I've been a member of ECF for a while now and it's an invaluable resource for vaping as well as a wonderful community.
I see a few things that sometimes reduce the quality of the site though and thought I'd offer my hints or tips to making the best out of the forum.
1.) Use titles effectively.
ECF has a LOT of traffic. This is awesome since there are so many people with so much experience to lend a hand or offer advice. The downside is that there's sometimes a lot of cruft as well. Nobody can possibly read every thread on this site, so catching attention is important to solving your problem.
Threads like "Newbie needs help" don't tell us what kind of problem you're having. We have to actually open the thread and read it to know what the problem is and while that doesn't seem like a lot of work, it actually is. When I visit ECF, I usually open up about 15 or 20 threads at a time. There are hundreds of new posts every time I visit, and I sometimes visit several times a day. I'm skipping over a LOT of posts because I have to.
A title like "DIY Juices Have No Flavor" is better. It catches the attention of DIYers almost instantly. Those folks know what they're doing. The fact that you're DIYing is a LOT more important to solving your problem than the fact that you're a newbie. Which brings me to...
2.) Being new doesn't really matter.
There is only one reason why I EVER open threads about "Newbies". That reason is to welcome new visitors to ECF and encourage them to hang around and have fun. Being new, however, doesn't really matter in the long run. You stop being new at some point.
You never really stop having questions or issues.
There are scores of personal vaporizer models. There are hundreds of vendors selling juice and parts. There are thousands of flavors and blends. I don't think anybody has POSSIBLY tried them all, but if they have, then there's modders making new vaporizers for themselves and DIYers making new blends.
NOBODY, period, ever, has "done it all". So your question isn't stupid. I am guilty of this myself. I've asked a question and tossed in the "newbie" thing in case the question was stupid. But it's cruft and useless really. The most experienced vapers here have questions. People who have been vaping for years still run into issues with hardware, or can't quite get that last flavor down pat. Whatever it is, it's likely NOT stupid, so forge ahead and just ask. We're all here to get a better vape and have fun.
3.) The forum you see isn't the same for everyone.
This deals with text formatting, signatures, avatars and the like.
ECF has several available themes. Some are light, some are dark. Most people here likely view ECF on their computer's monitor but not everyone does. Smartphones are extremely common these days and a lot of people are viewing ECF on them. Smartphone users see the same content but it LOOKS pretty different in many cases, so it's easier to browse on a smaller screen.
Some people use special software to deal with visual disabilities. Some people use dark themes to extend battery life or to make reading easier. Themes are NOT just here for snazzy looks.
When you format your text, sometimes it conflicts with those different themes. I just saw a user who changed the text color to all bright blue. On my dark theme, it was unreadable. Sure, I could switch themes to see what they said, but that's a hassle and with 15 other posts ready to be read, simply wasn't worth it.
Formatting can be fun and playful or express a mood, but it can also make people not want to read your posts. It's a trade off, and it's up to you to balance that how you see fit.
4.) Use "What's New" and "My Posts".
As I've said before, ECF has a lot of traffic. If you like a specific forum or have a specific issue, ECF has forums to do that but sometimes posts don't go where they're supposed to. Maybe someone with a DIY question put it in General Discussion. You miss that post if you head directly to DIY.
Also, let's be honest. With a few exceptions, most threads generally get worse beyond page 4. There are some that are fun to see how big they get (Bump Everytime You Buy Something New, for instance). But for specific issues or suggestions, usually, you've got a great answer (or several) by page 4. The "What's New" feature exposes you to the latest posts since you've last used it. It's a lot easier to answer someone's new question using that feature.
5.) Improve search with tags and Google. (Courtesy of HzG8rGrl and MrsJaaxx)
The search on ECF doesn't always work that well. There are two things you can do to get better results.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the posting page, you'll see a section for "Tags". Here, users can add in keywords that they think are important, possibly using terms that might not appear in the thread or title at all. If more people did this, ECF search would get better overtime. Even if they don't, it gives you a term you can find later that should be easier than remembering a specific thread title or line from the post.
The second thing you can do to get better search results is use Google. Google's search is pretty powerful but some of the ways to make it more powerful are a bit esoteric for some folks. If you go here and then add your search terms after the "site:e-cigarette-forum.com" part, it will search for that and limit results to this site.
You don't need a special link to make use of that either, but you do have to include the "site:e-cigarette-forum.com" part to limit it only to this site.
Anybody else have good advice or tips they find invaluable?
I see a few things that sometimes reduce the quality of the site though and thought I'd offer my hints or tips to making the best out of the forum.
1.) Use titles effectively.
ECF has a LOT of traffic. This is awesome since there are so many people with so much experience to lend a hand or offer advice. The downside is that there's sometimes a lot of cruft as well. Nobody can possibly read every thread on this site, so catching attention is important to solving your problem.
Threads like "Newbie needs help" don't tell us what kind of problem you're having. We have to actually open the thread and read it to know what the problem is and while that doesn't seem like a lot of work, it actually is. When I visit ECF, I usually open up about 15 or 20 threads at a time. There are hundreds of new posts every time I visit, and I sometimes visit several times a day. I'm skipping over a LOT of posts because I have to.
A title like "DIY Juices Have No Flavor" is better. It catches the attention of DIYers almost instantly. Those folks know what they're doing. The fact that you're DIYing is a LOT more important to solving your problem than the fact that you're a newbie. Which brings me to...
2.) Being new doesn't really matter.
There is only one reason why I EVER open threads about "Newbies". That reason is to welcome new visitors to ECF and encourage them to hang around and have fun. Being new, however, doesn't really matter in the long run. You stop being new at some point.
You never really stop having questions or issues.There are scores of personal vaporizer models. There are hundreds of vendors selling juice and parts. There are thousands of flavors and blends. I don't think anybody has POSSIBLY tried them all, but if they have, then there's modders making new vaporizers for themselves and DIYers making new blends.
NOBODY, period, ever, has "done it all". So your question isn't stupid. I am guilty of this myself. I've asked a question and tossed in the "newbie" thing in case the question was stupid. But it's cruft and useless really. The most experienced vapers here have questions. People who have been vaping for years still run into issues with hardware, or can't quite get that last flavor down pat. Whatever it is, it's likely NOT stupid, so forge ahead and just ask. We're all here to get a better vape and have fun.
3.) The forum you see isn't the same for everyone.
This deals with text formatting, signatures, avatars and the like.
ECF has several available themes. Some are light, some are dark. Most people here likely view ECF on their computer's monitor but not everyone does. Smartphones are extremely common these days and a lot of people are viewing ECF on them. Smartphone users see the same content but it LOOKS pretty different in many cases, so it's easier to browse on a smaller screen.
Some people use special software to deal with visual disabilities. Some people use dark themes to extend battery life or to make reading easier. Themes are NOT just here for snazzy looks.
When you format your text, sometimes it conflicts with those different themes. I just saw a user who changed the text color to all bright blue. On my dark theme, it was unreadable. Sure, I could switch themes to see what they said, but that's a hassle and with 15 other posts ready to be read, simply wasn't worth it.
Formatting can be fun and playful or express a mood, but it can also make people not want to read your posts. It's a trade off, and it's up to you to balance that how you see fit.
4.) Use "What's New" and "My Posts".
As I've said before, ECF has a lot of traffic. If you like a specific forum or have a specific issue, ECF has forums to do that but sometimes posts don't go where they're supposed to. Maybe someone with a DIY question put it in General Discussion. You miss that post if you head directly to DIY.
Also, let's be honest. With a few exceptions, most threads generally get worse beyond page 4. There are some that are fun to see how big they get (Bump Everytime You Buy Something New, for instance). But for specific issues or suggestions, usually, you've got a great answer (or several) by page 4. The "What's New" feature exposes you to the latest posts since you've last used it. It's a lot easier to answer someone's new question using that feature.
5.) Improve search with tags and Google. (Courtesy of HzG8rGrl and MrsJaaxx)
The search on ECF doesn't always work that well. There are two things you can do to get better results.
If you scroll down to the bottom of the posting page, you'll see a section for "Tags". Here, users can add in keywords that they think are important, possibly using terms that might not appear in the thread or title at all. If more people did this, ECF search would get better overtime. Even if they don't, it gives you a term you can find later that should be easier than remembering a specific thread title or line from the post.
The second thing you can do to get better search results is use Google. Google's search is pretty powerful but some of the ways to make it more powerful are a bit esoteric for some folks. If you go here and then add your search terms after the "site:e-cigarette-forum.com" part, it will search for that and limit results to this site.
You don't need a special link to make use of that either, but you do have to include the "site:e-cigarette-forum.com" part to limit it only to this site.
Anybody else have good advice or tips they find invaluable?
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LOL you now I think you're all right. 
well it's down there someplace. 
