looking really good buddy.
Is there anything we (the community) can do to make it easier for you?
I assume you have read all the posts in this thread!?
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Thanks. I did once back in the day but Iāll go back through it again and incorporate anything Iām missing. So far as help, feedback is always welcome.
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Alrighty, I think Iāve got a grasp on the direction weāre after.
My plan was to basically take Amalās map and give folks the ability to sign up as partners and mange their own stuff (pending amalās approval).
What it does:
Uses your IP to guess your location, figures out whether you use freedom or sanity units and sets them accordingly (miles v. kilometers). Partners are sorted by range. If the partner is within 1000 miles or 1500 km, when you open the partner, you also get an estimated travel time. The existing filtering is pretty self-explanatory.
Things I need to add/change:
Account stuff
- Two types of accounts: partners and biohackers
- Partners provide (at least) installation services
- Have a studio
- Have āofficialā flags that can be toggled (Dangerous Things, KSEC, ā¦?)
- Biohackers offer help with NFC/RFID cloning and answer questions
- Will not have a specific location
- Accounts will have a keep alive period
- Option for email reminders
Where did we land on having accounts that are rated for things like professionalism, etc
Events
Do we want to do the whole āofficialā thing for these as well? IE, DT endorses said event?
Anything Iām missing?
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I think this would be a good idea, with a standard set of details
Name:
Location/ address:
Contact details:
Star Ratings
Professionalism:
Cleanliness:
Price: stars or actuall cost
plus maybe a notes section, for comments or forum links to install post
Just my thoughts
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I think some kind of rating would be better than actual costs, for those may vary a bit 
Though most piercers I know have some kind of price table for piercings they do, most of the non-standard-stuff is usually not on that, and to be honest, I think many artists decide upon the price more or less āspontaneouslyā. Like, the price of my scars was depending on how long Arnulf needed to do them, and he couldnāt tell me beforehand how much it would cost exactly.
Star rating is a bit difficult, though - does 5 stars mean itās very expensive, or does it mean the price (however high it may be) is totally fine? I know from some pages (I think facebook has that, for example) that they just use currency symbols, with ā¬ meaning cheap and ā¬ā¬ā¬ more expensive.
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Good point
Thatās good, but also subjective.
What a ā¬ā¬ for some could be ā¬ā¬ā¬ā¬ā¬ for other
Actual cost gives people a known expectation, but as you say, the prices could āspontaneouslyā given.
There could be discounts for multiple implants.
Even giving a: Fair - Reasonable - Expensive rating is subjectiveā¦
Basically
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Ah damn, yes - I didnāt consider that this is a world wide map, so you canāt really put prices into relationā¦
In Germany, I can estimate that a ā¬-piercer might pierce a lobe for 10 or 20 euros, while a ā¬ā¬ā¬-piercer might take 45-50 euros, but I have no clue what a piercer in Brazil might take. Or in the US, or in New Zealand
Thatās definitely an advantage for actual costsā¦
Iām just afraid that people might look at it, go to the artist and say āhey, I saw you make an install for price xyā, and are disappointed or angry if the price has changed.
Totally - I would always say all my mods are fair priced, but when I take a look at my list of mods and the prices I paid (yeah, I seriously have some sort of chart of all that^^), many people might disagree 
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My 2 cents on the priceā¦
I say do the $ $$ $$$ $$$$ option
And set a known range for each
0-50 50-75 75-100 100-150
Pricing can vary depending on quantity and complexityā¦
But I think setting the $ value based on a simple standard X series in P0 since thatās probably the most common thing
Donāt forget that in general flex and xseries are significantly different prices to so seperate ratings for each would be good
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I agree with the $$ option but I respectfully wouldnāt suggest a range. In my experience the $$ will average out and is simply an expression of comparative cost with other suppliers as opposed to actual costs. Plus prices will unfortunately go up as time goes by, so a comparative may be more helpful??
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You touch on an interesting point about the types of installs. Would it be fair to say that there are three different installation methods: injectable, installable with DTās custom needle or the like, and scalpel? Even then, I imagine a finger install of a Titan is probably more complicated than say something like a custom flex that requires a scalpel. Has anyone put together a list of prices? I think it would be helpful to see what the breakdown looks like before trying to implement the pricing feature. If not, I suppose we could add that. It could give a rating relative to the global and national averagesā¦
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Would it be possible to add 2 texts fields for standard x series and flexes that go in the in the regular spots like P0-5? I think it could help standardize the cost for installs regionally, plus the installer could leave it blank or enter ācall for priceā if they donāt want to list prices online.
Standard install prices, call for custom install quotes.
X Series: $40
Flex Series: $150
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I would agree, although in my personal opinion an xSeries and Custom needle procedure are VERY similar.
But then you have complications like, getting 3 xSeries and 2 Flex in one sitting, using the DT installation kit ( drape, gauze, bandage etc ) vs getting a single xSeries and the piercer wants to use their own equipment vs a FlexDisc scalpel Install plus 2 x xSeries vs ā¦
Maybe something like:
INDICITIVE Pricing
xSeries ~$40
Flex ~ $50
Scalpel ~$Unknown
Whatever is decided, Maybe a note to say
āPrices are indicitive only and should be discussed with you peircer individuallyā
Haha, I just saw Invalid_signal postā¦so yeah, something like That 
Not as far as I am aware, However ,a while back I was going to do just that, but after searching the forum, the Prices can vary A LOT, with no rhyme nor reason I seems to just come down to the individual piercer
Iām sure we all have our own ideas on what each procedure SHOULD cost or what is acceptable, but unfortunatley that is not our decision.
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A wrinkle here is that I got two X Series and a Flex in the same visit so that worked out cheaper per implant because thereās always the baseline cost. So I couldnāt say what my installer would charge to do one X Series but I would assume it wouldnāt much less than two or three in the same visit.
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But the listings donāt need to spell out every price
Most new people in search for a piercer are likely looking for a simple x series,
They just need to know a ballpark 59$ for a standard install
(Any installer on the map, is going to do standard x seriesā¦ I canāt think of what someone would offer flexās but not x series)
If that price seems reasonable to them, then they can inquire about multiple implant discounts, or flex
If some place has 130$ listed for a standard install, Iām probably going to keep shopping around, and probably not ask about flexās
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I dig it. Leave it to the partner to list prices or not. For the review portion, there could just be a āpricing was accurateā flag. Or, perhaps, a choice of cheaper, on par, or expensive? Kinda covers unlisted pricing as wellā¦ Unless they are the only partners in the area.
Thoughts, folks?
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Not neccessarilyā¦ I had both done by the same artist, and while the flexy took some good time with scalpel, dermal elevators, 9 stitches and all that stuff, the Titan in my fingertip was installed in about 5 minutes with just one single stitch. Thus, the flexy install was a bit more expensive, though not much.
Absolutely. But I think you can get a general āfeelingā of that - like, a studio that has the reputation of being a bit more expensive usually is so with implants as well, while others who do ābasic stuffā for less money usually take less for āadvanced stuffā as well, or is my gut feeling wrong here?
Though I have to admit, Iām bad at comparing bodmod-prices - this is usually the āunlistedā stuff, so I only know the prices of the artist I visit
I like the āpricing was accurateā-flag - simply because thatās a totally subjective thing I can only take my scars as an example - I spent a lot of money on them, but considering how much time it took to get them done plus all the extras I got, I think the pricing was totally accurate. Problem is, most people who start into the world of biohacking (or bodmods) donāt really know what to expect at allā¦ dunno how this can be solved on a map, or if itās rather something that can be explained better in this forum or something the like.
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Lotās of changes. Seeing as we had a marker for general biohacking questions and were adding one for nfc/rfid help, I threw one in for biomagnets and suppliers such as DT and KSEC. I added reviews based on the suggestions. If we want reviews for suppliers and the Q&A folk, weāll need to sort of different metrics.
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Great progress
There is also a great ādatabaseā here that may be worth adding if you havenāt already. Europe only, but lots of options
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Glad to see this! Iāve been so spread thin lately Iām well behind on forum posts 
I only barely scraped through the last dozen or so postsā¦ so let me just brain dump what Iām looking for and we can try to go from there.
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I would def want to incorporate a community driven map as the official DT map
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I like the listing types broken down as āmodderā (does scalpel work), āinstallerā (can do needle work, possibly including custom needle flex installs), and biohacker (enthusiast, may not do installs at all but might help)ā¦ the last one there is tricky because if we put them on a map and indicate they can do installs, and someone messes upā¦ it could be a liability issueā¦ so if someone is willing to assist with installs, unfortunately it should not be on the map. It would need to come down to making contact and sorting it out directly.
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I like the idea of new listings needing approval from me before they are made live on the map
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I like the idea of any submissions requiring an email address, and like craistlist, the submission gets a magic URLā¦ no account names or passwords to manage your listingā¦ just a magic URL you save in your email forever. That gives you the ability to come back and update or even remove your own listing. This is an important management feature to help speed map updates. Once a submission is approved, the OP can update it without further approvals required. If we are unhappy with the submission at any time we can remove it and they would have to re-submit and that new submission would require approval, so this is simple and it should ājust workā. Submissions that are not approved cannot be updated until they are approvedā¦ that just simplifies things a bit for us as wellā¦ so basically flow would go like this; submit your listing, get a magic URL via email, click the magic URL to activate your submission for approval (solves mistyped email problem), this updates the listing to make it visible to me / DT as needing approval, and we can do follow-up etc. and approve it. Once approved maybe an email goes out to the submitter to notify them their listing is approved? I can supply a sendgrid API key for all this email stuff
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a simple admin interface for me to manage these listings
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information I would like / need for each professional submission includes;
- professionalās name (person doing installs)
- shop name (pro must work out of a shop)
- shop ownerās name (not always a pro owned shop)
- shop physical address
- shop main phone number (wonāt be listed on the map but used by us for verification)
- latitude / longitude (based on address API or extract from google maps link which contains LAT/LONG)
- one or more of professionalās preferred booking contact methods;
- booking phone number (can be shop number or proās own phone number)
- email address
- website / facebook / insta / whatever
- notes to include (shop behind pizza place, or by appointment only or whatever)
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information I would like / need for each biohacker includes;
- name
- general area (city is enough. most people donāt want to put home addresses)
- preferred contact method (email, phone, twitter, forum DM, etc.)
- Note about self (do not say āI do installs!ā kind of thing)
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I have a google maps API token I can supply as well if necessary.
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I would love a heatmap approach when zoomed out to make sure the pins donāt overlap like they do on the current map.
I hope that all makes sense. As for community based comments / reviews, that is a critical feature and I donāt really have any thoughts on how to approach thatā¦ but I do want to be able to manage those comments in case things get particularly nasty. Weāve had some situations in the past where Iāve had to straighten things out between customers and partners and itās come to an equitable end in most casesā¦ but I donāt see that level of diplomacy and positive outcome happening through any kind of ācomments sectionāā¦ so I want to be careful about this feature.
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