It would probably be necessary to hook into a map API that has full addresses, etc. That way when I enter Death Valley, I don't just see Death Valley posts, it also (automatically) falls under California and United States. This would obviously be way more helpful for smaller countries that don't have as many posts. While some people might be specific and say "Kabul", for most items it would probably be "Afghanistan". We wouldn't want the one post that was specifically tagged "Kabul" to not appear when the other 9 posts were simply tagged Afghanistan. I still envision this as a third party site that hooks into the Hubski publications and links back to Hubski. It doesn't 100% jive with what Hubski does and it adds another layer/layers to the already far-from-perfect tagging system. Plus, integrating a map API(s) into Hubski's current set up could be a bit of a server hit due to our infrastructure. And the reward, on Hubski.com, isn't really worth that. One way to get posts tagged is to show 5 or so random posts and 5 of the newest posts and have people tag them every time they visit the site. Slowly but surely, the map would begin to fill out. I also have a feeling that a lot of posts wouldn't have a location.
Yes, that makes more sense. An implementation with a smaller server footprint would require a prefetched list of places and areas, though. The hierarchy in the list (LA County inside CA inside the US) could still provide something useful. And for the posts that don't have a location, there's always Null Island.