Maybe ELR is just too good

I’ve just been reminiscing about my pre-newbie days on ELR. Yes , you read that right, pre-newbie. I shou’dn’t be surprised if we’ve got a good few of those floating around.

There was I, just got the notion of mixing my juices for myself, so I got onto Google and soaked up information all over the place, like you would. Pretty soon I noticed that most of my Google enquiries were directing me to threads at ELR (besides other places) and that the ELR discussions tended to be more informative, by-and-large than those other discussions. So did I think of joining? Nope. Seemed to me that the forum search engine couldn’t possibly be better than Google at finding appropriate threads (they never are) so might as well continue with my utterly invisible lurking. Besides, i never once thought of a question that hadn’t already been answered by at least half-a-dozen seriously knowlegable members. So where was the need speak up?

That’s not to say that the answer was always clear cut (some questions just led to hot debates, ofc, same as ever ) but I quickly got to learn that if certain forum members don;t know the answer, then nobody does

I really don’t know how long i continued in that vein. I’m no good with dates unless I write them on a label then slap that label on an amber glass bottle. 6 months? A year? two years? :woman_shrugging: Yeah, yeah, I found the “other side” too but IIRC , i thought it was just a nifty calculator, not unlike several similar nifty calculators, and had no idea how much power i’d unleash if i actually logged in.

Well, that’s lucky for ELR, isn;t it? or else i might have done the same as thousands of other newbies and filled the database with gibberish :laughing:. But I was a pre-newbie over there as well, and IIRC , I eventually signed up for both sides pretty-much simultaneously, after soaking in yet more info, experimenting, gaining experience, and finally beginning to feel that i actually had something to contribute to one or two discussions.

That’s really not a good way to go about it , BTW. Forum newbies don’t contribute to discussions. Newbies post qestions and then shut up and listen to the answers. I quickly found out that you’ll seriously get up some peoples noses if you try to skip that stage :rofl:. But that’s all water under the bridge now :smile:

I mean, ELR forum was way too good, IMO. I surely needed ELR, but the idea that ELR might need me was thoroughly ludicrous. I suspect that there are quite a few like myself floating around. Some eventually joined, and some still haven’t. And just in if they happen to read this thread, i should say: don’t wait. Sign up, say “Hi” and “Thankyou” then just carry on lurking if you like, But you’ll never know how good it is to be part of this community until you try it.

But what about that other sort of pre-newbie? The sort that joins the other side, fills the database with gibberish and doesn’t even notice there’s a forum over here? I guess they’re not the sort to type questions into Google? but that’s not to say they don’t need to read the answers.

I wonder if it might be best to restrict new sign-ups to the recipe side to people who’ve already joined the forum? And if it might be best to pointedly direct all new members to the "beginners " board. Yeah, there will be some that don’t need to read that. But there are surely many more who never, ever find it. :tearing hair out …godddamn! there’s no smiley for that!

It’s an idea…maybe.

But, anyway, many thanks @daath and everybody else for creating something that’s just too good in some ways.

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sorry. i somehow think that’s probably some sort of clever put-down? and maybe i ought to offended? but i don’t get it. i don’t even know what cheetos are, come to that. (could be my Britishness getting in the way of my comprehension? i mean, is that an Americanism?)

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I’m just joking :slight_smile: Of course ELR is great, it’s run by Elon Musk!

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oooh, that’s doxxing!

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Shhh, even he doesn’t know180907100732-elon-musk-smokes-marijuana-podcast-1-large-169

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These days it seems new vapers and new mixers don’t want to read, research, or experiment period. They want you to do that for them. They also don’t seem to understand the concept of subjectivity. That being said I would never want to see them not having access to the forums or posting.

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umm, just in case you misunderstood, neither would I! Certainly not! i’d just like to restrict their access to the recipe side until after they’d had a gander at the forum! I’m sure most of 'em never even notice there’s a forum here

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How are they going to learn or experiment by restricting them from any part of elr?
I did misread what you wanted to restrict them from but with respect, I think that’s just as bad an idea.

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Wow @jay210 that was a great post. Had me trying to remember way back when I was lurking here (old age, I forget stuff). I think that all too often (and easily NOT limited to just ELR), when you’ve been a member of a community for a while, you learn the system, learn who’s who, learn the etiquette, you fall into a groove, and it becomes the “norm”. As time wears on, it’s very easy to FORGET what it WAS like way back IN the beginning, and posts like yours work to remind us, which is good.

I can’t remember which “side” of the site I found first, but doing lots of web design, I quickly found both, and didn’t look back. I know that I’ve heard many people say, “Wow, I wish I had known about the OTHER side of the site” before.

I can say this, that I’d been a member of another 3 letter site for a long time, and overall isn’t wasn’t the best for DIY, except for a small area that I was able to poke into and hibernate in. Another 6 letter website had seeminly immense amounts of people and info, but it quickly became obvious that it had quite a few “clicks” and many of the members, bots, and mods came off as heavy handed when it came to newer users.

ELR has managed to carve out a very unique space in the DIY community thanks obviously out to @daath, but also many of the original members, and the ones that remain today. I wouldn’t propose to restrict any members, but maybe there’s a happy medium in the middle. Persistent pop ups, naggs, and flashing lights to motivate people to the other side that could be deployed.

Great post.

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Thank you for sharing those thoughts @jay210. Honestly though, yours is just one of the many ideas (and it’s a good one) that we’ve had discussions for on multiple occasions… educating new users, the ever increasing junk filling the database, luring them to the forums etc.

And every now and then a similar topic like this one appears. Ideas and opinions are tossed around, all in the hopes that something will come of it.
But the sad reality is nothing is ever done about it. Admin, while responsive to certains things, doesn’t seem to want to prioritize these issues enough to take action. Meanwhile more crap and dupes pile up in the database because
no one wants to do the merges to consolidate it all.

But it’s still a nice thought @jay210!

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Well, I was envisaging sonething like @SessionDrummer 's suggestion

but with one slifght difference: you have to follow the flashing lights and register with the forum, before you can sign up with the other side.

So, if all goes well, your new user gets maybe a 3 minute delay before he gets a chance to screw up the database, and during those 3 minutes he gets to find out exactly where to go for guidance on using that database.

Not a significant infringement on anybody’s freedom, IMO. But I might, perhaps have explained it better?

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That is actually very reasonable. Outside of a q&a unenforceable though. Some will just twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes and then do as they please. You can’t force someone to educate themselves unfortunately.

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I sure like the idea, sometimes, that restriction may be good. Then I remember the way back days of formation of elr. Sure I came in at the tail end of the start not knowing how new’ish elr was.

Looking at back then to now…sure things have changed. So have I. One thing that shouldn’t is the open’ness to all…on all sides. I think that is part of the success of the site.

Granted that is pain of what sometimes hurts, but also will allow elr to continue. As the old guard phases out the new’new come in and shape elr.

Shaping elr can be hard, sometimes frustrating…but if we can’t accept change then it can’t move forward.

Honestly what I hope for is more allowance of moderators for the recipe side for clean up (yes @daath). Not really needed on the forum side since we (community) moderate on our own for the most part. Also hope for enhancements to the recpie side but still extremely happy with what we have since I am a data whisper and find having all that data useful (not my fault people don’t want to read).

****this ramble have been brought to by mango ice cream and grammar check and spell check won’t be done…but promise there isn’t a dick pick. Lol

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Same here, I didn’t know how new’ish ELR was either. It was already huge in my estimation. I’m not sure what to say except that I identified with your statement.

I agree. It’s a mess on the other side. I have long since stopped looking at the recipes. Except for recently when I decided to help out our friend @TorturedZen and to be honest I am not sure how he doesn’t go crazy with just HOW MUCH there is to do. That’s not to say I don’t look at new recipes or even look through old ones, but I look through the people I follow and the ones that follow me. I never realized how many folk don’t even participate on this side of the forum.

To not even know that the forum even exists is… I don’t know… Lazy? How could you not explore all of the options and buttons on the recipe side? I was so hungry back then that I went through everything on the site.

Anywho, I am rambling and I am not sure if any of that even makes any sense.

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I was hoping for the same, but then i read some more and thought some more. We’ve had a glimpse of what can happen when one of those mods is a tad over-tired: loads of flavour notes can be lost. And what if a mistake wasn’t noticed and rolled back? untold numbers of recipes could be corrupted, couldn’t they? Is it fair on the members to increase the potential for error by appointing more mods? is it kind to those volunteers to land them with the guilt? .

Looks to me like that clean-up job is somewhat akin to brain-surgery, and it looks to me like @daath prefers to look for ways to make database more robust , and to, hopefully, slow the growth of the tumour without resorting to surgery . If so, I can only applaud that, though i probably won’t like any sacrifices of freedom that turns out to entail. Something has to give.

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well @jay210 nice post and I like it, I’d agree to a sign up on the forum side before writing glibberish on the other (I didn’t even know you could do it, I lurked here first and wrote very few recipes till what a couple of months ago?) but going back to the point, I agree with @Letitia (first hand experience)

It’s a fact! I’m a moderator on an Italian vape forum and whether you like it or not it’s just the way some people are, you try to tell them or help them but some are so thick they even get to the point of being banned, but that won’t change them.

ELR moderators and admin did a huge amount of cleaning up in the last two years, let’s sanctify @TorturedZen he even sees my mistakes… how do you do it?? :joy:
You say that probably a lot of this huge work could be avoided, but really, can it be avoided? Even if they were forum members they’d make the same mess…
A good thing could be a sort of advertising on the “other side” so more people would come over and join the family and it would be up to all of us to look after the new ones and their mistakes, confirming what @Chrispdx says

BTW We can tell you’re back… :joy::joy::joy:

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This is similar to an idea I had except the new user would be required to read the ELR User Guide and/or the Flavor Stash Guide before being granted access to the recipe side. Again, all these ideas could be implemented to a degree but then we have to consider the new user’s mindset, which is summed up like…

This!

Absolutely! I have seen (and dealt with) users “running rampant” claiming they’ll do and post whatever they damn well please. Without formal moderation in place the recipe side has become a free-for-all with no accountability on the user’s part.

You mean the ONLY ACTING MOD. @Sprkslfly is the only person tasked with reconciling name conventions and merges, which in itself can be a herculean effort without additional help. The scope of that role is beyond just 1 person. @Chrispdx is on point for additional mods.

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You’re saying noobs are filling the recipe side with gibberish because they don’t have a look at the forum.
Ever wondered how the veterans, “the elite”, often fill the forum site with gibberish too? (don’t take this as a stab at this post, just look at the overall state of the forum)

I can understand why people, who have a busy life, don’t really feel attracted to browse a forum where it’s common practice that veterans vent their frustration on them because they’ve asked for the bazillionth time what the best way is to store their nicotine…

Personally, as long as the site allows things, there’s no right or wrong way to do things and if someone uses the site in a very different way from you, there’s no reason why you should get upset about it.

Maybe I’m getting old, but I just get less and less frustrated about those things. Just do your own thing, use the tools at your disposal for the stuff you want to do and all is good, no?

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Even this I find a bit patronising. You’re probably right in saying it’s only beneficial BUT, there are new users who’ve been mixing for years, either on a different site or using software or just paper and pen.

I’m much more for putting recipe & forum rules into the code of the site so that people cannot do what should not be done. There’s no getting around it and no clean-up to be done afterwards with that technique. If there are no rules, then who are we so say what’s wrong or right?

Again, if the site allows things to do… who is to say what’s right or wrong?
Put those rules in the code and there’s no need for moderators. Over-moderation is also a bad thing that chases people away. It’s always based on people’s opinions, making some get away with something while others are punished for the same thing.

Agreeing on basic rules that the calculator should do, or basic rules for the forum, stuff that anybody can agree on, would be simple to implement. All the rest of this “my way or the highway” is just making people more frustrated.

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Actually I’m agreeable for ANY idea yours, mine, others…that will fix what is in place now.

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