Community Discovery

Find observers, experts, and naturalists near you. Filter by country, taxon, recent activity, and more — all from a single page.

The community page brings together all Rastrum observers in a filterable directory. You can sort by species count, recent activity, or karma, and filter by country, taxon group, or expert role. If you're signed in, the "Nearby" filter shows observers in your region using your approximate centroid — never your exact location.

Features

• Observer directory: Paginated page with profile cards, species count, active streak, and expert badge.
• Composable filters: Sort (species, 7d/30d activity, karma), filter by country (ISO-3166), experts only, and nearby.
• Nearby filter: Available only for signed-in users. Uses the centroid of your observations — precise location is never exposed.
• Leaderboard opt-out: Any user can hide from the directory via Profile → Edit without affecting their public profile.
• URL state: All filters are serialized into the URL so you can share or bookmark specific searches.

Privacy

Each user's centroid is computed from their observations and is only visible to authenticated users via a dedicated SQL view. Anonymous users cannot access location data. The leaderboard opt-out is independent of the public profile setting.

Technical spec: docs/specs/modules/28-community-discovery.md