My experiences as a new member

[ChiefW4]

Dear moderators,

I am a brand new member to this site and, sadly, my experiences here have been negative in every aspect. Maybe you don't mind this, maybe you don't really care, but I do believe, were it my site, I would want to know what's gone wrong, so please understand I'm not taking the time to write this to bash you or troll. I truly do want you to know what my experiences have been, and why I will no longer be frequenting your site.

That being said, here were my experiences:

I initially found this site while watching Masterchef and as on the show they were serving quesadillas, I developed a craving for the quesadillas from the sadly defunct Bennigans. I immediately felt somewhere on the web someone would have the recipe for the quesadillas from Bennigans and on your site someone had a recipe by that name.

I immediately had the ingredients delivered (I'm a 100% combat related disabled retired [not just discharged] veteran, and am house bound) and began cooking the recipe. I followed the given instructions to the letter and finished cooking the dish, looking forward to my Bennigan's quesadillas.

Sadly, the recipe given was not even close to accurate. Not only didn't they taste like Bennigan's quesadillas, they weren't even good quesadillas on their own (and living alone, one of the few things I can still do is cook, so I'm certain I prepared the meal to as per the directions). I figured this was my cue to get involved in the community, so the first thing I did was give the recipe a review. While the review was certainly negative, it was fair, honest, and well written. It was free of ad hominems and addressed both the inaccuracy of the name given to the recipe and why I didn't like them. It wasn't a "tossed off" review, taking me a few seconds to write. I put my time into it and wanted to be certain to save someone else the money, time, and effort of cooking these IF! what they wanted were authentic, or even close to the authentic amazing tasting chicken quesadillas, so I felt it was a review which needed to be there.

The next thing I felt it my "duty" to do was dig deeper and find the proper recipe. I have a friend who is still deployed who used to work as a line cook at Bennigan's who, when i was finally able to get in touch with him, very well remembered the recipe and was kind enough to type it out and email it to me from overseas. I repeated the process of ordering food, then cooking them up and viola! These were the quesadillas I loved and remembered. I felt I owed it to the others who'd tried the previous recipe and found it wanting to post my first recipe--the correct recipe.

I read the policies then went about trying to post it. Luckily, the way it was given to me, about the only thing I wasn't certain about was the serving size (I mean, c'mon... who eats just one quarter of a quesadilla-- Especially if it's the main meal?). Again, I took the time to cut and paste each ingredient line (it arrived via email, so was a jumble), the instructions, then wrote a description, a title, etc... I felt as though I'd accomplished something and hit enter. After doing so, however, I received the "recipe error" message (I don't know what it's called exactly. I only remember the gist of the message). In addition, several of my numbers and characters in the ingredients had changed into funny looking characters so, needless to say, all the time and effort i put into entering that recipe was for naught. There was too much to change. It was already getting late, and frankly I'd had enough for the night.

Today I received a letter telling me, in effect, my review "wasn't posted because it is inappropriate, unhelpful or not constructive." Of course, the person who made this decision was unable to be reached. There was no way to contact the person who decided, apparently, reviews regarding misleading titles and poor tasting dishes aren't accepted.

I'm truly disappointed these have been my experiences with Food.com and, assuming this post isn't removed for being "inappropriate, unhelpful, or not constructive," I hope you'll find this helpful in explaining why I will neither be recommending nor frequenting this site, at least not as it is at present. I do hope you'll find a way to allow those of us who believe our reviews are being unfairly blocked to confront the individual who made the decision instead of just pointing us to an immense forum where heaven knows who will read about it. I also hope you'll figure out why a recipe written precisely by your submission guidelines was turned to mush with the simple click of a mouse. There are other sites out there whose names I won't mention with whom I've had none of the problems I've had here, who appreciate the input of its members, even if they don't like a recipe and try to save others from making the same mistakes they did.

Best of luck in the future.

[Molly53]

ChiefW4 wrote:
Dear moderators,

I am a brand new member to this site and, sadly, my experiences here have been negative in every aspect. Maybe you don't mind this, maybe you don't really care, but I do believe, were it my site, I would want to know what's gone wrong, so please understand I'm not taking the time to write this to bash you or troll. I truly do want you to know what my experiences have been, and why I will no longer be frequenting your site.

That being said, here were my experiences:

I initially found this site while watching Masterchef and as on the show they were serving quesadillas, I developed a craving for the quesadillas from the sadly defunct Bennigans. I immediately felt somewhere on the web someone would have the recipe for the quesadillas from Bennigans and on your site someone had a recipe by that name.

I immediately had the ingredients delivered (I'm a 100% combat related disabled retired [not just discharged] veteran, and am house bound) and began cooking the recipe. I followed the given instructions to the letter and finished cooking the dish, looking forward to my Bennigan's quesadillas.

Sadly, the recipe given was not even close to accurate. Not only didn't they taste like Bennigan's quesadillas, they weren't even good quesadillas on their own (and living alone, one of the few things I can still do is cook, so I'm certain I prepared the meal to as per the directions). I figured this was my cue to get involved in the community, so the first thing I did was give the recipe a review. While the review was certainly negative, it was fair, honest, and well written. It was free of ad hominems and addressed both the inaccuracy of the name given to the recipe and why I didn't like them. It wasn't a "tossed off" review, taking me a few seconds to write. I put my time into it and wanted to be certain to save someone else the money, time, and effort of cooking these IF! what they wanted were authentic, or even close to the authentic amazing tasting chicken quesadillas, so I felt it was a review which needed to be there.

The next thing I felt it my "duty" to do was dig deeper and find the proper recipe. I have a friend who is still deployed who used to work as a line cook at Bennigan's who, when i was finally able to get in touch with him, very well remembered the recipe and was kind enough to type it out and email it to me from overseas. I repeated the process of ordering food, then cooking them up and viola! These were the quesadillas I loved and remembered. I felt I owed it to the others who'd tried the previous recipe and found it wanting to post my first recipe--the correct recipe.

I read the policies then went about trying to post it. Luckily, the way it was given to me, about the only thing I wasn't certain about was the serving size (I mean, c'mon... who eats just one quarter of a quesadilla-- Especially if it's the main meal?). Again, I took the time to cut and paste each ingredient line (it arrived via email, so was a jumble), the instructions, then wrote a description, a title, etc... I felt as though I'd accomplished something and hit enter. After doing so, however, I received the "recipe error" message (I don't know what it's called exactly. I only remember the gist of the message). In addition, several of my numbers and characters in the ingredients had changed into funny looking characters so, needless to say, all the time and effort i put into entering that recipe was for naught. There was too much to change. It was already getting late, and frankly I'd had enough for the night.

Today I received a letter telling me, in effect, my review "wasn't posted because it is inappropriate, unhelpful or not constructive." Of course, the person who made this decision was unable to be reached. There was no way to contact the person who decided, apparently, reviews regarding misleading titles and poor tasting dishes aren't accepted.

I'm truly disappointed these have been my experiences with Food.com and, assuming this post isn't removed for being "inappropriate, unhelpful, or not constructive," I hope you'll find this helpful in explaining why I will neither be recommending nor frequenting this site, at least not as it is at present. I do hope you'll find a way to allow those of us who believe our reviews are being unfairly blocked to confront the individual who made the decision instead of just pointing us to an immense forum where heaven knows who will read about it. I also hope you'll figure out why a recipe written precisely by your submission guidelines was turned to mush with the simple click of a mouse. There are other sites out there whose names I won't mention with whom I've had none of the problems I've had here, who appreciate the input of its members, even if they don't like a recipe and try to save others from making the same mistakes they did.

Best of luck in the future.

I'm very sorry you had less than positive experiences here and can appreciate your frustration, friend. Many people find this a great place to be and we hope you'll learn to love us, too.

Maybe you'll find these clickable links helpful:
How To Submit Your Delicious Recipe
and
How to Write Great Recipe Reviews for some terrific tips.

I don't know the details of why your review was rejected, but it's possible that a new editorial team member was a little too zealous (I had one rejected recently, too).

[Zurie]

Quote:
ChiefW4 wrote (among other points): These were the quesadillas I loved and remembered. I felt I owed it to the others who'd tried the previous recipe and found it wanting to post my first recipe--the correct recipe.

I read the policies then went about trying to post it. Luckily, the way it was given to me, about the only thing I wasn't certain about was the serving size (I mean, c'mon... who eats just one quarter of a quesadilla-- Especially if it's the main meal?). Again, I took the time to cut and paste each ingredient line (it arrived via email, so was a jumble), the instructions, then wrote a description, a title, etc... I felt as though I'd accomplished something and hit enter. After doing so, however, I received the "recipe error" message (I don't know what it's called exactly. I only remember the gist of the message). In addition, several of my numbers and characters in the ingredients had changed into funny looking characters so, needless to say, all the time and effort i put into entering that recipe was for naught. There was too much to change. It was already getting late, and frankly I'd had enough for the night.

Today I received a letter telling me, in effect, my review "wasn't posted because it is inappropriate, unhelpful or not constructive." Of course, the person who made this decision was unable to be reached. There was no way to contact the person who decided, apparently, reviews regarding misleading titles and poor tasting dishes aren't accepted.

Chief, what a pity all this happened to you.

Those of us who have been on the site for a long time know its quirks by now, and at the beginning there is a learning curve. All I can offer are suggestions to improve your experiences here.

It could be that your review was simply too long. It is an unfortunate fact of the Internet that messages often tend to be quite brief.

You may not feel like doing it, but could you edit your review to be shorter, and submit it again?

Otherwise, I still feel you should leave a remark on the recipe, e.g. "This is not the real ... quesadilla! Etc." (I forget the name of your quesadilla as I type here).

About recipe posting: the format can be a little tricky for newcomers, but it's actually straight-forward.

Post the amount first, then the ingredient, and only then the extra information. For example:

2 cups flour (it should be cake flour, not all-purpose)

The format does not accept something like:

A handful of sugar, if the sugar is part of the recipe. This will show later as an "error". Rather put in an approximate amount, such as "1/3 cup sugar".

At the very end of the recipe it does accept extras, such as: Parsley, to garnish.

When you've filled in everything at the bottom, such as servings and preparation time, and marked the category and main ingredient, you have to put a mark into the box where it says: "I have checked that there is no similar recipe on this site".

Then up pops the word CONTINUE.

Click, and when the recipe appears again, that's where most of us, very often, get that red ERROR message: "Oops, there were some errors below!" Just scroll down your recipe, and see what the "robot" (as I call it) is complaining about.

It's often an amount it does not like, an ingredient not recognised, or you marked off too many categories -- correct it. But getting that ERROR message when trying to post a recipe is very common. Most of the time it is easy to correct.

This site is nearing the 500,000 mark with recipes, so they're not that hard to post!

One caveat: yes, you might find a recipe with the "right title", but it may not at all be the real thing. Remember that recipes are posted by ordinary members, not chefs. Also, this is an American site, leaning towards the American way of cooking -- which does differ from cooking across the Atlantic or Pacific! I am in South Africa, and have been amazed to learn over the years that there is a big difference in tastes, preferences and attitudes towards foods between the countries!

We would hate to lose someone as experienced as you as a member.

Like anything vaguely technological these days, I'm afraid it IS a leaning curve!! Do come back and add your expertise! We have dozens of forums where you can drop in and add a comment or some hints and chats!

[Bellamarie.]

After reading this I too would like to say what a shame that you had a bad experience. Of course I have no idea what you wrote & why it would not be accepted.

I have found many, many recipes that I have made & enjoyed on this site. It does take a while to get used to how it all works. That being said when I tried to make bread the 1st time it was a total mess. I went to the forums & asked for help. I was OVERWHELMED with advice that worked & know can actually bake a decent loaf.............so the members are what made me stay here.

I do know from frequenting the forums that negative reviews never go down well with members & depending on how well known or popular you are, really basic, average recipes can be reveiwed 100s of times with glowing reviews which can be misleading but lets face it that's life. This is a public site & not a cookbook with tried & true recipes.

One has to sift through & experiment with recipes & save the ones you truelly like. You must remember this is a site thatanyone can post recipes that THEY think are great regardless of whether they really are or not.

Hope that explains a little..............xx