Updating flavor naming conventions (an update from Sprks)

I wanted to take some time to give an update on the Dupe Fixing, and mention some changes that you might have noticed.

For your edification (aka “points worth pondering…”)

I reference the original manufacturer’s website(s) frequently (except the most obvious, and ones I KNOW to be accurate. Even then I frequently check anyways.) The mnufacturer should be given priority IMO, not a vendor. :wink:

The majority of the following relates to pre-existing flavors in the database…but here are some examples of how I’ve been trying to improve the functionality and user convenience.

These examples can (of course) also serve as a general set of guidelines for the formatting structure that I’ve been trying to nail down/iron out for “best practices” until Daath has the time to implement whatever great new system he’s got in mind!

I’ve also tried to go with “separators” (the commas, parenthesis, etc) to hopefully try and help facilitate an easier time for him to code the different segments. Whether or not it’ll actually prove helpful is unknown, but I have done my utmost to hold his needs in mind (with my limited coding history and understanding as a very loose guideline), as well of course, as the user base (the wonderful community we call ELR).

And now, to the meat and potatoes!

Naming convention examples:


General:


These are generally straight-forward, and easy to understand

Common Flavor Name: Type/Variety: Brand:

  • Strawberry, Ripe (TFA)
  • Strawberry, Sweet (Cap)

.
The following are examples of slightly more complex varieties, but I think they’re still pretty clear and self-explanatory:

Common Flavor Name: Line Variants: Brand:

  • Coffee (SC) (Real Flavors)
  • Coffee (VG) (Real Flavors)
  • Yumberry (extract) (Real Flavors)
  • Yumberry (SC) (Real Flavors)
  • 27 Bears (Silverline) (Cap)
  • Raspberry (Malina Koncentrat) (Inawera)
  • Raspberry (Wera Garden E-Aromat) (Inawera)

Note: Ina has all too many “lines” and similar (if not IDENTICAL) names in each. This is still under scrutiny to see about an improvement to the layout. But if you go on Inawera’s site, and look for strawberry… you’ll get a good idea of what I mean. Lines from Koncentrat to Wera Garden, to E-Aromat, and then at some point they started merging within them… so, yeah, that’s a big ball of wax unto itself for the moment.

Next up is:


“Creative Branding”


Common Flavor Name: Brand:

Blenderize (Tutti Frutti) (FA)
Dark Bean (Coffee Espresso) (FA)

This one is another for points of contention, but, with these examples in particular, I lead with trying to keep the common name first, and the “FA name” second.

Things do get a bit more complicated in some respects though…


International examples (as needed/warranted):


Common Flavor Name: Type/Variety: Brand:

Banana (Bano) (FA)
Raspberry (Berryl) (FA)
Cherry (Cerise, Cillegia) (FA)
Cherry, Black (Amarena, Cherryl) (FA)

Be it French, Italian, Spanish (Spain), or otherwise…
there’s simply enough separate entries (and corresponding misspellings, etc) to warrant combining the most common/popular flavors with their foreign names. This way, when someone from another “major country” (no slight intended, just going by the most frequent outlying flavor additions that should be in with the common one) types in their local label (EG: Cerise) it still brings them to the primary flavor that everyone uses, has the most notes on, and percentages, etc.
The goal here was to try and be as inclusive as possible to our non-English-speaking users as possible, while minimizing stray database entries! (Hopefully ya’ll see this as a win/win.)
This will be an ongoing and case-by-case basis, but for now, I have already created the new format, and merged the appropriate “strays” into the two Cherries as shown above.
.


Unique Examples:


At the moment, remaining untouched.
Some don’t really have the “weight” to break them down individually, and still remain easily recognizable. In other words, the collective makes the whole:

Common Flavor Name: Brand:

Harvest Berry (Cap)
Lemon Meringue Pie v1 (Cap)
Strawberry Dark Chocolate- (Inawera)
Strawberry Milk Chocolate- (Inawera)

.
Others are “hybrids” (aka Complex Flavors) and rather non-descript:
Metaphor (FA)
wOw (FA)

But they still have no “viable” alternative.
.


Then we have “One Shots” and “Blends”:


Common Flavor Name: Type/Variety: Brand:

Cherry Bee (Blends) (FA UK)

    • There’s a whole host of these that I have to key in soon (for correct structure, and because they’re new, and I can get ahead of the game for a change!)

But I believe this will make it easier to find them (for starters), and more importantly, because they are not really the same thing as one shots (given those are leaning towards “popular people” releasing their recipes in this form. AKA “Community Flavor Packs” and “DIY Mixer’s Showcase”).
https://www.bullcityflavors.com/community-recipe-packs/

It will also enable them to be easier to find for folks using the shopping list on ELR. As well as serve as the possible reminder that some might need to look in the One Shots section! :wink:

Blueberry, Blow Pop (One Shot) (ooo)
Watermelon, Pop (One Shot) (ooo)

.


Goal


Ease of use, in the stash and in the shopping list!! (the same basic categories grouped together. EG: Creams, Strawberries, Vanilla’s)

-%20(example%20of%20goal%20-%20final)

You’ll notice that plain old “strawberries” come first
Then “specialties”. (Biscuit, Jam with toast, etc)
Then those with what I refer to as “modifiers” (Sweet, Ripe, Wild, etc.)

**Note: It’s worth mentioning that the database has already gotten so large with some of these that they take time to merge where the larger groups are concerned. Most everything I’ve watched, has been successfully merged, once enough time has passed for the merge to complete (within the actual processing of the database). **So if you see that you appear to have lost notes, pricing, etc, PLEASE DON’T do anything immediate!!!
Leave it alone for the day, and check back tomorrow.

IF for some reason you lose notes (or anything else) in the process. I humbly apologise (for any that I am responsible for). I’ve had this experience myself in the past, and believe me when I say, I know the sense of loss as well as frustration. But the sooner we can get things organized, the less chance of having it happen again in the future (is how I look at it).
I hope you can extend your patience and understanding, but totally understand if it’s otherwise.

.


— REQUESTS —


PLEASE DON’T do the following:

There’s a special place in h…nevermind. :crazy_face:

  • Don’t put the size of what you bought in the naming line!!!
    EG: Strawberry Jam One Shot OOO (30ml)

  • Don’t put your inventory/location number in the naming line.
    EG: Box3, row12

  • Don’t put the percentage in the flavor naming line.
    EG: 1.5% CAP Sweet Cream
    (unless it’s a “Dilution”, etc -see below!)

  • Don’t abbreviate flavor names.
    EG: Sw Straw (Cap)
    They will be merged.

.

PLEASE DO:

  • CLEARLY mark/indicate that your special creation (be it a NET, Dilution, Solution, or custom flavoring combination, etc) as such by using a suffix in parenthesis!
    EG: (Custom), or (My DIY), or (Jim’s Mix), (stone), (base), (10% dilution), (20% solution), etc.

If you’re willing to do this, it’ll dramatically increase the likelihood of your special and very personal concoction that you’ve worked so diligently on, preserved!! Even though the Dupe Team are typically “Hands-Off” when it comes to stones and bases (etc), unless they’re marked as such, some have unfortunately been lost.
Help us to help you!

  • take the time to key in flavor names as accurately as you can (language barriers are easily understood, and accidents happen. But sheer laziness isn’t appreciated.)

and another…

  • In the above pic, you’ll see someone that used the flavor name line to note that he/she can swap flavors ["Vanilla whipped cream (CAP) or sweet cream (TPA)]. The place for this is IN YOUR RECIPE NOTES. These will be merged as they continue to be found.

NOTE: For those who try to help by submitting dupes, sometimes the easiest way to find them, is to think outside the box. For instance, the way I found the whipped cream fiasco above, was to use “ped” in the primary search, and then refine from there. :wink:

  • Make sure that you pick the closest (or right) existing selection!
    Don’t just put strawberry chocolate (Ina), as it DOESN’T EXIST.
    (unless it’s a stone/etc, in which case, see above please!)

-%20STRAWBERRY%20MILK%20CHOCOLATE%2C%2010%20ml%20-%20Inawera%20Flavors

  • Strawberry Dark Chocolate- (Inawera)
  • Strawberry Milk Chocolate- (Inawera)

The database DOES HAVE both variations! And I learned something in the process (as I often do) by having to check the manufacture’s site to verify that the flavor entry in the database wasn’t a fluke or accident! I had no idea there was a Dark Chocolate version (and only 5 recipes exist with it!). lol

  • Be assured that flavors that used to exist but are no longer in production will still be preserved to the best of abilities.
    I think a “Discontinued” entry would be helpful, but as of yet (at least for me) that’s on the back burner. The things that are currently in use are a much higher priority.

Closing Thoughts


I appreciate your reading this far. There’s SO much to cover that many folks (mostly forum users) are quite aware of, but even more are NOT it would seem. Please help spread the word as needed, but PLEASE do so as politely as possible.

I also acknowledge that some folks might have a hard time with some aspects, but I’m genuinely trying to consider all aspects. There’s no other factor or agenda than to serve the cause (keeping things clean and organized with some usable sensibility) and our community. And I hope that I’m doing that successfully in most folks eyes.

There’s more here that I’ve forgotten to mention I’m sure, but this is a lot of what I wanted to cover for the time being. And I’m running out of steam (as it’s taken almost 3 hours to get all these things and thoughts together to hopefully illustrate some of the issues we (as a community, and as Dupe fixers) face, and ways to improve things for the the immediate future.

Thanks for your time and efforts!
Much love to those who try to help and educate!!
Rob

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reserved :slight_smile:

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reserved again :slight_smile:

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This is beautiful, only thing left to do is figure out how to make this post pop up when all the people who don’t participate in the forum open their profile on the recipe side lol. I have a suspicion that a metric shit ton of this stuff comes from people who don’t ever come over to the forum side, and don’t even have a clue about any of this database stuff.

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Could make it a dumb pop up lol.
Every time someone hits the “add to stash” button a window appears with “read first” then continue on the bottom.

Is it easily overwritten by just scrolling down? Yes. But it will frustrate the newb so much, that he/she won’t just add randomly spelled flavors to the data base lol.

Could top it off with, after receiving 3 warnings from Zen, and purposely ignoring it, access to the create recipe/add to stash will be denied for 24 hrs.

Before now somebody starts typing, it’s a joke and I’m not serious with the 24 hr ban, but sadly soon we will have to start using this kind of methods, if people just don’t care.

Lots of people complain about ATF not being free, I don’t have a account there, just going by hear say. But if it’s true, I can see why.

Nobody but the specific selected category and subcategory mods can add/remove/edit flavors and maintain these, which on one hand is nice but in the other always leads to descriptions stating something down the line, such as (FA) Custard v2 is Custard Premium, but it wasn’t in the database.

Leading to more confusion, however it teaches people how to read and pay attention for 2 seconds lol. I still don’t like the idea, as well as having to pay to publish more then 2 recipes? Again just from hearsay im sorry if it’s not up to date info.

Our database is much better, even superior, if people would stop adding random none sense.

But if that’s the case, again I can understand why people come here, but then complaining about the data base cluster xxxx.

I think it’s a good step in the right direction and thank you Sprks and others involved for doing it, but we definitely need to find a way to get this msg across and actually implemented. Otherwise all this work won’t last long :frowning:

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Awesome work! Thank you!

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Absolutely could not agree more! :clap:

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Just come to the facebook DiY e-juice recipes and see the amount of screenshots from ELR. Most of them have wrong flavors entered

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Facebook is the devil. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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To be realistic on implementation (it’s already in progress) and taking a cue from @Fishaddict420’s comment, having a user actually come over to the forum side and read this would be a minor miracle.

Then, seeing as how it is rather lengthy, there’s the issue of their willingness to actually read the whole post (TLDR syndrome). I’ve had somewhat limited success linking my Flavor Stash Guide but that’s only because I link it in every comment I’ve left. There’s no way to ensure it’s been read and that they “get it”. Which leads to having (I would assume) some sort of secondary safeguard for manually entered names.

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That’s some real dedication, Sparky. Kudos to you for the inordinate amount of time you’ve spent so far.

From how this is worded, it seems like the database is going to openly remain in the hands of the community without any real checks and balances other than these great guides and some diligent oversight? Unfortunately as per the nature of the beast, I don’t see a day where no one makes any more mistakes and there’s nothing left to oversee. Glad you’re getting comfortable with the process because it will never end until the DB is locked (new entries subject to review prior to publishing), which is quite another undertaking. :wink:

I hope this gets visibility and helps make a large dent in the issues the DB is facing. Well done, and thanks again for the efforts!

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Bravo!!! Nicely done!

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Someone remind me why Sparky isn’t on staff here?

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Thank you for taking this on. Was just trying to find the right format to enter my DIYFS flavors and of course no two match. Would this be correct?
Cream (AR)(DIYFS)
Jasmine Tea (AR)(PG)(DIYFS)
Blueberry (Expert)(DIYFS)
Li Hing Mui (DIYF)

Some are Expert and some are Shacks Expert, is it okay to drop the “Shacks”? Makes it cumbersome imo.

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@Sprkslfly amazing work and a great plan moving forward.

I’m new around these parts but even I can tell when someone goes above and beyond.

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By Jove she’s got it! :tada:
(overall, yes)

But!
Jasmine Tea (AR)(PG)(DIYFS)

  • only if the manufacturer (not a vendor) makes a VG variant! (and in both cases, I would prefer the VG or PG to be before the AR (LINE designation)

EG:

Common name: modifier/identifier: line: brand:

Jasmine Tea (PG) (AR) (DIYFS)
Jasmine Tea (VG) (AR) (DIYFS)

I’m hoping to keep the (LINE) after the (MODIFIER/identifier), with the (BRAND) as the last part. :wink:

Great question, and thank you!

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Damn it, you must be exhausted! Kudos to you my good man!
:man_superhero:

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Incredible job, and I have to say, you had me at #CREAM.

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Good stuff Rob👌

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@Sprkslfly
WoW !! Thank you so much for your time and work to make things simplier for us all. Greatly appreciated !!

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