About Jāla

A mutual-support network for the psytrance and festival world. A map where people post, for a little while, either something they need or something they can give — a ride, a place to camp, food and water, a charger, tools, a lost bag, local knowledge, company, someone to sit with, welfare and first-aid help.

It is not another social network and not a festival-discovery app. The community already exists and already looks after each other. This is only the infrastructure underneath it.

You open the app and see a map. Browse what is already there, or post your own.

1. Someone posts an offer or a request with a category, an approximate place and a time it runs out.
2. Someone else sees it and sends a contact request.
3. The person who posted accepts or declines. Nothing opens until they say yes.
4. A private conversation opens between the two of you.
5. You sort out the exchange, and either of you can mark it done.

An offer might read: ride available, Berlin to Boom, two seats, Friday 09:00, gone by Friday noon. A request might read: looking for somewhere to sleep in Ljubljana tonight, one person.

This is not a service for people who need help. It is reciprocal — today you have a spare seat, next month you are the one stranded.

So the app asks you both questions: what do I need, and what can I offer? We are aiming for radical hospitality, not a marketplace.

The map should feel alive, not like a directory. Two spare seats for six hours. Free food at your camp for one evening. A powerbank until Sunday.

Most listings carry an expiry and disappear on their own, so what you see on the map is what is true now. You can also post one with no end date, and then it stays until you take it down.

In the wider view the map covers travel between festivals: rides, places to stay, gear, meeting people, local help.

In festival mode it narrows to one event — camping space, water, charging, food, tools, welfare, harm reduction, info and meetups. Recognised welfare crews and organisers can post as official accounts.

The rule we build to is simple: collect as little as we reasonably can. You never have to publish your phone number, your email or your exact address to use this.

• No background location tracking, ever. You choose where a listing appears.
• Sensitive listings are blurred by a few hundred metres before they are stored — the exact point never reaches us.
• When a listing with an end date dies, its location, description and photos are forgotten rather than archived. An open-ended one is not forgotten on a schedule — that is the trade for leaving it up.
• No permanent public record of who you have talked to.

The privacy page spells out exactly what is stored and for how long.

There are no likes, no followers and no star ratings here. Popularity is not safety. Trust is built from what you have actually done.

• How long you have been around.
• Exchanges both sides confirmed — which earn badges as they add up.
• References people write for each other afterwards.

All of it sits on your profile, under a username you chose. Your real name is nobody's business.

Everything posted publicly is moderated against these. You agree to them the first time you post.

• Reciprocal, not transactional. No prices, no selling, no business listings.
• No illegal trade. No dealing, no crypto deals, no coded listings written to slip past moderation.
• Harm reduction is welcome and always has been.
• Be kind, and keep people safe. No harassment, no dangerous behaviour.

The line matters: illegal commerce is not the same thing as looking after each other. Water, shade, a quiet space, drug-checking information, welfare and first aid all belong here. Selling does not.

You can block anyone in one tap, and report a listing, an offer, a request or a member. Blocking is immediate and final; the other person is not told.

Reports go to a queue that real people read. When several different members report the same listing it hides itself while it waits. Nobody is banned by a machine.

Public and moderated: listings, categories, approximate locations, usernames, reputation, references and festival info.

Private: your conversations, your contact details and anything that identifies you. We do not read your messages or mine them. If you need to report something dangerous from a chat, you choose what to hand over.

No ads, no trackers, no analytics companies, no selling anyone's data. The map tiles are open and keyless. Nobody here is the product.

That leaves running costs, which is the only thing we would ever ask for. A donation buys goodwill and nothing else — no badge, no boost, no priority. The moment money could buy standing, the exchange count would stop meaning anything.

End-to-end encrypted messages are the next big one; until then the privacy page says plainly that they are not encrypted yet. After that: community support points, skill sharing, equipment lending, more languages, more festivals.

The long view is community-owned infrastructure for mutual aid — starting with psytrance, because this scene already lives like this, and then wherever else it fits.