Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

vicinity.social

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 63 posts

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#41

Post by myself248 »

b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #14

This is really great, the only problem for me is that there is nobody around me! I can see it working way better for stuff like universities though. I wonder if there could be a variant for Drop which is world wide - imagine being able to join a chat in a foreign country (hopefully you speak the language!) and chat with the locals. I imagine moderation would be a big pain but I could see it being fun and sort of in t…

Right, there's an onboarding/bootstrapping problem where the first users in an area have nobody to talk to. The default radius should scale by user density, perhaps.

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#42

Post by arccy »

aatd86 wrote: post #37
lukan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is evil to not allow lies? That does not seem to be so evil .. but I did not found the legal terms on a first glance, so maybe there is more?

What is your credit card info? Don't lie.

I don't want to tell you

is a truth and a perfectly safe answer

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#44

Post by estimator7292 »

lukan wrote: post #24
bragr wrote: post #15

The legal terms seem pretty evil for what this is. I'll allow that evil may not be the intent. Perhaps you just asked a lawyer for the most bulletproof terms possible, but what you've end up with is a very one sided set of terms. Honestly the more I read, the weirder they get. If I tell a lie to another user, them I'm liable to be banned? I see what you are going for in that section, but as written, any normal, day t…

It is evil to not allow lies? That does not seem to be so evil .. but I did not found the legal terms on a first glance, so maybe there is more?

One of these statements is a lie:

I live in America

I have red hair

I like bluebirds

Do you think it is good and just and fair to ban someone for one of these falsehoods?

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#45

Post by squigz »

clarencehoward wrote: post #38
bragr wrote: post #15

The legal terms seem pretty evil for what this is. I'll allow that evil may not be the intent. Perhaps you just asked a lawyer for the most bulletproof terms possible, but what you've end up with is a very one sided set of terms. Honestly the more I read, the weirder they get. If I tell a lie to another user, them I'm liable to be banned? I see what you are going for in that section, but as written, any normal, day t…

Yeah, that is a good point. I might need to tone it down a bit. Not trying to be evil, the intent was to protect myself and the users. I worried about what could go wrong like chatrooms turning into toxic places or the service being used for nefarious purposes. I wanted set some rules. I am a student though and I don't have money for lawyers so I just copied a boilerplate legal contract from a service and didn't chan…

I'm trying to keep in mind this isn't something you approached as a product to release or anything, and you're a student. I feel like I'm coming off pretty harshly here, but... you should be more worried about the "nefarious purposes" part than anything else, right now. I feel like offering this sort of service publicly - particularly in 2025 - requires some legal counsel.

One other concern about the implementation: it sounds like Hub administrators - who is just the first person to create a Hub in a particular area - are given a lot of power. No more Hubs are able to be created in an area? So if a Hub admin abuses their power that area is screwed, unless of course you (or whoever would be handling such cases, if indeed that would happen) agreed that they've overstepped, which may or may not be the case, particularly with a vague TOS

Anyway I think the idea is intriguing, and like new ways of exploring social media/communities.

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#47

Post by BergAndCo »

I've noticed so many bot accounts are angry at any website whose purpose is to quarantine Indian spammers, but if a single one of them had actually tried the website they would have commented "Hey you have the baseUrl wrong, the ToS "Accept" button makes a request to http://localhost:3008/signup and http://localhost:3008/api/auth/anonymous"

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#48

Post by aatd86 »

arccy wrote: post #42
aatd86 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is your credit card info? Don't lie.

I don't want to tell you is a truth and a perfectly safe answer

That doesn't answer my question though :D You can either lie outwardly or by omission. xD

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#49

Post by BergAndCo »

BergAndCo wrote: post #47

I've noticed so many bot accounts are angry at any website whose purpose is to quarantine Indian spammers, but if a single one of them had actually tried the website they would have commented "Hey you have the baseUrl wrong, the ToS "Accept" button makes a request to http://localhost:3008/signup and http://localhost:3008/api/auth/anonymous"

I "hacked" my way in but seem to be the only drop/hub in the entire server. My feedback:

- The error message that anon users can't create hubs should happen when they click "Create", not after they go through the creation process

- 125 hectares is ridiculously small. Even in densely-populated areas, it takes 2500 hectares encompasses a neighborhood

- The chat window doesn't maximize, it's just a sidebar, and there's no emojis or GIFs or image embeds or links or markdown/richtext support or ability to edit/delete messages

- It would be cool if there was a bottom bar with a "global chat" / event log where you see people creating new hubs/drops

Re: Show HN: Geofenced chat communities anyone can create

#50

Post by lukan »

estimator7292 wrote: post #44
lukan wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is evil to not allow lies? That does not seem to be so evil .. but I did not found the legal terms on a first glance, so maybe there is more?

One of these statements is a lie: I live in America I have red hair I like bluebirds Do you think it is good and just and fair to ban someone for one of these falsehoods?

Depends what your intentions are. If I want a authentic community, I would not want people to participate who lie where they live.

Otherwise there is the concept of making a prank which is fine by me.

But intentionally spreading lies for political propaganda or scam is very much a reason to ban someone like this for me.

Post reply on HN