Milestone 1 — MVP (Core Platform)

Deadline: 7 April

The goal of this milestone is to deliver a working end-to-end platform where guests can explore stories and registered users can create and interact with stories.

Authentication & User Access

• User registration with email, username, and password
• Login and logout functionality
• Role-based access:
  • Guests → read-only access
  • Registered users → story submission and interactions
• Password hashing and secure authentication

Profile

• Basic profile page
• Display:
  • Username
  • Contribution count
  • Submitted stories

Story Creation

• Story submission interface
• Required fields:
  • Title
  • Narrative text
  • Geographic location (map pin)
  • Place name
  • Time information (year or year range)
• Image upload support:
  • .jpg, .jpeg, .png
  • Maximum 2 MB

Story Display

Map View

• Map interface with zoom and pan
• Display stories as pins
• Pin preview popup showing:
  • Title
  • Place name
  • Time information
• Opening full story page from preview

Feed View

• Feed displaying stories in card format
• Each card includes:
  • Title
  • Location
  • Time information
  • Short preview text
  • Media indicator
• Sorting by most recent

Story Page

• Full story narrative
• Story metadata:
  • Location
  • Time information
  • Contributor name (if public)
  • Submission date
• Display uploaded image
• Comments section

Story Interactions

• Like a story
• Comment on a story
• Remove own like
• Remove own comment

Search & Filtering

• Search by:
  • Story title
  • Location name
• Filtering by:
  • Time period (year / decade)
  • Location

Infrastructure

• Initial database schema
• Backend APIs for:
  • Users
  • Stories
  • Likes
  • Comments
• Basic frontend layout:
  • Map page
  • Feed page
  • Story page
  • Profile page
• HTTPS communication
• Responsive layout (desktop + mobile)

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Milestone 2 — Final Release (Extended Features & Moderation)

Deadline: 14 May

This milestone focuses on advanced features, moderation, media expansion, location intelligence, and engagement systems deferred from MVP.

Authentication Improvements

• Email verification with 6-digit code
• Password reset via email link
• Account deletion with anonymization

Profile Enhancements

• Profile photo upload
• Profile fields:
  • Location
  • Birth date
  • Bio
• Profile privacy settings for fields

Story Creation Improvements

• ★ Location search in story submission map — type a location name to search and auto-place the pin, instead of placing it manually

Story Interaction

• Save / bookmark stories

Tags

• Selecting predefined tags
• Creating new tags
• Maximum 3 tags per story
• Tag formatting validation
• Tag-based filtering and browsing

Timeline View

• Timeline interface for browsing stories by time
• Support for:
  • Exact year
  • Year range
  • Decade
• Opening stories from timeline

Search & Filtering Enhancements

• Advanced search including story narrative text
• Search and filtering work together seamlessly across all views
• Geographic search: resolving a place name (e.g. "Istanbul") to a geographic area and returning all stories physically located within that area independent of text content in the location field.
• Current-location radius filtering: users can filter stories within a selected radius (e.g. 1 km, 2 km, 5 km) of their live device location

Reporting & Moderation

• Reporting stories and comments
• Report reason selection
• Admin moderation dashboard
• Admin actions:
  • Remove stories
  • Remove comments
  • Ban users
  • Remove inappropriate tags
• Report resolution tracking

Notifications

• Notification events:
  • New likes
  • New comments
  • Moderation actions
  • Report resolution
  • Badge earned
• Notification panel
• Unread indicators
• Notification preference settings

Media Support

• Audio upload support
• Video upload support
• Media playback on story pages

Gamification

Points System

• Points for publishing stories
• Points for likes, comments, and saves
• Total points tracking per user

Badges

• Registration badge
• Story contribution badges
• Points milestone badges

System Improvements

• Feed sorting by most popular
• Performance improvements
• UI consistency improvements