The encouragement that beginners need, opposed to dictating what they do

I have a sign on my door:

All my guests bring me happiness.
Some by coming.
Some by going.

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and if this was enough to send him (or her) scurrying off then they (PC pronoun) probably shouldnā€™t be on the internet anyway.

All in all Iā€™m sorry this person left. I hope they come back someday.

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Did I mention it would be creating a new data base as it develops? One which would more accurately reflect the way things have advanced. And dump a lot of bad data that exists.

I know on the surface this would be an unpopular idea but likely a better idea than than playing the little dutch boy and trying to plug up leak after leak (The dam is breaking). BTW I am a little dutch boy :wink:

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Considering the amount of bogus and outdated data on the main ELR site thatā€™s really not a bad idea. Then individuals can choose where they want to participate.

A little something I saw posted earlierā€¦

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One thing that may help new visitors is to have the pinned topics in the Beginners catagory linked on the Recipe side. The pinned topics here on the forum are cleaner and more in depth then the Guide section is.

All of the pinned topics here are a great read to new and old mixers.

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So true. But thatā€™s why more of us should be dropping a comment on them with the link to the guide so they know it does exist.

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I never really looked at the guide on the recipe side, until now. Links to forum threads such as The ELR Users Guide to Creating Your Flavor Stash may be useful but was created more recently. The first clickable link in the guide there is the forums tho. This being another solution to avoid mistakes tho not eliminate them. We shall see what he has up his sleeve for a better one.

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Iā€™m absolutely sure that @TorturedZen didnā€™t mean absolutely anything but help! He did it with me and Iā€™m a senior mixer, his only intention is to help you and whoever looks at your recipe be able to replicate it the right way.
So, heā€™s not biased whether youā€™re a beginner or advancedā€¦:joy::rofl:

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here, here, on the yearly top 50-100
a lot of new flavors
a lot of new recipes

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@Pro_Vapes WOW, perfect example.

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I think this thread should never be closed by admins, because itā€™s consisted of what the majority of mixers in this forum think about the flavour database in the recipe side.

New members should be directed to this thread to understand why @TorturedZen and everyone else do what they do concerning the database.

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Actually I think you hit on another problem. Maybe part of this whole pack of pickles is due to the fact that any ingredients you put in a recipe get automatically added to the DB. Itā€™s highly likely that a good number of ā€œingredientsā€ were never meant to be added. That one above reads more like personal notes than a community-intended concentrate. As if the recipe author intended the name to be a personal reference for himself so he could remember what he did later, never realizing that it was put into the flavor concentrate DB for all to see. Reminds me of some of the cryptic notes we see on some concentrates that donā€™t make sense. Maybe there should be some sort of fail-safe in the recipe creator that prevents ā€˜unapprovedā€™ recipe components from automatically writing to the DB.

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I had to go through the flavor list to add my new ones to my stash today because of capitalization and name differences. Absolute pita. There should only be one listing for Lemon Lime Capella.

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This isnā€™t true. I added 9 flavors to my stash today and none of the drop down names were on the most used titles for a single one. There should only be one for any given flavor. I do completely understand why there isnā€™t but does not negate the fact it is confusing and a pita. Was very frustrating for me here at first and in print corrections can come off as terse.

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When I first started I did not realize that flavors were added from your private stuff. It is even a problem now entering NETS. Would it be difficult to add a wall between the private and public recipes only allowing recognized ingredients (set by mods) used in a locked pull down to be published. Just a thought

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Your absolutely right! I agree that it is frustrating to the max! I added 16 new Purilum flavorings to my stash yesterday and Purilum is a newer brand and it is as messed up as the rest of the database with less users making it that much harder to choose the right one from the list!
I would suggest using the dupe checker but there are not enough people working on corrections (IF ANY) so they are just piling up.

This statement is true but iā€™m not so sure of the 90% number. My thought is that you shouldnā€™t have to choose one correct entry out of 2, 4, 10, or 25 incorrect entries. Adding flavors to your stash should be simple!
That would also eliminate the need for:

Which really shouldnā€™t be happening at all! I wonder how many others beside the OP of this thread have left because of this or just the general clustermuck of the database!

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My statement is incompleteā€¦ It actually pertains to adding flavors to a mix if you have those flavors correctly formatted in your stash already. If the proper name isnā€™t already in your stash then you are right, it will not appear near the top of the list.

Sorry for the mis-statement.

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Since this has become mostly about flavor stash woes, I thought Iā€™d check on the common mispronunciation of Purilum. I see this in flavor/mixing videos a LOT, people adding an extra ā€œiā€ to the name and itā€™s spread through the community. So, it has also inevitably infected the database.

Edit:ā€¦which is just one more reason to have a set dropdown of choices, as daunting a task as that must be.

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I donā€™t think people who use this site for recipes ideas or personal recipe storage would leave because of the state of the database, largely because most folks donā€™t know the DB is chaotic. I used it for a long time prior to joining the forum part, and never had a problem with the database, because I didnā€™t realize it was a clustermuck. The recipes I made and the flavors I used worked for me because I knew what they were as I selected them, even if misspelled or incorrectly formatted. One reason is because I didnā€™t realize then that the database was populated by everyone and their sister without any sort of enforced policies, and also because I didnā€™t know every flavor ever made, so I had no idea if an entry was actually legit or not. I was storing recipes for myself, not intending to share them (come on, I ainā€™t that good). Or, I was simply copying recipes I thought Iā€™d like to try. So, as long as I found a match I was fine (again, because I knew what I meant for future reference), and any I didnā€™t find I worded myself for myself, not realizing that any entry I would put in a recipe would end up in the pool with everything else. The ā€œPuriliumā€ thing is a great point. Iā€™d look at it and say ā€˜that looks like a match, works for me!ā€™ and add it, not knowing I was then contributing to the problem.

Again, I think there are a couple main things that need to happen, and again, nothing here is revolutionary or new. One, prominent links to articles about how the DB works, why it is so important to use it properly, and the guidelines for how to enter a concentrate, as well as making it clear that ANY entry made - either to your stash or to a recipe - ends up in the database so be careful. Or, make the DB read-only, requiring staff review for any concentrates a user wishes to include in the DB they canā€™t find on their own. No magic bullet; a lot of work ahead.

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Doesnā€™t help that vendors use their own labels. I ordered red touch twice before realizing I was ordering the same strawberry because the first was just labeled as strawberry. That was what was I put in the stash.

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