I can see a good point in maybe a forum section, but not in restricting it, at least for reading. I’d be tempted to say making it read-only except for “approved” members, but then again, how is an “uninitiated” supposed to get answers to their questions? I’d be tempted to leave it open for all to read and post to.
I haven’t seen much great value so far in the “restricted” a314 section as yet (in terms of having it restricted), but maybe I just am missing something.
The “qualifications” for membership, if any, would have to be somewhat subjective too. Many of the arguments about being “qualified” are valid. It’s not just length of forum membership, or how long you’ve been using pheromones, or age, etc. It would probably be more fair, and better for all, if there were no restrictions.
They may have changed the page since you were there last Tisha. When I looked they stated flat out the pheromone ingredients were from Androtics.
After seeing some of the ideas offered here, I have changed my initial opinion. There is really no way to determine who will be a good resource for research information based on either the time they have spent on the forum or the amount of product they have purchased.
As was mentioned, a number of members are highly experienced but relative newcomers on the forum. Others may be long-time users who have little to contribute. Rep points don’t always relate to how valuable the report is.
Some of our members here have obviously purchased a huge number of products, are very socially active, and spend a lot of time on the forum posting messages. Not all of us have the resources to purchase every product. Not all of us have massive amounts of time to spend posting. Not all of us are able to cruise the coffee shops and strip clubs every weekend – or at all.
I’m not really in this just for picking up women (though I’m certainly not averse to it). My original intention was to find something that will assist in meditation (with lots of good information from Tacitus and others – thanks!). I’m also interested in developing my own sense of perception and observing the subtle effects of these chemicals on myself and others.
I understand that the low cost on the advanced products is an incentive to report, and I try to do so as much as I am able. Without the wide variety of messages here, we would all have a lot less to go on. So I don’t think the forum should change at all.
As far as the special ordering at the store, when Jasmin determines the criteria for purchasing, I hope I qualify. If not, well, this is an enjoyable hobby, not a requirement for survival.
I’m just hoping that when things smooth out everything will go back to normal. I don’t like the idea of being restricted from the products I want to purchase. I am an adult, and intelligent enough to decide if I should use them or not. I do understand why for right now this needs to happen.
I also do not agree that we should have a separate forum for the advanced products, open to everyone or otherwise. Newbies are here learning from the advanced users and eventually the separation would have a forum section full of newbies not getting any help from the advanced section posters. I know it gets old when the most of you have “been there, done that”, but more and more newbies are arriving daily.
I agree with Gegogi to a extent, We cant go on rep points for a few reasons. 1 being what he listed in his post. Take me for example I have alot of reps points. Most of them are for threads where I gave pheromone advice and reports but there are some who gave them for other reasons as well.
With that system you could have people just repping to get to the advanced.
You also have to consider that there are alot of people who make purchases who dont use the forum and send in reports. This is why I think she will have to go with the time limit + the value of the reports submitted.
This is true also contrary to what alot of people think I have quite a few bad rep points as well. Some just because someone just thought my avatar was to slutty LOL. I got one because a newbie didnt get his order fast a while back. Then there are the ones that dont agree with my advice which is fine by me. I remember a while back there was a repping war going on when I first got here.
Alot of new people do have experience when they join the forum. The Key is they dont have experience with androtic products. According to Jas’s post you need to have that years experience with Androtics not just with pheromones. None of us know how closely this will be followed once the store seperates. Maybe they wont go a year maybe they will decide its a combination of time and contributions.
I for one Love tacitus posts but you would be surprised how many PM’s I get from young newbies who have no idea what he is talking about. I think alot of the experienced posters also forget that mones work differently on each person so they give a straight textbook anwser which just dosnt apply to every person. Example. Anone scares young girls or asian girls dont like it. This is not true of every young girl, there is more to it then that and the only way newbies are going to learn how to use these products is to be able to read all the posts advanced and consumer.
I wouldnt panic about it or anything, whatever happens happens. Lets just let them get caught up and the main store changedand then Jas can consider changing the forum if she wants.
Taters been negged a few times too. Personally i think Tishas rep is deserved, all 1000+ points of it.
I was thinking that reps should only be used to suggest advanced status. The final decision should still be Jasmins but if there arent any advanced users who are willing to rep one of your reports, not even one, that should be a sign that youre doing something wrong.
If nothing else, having one qualification be a rep level of 120 or so means you play well with others, or at least know when to suck up.
In three days there are only about two dozen votes. This says, to me, that there is not very much interest in the matter. Of those who have voted, so far, there is no apparent consensus, either.
The proposal seems to match the direction that Androtics has preferred. It would tend to isolate these “advanced” matters, to some unknown degree.
I’m undecided. Maybe that’s why there are so few votes already?
i like tate’s idea on journals. i kind of like tisha’s on the bit about not having a new form.
personally right now i would have asked for my money back on all my stuff that i have ordered because i have seen no real results on them. like A314 has not shown that it does anything for me. and i don’t want to OD on it at work so haven’t upped it past 3 drops (yes i tried 1 drop) and i have been to busy to go to any clubs for a while yet. so because i see these diff stuff on the partitives and mx’s and tests i see that people are actually getting results from diff stuff. and yes you have stuff on the forms about the regular stuff that i can buy, but from my exp when you split forms to 2 or more of them you lose people from the original one and only have them on the other ones and then i wouldn’t be sitting here hoping that once i get my new/old order, with IS, Ammo, Turn Up The Heat and do some combinations with A314 and In honesty and In Openness, that i might have success with them. like i said. if i saw less people talking about success then i probably would have written this whole thing off. BUT I’M STILL HOPPING FOR SUCCESS.
i don’t see the difference between a new discussion section and a new form. there the SAME. you put info in and people read it. i think you should just have a different discussion for putatives and mx’s. What i can agree with is a restriction on posting. i like reading stuff. I’M A READER. I LOVE READING. so i would like it if i could still read the stuff. i can live with not posting anything. And for anyone who has to LIE for a report is pathetic (since it seams that’s why you want to privatise it).
The only advantage I can see right off with a different section is that it helps keep things a bit more organized. I sometimes feel the existing forum sections can get too clogged with threads and I just feel overwhelmed at times (I have 17 pages of “unread posts” right now, partially due to having both my primary computers go kaput - I’m running off an old 300MHz thing right now and is it s-l-o-w-w-w-w-w-w). I have found in life that having information/things available is one thing, finding when you need it is another… Breaking things down into more searchable/findable units helps.
WhiteDragon32- I wouldn’t sweat ODing on non-androstenone products too much. Especially if it’s a short-term trial. With the androstenols you may just find people won’t shut up around you. With androsterone, you may turn around to find a trail of people following you around (that happend with me…). Just ease into it one product at a time, a little bit at a time. It seems androstenone is the one that can make people agitated, argessive, or otherwise uncomfortable.
I think that instead of creating a section strictly for putatives/experimones, they should create an ‘advanced pheromone-usage’ section instead. I for one regularly use putative/experimone series productions in conjunction with commercial products from here and elsewhere. It doesn’t make sense to me to separate the discussions about experimental products and commercial products altogether, given that many users co-mingle these products.
On the flip side, it seems that the general forum gets so flooded with feedback on putatives, experimental mixes, and ‘advanced level’ mixing that the general community seems to be losing sight of the fundamentals. I think most experienced users will agree (though few speak of it anymore) that there’s still a great deal of value in the basic, yet well proven pheromones and products. Androtics’ commercial line of products (IO, IS, TUTH etc) are great and very consistently provides results. Given all the playing I’ve done with putatives, Androstenone, Androsterone, and Androstenol (beta and alpha) still play a very big part of my pheromone mixes simply because they work very, very well.
I think the forum has focused so heavily on experimental products simply because its always more exciting to try and report on something new…consequently, however, the effectiveness of the fundamental pheromones and products is represented disproportionately. This seems to project a sense that there’s more value in the experimental products…which isn’t always the case. The experimental products aren’t necessarily better than the commercial products IMO, but we seem to put more value in experimental products and users who use them.
This creates problems when ‘entry level’ users are look for a more simplified approach to pheromones get bombarded with discussions on experimental products and advanced mixing methods. Many end up skipping the basics and jumping straight into an experimental approach to things…and they really are missing out. There’s also a lot of value, I think, for even the experienced users to step back and continue discussions on the commerical products… and to facilitate the continual improvement of these products.
I think the general forum has become too much of a technical forum…we’ve become too technical for our own good! These types of discussions really are priceless and there’s a place for that if you prefer the more complex route…but theres a great deal of value in the more streamlined approach to things as well. (AD’s commercial products and tried and true…they simply work!) Thats why each ‘school of thought’ should have its own respective forum.
I used to read every post a year or so ago. These days there is just too much volume to keep up and I mostly only read threads with posts by users with a very high information ratio. I’m sure there is lots one misses that way.
Tell me about it. I “went away” for a bit over a month and when I got back, there were 11 pages of posts in the Men’s and 9 pages in the Women’s forums alone.
I try to hit the forum every day (although I was “off” for a week while visiting relatives over the Holdays) and I still have 20 pages of “new posts.” Comes down to my skimming for the ones I have participated in, followed by any of eye-grabbing interest, followed by just going to the last page and working my way through a bit at a time. So I’m generally at least 2 to 3 weeks behind in reading things. So much repetition and “new threads” that could have been added to already existing older threads that covered the same ground already…
I agree with this but I also have to say its what keeps this forum so active.
I am a member at a few forums. One which is very organized. If you start a post on a subject that has already been covered the mods jump in and tell you to post in the appropriate spot. This turned a once popular forum into a dead zone. People read but no one posts and slowly it is fizzling out. (I am not talking about LS just so no one gets there panties in a ruffle)
I agree this forum needs a bit more organization when it comes to maybe seperating the advanced from the consumers but I think to much could be bad for the overall forum. People like to start there own threads and share there own experiences not add to someone elses.
Oh my. I actually agree with Tisha on this one! Whats needed is a better search engine and a way to mark threads interesting, then go back and read only the new posts in those threads. The daily e-mail thing is okay, but its too hard to respond, and it slows everything down.
Reps to Tisha, mostly because i bet she snorted when SteveO hit the bush.
I don’t see a need for a seperate forum. I would like to see choices for the product being reported on as a field when creating new threads, and make it a searchable function.
