Good ideas for the future of this forum anyone?

[Mr.P]

Hello there, I'm posting this in the interest of thinking positively about ways to make the best of this community we have here. We are kind of at a point where some reorganization is likely to happen so it's a good opportunity, should there be interest, for us to put our heads together about things that can help this community continue and progress.

If you have any, please share your thoughts on ways that we could re-organize this site or features that you think could be added to encourage membership and collegial engagement, etc..

Obviously it's easier to come up with ideas than to implement them but it is probably a good idea just to brainstorm things that might be good without worrying too much about practicality for now, just to get the ideas out.

I know Nadeem/Ouddict is truly interested in our ideas - in fact it was a conversation with him that inspired me to post this.

So granted that some of these might be more practical than others, what ideas have you had?

Here is one that came up recently. I will add more later:

Having a selection of sticky threads or topics that answer commonly asked questions in a convenient way.

**I love the idea of discussing some of these ideas in detail, but in the spirit of this brainstorming thread I suggest maybe holding off on debating each idea as it's presented, just keep this as a place to gather the ideas themselves, and instead start a different topic for discussing the pros and cons of particular ideas.

 

[matchasmoke]

Worth noting that you don't have to use Facebook for anything other than joining the Ouddict exchange. You don't have to engage with the algorithm you can block everything it pushes. What you are asking for already exists, created as an offshoot of this forum in a way, and honestly I would rather people sign up for that than try to change this place just because they're not comfortable signing up for Facebook.

The reason it's separate from this forum is because this was tried before and as i saw it this place degenerated into a flea market with constant advertisements and even bartering back-and-forth on the discussion threads it was ridiculous. The "recent posts" section was like 10:1 people talking about sales that should've been in private messages, all to try to bump their threads and keep people paying attention to whatever they were trying to sell at the moment. I for one will be long gone if that's the way this place goes.

I wasn’t aware of the tragic circumstances that existed before on the forum. Unfortunate.

But

I am aware of the tragic consequences from giving any information to Facebook.

 

[matchasmoke]

Testing full size photo upload,,,, hi-resolution photos, can’t go wrong. I wish everyone would post them in the burn of the day!!

 

[matchasmoke]

Is this what you wanted to post? 😂😂😂😂

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How to
Make the photo appear like this?

 

[Ouddict]

How to
Make the photo appear like this?

 

[SteveE]

Is this what you wanted to post? 😂😂😂😂

View attachment 54004

No, but my wife did make me a spiffy incense holder, didn’t she?

 

[matchasmoke]

 

[matchasmoke]

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Arigato!!

 

[Olfactory Nomad]

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Insane!!! Mate, there is a very good possibility that I will be in Japan next year. How would you feel about meeting up? I'd love a tour of some of these places that you're finding these chunks of woods. No obligation of course 🙏

 

[matchasmoke]

Insane!!! Mate, there is a very good possibility that I will be in Japan next year. How would you feel about meeting up? I'd love a tour of some of these places that you're finding these chunks of woods. No obligation of course 🙏

My pleasure. I have met two members from the forum and it has been a pleasure both times. Look forward to seeing you next year. 🍵💨

 

[roflwaffle]

It is revealing, and it blows my mind that in all the years I've been paying attention basically no one has managed to generate and find a way to share any data on this. Such a big blind spot that the only way I can interpret it is that nobody really wants to know.

There are a handful of agarwood GCMS reports around. I think I have 4 or so if you're interested. As GCMS is expensive, and easy for unscrupulous folks to fake/bypass (test prior to adulterating, sub in another oils GCMS, etc), and mildly open to supply chain attacks (impossible to say if user posted gcms was adulterated by the source, middleman seller, or user), my personal thought is working towards more readily/accessible bench tests to rule out common adulterants. Easier said than done certainly, some are easily validated like DPG, others like DOP harder, but likely not impossible.

GCMS should def be gathered, and stats published. There was a user here a year ago that ran, dozens or more tests, but was scared of reprisals or stirring drama. They could have posted at least interesting stats -- how prevalent is adulteration, without any finger pointing, but as near as i could tell, stopped shy of that, but might be an interesting avenue as just saying '32% of samples are adulterated, and these were the adulterants found' is crazy valuable information, and gives folks an idea of prevalence as well as a list of things to noodle on for testing. They also seemed to have a lower cost test shy of full GCMS, but I'm not positive how many details of what that test was were posted.

but yea, I'd love to know what adulterants have been found in unscrupulous samples, I think that's the first step to action, and sidesteps the whole 'name and shame', 'supply chain attacks', 'spendy gcms', etc issues