I want to write a bit about a subject Ive addressed from time to time in the past: Ranking or Grading RY4s.
On the face of it, this is a perfectly reasonable proposition. Rankings of every consumer product abound in our society. Best of and "Top 100" lists pop up everywhere. People love reading rankings and grades. If they happen to agree with whoever posed as the authority (whether an individual or a group), the agreement produces a comfortable sense of confirmation, and occasionally even the smug feeling of superior expertise. See, Im right! If they disagree, however, thats often just as good, because it stirs the pot for debate and venting, as well as reminding us that authorities are not invariably trustworthy. Back in the late 1960s, I wore a button that said "Question Authority." I believe that now more than ever.
The problem is that rankings and comparative grades are often downright silly and sometimes damned stupid. With products such as washing machines, cars, food processors, or vaping juices, too many variables affect performance and individual experience for any objective formula to apply. Read the customer reviews on Amazon sometime, or---better still---the customer reviews on any vaping vendors site. Youll see what I mean. Lots of reviews saying, "I've been vaping for two weeks, and this is the most wonderful juice ever!" Oh, great.
Assessing criteria for judgment is extremely difficult because of differing expectations among consumers. Quality and popularity are not the same thing, and assigning them proportional weight on any value scale is not only dicey, but often clearly biased. Experts appreciate products differently than novices. Casual users dont look for the same qualities as true aficionados. The best-selling espresso machine at Williams-Sonoma is mocked by the espresso geeks on the Home-Barista Forums. Soccer Moms might love a Plymouth Voyager that a serious car nut wouldnt be caught dead driving. An institution such as Consumer Reports is aimed right at the center of the bell curve, so don't look for them to rank Deaf Smith organic peanut butter over Peter Pan chunky.
Even sillier is the request we often get on this thread and everywhere in consumer culture for isolating the one product (in this case, an RY4) that is BEST. Who is the single best actor of all time? Best President? Best ice cream? Give me a break. Thats just friggin impossible, but people ask that damned best question over and over and over. Why are they so interested in knowing what finally amounts to another persons opinion? And why should they trust it? I mean, we all know that opinions are like a certain body part---everyone has one. (Of course, one frequent reason people ask the best question is that they dont want to go through the learning curve of hard work and slowly distilled experience---instead, they want E-Z instant enlightenment. Sorry, that doesnt exist.)
When I started The Really Big RY4 Roundup thread, I gave numerical rankings to the 23 RY4s reviewed in the original post. I continued that policy for awhile, but, as the list grew, the subtle and arbitrary shadings of deciding which RY4 was #34 versus #35 began to drive me crazy. So, after six months I tossed out numerical rankings. Later, I reinstated rankings (primarily because people like them so much, despite all the reasons they shouldnt), but this time as grades. That allowed me to put RY4s into groups---A-rated RY4s, B-rated, C-rated, etc. Simple, like elementary school. Thats been fairly workable for quite awhile now. Still, its often hard to define what puts one RY4 in the B+ group, while another rates only a B. Oh, I do it anyway, but even I dont take it too seriously.
I find myself in something of a unique position. Im probably the only person on this thread who has 100 cartos on his desk, each loaded with a different retail RY4. Hell, Im probably the only person on ECF with that, and I just might be the only person on the entire planet. Many people have vaped lots of RY4s, but darned few---if any besides me---have 100 of them sitting right on their desk, ready to vape.
This allows me to evaluate RY4s in a very special way, by comparison-vaping different RY4s side-by-side or back-to-back-to-back. I can hold a PV in each hand and vape one RY4, then immediately vape another. Over about ten minutes, I can vape 20 different RY4s. This lets me discern many of the nuances that distinguish one RY4 from another. Comparison-vaping highlights similarities and differences, strengths and weaknesses, and other distinctions in component flavors, mix ratios, overall flavor profiles, vapor production, throat hit, mouthfeel, etc. That gives me quite a leg up over the average vaper whos tried five RY4s over a year.
Does this mean that anyone reading this thread should trust my grades for RY4s? No, not at all. It just means that I probably have more data than most vapers for determining a grade, and that my data is generally trustworthy in terms of consistency and reliability rather than mere flawed memory or a figment of my imagination.
Finally, though, please remember that my palate/brain is not the same as yours. Even if you like and appreciate juices in much the same way I do, were probably not identical twins. And sometimes you may love what I loathe, and vice versa. In that case, were both right, because the one person that matters in vaping---the only person we have to please---is ourselves.
My advice---worth repeating here---is to take The Big RY4 Report Card with a huge grain of salt. Yes, its an interesting and often useful guide, and sometimes you may find it right on the money. But other times, not so much. And occasionally you could disagree to the point of being offended by my judgments. All of which is OK.
Just dont forget the Golden Rule: YMMV. Your Mileage May Vary. Thats not just a legal disclaimer. Its the truth.
