I actually appreciate both reporting styles. I like seeing interaction details, but sometimes, I want someone to just sum it up..more like to make a more concise description of what the product does overall, based on these experiences. As much as I LOVE reading people's reports and comments on the forum, I sometimes want to see the bottom line and what the consensus is for what a product does or is intended to do, obviously not disregarding the fact that we all still need to do our homework and do our own testing to see if it works for us or not.

Bottom line---I feel both reporting styles serve their own benefits and merit.

I feel kind of dorky riding to Ekscentra's rescue, as I know he can take care of himself, but I think this is a fruitful discussion. One thing that Ekscentra can do that we can all learn from is that he can evaluate the expertise of a reporter. I know that he has certain testers that he looks up to and trusts for accuracy and completeness. I know that when I test something, when I get a certain effect, I think about how sure I am whether the pheromones are solely causing the effect. Am I taking any supplements that might be affecting my feelings? Am I sick? Is this placebo? Is there anything about these social interactions that might be causing the effects?

I know I'm not as good at this as some people, but I am always skeptical of my own observations, like any scientist. Sometimes a report by an expert tester is worth more than 100 of my own tests. If Eks makes a claim about Ascend, it could very well be that he has heard decisive reports from expert testers, and that is how he can be so confident in something. This is something that we all do when taking a doctor's advice, listening to a teacher, or even just browsing the news. However, someone that can do this intentionally and consciously evaluate the likelihood that something is true, that makes him/her credible.

Is Ekscentra a dick sometimes? Yes. Does he mouth off about people and state his opinions in ways that are unfair or excessive? Yes, that too. But I still look forward to his theories and reports.

That is my 2 cents on the issue of report credibility.

This is what we get from a lack of standardization in testing.

Everyone is free to report the way they like, and in turn, we can all have our own opinions about the veracity of these reviews.

Personally, I know several reviewers that use hyperbole constantly in their reviews, and over time, you learn to discount those reviews as less than credible. On the bright side, many of these reviewers burn out pretty quickly, and post less and less over time, or get banned for too much drama.

Having said that, I would like to see some sort of standardized testing protocol to get some hard stats on certain products. An example would be to approach 100 girls and try to get a number with each product. Although this would be just one piece of info, at least we would have something quantifiable to build on moving forward.

(10-05-2015 4:03 PM)NP17 Wrote:  I for one am always trying to get more out of ekscentra. I have worked closely with him on a very elaborate project, and I have seen that his advice has always been spot on, even in areas of pheromone knowledge that are quite marginal. Not only that, but he makes relatively clear how sure of something he is. Sometimes he says he is confident about something and makes quite bold statements. He may not cite his sources, but these kinds of statements have always been true in my experience. Other times, and this is something that I've only experienced working directly with him, her shares things that he hypothesizes or is less sure about. He is certainly not making outlandish claims about things he knows nothing about.

It would be a shame if he were more reluctant to share his thoughts because one person finds it "off-putting." Yes, you are 13 years old. It is simply the nature of this community and what we're doing here that we rely on each other's intuition and judgement more than any objective facts. If you can't take someone's reports or opinions with a grain of salt and test them for yourself, the problem is your own sense of judgement. If you question Ekscentra's credibility, which is perfectly valid, then you should look to other sources of information. To turn away from Apex products because of one allegedly biased reviewer is a clear logical fallacy.

He can share his thoughts all he wants, i don't find that offputting at all. What i find offputting is when you go on other peoples sub-forums making claims that this Wolf is Style perfected. I find that pretty foul because it is potentially damaging one company, and beneficial to another. Of course when you make these statements people who are having success with Wolf will naturally question how he came to his outcome and why? If he could share how his interactions changed between Style and Wolf.

This will naturally create judgement and comparison between the two making people think they only need one or the other. So your potentially losing and stealing clients at the same time.

What i find offputting is he goes around badmouthing products that he hasn't even tested himself before. Like Ascend for example. I'm not telling him to be more reluctant when he speaks. I'm telling him if he is going to speak with authority show some credibility.

I'm glad that you have had good results with him, that is not the point here and that is between you two.

(10-05-2015 4:20 PM)NP17 Wrote:  I feel kind of dorky riding to Ekscentra's rescue, as I know he can take care of himself, but I think this is a fruitful discussion. One thing that Ekscentra can do that we can all learn from is that he can evaluate the expertise of a reporter. I know that he has certain testers that he looks up to and trusts for accuracy and completeness. I know that when I test something, when I get a certain effect, I think about how sure I am whether the pheromones are solely causing the effect. Am I taking any supplements that might be affecting my feelings? Am I sick? Is this placebo? Is there anything about these social interactions that might be causing the effects?

I know I'm not as good at this as some people, but I am always skeptical of my own observations, like any scientist. Sometimes a report by an expert tester is worth more than 100 of my own tests. If Eks makes a claim about Ascend, it could very well be that he has heard decisive reports from expert testers, and that is how he can be so confident in something. This is something that we all do when taking a doctor's advice, listening to a teacher, or even just browsing the news. However, someone that can do this intentionally and consciously evaluate the likelihood that something is true, that makes him/her credible.

Is Ekscentra a dick sometimes? Yes. Does he mouth off about people and state his opinions in ways that are unfair or excessive? Yes, that too. But I still look forward to his theories and reports.

That is my 2 cents on the issue of report credibility.

Expert Testers? So the minority of the people who report that Ascend doesn't do anything for them are the Expert Testers while the Majority of people who find Ascend working for them especially the A314 vets that switched over to Ascend are not Expert Testers? Maybe you are being a little bias yourself?

@seekingnirvana

You are free to take my opinion as you will. I don't expect 100% of the credibility to come from a single review.

On bad-mouthing other vendors in their sub-forum, I have to agree with you. I can be rash quite often, and on this matter I was way out of line. In the future, I'll save my opinions for the neutral areas of the forum.

The reports on Ascend never stuck out for me. Very few testers are A314 vets, and those few A314 vets that enjoy the blend admit that its uses are very specific in comparison. I trust my intuition to tell me if a blend is worth testing or not. I might end up wasting quite a bit of money were this not the case.

As for who I consider an expert tester, that has nothing to do with disliking PXS blends or anything of that nature. There are plenty of testers who had excellent with XiSt. I trust their opinions despite that blend having done nothing for me. The testers I trust are those who are both thorough and have some baseline for judging a product.

Establishing a baseline for one's own expected responses is a start, but in order for me to give weight to another's opinion, I'd like to see those testers having used a multitude of similar products before giving a consensus.

The fact is, most of the testers who gave a positive report on Ascend had absolutely no experience with similar products, no baseline for comparison. This is why I call into question its efficacy, even without having tested it. I give the same reason for calling out most products these days. We're just not seeing any useful comparisons in reviews. Were this to change, I'd have a much easier time taking these reviews seriously. I'm sure many of us here feel the same.

Ladies and gents please continue this discussion on another plane instead of the CV4 thread.
You guys are killing me here. Lol

Can we stick to the V4 reviews please? That would be great, thanks.

Does anyone know know what's been changed from CV3 to CV4?

(10-05-2015 6:18 PM)thundr Wrote:  Ladies and gents please continue this discussion on another plane instead of the CV4 thread.
You guys are killing me here. Lol

Can we stick to the V4 reviews please? That would be great, thanks.

Agreed! I have CV4 on the way and would love to hear more reports/results!

As far as standardized testing goes…we need REVIEW specific threads. As in, only REPORTS. If one has a question or interesting view point on a specific product or combo, than share in another thread maybe called, "X product- non-review discussion"

Sorry to add more to this discussion that is not a review but this style/setup would make everything a lot easier and more clutter free.

Just my 2 Abraham Lincoln's