Expert Articles and/or knowledge guides

[Shiningrobes]

This started as a response on a recent thread but I figured it might be better as it’s own thing. I copy pasted my abandoned comment below. On that thread Ouddict raised the notion of expert articles on kyara/kinam and musk etc so that hearsay posts and misleading info doesn’t take over threads. As someone who’s pieced things together what little I “ know” from the archives on here and whatever info I can get elsewhere I think it would be amazing to have a real destination of reliable, actual know-how to refer to. So many questions have been asked a million times. I’ve asked some of them.

Here’s what I started before I took my own advice and moved it here:

“Maybe we can take this discussion to a new thread or multi person dm chain and let the original post remain on topic. I think admin is probably just like all of us: people with jobs and lives and might appreciate more worked up ideas/proposals for things like this. I don’t know the mechanics of this site but if someone does maybe we can start a member working group to flesh out a solid proposal. No egos allowed!…” I don’t know what sticky posts are, but mention has been made more than once about things like this. Things, we as members would like to see.

After Scent Expo a couple people lamented the lack of social aspects like mixers etc. That would be a lot for admin but those social aspects are something we who wanted something like that could take on. The Scent Expo event wasn’t in a big fancy convention center or anything. It was someone’s office/studio rented out for the day. I think expectations we might have could probably reflect that. This is a hobbyist/enthusiast corner. I like it here. I’m not the person to be a site admin but if I can do my little part to push things along I’m more than willing.

[Edit: I typed this on my phone so it is probably loose and disjointed.]

 

[Mr.P]

Definitely a good idea to start fresh i think, I will give it a go... seems reasonable to start by drawing attention to the wild versus cultivated summary that @TheOudDood shared a link to in the other thread.

wild vs. cultivated kinam

There are certain details presented that I'm not familiar enough with to relate to, having really studied just a couple of specimens of wild material, but I felt the descriptions of the way the aromas compare and how they change with time to be mostlyconsistent with my own experiences and very succinctly yet effectively described. My experience doesn't align 100% with the descriptions of the cultivated material unless I really think of them in terms strictly of comparisons with the wild. I suspect that what the author is saying is that the aroma fades too quickly (etc.) compared to the wild material and that's a little bit of a different thing.

Relatively recently I was stunned by the degree to which the wild material has longer sustain than green ck and can push out a lot more aroma through all stages of evaporation compared to it. Specifically I had a small piece of Baieido green kyara on a heater and after I was certain the show was over I took the little piece and put it on a higher temperature burner. The aroma that was released was truly shocking to me in that moment. Would not happen with the cultivated material. instead of the typical wood fiber somewhat harsh aroma that you get with CK it was incredibly rich spectrum of deep phenolic resinous notes. I imagine this has all kinds of high molecular weight material materials that have accumulated overtime and release interesting aromas when brought to the edge of combustion

in the absence of that comparison I perceive the CK as being an unusually long lasting material on the subitism. It's like a painting or similar creative endeavor… it is never actually finished you just eventually give up on it and start fresh. Given that this is true and the fact that it does in fact fade quickly compared to the wild stuff as a testament to how outrageous some of the wild stuff can be.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

"it is never actually finished you just eventually give up on it and start fresh." This mirrors my experience exactly.

 

[Shiningrobes]

I know nothing at all but seems those linked articles might be a good place to start. How do we get info and expertise together in a format we can present to admin as the beginning of a process or just a dialogue?

I would love to hear about distillation, regions, history of oud. And musk! Who’s a good editor? Who’s a good writer? I’ve thought of interviews even with people who know their stuff. I’m sorry I didn’t get to hear Nadeem talk at Scent Expo. Maybe we could reach out to Dan at Apothecaries Garden or Trygve from Enfleurage about frankincense. She’s in Oman and it seems like he’s got boots on the ground in several resin producing regions. I’d love to know more about Aroma Sublime and Tony Bolton and their current operation. Cher at EO Apothecare distills hydrosols. Mellifluence has an interesting practice.

 

[Shiningrobes]

Also, I love love love the whole incense making thread. And I don’t even really burn incense. I just like to see people share process and progress. I feel like any and all of this would be mega interesting but could also help all vendors involved as well as the site. Everyone i mentioned has their own social media presence and followers and the cross pollination could be amazing. I’m a decent writer and volunteer whatever help I can give.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

Isn't this kind of what portions of the LUXARTI page supposed to offer? There is a Content/articles drop down menu on the main page.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

Isn't this kind of what portions of the LUXARTI page supposed to offer? There is a Content/articles drop down menu on the main page.

The articles space there would def be a good idea because then the content is curated, unlike threads overhere. A thread like this one could be useful to collect subjects and anyone can then contribute links to good forum posts.
Any volunteer with expertise on a specific subject could create and submit a draft for the luxarti admin to review and put online. I just dont know how many of our experts actually have time to do such a thing, as it is pretty time consuming.

 

[Mr.P]

Also, I love love love the whole incense making thread. And I don’t even really burn incense. I just like to see people share process and progress. I feel like any and all of this would be mega interesting but could also help all vendors involved as well as the site. Everyone i mentioned has their own social media presence and followers and the cross pollination could be amazing. I’m a decent writer and volunteer whatever help I can give.

It's always nice when there are some folks messing around with incense making and sharing their experiences, very valuable for those of us who might want to give it a shot someday but are currently stuck in other rabbit holes.

 

[roflwaffle]

Imho, curating a thread into an article, or even having a single author model requires a lot of work, on an already overworked mod team, and generally these topics benefit from multiple eyes or perspectives.

Wikis are self managing, fluid, less bar to participation, and stay up to date. Still requires a lot of work to get them started, and get people used to using them (same issue as luxarti reviews and data)

Pinned threads is the lowest lift though, though ux suffers at some critical mass where now the first few pages of a sub forum are just pinned content.

Other forums have this automated or handled to some extent, good information threads get moved to a new sub forum. Users would still need to read through potentially a dozen pages of discussion, and I'm still not sure it solves the 'new users onboard fully up to date' but that's a bit of a separate problem

 

[Mr.P]

Isn't this kind of what portions of the LUXARTI page supposed to offer? There is a Content/articles drop down menu on the main page.

I was under the same impression but that's something that I don't know how to interact with yet and it seems like a placeholder more than a live updated dynamic site. this is a place where I feel like I can participate and contribute, hear a variety of voices, etc. and that appeals to me; perhaps we can collectively make something useful... As someone said it may not be realistic to wait for experts to write lengthy articles, but if we started well moderated discussion threads on different critical topics, and then the most informative topics were made sticky, those threads could be incredibly useful. It allows someone both to easily see the more useful bits of information that emerged in the discussion, and also the state of knowledge of other people who are in a similar situation. Not sure if there's a enough engaged folks participating here to make this happen or what exactly would look like... but it's a thought for some future version.

 

[Shiningrobes]

We make it happen. Pick a topic and we go from there. Cast out feelers to known experts on the site that might participate/ give input. Present to admin.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I was under the same impression but that's something that I don't know how to interact with yet and it seems like a placeholder more than a live updated dynamic site. this is a place where I feel like I can participate and contribute, hear a variety of voices, etc. and that appeals to me; perhaps we can collectively make something useful... As someone said it may not be realistic to wait for experts to write lengthy articles, but if we started well moderated discussion threads on different critical topics, and then the most informative topics were made sticky, those threads could be incredibly useful. It allows someone both to easily see the more useful bits of information that emerged in the discussion, and also the state of knowledge of other people who are in a similar situation. Not sure if there's a enough engaged folks participating here to make this happen or what exactly would look like... but it's a thought for some future version.

I agree well moderated discussion threads may work better than how i proposed it. But how do you get a thread moderated so it is clear to the reader which comments to ignore or to (re)move offtopic chitchat (or worse)?
Doesn't seem the owner of a thread can do any moderation?

 

[Mr.P]

I agree well moderated discussion threads may work better than how i proposed it. But how do you get a thread moderated so it is clear to the reader which comments to ignore or to (re)move offtopic chitchat (or worse)?
Doesn't seem the owner of a thread can do any moderation?

I can imagine this and that but I don't know what's actually possible with the platform ouddict is running on. One possibility would be if the subtitle under each username in someway indicated the experience, expertise, seniority or whatever of the person commenting... not sure exactly what that would look like and I'm not married to that idea or anything. Random example: under each person's name that would be the joined date and post count. Or some other index of seniority that combines a couple of different things into some kind of a number. Or it could be a sequence of honorifics like I've noticed in some other forums - freshman sophomore junior senior? White belt yellow belt green belt brown belt black belt? newcomer, member, senior member, founding member?

A more flexible idea would be you could have a series of symbols or "medals" that can be looked up in a legend somewhere… users accumulate a series of badges or whatever you want to call it as they demonstrate levelheaded consistent credible expertise in certain areas up to the standards of whatever the site owner or moderators agreed to.

One more would be if there were expert moderators without conflicting agendas etc. who could review the threads and then mark specific posts as especially informative, accurate, etc. and likewise indicate which ones contain misinformation (of course that would not be without the potential for conflict but there is always a little bit of conflict in trying to maintain something free from random influences, whether it's a garden or a forum). Better yet if a user contributes a whole bunch of posts that get recognized as helpful by a moderator they get some kind of badge or honorific. And likewise, uncomfortable though it may be, if someone begins consistently spreading bullshit or disinformation or sociopathic behavior etc. could lose those badges either due to being noticed by a moderator or user reports etc. Maybe no need to give anybody a Scarlet letter - just no badges assuming they're not getting booted... it doesn't take me too long to see through the bullshit at this point but if someone new came here and there was a noticeable difference between administrators, long-term expert users who have consistently provided accurate information, supporting vendors, and newcomers that in itself would provide a way to tackle the question of identifying which information is likely to be credible.

i'm sure there are lots of flaws i this I'm just throwing things out there consider it presented in the spirit of brainstorming - not here to defend a particular approach just throwing ideas out there and curious to hear what other people think.

 

[roflwaffle]

Random example: under each person's name that would be the joined date and post count.

That's already there thankfully.

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

View attachment 57091
That's already there thankfully.

True. Not sure what the "rating %" or "points" relates to?

 

[MaxFromHolland]

I can imagine this and that but I don't know what's actually possible with the platform ouddict is running on. One possibility would be if the subtitle under each username in someway indicated the experience, expertise, seniority or whatever of the person commenting... not sure exactly what that would look like and I'm not married to that idea or anything. Random example: under each person's name that would be the joined date and post count. Or some other index of seniority that combines a couple of different things into some kind of a number. Or it could be a sequence of honorifics like I've noticed in some other forums - freshman sophomore junior senior? White belt yellow belt green belt brown belt black belt? newcomer, member, senior member, founding member?

A more flexible idea would be you could have a series of symbols or "medals" that can be looked up in a legend somewhere… users accumulate a series of badges or whatever you want to call it as they demonstrate levelheaded consistent credible expertise in certain areas up to the standards of whatever the site owner or moderators agreed to.

One more would be if there were expert moderators without conflicting agendas etc. who could review the threads and then mark specific posts as especially informative, accurate, etc. and likewise indicate which ones contain misinformation (of course that would not be without the potential for conflict but there is always a little bit of conflict in trying to maintain something free from random influences, whether it's a garden or a forum). Better yet if a user contributes a whole bunch of posts that get recognized as helpful by a moderator they get some kind of badge or honorific. And likewise, uncomfortable though it may be, if someone begins consistently spreading bullshit or disinformation or sociopathic behavior etc. could lose those badges either due to being noticed by a moderator or user reports etc. Maybe no need to give anybody a Scarlet letter - just no badges assuming they're not getting booted... it doesn't take me too long to see through the bullshit at this point but if someone new came here and there was a noticeable difference between administrators, long-term expert users who have consistently provided accurate information, supporting vendors, and newcomers that in itself would provide a way to tackle the question of identifying which information is likely to be credible.

i'm sure there are lots of flaws i this I'm just throwing things out there consider it presented in the spirit of brainstorming - not here to defend a particular approach just throwing ideas out there and curious to hear what other people think.

Yes, if we were to do away with the custom titles, the platform would automagically show the level of seniority/particitation in the generated title (of which the names could be changed into something more obvious). We could then reserve the custom titles to indicate knowledge in a field, which may even only be awarded upon request of fellow senior members. Than would be pretty clean, i think.

 

[MaxFromHolland]

True. Not sure what the "rating %" or "points" relates to?

Rating is the mechanism to rate vendors*, points are the trophy point that is calculated from level of participation.

Edit *Both sellers and buyers can be rated, actually

 

[Mr.P]

True. Not sure what the "rating %" or "points" relates to?

no idea might have to do with people who buy and sell in the marketplace? it's not something I know much about we can ask @Ouddict

in any case I was thinking more like that subtitle underneath the username (oud<3er for me) that shows on every post so each person's username is flagged on every single post with some kind of indication of their status as one way to allow a newcomer to evaluate the likelihood that a post is based on credible information while quickly browsing through a forum.

The ability to go to somebody's profile page and see whatever information there is on their background in a little more verbose form seems like a reasonable idea but that's a little different

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

no idea might have to do with people who buy and sell in the marketplace? it's not something I know much about we can ask @Ouddict

in any case I was thinking more like that subtitle underneath the username (oud<3er for me) that shows on every post so each person's username is flagged on every single post with some kind of indication of their status as one way to allow a newcomer to evaluate the likelihood that a post is based on credible information while quickly browsing through a form.

The ability to go to somebody's profile page and see whatever information there is on their background in a little more verbose form seems like a reasonable idea.

Yep, I think it's a great idea.

 

[roflwaffle]

After Scent Expo a couple people lamented the lack of social aspects like mixers etc. That would be a lot for admin but those social aspects are something we who wanted something like that could take on. T

In many other forums, it's not uncommon for members to arrange and coordinate local meetups with folks they know from the forums. Same general idea would work here pretty easily without needing admin effort. Particularly works well as scents don't really translate well online. Doesn't work well for super remote folks, but certainly some hotspots of clusters of members that could meet up and talk/share ouds if people wanted.

Be the change ya want in the world, toss out a feeler and see if there's interest for your area!