Why Is This Site So Quiet?

I like this site, but I have to wonder why is it so quiet? Any time I have posted a thread, I get perhaps one response, usually from a moderator. Why are so few people participating here?

Hi Oriane,

Good question. I surmise, but I am not sure, that most of the people do not subscribe to any topics in the forum. So, they are not aware of requests, suggestions, or any other matter.
By the way, I am a moderator, and just came across your topic while checking for recent posting

Have fun,
Elysium

Materijalmen your comment is spot on! Whenever I get a notification for a new review that is coming from the German site, I see how many awards are present on both reviews and pictures published there... surely, German followers are much much more than other foreign people. Nevertheless, I will keep on going with publishing my personal reviews and pictures nearly daily of the English site

Google Translate is your friend. I use it to post reviews there. You do need to watch out for English idioms as they do not translate very well. Also, if you are using Chrome, it automatically translates the German over to English.

I ask myself the same question Our International sister page really deserves more attention!

I think it is only a matter of time before it gains tremendous popularity across the world. I joined late last year after being interested in fragrances for quite some time and having an interest to learn from others and share in this hobby. Since that time, each month I see more users, more posts, more collaboration, communication, and engagement. You can tell it was created by people who love fragrances and take pride in their site.

Part of the issue is that it doesn't show up readily in Google searches, at least here in the States, just yet. There might be some room for search engine optimization (SEO) here, I'm honestly not sure how it works, but a lot of good people are not on here sharing simply because they don't know about it and it doesn't show up readily when they search the web. The main two forums which have been around for some time and are eating up most of the traffic are Basenotes and Fragrantica, as you can infer from these threads:

www.reddit.com/r/fragrance/comments/bcgeoy/bas enotes_or_fragrantica/

www.fragrantica.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=288 42

www.fragrantica.com/board/viewtopic.php?id=720 23

I had a look at those for a short while, but the interface and layout of these sites seemed very clunky and outdated. They are also more prone to "academic" discussions around niche or super high end fragrances, which is all well and good, but there is so much more to the fragrance community at large. There are people who would rather share their joy and practical information about smelling great in the world and creating the right moments and impressions for themselves and people they interact with daily, rather than describing the finer points to death in the catacombs. I would say if fragrance was the business world, these sites are like the aged professors in an esteemed business school discussing arcane theory among themselves and students, and Parfumo is like big time executives closing big deals and making big money out in the real world. There is no comparison.

I was sure there had to be something better, and after some digging I came upon our excellent community, where the presentation is very clean, intuitive, and organized. As more and more enthusiasts discover the same, you will see the activity and engagement increase, I am sure of it. The quality of the site speaks for itself.

Thanks a lot for the great words! If you have any ideas or suggestions - we are happy to hear from you!
It is also not to be denied that the German website was here first and some translations may not be optimal. Tips from native speakers are always welcome

To support the international communitypage it's important too that those who take the time to write a blog, review or statement feel appreciated. Even if you disagree or never had the chance to test the fragrance. A review is always very personal, just like we all are, because we all have different taste.
The writing gives all other members here his/her experience of the perfume which can be very helpful. The same for the forum.
If we want this community to be more sparkling then support the reviews, statements and photo's by giving them an award , reply , ask..make it more alive!

100% Agree. It would also be great if we know who the likes and follows were coming from, similar to just about any other internet forum. I would love to know who my likers and followers are, so that I can be sure to go to their content and return the favor, but right now there is no way to do that. The anonymity, I feel, is discouraging engagement. Imagine sending someone a Christmas card, and the recipient only being able to know that they received a card, but never who sent it. How many people would take the time to write that card?

I agree that interaction using all the channels possible is a key here - commenting reviews and statements, or others' fragrance collections (yes, it's possible for anyone who did not know ), replying to blogs and just start an exchange of thoughts.


I do understand the feeling of a little frustration if one doesn't know whom to thank.
On the other hand, being part of a community, I would consider anything I do would affect the whole, regardless of whether I know this person ''personally'' or not and whether it leads to clearly defined and immediate reciprocity. It's enough to know that it's someone from this community.

This being said, except for rewards and votes, any other action will always show the username. Personally, I do not mind remaining anonymous if I awarded or upvoted someone's writings/pictures. If I wish to start a conversation, I will comment anyway.
In my eyes, therefore, the interaction does not really depend on (openly) 'rewarding' each other and returning the favour, but perhaps more on everything else as mentioned in the beginning.

Last but not least: There are 3 chat bars that can be used for interaction and conversation - the status bar on the homepage ("ticker bar"), the one on the Community page, and the private chat on your very own profile page (can be activated via settings).

This exactly.

I'm in the U.K and it seems there's a very limited amount of people from my part of the world on here or active either.
For example, on the SOUK's all requests I see are for Germany & absolutely nothing else.

I think the site needs some google presence to give it a fragrantica level exposure.

This is a key point which also feeds back into less content on the English side of the site.
Most people in to Australian perfume community don't know about Parfumo as an option. Then when they visit to scope it out it has much less activity than Frag and BN despite Parfumo's superior database, si te features and quality of reviews.
I would say those are the two main issues: getting Parfumo into search engine results and at the same time encouraging contributions to the English side of Parfumo so it really comes to life. Once that gets rolling the issue would fix itself. 

I know it's been quite some time since I've been here but I must ask the same question. Why do quite? Parfumo use to be quite a busy forum.

Hi, I’m very new here and I can’t seem to find any recent and active threads… The site itself is fantastic. 

I think too many people who know about this site view it more as a research site, a place to look up a fragrance and to cross reference a fragrance in conjunction of other sites, rather than as an actual community of fragrance lovers. That's a shame since there is so much love here. What I think this place needs is a dedicated review page, where the reviews of all perfumes, contributed by all users, can be viewed at once in a one page scrolling down format as is used in Fragrantica.  It's clear this site doesn't like that site, but they have amassed a huge, very active community I think is really because of their review page. If something like that is on this site I couldn't find it, other than two boxes on the home page that alerts you that a review was posted. But it can be easily missed if you are not on here all the time. So, the only way you see the reviews for a fragrance is if you go on the actual review page, which means you have to be interested in finding out about that perfume. Which also means you have less opportunities to learn about new fragrances aside the articles on the home page. 

It must contain several languages ​​in order for many to share their experience and opinions

I am glad to see it has got busier recently.

@EmberRose and I have certainly been pumping out a few new topics to hopefully bring some fun in the off-topic section and the perfume section also. We can only create the topics, though others need to take part in replying. I know this is an old post, but i do want to try to let new people know who maybe read this that there are some of us posting daily and coming up with new stuff on top of the regular kind of posts you see on most forums.

Good for you.  That is great to know!  I have been so busy in the last year or so that I do not check in on the site unless I receive an email about a new review for one of the perfumes in my collection.  I try to take a look at the new reviews as they come in, but it is a flying visit.

Out of curiosity, how long have you been collecting for? If you don't mind me asking, of course. I just wonder if maybe people who are not tied to the site in the way of being maybe a writer for articles, administration or work in the industry itself maybe start to not be as active as they were when they first started collecting? I am roughly a year in with my collecting. Then again i only bought a couple for a wedding around about this time last year and didn't buy any more fragrance until a good few months later, so my proper indulgence in to watching YouTube reviews, creating Fragrantica accounts and Parfumo was probably not until much later than that. I just looked at the first time i used the fragrantica ability to apply what you are wearing, and it was indeed much later than when i would say i started collecting. It wasn't until November that i first used it. I looked there as i found Parfumo afterwards. So in reality, i have only been in the depth of collecting for 7 months.

Woah, it feels longer because it was the 2 i bought about a year ago that initiated the future collecting spree that i have been on ever since. Though i feel like i am ready to slow down and stop going on buying sprees and instead start just buying one good fragrance a month from now on.

Is that what you would say you went through? A sort of weaning from the intensity of it after a while to where you are now just checking out new reviews here and there?

I know a lot of people from Fragrantica came here recently. I have been telling a lot of people about this site because there are so many innovative things to do. I love the Assistant and Profiler features. There is nothing like that on any other site. 

No, not really.  My love for perfume has not diminished, but other things have changed.   

I loved perfume my whole life, but for many years there were only a very few that I could wear that would not make me feel ill---terrible headaches that would cause me to scrub off the perfumes.  Then, I stopped wearing perfume altogether in the 1990s after I more or less retired.  It must have been about 10-12 years ago now (maybe longer) that I began to crave my old perfumes.  

I used the Internet to find reviews and read articles, and I slowly found a lot more perfumes that I could wear without becoming ill (thanks to IFRA perhaps??).  I then stumbled upon a couple of websites devoted to perfume.  I had no idea just how many perfumes were available in this world!  Reading reviews and participating in discussions spurred me on to try more of the perfumes I read about, and before I knew it, I amassed a large collection.  I really enjoyed it so very much.  

I found most perfume lovers on most sites were lovely people, but not all of them were especially on one really nasty site, and as time went by, I drifted away from participating in discussions on those sites.  I was one of the first to leave my favourite site many years ago now.  Many more knowledgeable, really generous and kind members left the site in the last 1-2 years.  I presume they left for the same reasons I did years ago.  

I still like to read reviews, and I still occasionally write reviews, but I lost interest in some of the perfume sites due in part to needless restrictions on topics and what could be said and partly due to the truly vicious nature of some of the people on some of those sites (thinking of one in particular that I will not name, but hint: it was one of the first sites dedicated to perfume and preceded Fragrantica and and Parfumo).  

I still collect, though.  I still have a long list of perfumes I would like to have in my collection, but I generally buy just 1-2 around the holidays each year now unless I stumble upon something rare that I have been searching for for some time.  I added a couple of Piguets and a Malle to my collection in the last calendar year.  I really do not look for many anymore, though, mainly because they have become harder to find and because some houses have increased their prices to criminal levels.  Last year, I did not order anything from Neiman's as I normally would do because they did not have anything that was on my list---they have virtually no Guerlains anymore for example.  Likewise, Chanel's prices became insane not that long ago, and there are not many Chanels I would pay those prices for these days.  My favourite Chanels were all by Jaques Polge creations, too, and he is has retired, but Polge remains unequaled at Chanel in my opinion, so given his absence and the insane prices Chanel ask for a 75ml bottle, I have no real interest in the house anymore.  I would like to explore more niche houses in future, e.g. Slumberhouse and Andy Tauer, but I am not in a big rush to purchase anything in particular at the moment.  My passion for perfume remains the same, but other factors such as the ones I named herein have slowed me down a bit, and of course I have space considerations.  I do not have a lot of space to increase my collection either.  

Well, that is about it for me.  I hope I have answered your question.  Cheers!  🙂

@Kurai,  @Meetjoeblack  : November 2023. Three years later!  This exactly.  We have to train to give a support.

@Violadorata thank you! 🙂

Well, increasing transparency, improving customer service and giving support and appreciation to the active users in order to create a user friendly community would be a great start to get the international site more active but seems that it's not on the priority list of the Parfumo team so I guess people will eventually start seeking alternatives. 🤷