in finishing the federated geocoding part together.

2025-10-23 04:10:58

julian

julian@activitypub.space

@benpate@mastodon.social this is super super cool. Are you integrating with places.pub as well?

cc @evan

2025-10-23 06:56:39

Johanna, CanCon variety

johannab@cosocial.ca

@benpate Ben this is so impressive!

I can’t come up with coherent comments or questions just now but I’m definitely tuned in and pondering how this connects to all my Future Cities/civic tech tangles.

Cc @samnabi this is one of the “somebody had an idea sometime around FediForum two weeks ago and now there’s a whole new dimension…” things I was trying to explain. I will include Ben’s FediCON talk in what I send you, as well.

2025-10-23 07:33:59

near

computersandblues@post.lurk.org

@liaizon did you see this?

@benpate

2025-10-23 07:36:05

near

computersandblues@post.lurk.org

@benpate this is pretty exciting! do you have any idea what safety features will look like? would you build something into it that, say, actively prevents others from doxing someone?

2025-10-23 07:37:13

RossA

RossA@mastodon.me.uk

@benpate love what you’ve done so far. Can see so many uses. There’s a definite need to have ‘private’ tags / entries as well as public ones.

2025-10-23 08:45:36

Furbland's Very Cool Mastodon™

GroupNebula563@mastodon.social

@benpate ooh!

2025-10-23 08:52:08

Osma A 🇫🇮🇺🇦

osma@mas.to

Better Atlas than the other one. A couple of questions:
- are you envisioning this to be a federated Foursquare or Yelp?
- inserting location tags to people's posts increases their personal data exposure quite a lot. What privacy implications do you see here?
- I didn't catch in the video what is the identity model you're basing this on. New identity on Atlas, or a tie-in to an existing fedi identity?
@benpate

2025-11-02 08:57:23

Michael Labowicz

mlabowicz@hachyderm.io

@benpate great idea! I loved using Foursquare back in the day