ECigReview.com: Hold My Feet To The Fire

[UncleMidriff]

I came upon a realization this evening while sipping my Diet Smoke: throughout all the searching I've done on e-smoking and e-cigarettes, I've come upon dozens of e-cigarette sellers, e-cigarette articles, e-cigarette this, e-cigarette that, but not a single e-cigarette review site. Not a single one.

Then I came upon another realization: I am a web developer. It's what I do. Like, for a living.

I've registered ecigreview.com. My plan is to develop an e-cigarette review site where you all can review your e-cigarettes, e-smoking suppliers, cartridges, flavors, etc. Everything e-cigarette-related will be reviewable.

The site is nothing right now, as I've done nothing but register the domain. I estimate it will take weeks before anything presentable is ready to go.

What I need from you all more than anything is for you to hold my feet to the fire. I've a habit of starting things but not finishing them; I need that not to happen this time. If no visible progress has been made on the site within a few weeks, I need you all to call me on it; insult my mother, call my house late at night, throw bricks through my windows, whatever. Don't let me of the hook.

This forum is absolutely fantastic, but we need a place where we can easily find the information we need when making decisions about which e-smoking products to buy. We need the e-cigarette companies out there to feel the heat whenever they decide it's OK to sell expensive products that break every week. We need to be able to reward the e-cigarette manufacturers and suppliers that make good products and treat us nicely. I wouldn't say that I'm the best person for this job, but I may as well do what I can to get the ball rolling.

Your help in keeping me focused and motivated will be tremendously appreciated.

 

[RatInDaHat]

If you need anyone to do any writing or reviews, let me know.

 

[UncleMidriff]

I don't currently have the money to do all the reviewing myself, so I was planning on making this a site the users of which could submit their own reviews. I realize that such reviews would be less consistent that way, but it would at least give us a good idea about how a particular e-cig/supplier is performing in aggregate.

To facilitate consistency, I was thinking we could feature "staff reviews" or something like that. These reviews would be carried out by me or whoever else is picked to do them, the idea being that a regular team of reviewers will have a better chance of being consistent and reliable than just anyone on the interwebs. That will cost money though, to buy the e-cigarettes and supplies.

My dream, my selfish little dream, is that once e-smoking gets more popular, the site will too. If that happens, the opinions expressed on the site will start to matter more and more to the e-cig companies. At that point, I can see my requesting free review units from them being met with something other than unending laughter.

 

[TropicalBob]

No offense meant -- and I did reviews for years -- but what we need is a Consumer Reports-type review: Unbiased, machine smoked, lab analyzed. Measure quantity per puff, nicotine per puff, ingredients in vapor, purity of liquid, pressure required to start atomizer, duration to cutoff, drop-to-floor from three feet test, puff every 30 seconds until atomizer fails, etc.

No matter how good the reviewer (and writing skills are paramount), it's not particularly useful to read "tastes great, less filling."

A collected, consumer-contributed site as proposed by NerdyCinderella is far more useful, but only if reviews are updated regularly to reflect the crashing failures of our beloved products. Only there can we learn how poorly made this stuff is and what product is our best bet to avoid the Trog Theory*. We also avoid the I-Just-Got-Mine Theory**.

*Trog Theory: These suck (figuratively and literally) and are going to fail so buy spare parts so you don't run for ciggies because your atomizer becomes toast and a replacement must be ordered from China.

** I-Just-Got-Mine Theory: This new gizmo is the greatest gizmo ever offered humankind and I'm thrilled to have it and thank the XYZ company for so advancing the state of e-smoking.

 

[trog100]

off to northern spain possible morocco if i can be arsed to drive across spain next week for a months camping bob.. three e-smokers going.. will we make it without the roll-up tobacco.. twenty pounds of e smoking gear plus the ammo belts.. he he he he

trog

ps.. i see the "just got mine theory" more as the "GEE.. WOW.. WHIZ.. CAPS OBLIGATORY THEORY"...

 

[TropicalBob]

Have fun. I'll look for that Morocco dateline and headline: E-smoker's faulty battery charger sets room on fire

 

[NerdyCinderella]

.......A collected, consumer-contributed site as proposed by NerdyCinderella is far more useful, but only if reviews are updated regularly to reflect the crashing failures of our beloved products. Only there can we learn how poorly made this stuff is and what product is our best bet to avoid the Trog Theory*. We also avoid the I-Just-Got-Mine Theory**..........

Did I propose that? Oh, I feel so elevated

 

[UncleMidriff]

No offense meant -- and I did reviews for years -- but what we need is a Consumer Reports-type review: Unbiased, machine smoked, lab analyzed. Measure quantity per puff, nicotine per puff, ingredients in vapor, purity of liquid, pressure required to start atomizer, duration to cutoff, drop-to-floor from three feet test, puff every 30 seconds until atomizer fails, etc.

No matter how good the reviewer (and writing skills are paramount), it's not particularly useful to read "tastes great, less filling."

Agreed, but unless Consumer Reports starts reviewing e-cigarettes themselves, I doubt that's going to happen anytime soon. I don't have the time, money, or know-how to pull off a Consumer Reports type review.

A collected, consumer-contributed site as proposed by NerdyCinderella is far more useful, but only if reviews are updated regularly to reflect the crashing failures of our beloved products. Only there can we learn how poorly made this stuff is and what product is our best bet to avoid the Trog Theory*. We also avoid the I-Just-Got-Mine Theory**.

*Trog Theory: These suck (figuratively and literally) and are going to fail so buy spare parts so you don't run for ciggies because your atomizer becomes toast and a replacement must be ordered from China.

** I-Just-Got-Mine Theory: This new gizmo is the greatest gizmo ever offered humankind and I'm thrilled to have it and thank the XYZ company for so advancing the state of e-smoking.

Agreed again. In addition to just getting a site up and running, I'm trying to think up ways to cajole useful information out of the site's users. What I want to avoid more thing anything is YouTube-comment-style reviews, such as "OMG!!!1!! THIS E_COG IZ TEH OMGWOW!1!! IF U DON LIEK THIS E_CIGRET, UR SOOOO DUM AN' A LOZER hAHAHAAa!!1!eleven!11!1"

The first step, I think, is to require users to register before submitting a review. That would at least help to cut out the drive-by-drivel reviews. After that, I (and any other administrators there might happen to be) would moderate the reviews, deleting the particularly idiotic ones.

The next step to getting useful information out of reviewers would be to have a strict format for reviews, requiring the reviewers to at least rate their devices/suppliers in several different categories. I might even consider letting reviewers opt-in to reminder e-mails that would be sent out at predetermined intervals to ask them if they would like to revise their review as time goes by.

Another step would be to have a team of regular reviewers do more professional reviews. These reviewers would likely be site-admins/moderators as well, and their reviews would be held to a higher standard of quality. These reviews would be displayed more prominently on the site.

These are just a few of the ideas I've had over the last day or so. My main focus now is to get a basic site up and functional, which is still a ways off. I would very much like this site to be a team effort, so if you all have any ideas, from color schemes to how the site should function, please let me know. I'm not promising to implement every idea every forum member here has, but the more ideas/suggestions/feedback, the better.

 

[dnakr]

There is a web site that I go to for reviews on makeup, hair, skin care, etc.. (makeupally.com) Anyhow, the search is broke down into "category", "brand" or "search product name for" - then it displays "rating", "reviews" and "% that would buy again" - you are able to read all reviews and updates on each product and what people have to say... It is quite informative and very helpful. You learn what customers like and dislike about the products and are pretty much able to make up your mind on what you think would work and not work. Maybe something like this would be helpful to our forum....

 

[Swesent]

This sounds like quite a useful idea.
I live in Sweden, and therefore I (and probably a lot of others as well) could use a section with reviewed retailers too.
Especially interesting would be the ability to sieve(?) out the ones who are able (and willing) to ship to certain countries/continents and from there, view buyers' gradings and reviews of those sites.

E-cigs over here cost a fortune and naturally I'm looking abroad. Found many retailers in England as well as in the States. A few of them do not ship over here, others have been trashed in the forums etc. I feel that the more useful part to spend time and energy on when looking for a first e-cig is which model and brand to get, not having to spend hours looking for WHERE to get it from.

So, if you do decide to go ahead with this review-site, please include some ways of listing and reviewing retailers as well, together with a selected set of good-to-know info about them.

Good Luck with the project!

/ SS