Show HN: I Was Here – Draw on street view, others can find your drawings

Cool idea, but of course the very first image I clicked into was a dick.

lukan · 11 hours ago

I recently learned that in Bhutan, they are sacred smybols since a long time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phallus_paintings_in_Bhutan

Since I know that, I am rather amused every time I see a dick painted anywhere.

mrktsm__ · 12 hours ago

Haha yeah, can't have nice things I guess. I'm currently working on automated moderation to catch that stuff faster. In the meantime, Report button exists if you stumble into anything awful.

eternauta3k · 10 hours ago

First thing I saw was a Swastika. It was painted on an ex Nazi building, but still...

SanjayMehta · 9 hours ago

A swastika or a Hakenkreuz?

A long, long time ago ... there was a browser extension or maybe an iframe, that allowed you to "comment" on public websites. Of course you weren't really commenting on the actual website, just some form of overlay. Anyway, it quickly devolved into lawsuits and rude comments if I recall correctly.

JimDabell · 10 hours ago

There have been several efforts. At one point the W3C were working on a standard protocol for it: https://www.w3.org/annotation/

Teddy_Kord · 12 hours ago

Do you remember any details about the name of the software, or the cause of the lawsuits?

I had a similar idea, funny to hear it's been done and ended so badly.

chromakode · 11 hours ago

I don't recall any lawsuits, but whytheluckystiff made one 20 years ago. https://ruby-talk.ruby-lang.narkive.com/buiXXTZh/what-is-hoo...

rtwk · 11 hours ago

I believe it was https://web.hypothes.is/

gamesieve · 10 hours ago

Don't know if it matches with the lawsuits, but could've been Third Voice (1999-2001).

nasso_dev · 7 hours ago

check out https://margin.at !

tkocmathla · 12 hours ago

qezz · 10 hours ago

It's not very obvious which places are available for drawing. At first I thought it pulls Google street view, so I just zoomed in to some place I visited recently, but there was nothing.

So it turned out the spots on the map are actually the available panoramas, and not just a heatmap of the signatures.

Cool idea overall!

lattrommi · 6 hours ago

How do you draw something? I can't seem to do anything but look, I even made an account. I went to look at the nearest locations to me with drawings but they all had nothing. I found the menu on the left side of the screen but that didn't do anything. To draw does it require becoming a paying subscriber?

mrktsm__ · 5 hours ago

You should see a toolbar at the bottom with a pen/marker icon, tap either to start drawing. No payment needed, premium is really just to support the project.

FailMore · 13 hours ago

Good fun thanks! Found a cute cat in Buenos Aires. It seems you have quite a lot of activity already, is that all from HN in the last two hours or from something else before this?

mrktsm__ · 13 hours ago

Mostly from HN in the last 2 hours, yeah. Had some early users before but nothing like this spike. Glad you found the cat drawing!

abrookewood · 12 hours ago

lfx · 7 hours ago

Cool idea, but you should consider required auth to ban trolls.

On other hand, I wonder why many pictures are in the middle of the bridges or viaducts?

mrktsm__ · 6 hours ago

You may be right, I may need auth down the line. I wanted to reduce friction and let people draw right away though. I think the bridges thing is an artifact of Mapillary, the API I use for panoramas. Dashcams tend to overrepresent highways. Working on better curation.

doctorhandshake · 11 hours ago

It is my belief that a time may come when we can all ‘write’ on, or link information to, any person, place, or thing, based on a melange of semantic anchors, and in that world there will be fewer secrets and more experts.

pcthrowaway · 11 hours ago

I used this one called "Gooey" in 1999 that let you have a realtime chat with people on the same page as you: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/maker-of-goo...

sans_souse · 13 hours ago

I love it until fine I'll signup and love it again but then no you pay now. My 2 cents is all I have to give.

I hear you on the friction. I’m experimenting with the 'ink' limits right now, also the ink actually regenerates. I think I need to make it more obvious in the UI

sans_souse · 12 hours ago

I was definitely finding it fun, responsive etc. Started to do a Simpsons-esque tag in Boston but ran out of credit. Hope to see more leeway keep up the good work