in this thread user /u/trecenters asked for a definintion of "significant" and "useful" in recipe posts. It's tough to define, so I decided to post my thoughts about it (these don't necessarily reflect the position of the other mods, though the rule changes were a group decision).
When I see a post that's clearly in violation of Rule 6, and includes something like "this is my first recipe, I'm excited to share, I'm a long time lurker and I want to give something back", it puts me (or another mod) in a tough position. My choices are (a) hurt a first time poster who might not contribute again or (b) ignore the dozens of very active users of this sub who have asked for more moderation. The poster says he is a long-time lurker, so in my mind he ought to know the rules by now. When this is backed up by multiple users hitting the "report" button, the post is deleted.
It would be MUCH easier if we just said "all recipes in the monthly thread - period". We make exceptions for 'recipes that do include significant development notes or other useful information' but it's difficult to determine where that threshold lies.
In my view, a post ought to contribute to your skill as a mixer. If it's a list of ingredients, it doesn't do that. If it includes notes on how flavors were chosen, the tweaking process, flavor tasting notes, the effects of "enhancers" like AP or citric acid, or anything that might help another mixer with his/her own creations, it stays. If it's about technique, equipment, processes... it stays. If it's an honest question that can't be answered with 60 seconds of sidebar / search function, it stays.
Since the new rules were implemented, users have been really on active with the report button. If I think that a post should remain but it's got 5 reports, chances are it's going away. My job as a mod here is not to control content but to make the sub the most useful it can be to the largest number of users. One way to do that is to push recipe content to the appropriate thread, so when someone visits this sub looking for recipe ideas they have one big, easy thread to search through for inspiration, and an archive of past threads as well.
An analogy: I love to cook. For the first 20 years I cooked, I worked from recipes. I would make minor changes, but pretty much followed the recipe. Some worked, some didn't. One day I found Alton Brown and the show Good Eats. Alton gave recipes too, but much more importantly he talked about the process of cooking: the science behind chemical reactions in the food, techniques to get a certain result, gear and equipment, and so on. It completely changed the way I cook. I rarely use recipes anymore, but rely on techniques and experience to turn ingredients into good meals. I had 20 years of dry turkeys, but now I brine them not just because it works, but also because I know why it works. I no longer make gravy by putting wondra into stock, rather I start by making a roux because the fat coats the flour particles protecting them from clumping when liquid is added, and I can control both the flavor of the gravy and it's thickness by cooking the roux to various stages of color - no more lumpy gravy. I understand why, not just how. How is easy, but it doesn't make you a better cook, it just makes you a robot. Why allows you to take what you know and apply it to every meal you make. So to finish the analogy: recipe posts should be more like Good Eats and less like AllRecipes.com. Some people still want to follow recipes, so we have a dedicated allrecipes section of the sub, and it's the monthly recipe thread.
trecenters also asked about consequences from violating rule 6. No one is getting flamed, warned or banned unless they are an outright jackass. This has been a friendly community and I hope it remains so.
Final note: this sub is yours, it doesn't belong to the mods. My function is to make the sub what you users want it to be. Rules changes were instituted as the result of community feedback, not because the mod team are a bunch of control freaks. If you look at the number of positive comments in the rule-change thread, it backs our decision to increase moderation because that's what this community wants. If the community has decided that Rule 6 is universally reviled, let us know and we'll get rid of it.
As always: feedback is appreciated.
Honest question, why do we need such heavy moderation given the low volume of posts?
I only see a handful of posts from today on the subreddit.
We get a lot less posts on the weekends, roughly 1/3rd of what we get on most days of the week.
Ok so like 30 instead of 10?
You would be surprised to see the amount of threads that I delete immediately while sitting on "New." If it is a blatant rule break, or under the list of "Posts which will be deleted:", I'll delete it without needing reports.
This sub isn't about sharing recipes; it's about learning how to mix your own juice, and just happens to have an archive of recipes. If a recipe doesn't help teach you how to mix your own juice, just what to mix in this instance, then it doesn't deserve its own thread.
Would you rather have a high volume of shit, or a low volume of sex?
The low number of posts is because the mods weed out the bad posts that offer no help or guidance. If we didn't have that, this place would turn into handchecks, vendor shoutouts, drawings that users request from vendors...it would get really redundant really fast.
But shit and sex are subjective... one man's trash and all. I see a problem with this sub with the hostility. It turns away the newbies from ever contributing until they achieve a level of mastery that I can only imagine takes years to get to. It seems there is an eliteness that one has to obtain to post here. That's why I think even the comments on threads are fairly low input, people are afraid to discuss things for fear of "sidebar" responses or not feeling good enough to contribute. I know I feel this way.
This sub is less DIY_ejuice and more DIY_ejuice_advanced. Maybe that's what a certain subset of people want, but I doubt it's what the majority of the people who come to the sub want. Maybe another subreddit needs to exist - DIY_ejuice_beginner - because this place is way to hostile for newbies. When I decided to start DIY I imagined this place would be good to learn. It's far from it. It has some content for beginners in the sidebar, but short of that there is a huge gap between the type of content that beginners want vs the type of content that the advanced mixers want.
I'm sure there are a lot more vocal people on the sub that want this type of moderation than actual users of this sub. The rest which are likely far greater in number have been shamed once or twice and probably just lurk and will never contribute back into the sub because of this bad taste in their mouth when they started. Sure if they stick with it they might contribute years down the road when they become an advanced mixer, but it leaves a huge gap between newbie and advanced that will just be silent due to the way this place is organized.
I consider myself a newbie. I sub here and have to say I don't get much from this sub at all. I wish it could be a place to help me get ideas on how to become better but it definitely does not help me with that. I feel it is more of a water cooler community for advanced mixers to discuss while screaming "sidebar" at any newbie that gets too close. I enjoy mixing, I probably suck at it. And I probably won't ever contribute here for years to come. I'm attempting to learn on my own by just going blindly into it - mix what I want to mix, experiment on my own, maybe grab some ideas of mixes for e-liquid-recipies, but really using my own thoughts due to lack of specific flavors or desires. And that's the way it seems people in this sub want it. It's probably how a lot of you got to where you are as well. But like the Alton Brown analogy, you don't get into cooking by first watching that show. That's probably later in the game once you already are cooking a lot.
There is no newbie DIY ejuice sub. You will receive all of the newbies here. And personally I think you are turning many of them away from this hobby because of the elitist attitude here. Like I said above maybe another sub needs to be created because if you want to keep this place like this then there really is no where else for someone new to go.
A majority of the sidebar exists because of questions being asked over and over. It was a necessary gathering of information to avoid having posts asking questions and not getting answers due to people already contributing and having that information added to the sidebar. It doesn't take years to be able to contribute something useful. People who have been mixing for a month or less have something useful to share with other new mixers.
The elitist attitude exists in everything. There's not one hobby you will find that doesn't have active people with that sort of attitude. Most of those people aren't trying to be assholes. They just give a short answer because it's been asked over and over, sometimes even added to the sidebar, and it gets old answering the same questions repeatedly. Of course, there are people who act like assholes just to be assholes.
Personally, I think a lot of people here take things way too seriously. It's a hobby and should be treated as such. Learn, create, share. People tend to get up in arms when an opinion is disagreed with. If someone disagrees with me, I hear them out. I'm wrong on some things as much as the next guy.
This sub seems advanced to new mixers because it's maturing, to an extent. It would become stagnant if we only posted the same stuff posted a year ago. There's only so much to discuss before moving on to learn more tricks, discover new flavor companies, etc.
What would you like to see discussed? You can feel free to PM me with whatever you're having trouble with and I'll try to help guide you through some stuff you wouldn't feel comfortable asking for fear of ridicule. I'm not always the sarcastic douche I seem to be.
nothing wrong with being a newbie. this sub can be hostile towards them but it can also offer critical information for those who do some research and are courageous enough to ask for help in a way that doesn't waste anybodies time. don't be afraid just start posting. i think some of that pressure exists so that people will do their own research before leaning on people here too heavily. I see the argument from both angles. but if you're the kind of person who would be turned off from a hobby because some people on the internet yell at you for being a beginner then you're kind of passing the buck? But maybe you're right and maybe there should be a diyejuice101 just like there's a vaping101? I would probably hang out and contribute on there what little I know.
This thread is kinda old so very few people will see it now, but I just wanted to thank you for saying this. I imagine there are a lo of lurkers like myself that appreciated your words.
The number of up votes you've received (balanced by the obvious down votes) verifies that assumption.
Thank you.
I stopped reading after the first few sentences only because I wanted to let you know, I started DIY two months ago, and I learned because I was told to UTFSE and now I have my own juice line and a lot of people prefer my juice to premium juice now. It doesn't take years to master. It takes an internet connection, extra money to blow on flavors, and passion. If you truly desire to mix well, you will. You have to truly want to learn each individual flavor, and I don't mean by single mixes. I've never made a single mix. Ever. Sorry for going on, just thought I'd let you know it isn't too hard to learn by searching through posts online and ELR is a blessing. Good day sir :)
I'm not suggesting no moderation. But this is a place for recipes (at least I think so). Relegating almost all recipes to a single thread seems counterintuitive.
I think there's a big difference between content that is inappropriate (hand checks) and content that comes in a range of qualities (recipes).
It also makes searching easier, I think.
What should our primary content be, if not recipes? And shouldn't we be free to post that content and let the users determine how worth while it is?
I've noticed this "fencing" of content in several subs and it reminds me of traditional forums and their "mega threads". It destroys the reasons I like the way Reddit organizes submissions.
But maybe I'm alone in this.
I agree that recipes are the main attraction of the sub. BUT how would we have those recipes if we didn't know how to use our ingredients? Even if you've only used a flavor once and decide to throw together something random, you at least have a little bit of knowledge on what the flavor adds to a mix. Of course, this can go all the way back to how certain molecules react with others to give a certain taste, but that's where the Deeper sub comes into play.
When I first started coming here, I didn't write down random recipes to try. I wanted to get as much information as I could before I started, and that included tons of notes by experienced users. Since then, 90% of those people have vanished, but their notes were what kept me from losing hope by making shitty bathtub juice.
I'm not saying people should include every single nuance they get from an ingredient, but anything is helpful. In my opinion, the monthly recipe thread should just include the recipe with minimal notes; short and sweet, and users vote on the better ones. Posting a recipe on a separate post should include anything helpful you find along the way in case a new user sees it and decides they want to dive into DIY because of it.
Of course, everyone has a different opinion on posting recipes and it's not going to come down to "use this format or get the fuck out". Everyone has different thought processes, and I for one, like seeing other people's process. It keep things interesting and informative.
I don't think is a place for recipes at all - there are plenty of those resources out there. If it were, I probably wouldn't even be here, I'd just surf in, grab ideas and bolt.
This is a place where a community works better to become better DIY mixers, and because so many people want to share recipes, there's a place to stick that, too. But, as is the point of this post, recipes don't make you any better at this, they merely let you practice technique by copying others.
To a lot of you it seems upvotes don't matter. But being a relatively quiet person in this sub (tho not a lurker by any means) I really like to try recipes created by others, but I utilize upvotes to find "good" ones. The monthly thread while cool and all, is absolute crap at the vote factor. I would never have touched Fruit by the Ml had I seen it in the thread with its paltry votes, vs the 31 it received on its own. Right now the highest votes on the monthly thread is a 9, vs other recipes sitting at 20+.
And also jumping in on some other comments. This place really is not as friendly as everyone would like it to be. I can't think of the last time I read a recipe where the commenters had ACTUALLY TRIED the damned juice before trying to make changes. Or even mention trying it at all. I DESPERATELY want to hear people's thoughts on how a juice actually TASTES.
EDIT: Formatting
Thanks for the clarification, appreciate that it's a tough job trying to keep everyone happy.
> This has been a friendly community and I hope it remains so.
The brigading against posts that breaks the rules has got to stop for that to happen. A newbie doesn't need 10 people telling them to read the sidebar or use search - it just creates a hostile environment and usually devolves into arguments and name calling like you saw on that thread. Maybe just setup Automoderator to automatically remove posts that reaches a certain threshold?
THe strange thing is, when you see a post that clearly violates the rules, there's usually a bunch of responses helping the person out.
I agree the noob shaming should stop, but I don't know exactly how that should happen.
If you (mods) want or think the users want more discussion on technique/process/tips instead of recipes then stop making rules subjective and please just make ALL recipes go in the monthly thread. Some will find that inconvenient, the mods will be deleting a lot of posts for a while, everyone will eventually get used to it. Stick the recipe links up top instead of buried halfway down the sidebar. Write "No recipes" under the "Submit new content button".
As it stands, Rule 6 just results in a lot of hand-wringing about whether or not a post is "worthy", and people desperately trying to come up with "notes" like a grade schooler trying to make word count on their English essay.
To be honest, I think users posting recipe threads without significant notes should be given the opportunity to add/edit the original post to include them. Sometimes they are just unaware of the intricacies that constitute "significant" and can provide the necessary elaboration after some solicitation.
Some of us aren't gifted with the necessary vocabulary or eloquence in speech needed to create something truly concise and I feel some opportunity for iteration would be more beneficial then just depositing said recipe into some recipe bank thread.
Having a first recipe post being heavily criticised really dampens any motivation towards future contribution and I feel what this sub lacks are more varied inputs from the myriad of lurkers around waiting to "step up".
I'm all for rule 6 for the simple fact if you want your recipe up front you are forced to explain it. You're recipe might taste great but if it contains ingredients like "TFA cheesecake" or something some might write it off, unless you EXPLAIN why it's used. And if you're a new mixer and you mixed up a great recipe, no one is going to mix it unless you give them a reason too, and you do that by explaining the recipe and the choices you made. It's an excellent rule and keeps all the fluff to monthly. Which isn't a bad thread either. Some excellent stuff comes out of the monthly.
No idea what's wrong with TFA Cheesecake.
As a newbie with a limited number of flavors in my inventory, in a Cheesecake mix recipe, would this is the only flavor Cheesecake I have ever tasted or used be justification enough in a separate recipe post?
(A post ought to contribute to your skill as a mixer. If it's a list of ingredients,notes on how flavors were chosen, the tweaking process, flavor tasting notes, the effects of "enhancers" like AP or citric acid, or anything that might help another mixer with his/her own creations, it stays. If it's about technique, equipment, processes... it stays).
List's of ingredients are the most helpful to me , i understand tweaking but not really processes .
I pick flavors that i think would go well together and combine them and hopefully it turns out well . I don't want to make it any more complicated than it needs to be .
Just my opinion of course
And your opinion is appreciated.
First question: Would you be a better mixer if you understood processes better?
Second: Isn't it more helpful to have all the recipes in one thread that you can browse for ideas?
I feel like this is a crisis of identity...
Does the target demographic of this sub want to:
- Be a 'mixologist' or
- Make some tasty juice to get their nic fix in a better/cheaper way than commercial juice?
Those are two pretty different things to be honest.
When I came here, it was #2, and I suspect the majority of new influx users would agree.
If this sub is for #1, it's more niche than the number of subscribers indicates.
We are unfortuinately trying to be both, which makes it tough. We want to see a lot of #1 content while not scaring #2 away.
There are several internet resources for those who just want recipes. If we become that we will lose the posts that really help the #1s, and TBH I don't know of another place to find those other than the subs that those posters have created in response to "too much #2".
Personally as a newbie I'm quite happy with rule 6, I've mixed quite a few recipes of my own and been pretty happy with them but the truth is although I think they are my own they have probably been done before, I'm not making anything too exotic. But if I feel proud of it and want to share it there is a place for that in the monthly. I enjoy reading the notes of you more experienced guys but I don't have the knowledge to make that sort of contribution. As a side I think if you've spent more than a week here reading posts you'll understand all the sidebar comments, but I still see a lot of helpful comments to easy answer questions, it's only if the op gets snarky that the flaming starts.
I haven't been here that long but personally I like all the recipes in one place. So, my vote if it counts, is to keep rule #6. It's easy enough to bookmark the link for each month, or, copy the recipes you like into a word doc. I save all the recipes that look interesting to me, print them out and put them in my Mixing Notebook.
I have learned a shit ton of stuff from lurking and reading through all the posts here, and the ones that are not conducive to teaching, and/or improving the overall craft of mixing juice are really annoying. I think that because it IS DIY, you will get out of it, what you put into it, like any other hobby, or art form.
The first thing new users should be doing is reading the rules, and doing the research. There is so much awesome info in the sidebar, and by using the search function, that I have only had need to ask a couple of questions since joining, and even those were only after a couple of months of research AND experimenting with about 40 different recipes. Apx 5 of those were from the monthly or flavor of the week threads, and the rest we tried to come up with on our own. We have about a dozen that we vape out of those, and we are still tweaking a few, attempting to find perfection.
Since this is a DIY site, and enough can be learned through research, I'm sorry, but I don't see the need to be catering to people who are too lazy to at least attempt to read and follow the rules. Maybe I'm just old and grumpy, or maybe, just maybe, this world is full of lazy, entitled, and easily offended mindsets.
So, here's my two cents right or wrong.
I think each post needs to be really taken in context. If /u/NotCharlesManson (just because he loves being paged) posts a recipe with no context or notes, Absolutely just delete it.
However, I cook too. Some of my best recipes were just "I wonder what would happen if I tossed all this shit together, because it's all I have". I still use some of those today (for example, orange juice and soy sauce for a turkey baste).
I think my best juice creation that wasn't based on another recipe is stuff that I just said "As odd as it sounds, this might taste good together." I don't have any tasting notes, I don't have any development notes. I just tossed something together and holy hell it works.
I'm going to say something blasphemous here. I have never once tasted any of my flavors by itself. If you asked me what 5% dragon fruit tastes like, I have no clue. I know what it adds to a juice, and I'm starting to tell when a juice could benefit from it or not. Can I explain why? no.
As I get more experienced, I will be able to provide all the notes and details. Right now, there's just no way I can.
I don't disagree with your decision, and I choose to abide by it. I just probably won't post a recipe for a long time, because I simply cant. Posting in a recipe thread is an option, but look at the last one, and less than half had any sort of constructive feedback.
I'm just getting started. I'm nowhere at any level near any of you. I also don't have time to wick a dripper to go through my flavors. In time I will. For now, I'll do what I can.
Keep rule 6! Nothing is more annoying than seeing a post with "x% this, x% that. Shake and vape!". It offers no guidance as to how OP arrived at those percentages, and it doesn't help new mixers at all. They'll try that recipe, and if they don't like it, they'll likely avoid those flavors in the future because they think it was the flavor's fault. The best recipes on here include the thought process of why certain flavors work together. People get lucky with mixes all the time but they don't understand why it worked.
I have to say that the strict rule enforcing has probably kept me from taking a break from the sub. New users might get pissed off at first when their post is removed, but you and Skid always give an explanation of why it was removed and they learn from that. Thanks for all you guys do.
Thanks for the feedback Chuck. One of the reasons for rule 6 was to keep valuable contributors like you from jumping ship.
+1 for Good Eats, probably my favouritest show of all time.
I prefer the Trance & Mansey show. Watch live on reddit 24/7!
not to toot my own horn too much, but
>I wish every post resembled this one! -/u/Botboy141
> One day I found Alton Brown and the show Good Eats. Alton gave recipes too, but much more importantly he talked about the process of cooking: the science behind chemical reactions in the food, techniques to get a certain result, gear and equipment, and so on. It completely changed the way I cook.
this.. everything else is just numbers someone else liked, and a starting point on something new. Sadly this is also why i haven't bothered taking more than a glace at the recipe thread. It may be more useful to someone with more experience or with a larger variety of flavors on hand. Only a few months in to dyi myself.
That said this is also why i have a note pad for later on when i can actually seek something i can't google and actually put the suggestions to use.
otherwise http://e-liquid-recipes.com/ is great but it didn't take more than a few of them to realize that with out the specifics even a highly ranked recipe in my flavor profile while vapeable i wouldn't pass on.
now the recipes that do mention why they choose what they choose or even just mention how it was mixed and why this made it better worse or even just the reason why they choose to do things this way or that. This is why i read anything here. So far just reading most of these have made the most difference in anything i have made myself.
but I'm new and lurking and learning.
TLDR : analogy is good + 1 for Alton Brown reference.
I hope you've watched Cutthroat Kitchen as well!
Not a big fan of "cooking contest" shows. FWIW I think Alton has wasted his talents since the end of Good Eats. He's probably a lot richer, but not doing what he's best at.
I'd watch the shit out of Alton Brown and Gordon Ramsay having a cook-off. Alton was the main reason I started cooking back in high school. Before that, it was frozen pizza, ramen, and Hot Pockets all the time.
I'm usually not a fan either but the ridiculous shit the chefs have to go through to make something simple is good for a laugh.
He certainly does seem to be going the Ramsay route, at least his snark doesn't have to be bleeped every five seconds hehe
Follow him on twitter...I think its part Food Network making everything a competition (which he seemingly is not a fan of despite Cutthroat Kitchen) and part him feeling Good Eats had run its course. He does web shorts that are very Good Eats-like though.
I feel like it if we disregard rule 6, the sub will be a constant cycle of new people posting "I made my first recipe!!!!!". The people that have been here and seen every combination of strawberry and cream will leave, and as the original new people stick around they will get sick of even newer people posting their 1st original recipes. The older new people will subsequently leave with along with any valuable experience they obtained. And the cycle will repeat.
Requiring extensive notes/questions/etc helps everyone. Plus, when a well though-out, reasoned, and explained recipe post is posted on the front page, I am more inclined to give it a shot, because I've got a better idea what the person was doing/how much experience he/she has.
Hey guys im new here and i was just wondering if you guys could help me figure out what rule 6 is? /s
Could we maybe get a list together of "approved professionals".
Sort of like how AMAs are moderated.
So, if you win the recipe competitions, you are added to the list.
If you are a chef of a professional line of ejuice, you are added to the list.
And so on, but you need to provide some sort of evidence to the mods.
The idea being, if you are on the list, and you post a recipe, it's likely to be a good one. With or without notes.
But hopefully you respect the process of learning, and add good notes.
Just thoughts.
Eta, fully reading the comments, I love that there are some tasty looking recipes hiding in there... Even on a meta thread!
I love you guys!
I dig rule 6. If someone wants to make a standalone post of their recipe, they should be proud enough to add some notes for it. I don't really care for individual notes for each flavor because they tend to look like the user used a thesaurus and picked out the most complicated synonyms for creamy or fruity. just the overall thought process behind it and the overall final taste. e.g., why did they use these particular flavors? did they make revisions? if so, why? What is the overall flavor of it? How could this recipe improve? something like that.
Good post. I think one thing that I'm guilty of (and I'm sure I'm not the only one) is to actually visit the monthly recipe threads and make them more lively, so we don't have the issues with recipe posts.
I think if people saw them getting more hits, and more comments on recipes in there, it might naturally stem the tide of "look what I made recipe" posts.
/u/kirkt
Does Reddit offer an option for a minimal character post? As a frequent user of this sub, I would love to see posts require a minimum number of words or letters. Make people think about why the recipe is good or why they feel the recipe can be "significant" and/or "useful".
Good Post, I was mostly worried about Rule 6 because of the multiple times I have seen banter between people with different opinions. Some of which get pretty heated and downright nasty at times.
Edit: You are doing a great job by the way. No one or thing can make a forum flow perfectly and there will always be bumps in the road. Thank you for the time you put into moderating.