The Community Instead of Ads

System
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This is completely legitimate, and I’m sure that many people genuinely had this good intention. Regardless, the law and regulations unfortunately don’t care about this underlying intention; the mechanism remained what it was.

Immediately after the shops closed, it wasn’t the first. But long before the final shutdown of webshops and right before it, he actively pushed the Párkány line, then after the closures came the Aromapalota mixing, and then again the visit to the Párkány shop. The chronology doesn’t change this: the professional alternative was just one of many stages.

It’s worth reading the site and actively participating in the community. :vaperina: We always do what we can for dissemination if it’s an important milestone affecting the community. When this crisis happened, nearly a thousand people joined us in a few days precisely because they knew they would get reliable information here.

These posts are mostly found in the Blog category and under the #announcement tag. They are linked all over the previous topics, and Gilbert also constantly recommends them for searches.

Note: These topics were much rawer at the beginning and contained much more background info/whys (constantly highlighted at the top of the page), but over time we had to refine the wording to meet all legal requirements.

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I’m also eagerly awaiting the pictures. :saluting_face:

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Then maybe check it out, because it’s already posted!! :grin:

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Funny to see everyone trying to tell F.T. what and how he should do things. As far as I know, vaperina also approached Tomi early in his journey to collaborate, but he rejected it (perfectly understandably). It would have been good to have his follower base then.

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I don’t know about that!! I’ve had my share of trouble with it, some people rave about it, others have a bad opinion of it!! I’m one of the latter!

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You have it wrong, the story wasn’t quite like that, and the motivations were completely different.

We’re talking about 2019, the heyday of Facebook groups, when Facebook banned the largest domestic vape group from one moment to the next (which Kinga was also an admin of, by the way). After this, I contacted Kinga, and vaperina.com was born from this, which was still the old buy-and-sell page back then.

Since we were at the beginning and I wasn’t yet aware of what was actually going on behind the scenes, I naturally contacted the major domestic content creators. So I also wrote to Tomi, asking if he could feature the site in a video. He quoted a sum that we couldn’t – and didn’t want to – pay, however, he posted a community post about Vaperina on his YouTube channel for free. After that, when the current vaperina.cc platform launched, I wrote to him asking if he’d be interested in joining us. There was no response to this.

From this story, I wouldn’t think anyone would get the impression that we were after his follower base. :sweat_smile: We simply approached the then-players as a startup platform.

Besides, no one is telling him what to do. It’s just stated here what he is actually doing.

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29

I looked at the topics you posted and essentially the message is the same as Tomi’s Aromapalota video: VG PG Floravita, nicotine tobacco shop, flavor from some Hungarian food flavoring website. In reality, neither helps vapers who love French or English premium flavors boosted with nic salts. And if you want to act fully legally and get, say, Aisu flavors or Biggy Bear flavors, then there’s really nothing left but to go abroad for them. Regarding Tomi’s things you mentioned, that it’s not legal, the buying and selling on any platform or what I saw in topics where vapers give each other unwanted nicotine liquids, that’s also a grey area. However, I am sure that we will never agree on each other’s views, which is of course not a problem, because I think we shared them normally without putting each other down.

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As I said, this was much more specific. However, the date of publication matters. We posted these more than 2 weeks earlier, within a few days of the closure. This is not a short time in this case. But anyway, the main point was made by him/her as well, it just took a bit longer.

Yes, in my opinion, at least we focused on showing them how to mix and get the necessary supplies for it. This has actually helped a lot of people who came with similar nicotine-related questions.

I can’t comment on whether it exists elsewhere, but it happens within legal frameworks here.

If you see something like that here, please report it because it’s not legal, and we are very strict about it to prevent such content from being shared.

I agree :hugs:

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My impression from this is that you wanted to promote yourselves with him, meaning you wanted to leverage his popularity. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in my opinion, if I don’t like someone, I don’t expect support from them. There’s nothing objectionable about him not doing it for free (and yet, in the end, he did post a promo post about you for free), as he put a lot of work into building his follower base. Based on the comments, it seems like everyone wants to tell him what to do instead of simply accepting that Tomi is a promoter who wanted to make a living by making promo videos for webshops. I also remember the events of 2019, and it cannot be held against Tomi that he didn’t join a community where negative opinions about him were already appearing back then.

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I think what comes across from what you’re writing is that you are completely blind.

For someone who is for the community (or perhaps, for him, the community is/was for him), I think this is fundamental. We also help anyone who is just starting out and wants exposure or support, for free. It’s not by chance that we created the Vape content creators topics either. There, we tried to list everyone and members can edit it. I think this would be natural.

Such a post doesn’t make that big of an impact, and that was well after the buy/sell page launched. I wouldn’t mix it up with where we are now. But let there be no misunderstanding, we were very grateful for it. However, this had no impact on vaperina.cc, as the hype around the buy/sell page (which was from 1 year earlier) that the post generated died down in about a few days. At best, it reached 150-200 people.

Incidentally, I’m especially glad it only amounted to that much… look at poor Vaperbook’s example, how they fared with that direction.

These things reinforce that we went in a very good direction with the independent community-centric model. What we achieved is thanks to organic growth and the fact that we don’t lean anywhere. Therefore, opinions can be expressed freely.

No one said a word about not liking someone here, I don’t understand why that’s brought up. When we started and what we’re talking about now is the buy/sell page (vaperina.com, 2019), there wasn’t even an option to express an opinion, it wasn’t a conversational site. When (vaperina.cc, 2020) launched, there was no criticism either; the first came much later.

BUT, and here’s a huge BUT. Tamás, whether you like it or not, is an opinion shaper, an influencer who must tolerate criticism, and he does, but a part of the people who blindly follow him cannot stand any criticism directed at him.

They say all sorts of things about us too… so what? That’s part of it, not everyone has to like everything… Criticism should be dealt with appropriately.

Please, quote a comment where someone says that Tamás should do this or that. No one wrote anything like that!

Good to know! Then why was his introduction “Hungary’s Leading Vape Vlog”? A vlog and independent testing imply professionalism, while being a promoter is pure marketing. There’s a big difference.

Of course, it’s not a problem to give space to people’s real opinions if they couldn’t do so on the other side. (Isn’t it good that you have the opportunity to defend yourself?) This is called freedom of speech.
Actually, that’s precisely why he should have joined. If he were truly interested in this, he would have had the opportunity to start communicating with people here at last.

Although, when I think about it, he did join in his own way…

He registered with a fake profile and sold his leftover test gear, and members asked him if it was him because he did it quite conspicuously. Then he asked us to delete it and told us to go to… As if we had done anything wrong. :sweat_smile:

But if you don’t mind, I’ll end this thread here, as I think further debate is unnecessary.

It’s completely different when someone knows something from hearsay or from the outside, and it’s different when someone has experienced it personally, it happened to them, or it unfolded in their immediate environment. If nothing else, I think we can agree on this. :hugs:

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I don’t want to continue the debate either, but I would like to respond to what has been said.

In my opinion, vaperbook wasn’t successful not because Tamás Fehér or any promoter promoted it. At least, that’s how it seems you’re implying.
They started in a completely different environment than you did. In an environment where the site could no longer even be mentioned online because authorities were already monitoring Facebook groups etc… Moreover, they didn’t have a database for it either.
I guess if they had converted a well-functioning buy-sell page, that page might have been more popular too. Of course, I might be wrong. Anyway.

By the way, vaperina is also a micro community, as I see it. I rarely log in, but it seems like the same 20-30 people usually comment. Most of the Hungarian vape community doesn’t even know it exists. I’m not saying this to offend; this is what I gather from browsing the topics. Activity in small Discord groups is about the same as here. A community is defined not by the number of registered members but by the number of active members.

If someone responds to criticisms concerning F.T., it doesn’t mean they can’t handle it, but that they feel it’s unfair and they want to express their own opinion about the criticism. This should also be part of freedom of speech!

When I say they want to tell him what and how to do things, I’m referring to criticisms like “he shouldn’t promote disposables, he never gives negative opinions about products, how can he like every flavor etc…” and the list goes on. These negative criticisms mean exactly that the critic has expectations for Tamás regarding what and how he should do things or how he shouldn’t.
“Hungary’s leading Vape vlog” disappeared from videos many, many years ago, so I don’t feel this criticism is justified, and anyway, it just means that vape content is on a popular site. It implies vape content, not expertise.

One recurring criticism that bothers me also comes to mind. You often pit vaperina against F.T. by saying that you have done a lot for the Hungarian vape community, in contrast to Tamás who has done very little. I absolutely do not see it that way, that Tamás hasn’t done anything for the Hungarian vape community, quite the opposite! I think most vapers learned about new products through him, he helped vapers find sourcing channels, he educated beginners very well on building different devices, taught them how to mix, etc., and since most people actually followed him, his content reached the most people, therefore his videos had the greatest impact on the Hungarian vape community. So he provided help to a lot of beginners and made vaping appealing, which shouldn’t and cannot be taken away from him.

Peace!

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Azért nem kell isteníteni a palit, mert nekem is csak addig válaszolt amig meg nem vettem az általa reklámozott podot, mikor kezdtem a vapét!! Ő ajánlotta, hogy nyugodtan vegyem meg, mert ez már új kiadás, megoldották a folyási problémát!! Ami persze nem volt igaz, és kérdeztem , hogy mit tegyek, soha többé nem válaszolt!! Csak addig érdekeltem amig meg nem vettem!! Nálam tett a vapéért!! Soha bottal sem piszkálom meg amit ő ajánl!!

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I wasn’t deifying it, I was just stating a fact. Believe me, he didn’t get a commission from the shops for sales, so it was completely indifferent to him whether you bought it or not. And a pod can leak for many reasons, no one is going to solve this problem for you remotely, but I guess you’ve figured that out by now too.

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Sure! The issue here wasn’t that it continued, but that he/she had time for me until I bought it. Afterward, I just asked a question about it and was completely dismissed! So, for you, a decent person, but not for me!! Peace!!

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Actually, he was really cool for responding and recommending a device. If the manufacturer communicates that they fixed the leaking and it didn’t leak in his test either, then what else could he have said? If you have a problem with the device, you need to contact the seller; it’s not expected that Tamás would deal with this problem too. It’s not a simple matter to find the fault, and moreover, it’s not his responsibility. I think your offense was not justified. Anyway, I see we are wired backwards.

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As a beginner vaper, he asked, he just expected one sentence, e.g.: “I don’t know what the solution could be.”
:peace_symbol: :saluting_face:

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Thank you, finally someone understands!! Before I bought it, they messaged me about 4 times, but once I bought it, they ghosted!! Yes, that answer would have been perfectly fine too!!

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@OPTomi :sweat_smile: You’re talking to people here who understand vaping and know what the Community is all about. :vaperina:

Sorry, but what you’ve put together here has only reinforced that.

Since I’ve already let this go with you, I’ll just say this much. I think you should do the same.

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Out of curiosity, I checked his Facebook page. This guy is a real market hawker. He’ll sell anything they give him. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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I missed out on him; Blacki’s videos were enough for me back then. Therefore, I don’t judge him, I exclusively rely on the opinions of my fellow vapers here of several years. Based on that, however, I didn’t feel the urge to study his content.

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