Prototype: http://libertyactivism.info/map

Concept: The idea for this project was spawned at the first Motorhome Diaries Meetup in central New Jersey. Jason Talley and I discussed a site that would allow individuals to post media regarding their run ins with government officials. Particularly cops. The finished product would have the following functionalities.

  • Map which provides markers for each event. Those markers ideally would be different colors and designs so as to more easily distinguish them by category.  (botched raid, traffic infraction, etc.)
  • When clicked on markers should popup the specific information regarding the event. A Description, sources, location, media, etc.
  • Categories as represented by the markers should be able to be toggled on and off so the user make view only those they care about.
  • For performance reasons there needs to be some amount of intelligence in the placing of markers as the map is zoomed out. Currently using a modified version of Joe Poskanzer’s Clusterer2.
  • Users should be able to search for an area using Google’s map searching abilities.
  • New events should be submittable by users.
  • Submissions will need to be moderated not unlike a blog so that spam and junk doesn’t get through.
  • Before submitting to be moderated there should be some amount of logic (perhaps using a keyword/tagging service + source checks) to see if the story already exists and if so allow the user to add / modify the existing event. This too would need to be moderated.
  • When the user submits a new story they will be required to enter a category. Categories already existing should be presented to them with an ability to add new ones. This too should be smart and do a keyword comparison to make sure it’s not a duplicate. Offer the user the list of possible preexisting categories.
  • Using geolocation the form should allow lookup of where ever the new user submitted marker is. Fields should be editable and checked against geo location services to confirm before submission. Having autocomplete of fields would be good too.
  • Part of the form should be contact information for those government agencies involved.
  • Media should be uploadable though it’s not necessary given Youtube and such services. However, given that some times media is taken down it’d be preferable that not only can users upload specific media files (pdf,video,audio) but that links to media be followed and those be downloaded if possible as a backup.
  • Using google alerts or just merging existing known feeds it should provide a RSS/ATOM feed showing news stories regarding government abuses. Such as Injustice News.
  • A desirable feature would be to provide the ability to follow the news story link and attempt to build a submission for the site should it not exist already. Or bring up the event within the site so that the user may update it.
  • A general RSS/ATOM feed should be provided so that new events and updates are easily picked up by followers of the site. Additionally there should be the ability to narrow down the feed to events within a particular country, state, county, city or maybe even radius from a particular lng,lat point.
  • Much of this is already implemented in some way in the prototype though not in a very attractive way. The RSS feeds and event checker don’t exist. The uploader uses a special PHP addon called uploadprogress so that uploads can be tracked without the use of FLASH. Submissions are held for moderation but there is no way to actually moderat

Technologies used in prototype: PHP, Javascript, JQuery, Google Maps, Google geotags, GeoNames, custom version of Jef Poskanzer’s Clusterer2, the JQuery msdropdown, jquery.progressbar, jquery.blockUI, jquery.autocomplete and others. See http://github.com/bile

Similar pages: CopBlock, Injustice News

I’ve talked with CopBlock and Injustice News. Both are interested in working together should this get off the ground.