How important is the postermap to you? Asking because I have an issue with it. At the moment, I'm not posting on /int/, and the reason is the postermap. Geolocation is very accurate, and not everybody lives in a big city. I am aware of the fact that you cannot ever identify a user with geolocation, since it's inaccurate by design. However, if geolocation shows a rural area, the amount of people is already a lot smaller than if you live in a big city, and it's also more likely to stand out than just the 5th Berlinball. Let's say a malicious viewer watches the postermap and occasionally takes diffs, he can say which balls pop up when, and link this to posts, since posts are few, and postermap updates are fast. And if you talk about specific hobbies, it could be possible to say: There's one Bernd living in a 20k population region with one or more very specific hobbies. Still not enough to really identify anyone. But enough to keep me from using /int/. To be honest, even discussing this topic isn't possible without some information leaks, because anyone can already tell that I likely live in a rural area, I'm not posting on /int/ and I probably would want to post about some specific things.
On the other hand: The value of the poster map is low in my opinion. Countryballs on /int/ are interesting, because on an international board, the origin country of the poster is important for context. The region inside that country is - aside from arguing prussians and bavarians or whatever - of little interest in comparison. So, in my opinion, the poster map is an unnecessary violation of privacy, while providing only a small benefit in return.
I had no issue if I was able to use proxies or VPN, but it seems I'd have to get a komturcode first, which in turn can expire under certain circumstances, if I read that correctly. Maybe I will do that at some point, but maybe there are others who won't bother with IRC and simply won't use /int/. I assume the Komturcode requirement for proxy/VPN-posting protects the board from spam, so that's clearly important and I don't want to argue about that. Instead, I want to suggest to either get rid of the postermap altogether, or to maybe significantly reduce its accuracy (if that is even possible), or to just give the summary of how many balls per country are active (pic 2). All suggestions would solve my problem. Maybe there are more, but that's all I can think of for now.
I can't tell whether there are more people who have an issue with this, and maybe there is a part irrational fear from my side involved. And to be clear: I have no problem with the mods seeing my IP, but I suppose you know that there are a lot of very motivated very angry people on the internet, and lurkers have been nudified in the past with very little information, so I think only minimal information about posters should be revealed, unless it's impossible to avoid. And the postermap is deliberately giving out information without a good reason to do so. Just "but it's interesting" is not a sufficient reason in my point of view.
Not only a question to the mods/admins, everyone's opinion is appreciated.