Google Earth Research, Space for Collaboration & Illumination?

[Note: I wanted to post this in the Research Forum, but was denied permission. Mods, please move as needed.]

Greetings ATS,

I've been a member here for just over six years now. Mostly a lurker, but occasional commenter and sometimes author. My favorite forum subject would have to be Ancient & Lost Civilizations. Like many of us, I lack the financial resources to go Indiana Jonesing abroad, so Google Earth has been a favorite mode of research/procrastination for me. But aside from my personal interests, I believe that many categories of topics would benefit from having a "location" field that authors could tag along with any KML/KMZ datasets they have created. This would greatly aid in understanding and relating to current and historical events, as well as reducing the time wasted between members doing duplicate research independently. Here is an example of one of my projects, which is far too great in scope to me to keep up with on my own. I figured that since software like Google Earth is ubiquitous nowadays, integration of GE-based resources into at least some of the forums on ATS might be worth looking into. What say the community?

a reply to: johnsequitur1221

Not sure if you are aware of this YT channel www.youtube.com... but there is a ton of google as well as on the ground stuff being looked at .

a reply to: the2ofusr1

I've been binging on her stuff for weeks now. I wish she included more locations for her screen grabs. Though I have to take her materials with a grain of salt, they raise many important questions for those who are open-minded enough to consider. Personally I think she and Giorgio Tsoukalos should run away together

a reply to: johnsequitur1221

Salt or a filter is a must now a days .But she does have some good stuff .most of it leaves lots of question marks about the past which is what it was designed to do .Like how did they manage to cut those underground quarries and what kind of a tool did they use .

You *might* want to read this page first: googlearchaeology.com...

And this might be interesting: www.archaeological.org...

Not sure if this is still live. www.satafoundation.org...

a reply to: Byrd

Google Archaeology was taken down permanently by its creators. Apparently they ruffled too many large feathers. Archaeological.org remains active, and I will have a much more in-depth look at it tomorrow. Ditto on the SATA foundation, and I thank you kindly for these resources.

I was also thinking of the proposed location feature as a more interactive way to educate people on current events and personal experiences being shared on ATS. For example, if a veteran member wanted to write about their tour in Iraq, I think having a push pin to go with their post would make them more interactive, relatable and personal to those (like myself) who haven't actually been there. It's shamefully easy for the blissfully ignorant among us to mistake foreign-sounding names like Benghazi and Fallujah for features on Mars. (Not counting myself out here either, which is why I hope the ATS staff will seriously consider implementing some version of this feature.)

Maybe ATS could compile and publish a new, updated KMZ file each week so people could browse for posts by location via Google Earth (like how the USGS does for earthquakes.) This would allow people to discover posts outside of what they would normally browse for in the forums. For example, I've become jaded to nearly all evidence of aliens/ufos I come across on the internet (despite being open-minded to said phenomena) so I rarely spend much time in that forum. But if I were browsing GE with the "ATS" layer enabled and saw an "alien" icon near my hometown (indicating a UFO sighting or historic abduction report) I would definitely have to see what it was about. Such a feature would depend on an author (or volunteer) tagging a location for a given post, with the option remaining available even after the original editing deadline has expired (not unlike a social media post.) Personally, I'd be happy to contribute a GE bender or two for this effort. In my humble opinion, this has the potential to be tremendously helpful to the community, and far beyond the mere scope of my own pet projects.

originally posted by: johnsequitur1221

Maybe ATS could compile and publish a new, updated KMZ file each week so people could browse for posts by location via Google Earth (like how the USGS does for earthquakes.) .

ATS staff is just volunteer - nobody's paid, and everyone works full time jobs in addition to monitoring the boards.

This would have to be someone's pet project... staff doesn't have time to handle it, even if they loved the idea.