Arhet

Arhet is the name of a planet. And the name of a geofiction project. Tag-line: "Imaginary real estate doesn't need to be a scarce resource."

Alternate tag-line: "Sometimes you want to just toss verisimilitude out the window and map something crazy!"

The planet Arhet is the planet currently hosted on the map portion of the Geofictician site.

Loading map...

{"center":{"lat":-0.1,"lon":0.1},"zoom":"3","maxzoom":"19","minzoom":"1","layer":"Arhet"}

The server structure is similar to, but not identical to, that found at OpenGeofiction.

Project

I have decided to try an experiment. I have opened Arhet to other mappers. In principle, this is no different from the OpenGeofiction model. However, in implementation, I plan to take a different route. Below is a draft of current rules. The project is live, now. Contact me via email for membership. My email is not hard to figure out - consider your ability guess my email as a kind of qualification test for participation in the project.

Rules

1. Luciano is god in Arhet. My word is law. Period.
2. Arhet is not "open" in the way that OpenGeofiction is "open." Participation is by invitation. If you wish to request an invitation, you should contact me via email. My email is easy to figure out. Hint: my name, at my domain.
3. For now, invites will only be offered to OGF participants in good standing. Anyone with a history of sockpuppetry, disrespectful mapping, etc., on that site will not be considered.
4. For now, I will ask users to use the same username as on OGF. This just makes it easier for me to decide if you're a decent person or not. (This might change in the future.)
5. Arhet is not to be the same kind of planet as OGF, however. I currently expect it will be quite a bit more chaotic. That's because...
   • There are no assigned territories - map where you want, what you want
   • There will be no wiki. This wiki, that you are reading, is mine. For my projects. If you want to wikify your mapping on Arhet, find or build your own wiki elsewhere.
   • There is no "verisimilitude rule" - map fantasy or alien things, if you want
   • There will be no plan for a planet-wide coherent geology, ecology, history, culture, or language. Those things were neglected on OGF at the beginning, and efforts to retcon them later are depressing. We avoid the problem by stating at the outset that these things are irrelevant.
   • There will be no user diaries. If you want to write about your mapping, start a blog or something.
6. In general, if your map is interesting, I won't object. There aren't that many rules, but there is zero tolerance for rule violations. Immediate banning, no discussion. Period. Mappers can be asked to leave for any reason, or for no reason.
7. Users are expected to connect to Arhet using JOSM. I have seen very little evidence that high-quality geofiction is possible using iD or Potlatch. So deal with it.
8. For now, because I can't be bothered, there will be no automated map update. I'll set a job to run updates a few times through the day. I may get organized and implement something if things go well and the site becomes popular. So you won't get immediate feedback on the map for your work.
   • I will happily kick off the update manually on a request basis, if you ask politely and I'm not busy with something else. But I am often busy with something else...
9. Respect other people's creations - do NOT map on top of other people's work. This doesn't mean that Luciano will be your "enforcer." People getting into edit wars are likely to be both banned.
10. No megalomaniacs. Creating a large continent doesn't give you a right to it. The world is big, but focus on detailed mapping, and large objects and spaces should be collaborative.
11. A note on copyright and trademark violations. Personally I don't care if you copy or use "real-world" places/names/etc. However, I don't want to get sued. Therefore copyright and trademark violations on the Arhet map are grounds for immediate banning. Note that OSM is copyrighted, and using OSM data or tracing any copyrighted map without attribution is against the law! Note that putting a Starbucks or McDonalds in your imaginary town is using a trademark without permission, and is against the law. 'Nuff said.

Member List

Current members (users) in Arhet.

User ID	User	Status	Type	Note
1	mapadmin	inactive	set-up account, not for use
2	luciano	active	administrator
3	sockpuppet	active	current test account
4	MrJones	active	temporary test account
5	Troll	provisional	temporary test account
6	Infrarrojo	active	ogf user
7	Tito_zz	active	ogf user
8	Rhiney boi	active	ogf user
9	plainoldbread	active	ogf user
10	JoJoBa	active	ogf user
11	Trombonist2003	active	ogf user
12	diamantschiff	active	ogf user
13	Moskva	active	ogf user
14	lars	active	ogf user
15	iiEarth	active	ogf user
16	CartographerKing	active	ogf user
17	theruler	active	ogf user
18	Rustem Pasha	active	ogf user
19	Mapping Expert	active	ogf user
20	newnw	active	ogf user
21	testuser	active	test user
22	testuser2	provisional	test user
23	Zytik	active	ogf user
24	Lithium	active	ogf user
25	jbobinman	active	ogf user
26	yoyo21	active	ogf user
27	udi	active	ogf user

Discussion Channel (Discord)

There is a an #Arhet channel on the "unofficial" OGF Central server hosted by austinhuang. Contact Luciano for an invite. Most Arhet discussion takes place there.

Backups

Backups were run quite irregularly (basically, just when I felt like it, entirely manually) until late February, 2020. Starting at that time, I have set up a daily backup process. Backup planetfiles can be found here: http://geofictician.net/backups.php.

Map Layers (Renders)

There are currently 3 layers (render styles) for Arhet.

• arhet-carto ("H") - this is the current original map layer and the default. It is based on the osm-carto style from 2018, with some modifications to handle the custom coastline shapefiles. It is "frozen in time" - no updates to the style will be made. The render is completely re-drawn once an hour, at around :55 past the hour.
• arhet2-carto ("W") - this is derived from the current osm-carto style (as of early 2020), again with modifications to handle the custom coastline shapefiles. Unlike the above, it is possibly updatable to keep it in sync with the osm-carto default. I haven't tried to do this yet. The render is completely re-drawn once every 3 hours, approximately.
• arhet-topo ("T") - this is derived from the OpenTopoMap style (as of early 2020), with modifications to handle the custom coastline shapefiles. The render is completely re-drawn once every 3 hours, approximately.