glossary

Approximate location

Asking for help should never cost you your driveway. The map shows an area. A pin is a later, optional, two-person decision.

What other people see

On the open live map, a request is a rounded area — about 500 meters — not your apartment door on 8th Street, not a residence-hall room, not a parked car’s exact stall. Helpers decide whether they can be useful from that coarse picture plus your category and sentence.

When precision is even possible

Precise location moves only after a helper is accepted and you say yes, and only to that person. You can stop sharing. Completion ends exact sharing automatically. You can also skip precision entirely and meet at a public place you named in the request.

Matching still uses the rounded area

When both people have shared matching location, offers stay within about 10 km of the requester’s rounded area. The system uses that rounded area — not a pin on you. Approximate location is a privacy default, not a decoration.

Questions people actually ask

Can a helper see my house?

Not from the open map. They see a coarse area. Exact location is off until you consent after they accept, and you can meet at a public place instead.

Is 500 meters exact?

It is a coarse area of about 500 meters. Treat it as a neighborhood-scale blur, not a surveyed circle.

What about precision finding on iPhone?

On supported iPhones, precision finding is available only when both people opt in. That is a separate, later choice — not the default map.

Help Me is a community app for adults in Fargo–Moorhead. It is not a K–12 student program, not a youth chat, and not campus police.