Private Geofences & Promotion¶

This is the heart of the feature. A user-drawn geofence has two possible lives: it can stay private forever, or it can be promoted into a public area that everyone can use. This page explains both, with the full step-by-step flow.

A geofence is private by default¶

When a user draws a shape and names it, it becomes a private geofence straight away:

• It works immediately — notifications start firing inside the shape for that user.
• Only that user can see or use it. Other users have no idea it exists.
• Its name is hidden from the PoracleJS/PoracleNG bot — it won't appear in the bot's !area picker, and the area name won't show in notification messages.
• It's stored inside PoracleWeb.NET, not in Koji.

Staying private is a complete, valid choice¶

A user might keep a geofence private because:

• It's personal — their neighborhood, commute, or a specific park loop.
• It's only useful to them, so there's no reason to clutter everyone's public list.
• They simply don't want to share it.

Nothing expires and nothing nags them. Private is the default and the destination for the large majority of geofences.

When promotion makes sense¶

Promotion turns a private geofence into a public admin geofence that everyone can subscribe to. It makes sense when a user-drawn area is genuinely useful to the whole community — a popular park, a downtown core, a well-known raid hotspot.

Promotion is a two-party action:

• The user asks for it ("submit for review").
• An admin decides ("approve" or "reject").

A user cannot promote their own geofence, and an admin doesn't promote things out of nowhere — it always starts with a user submission.

The promotion flow, end to end¶

stateDiagram-v2
    [*] --> active: user draws and names a shape
    active --> pending_review: user clicks
Submit for review
    pending_review --> approved: admin clicks Approve
(optionally picks a region)
    pending_review --> rejected: admin clicks Reject
(leaves a reason)

    active: active (PRIVATE)
    pending_review: pending_review (awaiting admin)
    approved: approved (PUBLIC — pushed to Koji)
    rejected: rejected (still PRIVATE, with a note)

    note right of active
        Stays private forever
        if the user never submits
    end note
    note right of rejected
        Keeps working privately
        for its owner
    end note

Step 1 — User draws and (optionally) submits¶

The user draws the shape, names it, and it's private. If they want it public, they click Submit for review. The geofence moves to pending_review and (if you've configured a Discord forum — see Admin operations) a forum thread opens so your team can discuss it.

The geofence keeps working for the user the whole time it's under review — submitting doesn't take it away from them.

Step 2 — Admin reviews¶

You (the admin) see the submission in the admin Geofence Submissions screen. You can look at the shape on a map, see who submitted it, and decide. See Admin operations for the screen details.

Step 3a — Approve (the actual promotion)¶

When you click Approve:

• You can give it a cleaner public name if you want (the "promoted name").
• You can assign it to a region so it's filed in the right folder — or leave it unset if you don't use regions.
• PoracleWeb.NET pushes the geofence into Koji as a public area.

At that moment the geofence flips from private to public:

flowchart LR
    B["BEFORE — PRIVATE
owner only · hidden from bot
in PoracleWeb.NET · status active"]
    A["AFTER — PUBLIC in Koji
everyone can pick · visible in area picker
name shows in DMs · status approved"]
    B -->|admin approves| A

Step 3b — Reject (stays private)¶

If the area isn't a good fit for everyone, you click Reject and leave a short reason. The geofence:

• Moves to rejected status,
• Stays private and keeps working for its owner,
• Carries your note so the user understands why.

Quick reference: the four statuses¶

Removing a public area later¶

If you later decide a promoted geofence shouldn't be public, an admin can delete it from the admin screen — PoracleWeb.NET removes it from the project so it stops being a selectable public area. (Fully scrubbing a geofence out of Koji's database is done in the Koji UI; see Troubleshooting.)