Forum Ideas & FAQ Creation

[The Kap'n]

I was thinking about starting a new section called "Questions & Answers" which would follow a yahoo style type dialog where the user posts a question, board members post answers, and then the user can mark what they feel is the best answer.

Ideas? Thoughts?

Just something I've been tossing around in my head for a while. I've also been thinking about making kava forum t-shirts too...but that's a while off, and I'd want a cooler design than just our kava forums logo.

 

[infraredz]

I think that a FAQ seems to be one of the things I think would be the best addition. That being said, what would be the benefit of having the ability to "rank" answers? I think the "like" function could serve the same purpose if people used it as such. Also, there is a lot of differing opinions on even straightforward things so a "top answer" might be incorrect for the person asking the question.

 

[The Kap'n]

Yep, see I didn't think of that. I'm thinking a landing page would be pretty awesome. I'd love for a new user to be able to open kavaforums.com and immediately be met with an informative site that you access the forum from. I don't currently know how to do that, but I'm more than capable of reading some directions

 

[kavadude]

Yeah FAQ would be probably a lot less work.

 

[Deleted User01]

I like the idea of a FAQ. Everyone always asks about how you strain your Kava. There are lots of ways and it would be nice to see all of them listed. A question they are kicking around right now, what is the best bedtime Kava or what is the best daytime Kava. Who are the best vendors. Maybe you can post an outline somewhere and let us take potshots at it before you start filling it in. And general information about Kava with some good links to studies and research done by others. And you really need to display the FAQ prominently so it stares a Newbie right in the face.

And I had to login again with another idea. Tips on how to use this forum. I could have used that myself. There are bound to be lots of members who aren't particularly techy and who DON'T haunt other forums. This may be their first forum and they do need some direction. I know I did and I'm a programmer. I don't do other forums, facebook, twitter, or any of that other stuff.

One more idea. If you have a FAQ about straining, I wonder if it would be less work to have links to the threads that already have all that info. Maybe a short summary from you and then the links. There is a ton of information on this forum.

Any way you want to cut it Kapm, it's still a lot of work. I really appreciate your commitment to making this forum the best damn forum on the internet. Let us know if we can be of any assistance.

 

[Akava]

What we really need is a scheduled chat time

 

[Deleted User01]

Akava. As I said earlier, I know nothing about Forums, only this fine forum. I can guess what Scheduled Chat Times might be but why are they important and how do they work. How would we use that feature?

Kapm. In what kind of database does all this data reside. This project will be a lot of work and maybe each member can take a topic and put together a summary of the topic and search out the links. We give you our final product, everyone takes pot shots at it and then you post it. The summary of the topic would list the facts and only the facts. The threads would offer opinions and show the personalities of the actors.

 

[kavadude]

Barring some changes to the forum (like a fancier front page) we can put it in the wiki and then sticky a thread at the top of the lounge pointing people to read it, so they can ignore it and post a thread anyway

 

[Akava]

Deleted User01, its not really a feature,
All it is is someone saying: "I think every XXXXday at XX:XX PM, we should all go to the chat" Then everyone will see that and acknowledge it, we will then all go to the chat at that time and have a good time talking to our kava friends

 

[Ecto]

I like the FAQ idea. Maybe a large banner on the front of kavaforums.com main page with a "New to Kava? Start here!" message leading to a newbie FAQ page.

 

[Doobie Doo]

For what it's worth, another vote here for a FAQ. It does seem to be the convention on many a forums. And has the added benefit over a voting system of being easily maintainable.

 

[infraredz]

That's another thing- we still have the kava polls and census that are still active although there wasn't spectacular participation in them (which could be in part due to the inability to fill all the forms out at once). Those have a great potential for the common questions about "which kava is best for x?" threads, and it shows popularity among vendors, different extracts, etc.

Still though, I think a FAQ would be great but it would end up being like our Wiki which no one seems to read. For example, all the preparation questions are clearly explained in the Preparation section of that. Now that I thought of that, I might as well say that I've been thinking we should have a way to add a small banner to part of the page that also points to the Wiki because the little tab at the top-left doesn't "seem" too obviously significant (if that makes sense). Oh, and also, I think it would be nice to have the Review section be more standardized since some people don't seem to use the "Review Form" to submit a review (so I guess force people to use that feature)

Like mentioned above, a lot of the information has already been compiled in various places (the "How it Works" thread, Dermopathy wiki page, Research Links, Preparation wiki, etc. The only problem with a FAQ would be accounting for the differences between how we all use kava. It really seems kind of rare that there is so much variation...

 

[The Kap'n]

I'm hearing overall that we need a FAQ for new users to be sent to, and an easy way for them to find it. Totally agree.

Ok, now here comes the fun part. Compiling what you guys think should be contained in the faq. This is where I'll need your help.

Go to this page

[url]http://www.kavaforums.com/forum/wiki/frequently-asked-questions/[/URL]

Once you get to the page, click the edit button on the right, and you can add whatever you think is FAQ worthy. Copy/Paste it, type it in, however you get it there is cool. Don't worry about the way it looks. We'll go back through and edit it for structure and to organize the content. Don't forget to click the "save page" button when you're done!

@Deleted User01 The chat is a function on the bottom left of your screen if you're using a PC/MAC. There's a button that says "Chatrooms". Click that button and you'll immediately be connected to the group chat however it's usually empty. Hopefully akava can help us with that. Note: the chatroom doesn't show up if you're using an iOS device (iPad/iPhone). For iOS & Andriod users there is an app called "Cometchat" you can download and be connected on the go.
Also I'll look and see if there's a tutorial for our forum software that we can easily let people look over if they feel unaccustomed to kavaforums. Xenforo is the software base we use and it's really new so it may throw some people if they're not totally tech savy. Also thank YOU for being an active member.

@Akava About the chat time; If we can come together and agree on a chat day & time I'd be more than happy to add it to the announcements so everyone sees it when they log in.

@Ecto Banner idea is great. I'll be looking into that to see how I can implement it.

@infraredz You've been helping since the start, and I really appreciate it. I'm sure all the new members and old members alike appreciate it too.

 

[kavadude]

Well I added a note about straining since that seems to be one of our most common questions. I also added one on water temp, but I'm not sure what the latest thinking on that is. I know it's been said that boiling water temperature destroys kavalactones, any thoughts?

 

[sɥɐʞɐs]

not sure if anyone else agrees but i think it would make sense to put the reviews somewhere within each vendor's own page, from main page 'kava suppliers' section since those are the most immediately visible vendor links to visitors. Instead all the reviews are tucked away at the very bottom. They could stay their too (or link to where they've moved)..
but i think it would be effective to compile them within each vendors main page link. either by having sticky topics for each of their products that contain all the reviews within it...or maybe by adding a sub-forum at the top of each vendors forum in which the only threads to exist in it will be one for each product..with all their reviews inside them. Then i suppose it would be nice if using the review submission form would automatically post it there too (i'm not sure if you have that control or not??) ...and i guess people that dont use the submission form but review by hand instead would be able to reply and add their own review within the threads too.

watcha think ? i'm not sure if i described that very well

 

[infraredz]

@shakas - That makes a lot of sense to me too. I think the best way to do it would be to have a subforum within each Vendor's page called "[Vendor Name] Reviews" which are then organized by strain so that all the reviews for BKH Boroguru would be in the same place, for instance.

@kavadude - I think that the latest thinking is still that the hot water does definitely increase extraction, but also can have a negative impact on taste. Also, regarding boiling water destroying lactones; from what I've read regarding the chemical profiles of some of the major lactones, the BP of water isn't nearly high enough to destroy them. I think that was just something that someone once said and then it caught on without any real evidence... It's my understanding that pyrolysis of the lactones would be at a temperature that would not be possible with the presence of water (ie. definitely not as low as 100°C). Heating lactones (cyclic esters) with the presence of a base will result in hydrolysis but that's not something that anyone would be doing (and certainly no one would be reacting lactone with ethanolic ammonia).

Interestingly, I found this on the old forums but the link is broken:
The owner of http://hawaiiankava.com/ and studies kava apparently said:
Here are some of his quotes:
"About three years ago, a test (using HPLC) was done on boiling the kava beverage (~212F). Loss after a few minutes at that temperature was considered insignificant. Less than 5% of the kavalactones were lost."

and

an old member posted:
"This one's more about special lab equipment based extraction so I can't be sure it applies here, but the graph on page 190 (and following pages) shows that, in general, the percentage of extraction increases as temperature increases. Yangonin extraction is essentially 0% until you reach boiling point"
[link seems broken to me, but you could try it: http://144.206.159.178/ft/553/42507/769267.pdf]

 

[Akava]

"This one's more about special lab equipment based extraction so I can't be sure it applies here, but the graph on page 190 (and following pages) shows that, in general, the percentage of extraction increases as temperature increases. Yangonin extraction is essentially 0% until you reach boiling point"

Could this be the secret on how to get extra special kava?

Maybe someone should try boiling that kava from Andrew that was really high in Yangonin I think @kavadude bought it and said it wasn't very different but what if you try boiling it?

 

[kavadude]

an old member posted:
"This one's more about special lab equipment based extraction so I can't be sure it applies here, but the graph on page 190 (and following pages) shows that, in general, the percentage of extraction increases as temperature increases. Yangonin extraction is essentially 0% until you reach boiling point"
[link seems broken to me, but you could try it: http://144.206.159.178/ft/553/42507/769267.pdf]

WIZARD POWERS

That study is Comparison of subcritical water and organic solvents for extracting kava lactones from kava root by Kubatova, Miller & Hawthorne at the University of North Dakota (!), 2001.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11510541

And the text http://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/6718572/769267pdf

 

[infraredz]

Ah, well supercritical extractions would be out of the question for all but the most industrious of us (looking at you @Kapmcrunk)

 

[kavadude]

Subcritical. Though I would imagine that such an extraction would have the same concerns as alcohol-based extracts in that you're dissolving nearly everything.