Community guidelines

Native Routes is a site about Native homelands, built mostly from maps drawn by outsiders. These guidelines keep the conversation useful, respectful and safe for the places themselves.

1. Protect sensitive places

Don’t post the precise location of burials, mounds, village sites that haven’t been published, or other sacred or archaeological places — and don’t ask how to find them. That means no coordinates, map links or directions (“behind the barn off Route 9”). Looting is a live threat, and federal law (ARPA, NAGPRA) and many state laws protect these places. Naming well-known public sites — state memorials, parks, museums — is fine.

Posts with coordinates or directions near words like “mound” or “burial” are held for a person to check before they appear.

2. No artifact trade or digging

No buying, selling or trading artifacts, no “finds” photos, and no encouraging digging, metal detecting or relic hunting.

3. Respect

No slurs, stereotypes or mockery of Native people or cultures, and no arguments about who is “really” Native. Use Nations’ own names where you know them; historic names from the maps are quoted as history, not endorsed. Hard history — removals, wars, broken treaties — is on topic.

4. Evidence, not the person

Cite sources for claims about routes and places, and say when you’re guessing. Disagree with the evidence, not the person.

5. No spam

No advertising, self-promotion or machine-generated filler.

How posts are reviewed

Every post is checked before it appears, usually within a minute. First, fixed rules catch things like coordinates and spam links. Then an AI reviewer (Anthropic’s Claude) reads the post against these guidelines; anything it isn’t sure about gets a second, closer AI review, and anything still unclear goes to a person. Only your post’s text is sent for review — never your email address. A person spot-checks a sample of automatic decisions every week.

If 3 members report a post, it’s hidden while it’s reviewed again. If your post is removed, you’ll be told why and can appeal: the first appeal gets a fresh review, the second goes to a person.

Trust levels

• New — your first three posts get the closer review; up to 5 posts a day; no links yet.
• Member — after three published posts and a week: links, Helpful marks, reports, field notes and map fixes.
• Trusted — after 90 days and 25 posts with nothing removed: your reports count double, your map fixes need no second confirmation, and you nominate the Map of the Week.

Two removals within 30 days drop you a level; a third pauses posting for 30 days.

Trail miles and ranks

Useful contributions earn trail miles: 10 for each Helpful mark, 15 for an accepted answer, 5 for citing an archive or library, 10 extra for helping a newcomer, 2 per post (up to 10 a day), 3 per field note, 50 for a map fix that goes live and 10 for confirming one. Each state board has a monthly leaderboard that starts fresh on the 1st. A removed post takes back what it earned, plus 25. Ranks — Traveler, Pathfinder, Trail Keeper, Cartographer, Meridian — unlock new looks for your name and avatar; they never give moderation powers. Nothing is ever rewarded for finding or naming sites.

Field notes

Members can pin a post to the place it’s about. Pins show within about 500 m — never more precisely — and a pin on a post that mentions burials, mounds or digging is blurred to 2 km automatically. Pin the ford, the ridge, the river bend; never pin a burial, a mound or an unrecorded site. Moderators can blur or remove any pin.

Fixing a map’s placement

When an old map sits wrong on today’s map — a river mouth a few kilometres off, a town on the wrong bank — use Fix placement on the map: click the feature on the old map, then the same feature today. Only physical features count: river mouths and confluences, shore points, towns that still stand, county corners. Trail lines and village symbols can never be used — a historic map is not bent to fit anyone’s idea of where a trail ran; that belongs in a Source or Correction thread.

A fix needs one confirmation from another member (a Trusted member’s fix doesn’t). Each night the refit adds confirmed fixes only if the rest of the map fits better with them, and big changes wait for a person. Accepted fixes are credited in the map’s changelog and earn 50 miles; confirming one that goes live earns 10.

Contributing maps, sources and place names

Members can contribute a map (a link to an archive’s page for it), a source that bears on a route or a map, a lead on a map we haven’t found, the names written on an old map, or a trail traced on one for Project Homeland. Maps must be free to publish: published before 1931, made by the U.S. federal government, or marked public domain by the archive — anything else waits for a person to check the rights. Maps whose main subject is burial or mound sites are never added automatically. Every contribution has a status page, and accepted ones are credited: 150 miles when a map you found goes live, 50 when your lead does, 15 for an accepted source, 5 for a place name and 25 for a trail traced into Project Homeland.

Tribal institution badge

Staff of Tribal Historic Preservation Offices and tribal cultural departments can ask for a Tribal institution badge, confirmed through their official tribal email. Write to [email protected].

Your content

You keep the copyright in what you post and give Native Routes a licence to show it. Map corrections are contributed under CC BY 4.0, so a fix can go into an overlay with credit. See the terms and privacy pages.