Years of favorite recipes, gone. Any hope?
December 21, 2021 4:40 AM Subscribe
I had a lot of recipe notes in Epicurious, they eliminated the Add Notes feature, and they're all gone. I know (I know!) I shouldn't have kept anything that mattered to me on someone else's site, but I'm so upset! I'm hoping my added notes are still stored in an Epicurious database somewhere, but I've emailed and tweeted them with no reply. What ordinary or desperate measures could I possibly try? (E.g., if there's someone at Epicurious who could send me a file with my notes, how would I find that person?)
Years ago (before they "improved" their user interface to chase clicks, grrrr) Epicurious was my favorite recipe site. Of the 100 or so recipes I saved to my Recipe Box, I just added a tag or a brief note to most of them. There were some favorites, though, that I made over and over, heavily adapting them as I went along until they were essentially my own, new recipes. I kept detailed notes on those adaptations, using Epicurious's Add Notes. Without any warning, they removed the Add Notes function, and with it, all the notes. Years of favorite dishes, gone.
In the Wayback Machine, I've narrowed down the date of the change to late August.
- Add Notes was still there on August 19. (You have to wait until the page finishes loading for it to show up.)
- Add Notes was gone by August 26.
(My own notes aren't in Wayback though; notes only ever showed up for the logged-in user who added them.)
I've looked across different browsers, devices, and both the web and the app versions of Epicurious, so I don't think the absence of Add Notes is just a bug. I don't see anyone discussing this issue online anywhere. Is it likely that my content still exists somewhere? If so, can you help me come up with a way to get it?
Years ago (before they "improved" their user interface to chase clicks, grrrr) Epicurious was my favorite recipe site. Of the 100 or so recipes I saved to my Recipe Box, I just added a tag or a brief note to most of them. There were some favorites, though, that I made over and over, heavily adapting them as I went along until they were essentially my own, new recipes. I kept detailed notes on those adaptations, using Epicurious's Add Notes. Without any warning, they removed the Add Notes function, and with it, all the notes. Years of favorite dishes, gone.
In the Wayback Machine, I've narrowed down the date of the change to late August.
- Add Notes was still there on August 19. (You have to wait until the page finishes loading for it to show up.)
- Add Notes was gone by August 26.
(My own notes aren't in Wayback though; notes only ever showed up for the logged-in user who added them.)
I've looked across different browsers, devices, and both the web and the app versions of Epicurious, so I don't think the absence of Add Notes is just a bug. I don't see anyone discussing this issue online anywhere. Is it likely that my content still exists somewhere? If so, can you help me come up with a way to get it?
Epicurious is Condé Nast so it may be a challenge. But you could try emailing Maggie Hoffman, the digital director.
posted by warriorqueen at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 5:43 AM on December 21, 2021 [4 favorites]
If you don't hear back from Maggie Hoffman, I can send a note to David Tamarkin, who until April 2021 was the digital director. He's an acquaintance. His tenure is just outside the time period that interests you, but let me know if it would help after you try Maggie Hoffman.
posted by fruitslinger at 6:45 AM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
posted by fruitslinger at 6:45 AM on December 21, 2021 [7 favorites]
I don't know this site but did they send any email or other notifications about the change, and what to do with your Notes? Maybe there's a clue in there somewhere about how to retrieve them?
posted by TimHare at 8:51 AM on December 21, 2021
posted by TimHare at 8:51 AM on December 21, 2021
Response by poster: Thank you for the help so far! Thanks for the pointer to Maggie Hoffman, warriorqueen. I used that to email her, and since it's the holidays, I should probably give that a couple of weeks before MeMailing you, fruitslinger, to take you up on your kind and fortuitous offer to ask your acquaintance. A little bit of hope! Other suggestions are very welcome. I'll be sure to update here. (And no, TimHare, there was zero warning or communication about this change.)
posted by daisyace at 9:39 AM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by daisyace at 9:39 AM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]
Consider asking them for a copy of ALL of your data. If you're in California, they're required to produce it for you, because of the CCPA, and in many cases, companies will give you the same data dump no matter where you live (they're only required to for California residents, but once you've built the mechanism to do it for Californians, it's easy to do it for everyone.)
posted by toxic at 4:00 PM on December 21, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by toxic at 4:00 PM on December 21, 2021 [8 favorites]
Response by poster: Some hopeful updates!
1. A helpful MeFite got in touch. Their partner works for Condé Nast and is up for searching their CMS and, if that doesn’t do it, asking her IT group.
2. Maggie Hoffman replied. She’s going to ask Engineering if they can help me when they return from holiday break (so I followed up with the MeFite partner above to hold off on any major efforts or involving IT). And longer term, they hope to bring back Add Notes, which went away because it couldn’t be supported the same way on their new system.
I’m also glad to know about that California law as another possible tactic.
I’ll update again… maybe eventually with a recovered favorite recipe?
posted by daisyace at 5:32 AM on December 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
1. A helpful MeFite got in touch. Their partner works for Condé Nast and is up for searching their CMS and, if that doesn’t do it, asking her IT group.
2. Maggie Hoffman replied. She’s going to ask Engineering if they can help me when they return from holiday break (so I followed up with the MeFite partner above to hold off on any major efforts or involving IT). And longer term, they hope to bring back Add Notes, which went away because it couldn’t be supported the same way on their new system.
I’m also glad to know about that California law as another possible tactic.
I’ll update again… maybe eventually with a recovered favorite recipe?
posted by daisyace at 5:32 AM on December 22, 2021 [7 favorites]
Response by poster: Another update, but no good news yet.
- The Condé Nast employee wasn't able to help, and last I heard, was leaving her position.
- I waited a while, then wrote to Maggie Hoffman again a week ago, but I haven't heard back from her, either.
- In the meantime, I'd been checking the site now and then to see whether Notes came back as hoped, but I think now I can't. Epicurious has gone over to a paid-subscription model. So, it's a bit of a catch-22: I don't want to subscribe until notes are there, but I think I can't see if notes are there unless I subscribe.
So, I'm dropping fruitslinger a note and holding out hope for that avenue to prove more, um, fruitful! I miss my recipes!
posted by daisyace at 4:59 PM on March 22, 2022
- The Condé Nast employee wasn't able to help, and last I heard, was leaving her position.
- I waited a while, then wrote to Maggie Hoffman again a week ago, but I haven't heard back from her, either.
- In the meantime, I'd been checking the site now and then to see whether Notes came back as hoped, but I think now I can't. Epicurious has gone over to a paid-subscription model. So, it's a bit of a catch-22: I don't want to subscribe until notes are there, but I think I can't see if notes are there unless I subscribe.
So, I'm dropping fruitslinger a note and holding out hope for that avenue to prove more, um, fruitful! I miss my recipes!
posted by daisyace at 4:59 PM on March 22, 2022
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posted by anotheraccount at 5:30 AM on December 21, 2021 [1 favorite]