New Project: Review Database

[duckah]

Hi, for those of you who haven't seen me yet, my name is Elliott and I'm clearly new to the forums.

After reading through reviews for hours, I realized that with the wide varieties of hookahs, coals, and shisha on the market right now, it really is tough to get a wholistic view without running your own shop, despite the enormity of this amazing community.

Being the data-mining whore that I am, I decided to embark on a database project in my spare time. I plan on categorizing basically every brand/flavor of tobacco and coal (both quicklight and natural) and eventually including actual hookahs. In the future I would possibly incorporate reviews and price/feature comparisons. Some interesting features I hope to implement include accurate coal light/burn time, leaf vs stem tobacco mass percentage, and reference pictures (lots of pictures).

Where I need the community's help:

1. Data. I'll be trying to create a complete list of different brands, designs, and flavors.
2. Ideas. What type of other information would be useful? Would you like to be able to see a new category to sort the database by?
3. Resources. I will refuse to seek monetary donations, but it's going to cost quite a bit to buy a roll of every single coal available just to see how long and well it burns, etc. I'm hoping that a few of you may have half a roll of a quicklight you no longer use or 25g of a flavor you can't stand that is taking space in your stash, that you'd be willing to send me.

Preliminary data:

• Hookah brands: Al Fakher, Hookah-Shisha, Khalil Mamoon, Mya
• Tobacco brands: Abed Elkader, Afzal, Al Ajamy, Al Amir, Al Fakher, Al Ouns, Al Qemah, Al Sultan, Al Waha, Baja, Black Label Herbal, Cleopatra, Crystal, Fantasia, Fumari, Fusion, Havana, Hookah Hookah, King Moassel, Layalina, Mouj Al Bahr, Nakhla, Pharaohs, Potion, Romman, Saet Safa, Sahara, Salloum, Soex Herbal, Starbuzz, Starbuzz, Sultan, Tangiers, Tonic, Zona
• Quicklight coal brands: 3 Kings, Golden, Rolland Instant Lites, Starlight, Akhla, Sultan, Belgian Charcoal, Taru, Excelsior, Pharoah's Elite, Dodo, Soex, Pegasus Coals, 3 Eagles, 3 Crowns
• Natural coal brands: Al Ajdad, Al Fakher, Diamante, Exotica, Nour, Rolland, Romman, Stargate, Taqseem, Vivi, Zoghal Ghaleb

Post additions and corrections:

Additions
Hookah brands:
Tobacco brands:
Quicklight coal brands:
Natural coal brands:
New category:

Corrections
1.
2.
3.

[cotsi95]

Additions
Hookah brands: North smoke, nour, j&r syrain, leila, meduse
Tobacco brands:
Quicklight coal brands: CH
Natural coal brands: coconarna, CH, Hookah Company Coconut coal
New category: japanese coals : fumari, easy lites, exotica, golden canary

Corrections
1. h-s doesnt make there own hookahs also Al Falker doesnt eathier (af uses nour)
2. Nour and aljdads are the same coals
3.

[mushrat]

coll idea. It won't work or if it does it won't really mean anything. Here's why.

http://www.hookahforum.com/?showtopic=22120

[ryno]

Should probably add MZ to hookahs

[duckah]

Additions
Hookah brands: North smoke, nour, j&r syrain, leila, meduse
Tobacco brands:
Quicklight coal brands: CH
Natural coal brands: coconarna, CH, Hookah Company Coconut coal
New category: japanese coals : fumari, easy lites, exotica, golden canary

Corrections
1. h-s doesnt make there own hookahs also Al Falker doesnt eathier (af uses nour)
2. Nour and aljdads are the same coals
3.

Awesome! Thanks for the great corrections. I've been learning so much and I'm hoping to give back!

coll idea. It won't work or if it does it won't really mean anything. Here's why.

http://www.hookahforum.com/?showtopic=22120

Thanks for sharing that link mushrat. The way I'm designing the application would allow you to sort/specify only what's important to you.

Should probably add MZ to hookahs

Thanks, will do!

[modisess]

i haven't read the link mush posted, so i'm not sure whether it's been mentioned or not. but what about developing a standardized rating system? since different people have different rating standards, someone should standardized the rating system so that everyone will just follow that.

[duckah]

i haven't read the link mush posted, so i'm not sure whether it's been mentioned or not. but what about developing a standardized rating system? since different people have different rating standards, someone should standardized the rating system so that everyone will just follow that.

My current progress is towards developing a standardized system that allows for flexibility. For example: if you are browsing through tobacco rankings/ratings which might factor the portion of stems per 100g but decide that's not important to you, you would be able to filter out the personally irrelevant information and have a customized ranking/rating with only relevant information.

Among the brands listed so far, I've accumulated over 100 hookah, 50 coal, and 400 tobacco models/flavors. Once I have a preliminary design I'll be looking for input but I'm still looking for a lot more data before implementation begins!

[mushrat]

i haven't read the link mush posted, so i'm not sure whether it's been mentioned or not. but what about developing a standardized rating system? since different people have different rating standards, someone should standardized the rating system so that everyone will just follow that.

the problerm with any standardized system is that its subbjective, where it really needs to be objective. With subjective polls and surveys, nothing means anything. apples to oranges.

But good luck....

[mushrat]

i haven't read the link mush posted, so i'm not sure whether it's been mentioned or not. but what about developing a standardized rating system? since different people have different rating standards, someone should standardized the rating system so that everyone will just follow that.

My current progress is towards developing a standardized system that allows for flexibility. For example: if you are browsing through tobacco rankings/ratings which might factor the portion of stems per 100g but decide that's not important to you, you would be able to filter out the personally irrelevant information and have a customized ranking/rating with only relevant information.

Among the brands listed so far, I've accumulated over 100 hookah, 50 coal, and 400 tobacco models/flavors. Once I have a preliminary design I'll be looking for input but I'm still looking for a lot more data before implementation begins!

do remember that anything used from this site is copyrighted by this site.

May not want to use anything posted on here without permission.

I was not happy with the last person who posted soemthing *I* wrote on this forum on their own review site without asking me.

[aethiolas]

Let me throw my .02 worth in. I started something similar to this a while back and it got thrown on the back burner due to a new job, so I have a few insights. First of all, if you're building something where you're planning on entering all the information by yourself, you can give it up now. Any project that requires an individual or a small group of individuals to maintain the data has inherent issues with up keep. Secondly, I would recommend that whatever you're doing, is thoroughly beta tested during each interval of release so that you can find out what people like and don't like and plan accordingly. Let me know what you're up to and i'll try and help you out where I can.