Tobaccoreviews.com - What A Joke

[numbersix]

TR.com used to be THE source and it's now a joke.

I think you're all being a bit hasty. Let's not forget how useful the site is overall. It may not be as useful to long time smokers who've already tried hundreds of different blends, but for those of us just starting out, it can be a godsend.
For ex., when I see a blend that I've never tried is on sale, TR is the first place I go to get an idea of what it's like. Just knowing the ingredients, and the nic strength is a huge help. This should really go without saying, but the reviews, as with all opinions, should be taken with a grain of salt.
Let's face it, it's not too hard to tell a valid opinion from an ridiculous one - it's all about reading between the lines.

 

[mso489]

This illustrates the limitations of more-or-less open websites. People used to resent publications because the

reporters, writers, reviewers, etc. were hand picked. It was in a sense elitist. But most of the writers etc. were

held accountable and to some high standards, and had to keep their religion, politics, philosophies, and so forth,

out of the copy. They had assignments and were held to them. Once everyone is a "reviewing prince," they pretty

much say what they will. They/we are like a bunch of four-year-olds, without any boundaries or sense of

responsibility. Well, we do try. But when you are dealing with the public, a lot of "unwanted data" comes through.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

That this thread still lives is providing me with a great deal of amusement. :rofl:

 

[pitchfork]

That this thread still lives is providing me with a great deal of amusement. [:rofl:]

Agreed, this is a great thread. (No joke.)

 

[pipestud]

I have really enjoyed this thread, too. And have LOL a few times at some of the posts.
By the way, Harris, tobaccoreviews.com is now owned by Pipes and Tobaccos Magazine. When Jon Tilman began the site many years ago I helped out by transcribing from my own personal tobacco diary (nearly 20 years worth of notes) some personal thoughts on over 300 blends. I used to enjoy "bookmarking" reviewers whose tastes ran toward my own. If those gents enjoyed a blend I would buy a tin or two.
As for my take on the site now; I don't read reviews themselves anymore (too many Gus Tation types of reviewers), but do look at the header regarding the blend itself, blender, contents, etc.
And finally, it is my humble opinion that even lawyers can make it into Heaven. I'm told none have made it yet, but I am an optimist. (-;
Pipestud

 

[taerin]

Oh man peck and Harris, you two just made my day!

 

[pitchfork]

I had no intention of giving this thread a bump (as fun as it was to read), but I just happened to come across another review from our friend, Gus Tation. It's for Wessex Burley Slice and it's just classic. You're welcome:

This flake was vapid...insipid. I wasted good money on this crappola. This is just as bad as the re-engineered university flake. Weak, emasculated to say the least. No strength, no depth..nuthin'!!
Jesus saves, but not this flake! lol. Hey, Christ has a sense of humor too you know.
Smoke in peace.

 

[spoofmutt]

I agree with the original poster. The website forces people to add text to their reviews and, in many cases, it's just dribble that could be auto-generated from a program or just parroting what others said. IMDB does allow ratings without the chatter and the end results are quite good.
I give this thread a "bump"!
:worship:

 

[rmbittner]

I hate to add yet another post to what was a dead thread, but I've posted maybe 30 or 40 reviews on TR and always enjoy visiting. I ignore the ones that simply tell me whether it was "good" or "bad," without any context. And I also ignore the ones that see the site as a way to publish their tobacco "poetry." There are very few reviewers I trust enough to go along on a 500-word journey that compares a pipe tobacco to everything from a newly opened jar of Russian caviar to the way a sunset made them feel.
I will say, though, that I find great value in reviews of aged tins and discontinued blends. If I'm aging a blend myself, I love knowing folks' reactions to it without having to open a tin myself. And I actually treasure the comments about discontinued blends; it's wonderful, I think, to have some kind of historical record about what certain blends tasted like, what they contained, etc. None of those reviews take anything away from the 200+ reviews of 1Q (seriously?) or the nearly 400 reviews of Penzance.
Finally, I'm open to reading reviews of aromatics by people who don't typically smoke aromatics and similar "I don't usually like. . . " reviews. But I definitely like knowing those preferences right at the outset. That way, I know how to interpret their reactions, whether to ignore them or be intrigued by them, and better understand how my own tastes jibe.
Sure, there's lots of fluff and nonsense. But no other tobacco-review site can touch it in terms of breadth and depth.
Bob

 

[mso489]

If I end up at TR, it is because I have Googled a blend by name and manufacturer and find the

review listed that way. Then I take a look. If the reviewer is verbose and off-subject, I click back

to the Google menu. If the reviewer knows what a topic sentence is, has some sense of tight

writing and brevity, and sticks to the subject, I will read on to the end. No ones life is long enough

for untalented reviewers, bloggers, or nearly any talk radio.

 

[peter70]

I think, the new site/layout/functions of tobaccoreviews has improved finding the right opinion a lot. Senseless chatter can be downvoted and good reviews upvoted. Default sort is for helpfulness, so the good reviews come out on top and the crap goes down to the bottom. There are a few reviewers, whose opinion I trust, and some, who obviously don't know, on which end of the pipe the smoke comes out.

 

[JimInks]

There was one person who refused to actually write review text, and edited his reviews to openly mock receiving several down votes for doing so when he discovered the latter was happening. Checking TR.com, I see his posts are no longer there. If one isn't going to actually review the tobacco, one shouldn't post there or complain about how the site is run, in my opinion.
Judging tobacco blends is a subjective exercise because taste and body chemistry reactions vary from person to person. Sure, I'll voice my opinion on what I think, but it's only my opinion. If it's helpful to someone else, that's wonderful. If it's not helpful or dramatically varies from somebody's else, then it falls under the category of "different strokes for different folks". It's up to the individual smoker to decide what to believe and how he or she feels about it. The TR.com site is often a useful guide for smokers with much information to glean. Like taste in tobaccos, one's approach is subjective, which validates some reviews for that individual, and may invalidate others.

 

[doctorthoss]

Wow -- TR gets on my nerves, too, at times but I simply can't bring myself to be that offended by it LOL.

As many others have pointed out, it's a great tool in some ways. You have to figure out who's worth reading and such, but I've found that -- taken overall -- it's not too far off the mark. High quality blends that are universally loved tend to be universally acclaimed, and Borkum Riff is pretty despised. I don't think Gus Tation is a particularly good reviewer, but I can hardly bring myself to be THAT annoyed by him.

My pet peeves are two. While our tastes in tobacco are very subjective, there are some elements of what we smoke that are NOT objective. For instance, the contents of a blend. There are a LOT of mistakes in many descriptions. Unless they've changed it recently, there's not a moderator or any type of fact-checking process to ensure that a blend description is in any way accurate.

My other peeve is the small but verbose group of wanna-be novelists who seem determined to turn every pipe review they write into a chapter from a Leo Tolstoy novel. Or, even worse, who manage to combine the worst kind of overwriting ("I lit this tobacco and found myself floating on a raft through the waterways of Venice as the moonlight danced across the surface of my 1915 merlot and then reflects off the beautiful finish on my 1922 Dunhill Canadian, revealing rune letters entwined in the flawless bird's eye grain") with hints of sexual perversions of a type that would make the narrator of "Lolita" flee to a monastery in terror.

Ah, hell -- to each their own, right?

 

[JimInks]

Doctorthoss: Agreed on all counts.

 

[doctorthoss]

BTW -- it appears that Gus Tation is no longer on TR. I searched for him and couldn't turn anything up (although there seem to be reviews from canceled accounts).

 

[darthcider]

As a pipe smoker of 6 whole weeks now, I found TR to be very useful when choosing tobacco I thought I might like. I chose 3 to start me off - Ogs, orlik bullseye and dunhill flake. I like all of them and they are as reviewed, so will revisit the site again for more advice/opinions. At the moment I don't have years of experience to draw on and am happy to use what I can get. Obviously, and like others have said everyone has an opinion, but it might not match yours.

 

[peckinpahhombre]

It's nice to have an old thread like this resurrected. I harken back to me laughing my ass off about some of the responses. Fun stuff.

 

[pipestud]

Yes sir, this thread was good for some fun reading!
Pipestud

 

[pylorns]

I'm taking notes - we have a review section on thepipetool.com but its more for your own reviews for yourself and your own ratings. BUUUT... we had thought about expanding it to share reviews. If we do - up and down voting users reviews a-la-reddit style might be a good idea. If a user gets downvoted too much then they won't be able to post another review for a set amount of time. Vice versa - you will get credit for being up-voted so your reviews carry more weight...

 

[sfsteves]

I pay no attention whatsoever to 'reviews' UNLESS I know the reviewer and have some idea how his opinions reflect my own ... as a result, I have never been offended by dit-ship comments since the guys I DO pay attention to don't make those sort of remarks ...
I tend to be a very minimalistic reviewer myself IF I bother to write any reviews ... I did a fair number for P&C since they specifically solicited them, but those all vanished in the transition to their new Website and I'm unlikely to re-write any of them ...
My take is that each of us has a taste profile that is uniquely our own ... what I like or dislike is not at all likely to offer any guidance to an undecided buyer since his taste and mine aren't the same ... any comment I might make should be heeded ONLY by someone who knows me and knows how (or whether) our taste profiles correspond and given that knowledge, has SOME basis for weighing my opinions ...