Community-driven Biohacking Map

Of course it is: just scrape the members’ pages every once in a while and update the statuses on the map accordingly. Shouldn’t take much Python to do that.

O.K. So, in theory…

We have a map.
The map allows forum members to tag themselves and their location according to need and or skill.
The map has a functional self cleaning mechanism. (Forum link and / or timer)

What do we do with non forum members? IE, piercing shops?
How do we add them?
Who maintains them?
How do we prevent outdated information from slowly poisoning the map?

Could we build it in two layers?
One for members, and the other for member’s recommendations?

Say I look up my city, (in the second layer) and find that @Pilgrimsmaster and @Compgeek both have a recommended pin for the “I Stab U Too Piercing Shop and Laundromat”, and there’s also one for @anon3825968 and @Backpackingvet at the “Who needs a New Hole Piercings and Discoteque”. I now have two options that are each recommended by forum members. If one of the members should fade from the forum, then eventually their pin(s) would time out and be removed. That way the data stays relevant. I imagine you’d need to be able to pin / recommend multiple locations, but all of one users recommendation pins would be tied to their user account on the forum.

Just a thought. Might work even.
Although I’d limit the basic users out of the 2nd layer, just so it doesn’t get spammed full of crap.
And maybe color code the pins by user level.

Poor Ottomagne. I just keep piling work on him.

I’d go more the current route of partners have to request/consent to be added. Some like to stay under the radar, or may decide to not continue. I do like the idea of letting forum members ‘+1’ other peoples pin if they have used that service and want to add a positive experience.

Can have the partner pins expire after a period of inactivity (no +1’s) if the piercer doesnt log in and ‘verify/update’ details every year or so.

I don’t think the professionals should do that. Business owners have other things on their minds. It should be strictly a user-driven thing - as in, “I’ve been there and they’ll do xyz”.

Careful with the +1 thing though: if you let users give positive feedback, you have to let them give negative feedback also. If the map is endorsed by DT, that might create tensions Amal could do without…

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…is a valid point, but

…is one as well. I talked about that with the artist who’s going to install my flexNeXT soon (and some other stuff), and he said he’s fine with me advertising him a little - and since I’m very satisfied with him, I’ll do that, of course. I doubt that he’ll register here or keep his stuff here up to date, simply because he doesn’t have time for that.
I think it’s similar to all the “got my XYZ implanted today”-threads - some of them tell where they got it done (if not self-installed), some don’t. Maybe we can hope that for those who do, their installers are okay with people knowing that, and they should therefore be okay with being on that map, too? Dunno, still not sure about that… :thinking:

So, I’m not sure who has, and who hasn’t read this thread right from the start, I have copied my post from above that still may oe may not stiil have some valid suggestions for consideration.

Great work mate, I would have looked to do something like that if I had the skills you have, also an awesome use of the Vivokey

One question I had was


Is that request necessary or just part of the initial beta version?
OTHERWISE
Looks really promising and I think a one-stop-shop for all the points that have been raised is the way to go.
Maybe handled via Map layers.
Partners
Unofficial installers
proxmarks near me ( people may not want to share actual address but cities or pubs etc where they may be happy to meet up ?)
Events ( which could be given a validity and expiry date unless it is a reoccurring event etc)

I am also happy give you access to host on my Synology NAS which runs 24/7, or at least as a fail over…

Before you do too much more, I definitely think you should wait for @amal to see if it lines up with what he is planning, hopefully he is onboard and this will save him the time and one more thing he can remove from “his list” and focus on making us som more cool stuff :robot:
I have some more thoughts and suggestions but
I’ll wait until I’m back at a computer, and I’ll update this post.

Again great work, and I hope this gets legs

UPDATE AS PROMISED

too far away from what others had envisioned.

For what it is worth, it is very much along the similar lines as to what I was thinking, but didn’t have the skills to implement it.

I did not import data from @Pilgrimsmaster 's wiki

Mate, I have no issue, you are not “treading on my toes” I personally think your solution is better, and I would have done it your way if I knew how to.
I had considered a search function but I actually feel a map-based solution is the way to go ( It takes out spelling issues etc) simply zoom to your part of the world :earth_africa::earth_americas::earth_asia: and select the layer(s) you want to see and :boom: there’s your info!
That is, if you agree it is suitable and do-able.
Maybe overlay buttons to select layers?

There currently is not an ability to add events and there is also not an ability to edit an existing location. Those would both be on the roadmap

I think it is an important “layer”?, but like you say, not the priority at the moment.

If needed in the meantime, we can delete a location and readd it with additional/updated information.

readd??? I ass-u-me that is supposed to be “edit”
Also on “additional/updated information.” do you think a google map link/ hyperlink would be a good addition? or do you need to start getting google APIs etc???
I know it is simple enough to type it in or copy and paste address, but if you can make it smarter, then why not?

Discussion points:

Oops, does that mean that the points above were not up for discussion? :man_shrugging: :wink:

  • Are the problems that exist (finding non-partner installers, finding someone to clone RFID, etc) serious and widespread enough to require a solution?

If it is a problem, then it is definitely a first-world problem, However, throughout the forum, there are plenty of examples of people talking about their nearest partner being 3 hrs away,8hrs away, in a neighboring country…

  • Is this the best solution to such problems (as opposed to threads, wikis, etc in the DT forums or something else)?

One-stop shop!!!

  1. Go looking for a partner
  2. Nearest is 3000km’s, in another country
  3. Jump back on the forum
  4. Trawl, search until you find a comment or 3 with places people have used in the past
    OR
    Go to @thunderblaster’s fantabulistic Bio-hacking map :+1:
  • As of now, anyone can create locations but only Vivokey users can delete them (once you’ve logged in, you’ll have a Delete button on each marker).

Definitely a workable idea, as proven by your demo

My thinking is that there needs to be as little friction as possible to creating locations or else it won’t get enough use.

Absolutely, AND you also wan’t it to be easy for partners to add/edit/ delete their information, but your “anybody add” solution manages this well, except delete ( I’ll touch on this below )

Requiring Vivokey to delete may be entirely unnecessary, but it does protect against vandalism.

This is from left field, and highly unlikely BUT you could have 2 installers in the same city and one installer hates the other, or wants all the business and if they have a Vivokey they could remove the other installer… again unlikely but food for thought! ( I’ll touch on this below )

If you see something that is inaccurate and don’t have a Vivokey, there’s nothing you can do about that. That’s not ideal.

They could just simply raise it in the forum ( hyperlink to a dedicated thread or PM Group ) and it could be attended to by a Vivokey owner, or a dedicated group??? just spitballing :bulb: But a dedicated group gives a little more control of deletions as mentioned above.
That is, if the person above is a DT Forum member.
If not, is there a way to create a notification / flag / alert that will link from your webpage to DT / Vivokey notification???

  • Aside from allowing anyone to easily add information, it doesn’t fundamentally change the problem of possibly having outdated or inaccurate information. Thoughts?

Not easy, Maybe the onus could be put on the potential implantee, with a note saying something like!?!
All best efforts have been made to keep this information accurate, however, It is your responsibility to contact the partner to ensure… If you do find inaccurate information, please follow THIS link to report it ( as discussed above or similar )

Another idea, but, How easy / difficult would it be to send a notification ( email? ) to the partner etc. to acknowlede and reply/accept the information is correct after a period of inactivity eg 12 months;
This leads me to my next question, could you add maybe a star rating system, so when they get a star rating, it resets their 12 month countdown.

If a star rating system is possible, it could be used for non- approved partners etc, but for both, having a set of ratings:
Professionalism :star: :star: :star: :star: :star:
Price :star: :star: :star:
etc
Overall rating :star: :star: :star: :star:

(Price is subjective, but it also seems to vary immensley amongst installers)

  • How should events work? Some events are recurring/annual; should those be shown year round?

I think so, again if you do an event layer, you can look around the map to find one. Maybe have it as a subtitle on the label

Hackfest

Annually - Mid June

Location changes, watch this space

Or similar ( I just made up that date)

How should the specific dates and location (which may vary year-to-year) be handled? Should there be two types of events, recurring and one-off?

Location and dates for an event that moves is Tricky, depending on if you know the next location, but you could leave the Pin on the map of the previous location with the note like I gave in the example above, until it can be updated ( By Vivokey holder or group-member )

Presumably after a one-off ends, it would drop from the map.

Agreed, I can’t see a reason to keep it? Too much clutter in my opinion, thats why I think the layers would be good.

professional body piercers
body modification partners
biohackers
:beginner: unoffical partner

:nerd_face: Proxmark

Event

  • Any other types of location that might be helpful to mark? Any other services that might be useful to track?

I’m sure these will rise to the surface if this progress’, but there seems to be plenty of stuff to add already.
HOWEVER
Due to this thread about Laws on implanting around the world I did think about creating a Wiki for this, but again a map-based solution would suit this much better.
AGAIN, and sorry to harp on about it, but I could see this working if you could source the correct map for it ( country map ) but there are considerations, such as, In the USA it appears implantation laws can vary from state to state and I’m sure other examples

I can’t help with much, but, if this is of interest I could consolidate this information for you ( and / or put it into a wiki until you are ready for it

  • This is currently running on a Raspberry Pi at my house, which is fairly reliable but it will absolutely go down if there’s a power outage or my home internet fails. This keeps it free which means it won’t hurt my wallet and I don’t have to solicit donations or anything. But if anyone has a better idea for hosting, I’m all ears

If DT is onboard, then maybe hosted on the same server as their Websites? or they could manage and give you access to maintain???

try and discourage and/or prevent anyone from being an asshole and doing anything malicious.

Would you run some form of backup system to roll back to in case of this?

One more thing, in the future will it be possible to have it mobile optimised for when browsing from mobile platform?
Just asking because, the info pop out stays tiny throughout zoom levels

SO
now that I have just thrown out all these things that may or may not be possible, I do apologize, but of course, I will help out wherever I can!

Anyway, I hope this is what you are after

There’s a lot of good info to parse here from everyone, so I thank you all for contributing! I definitely don’t want to be the only one making sweeping design decisions, so I love that there’s discussion and direction being brought up. A lot of this stuff is going to take a bit of time to figure out how to proceed, but I can say that I think Discourse integration is a phenomenal idea: one of the issues I was running into in planning this was trying to think of how to authenticate users. The Passport implementation ThunderBlaster used previously is great and was the original intent, but that has to be hosted on a backend server somewhere, so I was trying to come up with a solution for that that is keeping with the main goal of keeping this cloud-based/off of a personally hosted server unless in last resort. If it works accordingly, using Discourse as the authentication server will keep that off the ground and connected (as long as the DT Forums are up, at least!), so I think that’s absolutely the smartest way to go. Once I integrate the Lambda REST calls into the map app as it is now, I’m going to be shifting focus to trying to get the Discourse authentication/identity set up and move forward from there (since identity is going to be inextricably linked to most features moving forward).

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Great work so far! Let us know if we can help also ?

We have a number of partners that would appreciate getting added if you have time, both ourselves and our installers:
https://cyborg.ksecsolutions.com/cyborg-centers-worldwide/

Need to get DTs own map updated with a few bits also this has reminded me

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Thank you! Part of using Github pages as the front end means that the front end is necessarily open source, so I’d be more than happy to accept any help anyone wants to give. I need to update the README.md to give more information about what’s actually being used in there technology wise, and then use the issue tracker to keep track of what’s being worked on/targeted. Regardless, the repo can be checked out here for those interested in helping (or just seeing the underlying code).

I’ll absolutely get these added in! Do you happen to use a master file or anything to pull from to populate that webpage? DT uses an XML file that contains all the partner info that made pulling and parsing the info really easy, so if that’s available, I could pretty quickly integrate that into the existing sync script. Otherwise, I’ll add in the info in manually!

In thinking of this, would it be possible to have the option to have my pin/profile be invisible to non verified users? I am just trying to think of potential future problems. If implants hit the news again, maybe around cyberpunk release, it may bring the crazies.

I just don’t think the user individual profiles should be straight public personally. Professional installers would be fine, as they likely deal with crazies already. I don’t want the wrong people to have a map of where people that have implants are really.

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Good point. Maybe businesses are the only ones with exact addresses. Anyone else could put alternate contact info if they want. Maybe even just a city or region level location.

We’ve got that “Where are you from?”-thread, maybe it could work in a similar way - some people there just tell their countries, others the city or region. Maybe one could even merge these maps, or use two different layers (one for professionals, which might be open to public, and one for private persons, maybe only accessible via the forum or some other authentification?)?

To be honest, I have absolutely no idea of the infrastructure of those maps, so if that is completely impossible, it’s just me being silly :smiley:

For partners we could sort this out another way. I was talking to thunderblaster about this at one point where basically partners would create accounts (somewhere) and then DT would “grant” them partner status… but they would be able to update their own map location, contact info, etc. If it were based on this forum and badges let’s say, then we could easily grant official partners a special badge that made them an installer, and another badge that updated that pin to be an installer and a modder that can do flex (for example)… or if not badges, we could leverage groups… I could make a group for installers and one for modders and if they are in modders they get a modder pin… no idea if that’s viable, just thinking out loud here…

Also… something to note… we do have the ability to update discourse with plugins that could help export this data if the standard API doesn’t have a method for this… we also have a plugin writer that helped us with the VivoKey plugin, so it’s something I’d put some $ toward getting that plugin made if necessary.

Other ideas for self-classification could be the About Me section… adding standard html tag style markers is supported but become invisible when rendered;

image

image

So basically you could tag your about me section with various standardized tags that could be parsed by the map…

again… i’m just tossing stupid shit out here… it may make no sense at all, just putting out ideas.

Yes I absolutely love the idea of layers… being able to check tickboxes to show various types of pins… this is critical I think.

full screen with options

One major utility I want to be sure is there is the map itself to be full screen and able to be embedded in another website via simple iframe, like map.dangerousthings.com is. This might mean also being able to send initial layer / legend options via querystring… so like if I embed

communitymap.dangerousthings.com/?layers=installers,modders

then the map ticks those two checkboxes only when it initially renders the map… make sense?

I guess my point here is, they won’t. Maybe some at first, but then participation will fade out. Data will get outdated, and we’re right back to the situation we have with the current map. Specifically, every “pin” on it I tried was invalid. I had to get a recommendation off the board for an installer, who was actually on the map, ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE COUNTRY.

A community map, updated and ran by the community. If you fade out, then your community status fades out too. An active member though, who inputs bad data, can have that brought to their attention to fix. Because they’re here, they’re active, they’re community. I’m really looking for a self healing facet to the map so it doesn’t “junk up” over time.

@Ottomagne, If you’ve never seen Parks and Rec, then go watch that first, but I got this line from that show. “A camel is just a horse designed by a committee.”

There’s a ton of ideas and input here, but first and foremost, you’ve got to make a product that you’re proud of. You can’t put it all in, and even if it’s not what I want, it’ll be better if you make decisions in the interest of a coherent whole. I suggest you follow the “enlightened dictatorship” model. Listen, learn, take advantage of anything you can here, but in the end, make it yours, make it something you can be proud of and it’ll be awesome.

And in case you can’t tell, we’re all really pulling for you, and thanks for taking this one on!

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That scope creep tho.

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Oh yeah, also, can you have it solve world hunger and shine my shoes, while you’re at it. I’m gonna need that deliverable in three days. Thaaannnkkkkssss.

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true… currently it’s up to us to reach out to our partners to ensure the pins are updated… and well, that’s not happening now.

Yes I agree… this has the best possible chance at being accurate at any given time.

Why not have this partly community driven?

Say I find a local installer who is fine being listed as a person who will do these, but doesn’t really want to deal with managing another account that may not give them much business.

So I ask them if I can add them, and if they don’t care, I can put their pin and info in. It would say,

"Stab and jab company
Phone:999-999-9999
Address:456 main st
Anywhere, earth

Last used by @Backpackingvet on july 3, 2020"

If the map has layers, this could be flipped on and off easy. If after a year they dissappear, then it would be up to the place of business to try and get back on, unless I wanted to re do them.

People who want to be official partners, I feel, should reach out to you.

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That’s pretty much the way I do it (spreading the word because I’m very happy and my bodmod-artist is okay with it), but there may be a problem with artists in some countries, where they have to stay “under the radar”. The map is public, and so it might get difficult for them if happy customers tell more than they should…
Still, fine for me here, but if it’s done that way we must all hope that people only put studios and artists up here who are really okay with that. Dunno if that’s a problem at all, just something to consider.

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I tend to keep an eye out for posts in my area, and go from there. I’ve given my installer’s contact info to a few people now (with his permission) but I’m not sure he’d be cool with just anyone seeing it.