EXILED! The stories from Defected Fragrantican Members

Give us stories of why you left Fragrantica
I Prefer the juicy Sordid Details and Lured
accounts and this is for Former Fragranticans
ONLY!

I don't consider myself exiled, merely disenchanted. I received a kind invitation from a Fragrantica member which I may not have acted on had I not been disgusted with the shenanigans that go on there concerning reviews. Apparently, Fragrantica members are using the review section of the site as an outlet for personal grudges by voting down perfectly good reviews. Not something that a genuine perfume lover would do if you ask me.

great idea for a thread, lola!

Thanks shera

And Cryptic You are right about the Using the Review Board for
personal Gain It's a Bit Disgusting but i don't get Involved

I left Fragrantica because of the nonsense blabber in the comments sections of the scents. The most people don't write nice reviews they rather tell something totally uninteresting.

Plus the forum is not very supportive. Everytime I posted something it was ignored. So I had no good experience in swapping or getting samples because everyone wanted to sell sample vials :-s

The functionality of fragrantica didn't attract me anyway - I just used it as an information center on new scents and won the CnR samples

That nails it, Cryptic. It is indeed a tiresome task to scan through reviews in search of good ones. But I am used to turn to several sources for reviews anyway. Another disentchanting characteristic, imo, is, many seem to lack the ability of using Search functionalities before posting a thread. This results in massive repetition of topics, which is a total bore; let alone the often pointless content.

Last but not least, this site features some assets, which are simply good. For example the use of a crowdsourcing method to update the database and better features overall. As for reviews, I find they are almost always well written and genuinely informative - I hope this kind of quality is going to persist.

Meh ... I'm just SOOOO much happier here on Parfumo than I ever was at Fragrantica. I met some great peeps over there and still visit to keep in touch with some of them that are not here ... but that's about it.
The fact that members can 'burst balloons' over there is childish ... and I find the admins to be living in the Dark Ages too! Every time I write the word 'Parfumo' it gets 'stop spam'-ed ... how puerile ?!?!?!
Nope ... give me THIS site any day ... slowly but surely peeps will just realize it's way better over here!!

Aromi's latest blog post touches on this issue tangentially. For me, the interactive review format here (with the capacity to comment and vote not only for quality but also helpfulness) is much nicer and more intimate than at either of the other sites, where you're basically talking to a wall and have no idea if anyone has read your reviews unless they happen to disagree, in which case at one of the sites they have the power to adopt multiple pseudonyms and pop balloon awards until the review disappears! Not a good system, it seems to me. A great one for shills, though!

I love how here at Parfumo we are a small but close-knit community. I'm getting to know people much better than I ever could at the other sites, the forums of which I generally avoided anyway because I found them tiresome and a waste of my time...

Yes, this is an aspect that absolutely bores me to tears. I feel that the demographics are somehow different here too.
Although there are people interested in what I consider Perfumery with a capital P on Fragrantica, there is also a hell of a lot of Victoria Secret body spray enthusiasts and Paris Hilton & co fans.

An enormous amount of topics seem to centre around the issues of finding the sexiest frag, or engaging in "games" where the aim is to allocate perfumes to Disney characters for example.

Very juvenile and not stimulating for the grey matter at all, but then I guess that's what you get when admin want to play it so safe that anything deemed the slightest bit controversial gets deleted.

All this is not helped by the many members who appear completely incapable of debating in a mature fashion.

All in all, I'm pretty much exclusively sticking to my perso thread now.

At Parfumo.de, the mods generally close redundant threads and ask the contributors to use the original thread. Since the threads here at Parfumo.net are still well-arranged, I am not so harsh and might tolerate redundancy. There have not been many occasions anyway. If redundancy might become a problem here, we will change our current laissez-faire policy in order to keep the forum neat and tidy.

Look at it this way, cg: if you were able to post the name of this site on Fragrantica, you'd have everyone over here checking it out, including all the nuts. The way things are now, you can invite anyone you like via pm, right?

I agree with all of this. In addition, I don't appreciate being told that if I want a bottle of perfume, I ought to save up my loose change in a jar until I have enough and that sort of patronizing nonsense. It's almost like large collections are puritanically frowned upon over there.

Great Insight Dolby!

I Love the Games on Fragrantica
But I Noticed something when i looked
though other Members Wardrobes 80 or 90%
Most of them loved Britney Spears or Victoria's Secret Sprays
on the love shelf and Diss Chanel No 5 Arpege or A well made Niche
they can like what i like but i'm just observing
is it lack of Sophistication?

Well the name is censored in PMs also. I tried it too at the beginning of this year and invited some people over. But only 3 took the offer and have disappeared by now

When I discuss Parfumo in Fragrantica pms, I write:

omufraP

That gets through.

smart shera

Between the aesthetics, interactions, information and reviews, it always made me feel like I was on a Jr. High School fragrance site.

I couldn't bring myself to post more than a handful of times.

The admins over at Fragrantica can be frustrating. Hardly a week goes by without a new thread looking for the sexiest perfume, "man magnet," etc. In a rare moment of helpfulness, I made up an FAQ that contained links to most of the questions that kept popping up on a regular basis to make life easier for the newbies. Instead of putting the thread in a heavily-trafficked forum where the newbies might actually see it, the admins buried it in the chat forum, a place where new members seldom venture, and my effort was completely wasted. Needless to say, I'm done being helpful over there.

Sounds like basenotes as well. lol.....As they say, no good deed goes unpunished.

Well, I'm glad that the F-site exists. I met a lot of nice folks there, many of whom are now here. And I'm grateful for their database, which is pretty thorough.

I don't want to look down on someone for liking V. Secret, etc. If V. Secret had been around when I was a teen, I might have liked it a lot! Also, someone could look down on me because much of what I have/like is mass-market. But I do very much like the feature that allows me to comment on a review & the reviewer to comment back.

The main problem with the F-site, to me, was the intolerance of different lifestyles expressed by so many members and the fact that the admins seemed to support that. I care just as much about whether men are wearing women's fragrances (and vice-versa) as I do about what people are doing in the privacy of their homes with consenting adults. (Which is to say... NOT AT ALL.) I'm very grateful to Apicius and Don VanVliet and the many other great folks who have gotten this site going and kindly provided an English version for those of us who can't say anything intelligent in German.

(/rant!)

PBF......I'm not looking down on members there. I simply never cared for the site.

There are good things about it like you mentioned. Interacting there is a different story, so I suppose that's one reason why I find this site superior to all others.

I Want to thank you for all for your Feedback
on this Topic it exercise the mind and see
other people's P.O.V

Me Myself I'm Getting a Bit Disenchanted with Fragrantica
The Never ending Posts of 'Best Boyfriend Fragrance'
'Sex In Bed Scents' 'Katy Perry's Purr' Enough Already!
I Feel Ever since the Original Members left The I.Q
Of Fragrantica has been Lower And more Immature and
Teenybopperish

I Only Go on Fragrantica for

The Games like Perfume 4 Picture
and Stuff Like that Fragrantica is not the Same Anymore

When i tried to tell them to stick with the subject what the post is
it was sophi's giveaway Post but they where talking that was out what the spirit of what sophi's trying to do
Now i'm snarky Comments that They have the right to talk what ever they
want i was trying not to make that thread a heated but it starting to
so i think i'm starting to get disenchanted with F Site Too

Sorry to hear it, Lola82. I'm glad you have other places (like here) that you can go to talk about perfume.

I don't know how to post on Parfumo yet, so who knows where this will end up ;D
I just wanted to say that I have stopped using Fragrantica too exept for pm'ing old Fragrantica friends that are not here. I found the F-site too chaotic in the end.
But I have to say that for me who do not like any of the classics like Chanel no5, L'Heure Bleue or in fact anything from Guerlain, Dior or Chanel and also am not interested in fragrance history/background, I basically just wear scents without getting either poetic or philosophical about it, I find I rarely feel like joining the conversations here seeing as I will probably be put in the "lacking sophistication" group quite fast. I found it easier to blend in on Fragrantica.
I find it great that perfume sparks creativity in others, but I hope this site will also be a place for non-sophisticated people like myself who do happen to own a Victorias Secrets spray by the way ;D