Frequently Asked Questions

What is this place?

Fridge to Food (this place) is a foodie community, first and foremost. It is a place for cooks, chefs, food photographers, foodies and eaters to gather and share their love for food. Joining is, and always will be, free. Posting is, and always will be, free. It will never become a site that bombards you with ads, spams you with e-mail, gives away your information or that you - as a user and member - have to pay to use. When there are ads, they will be few and marked clearly as such. They won't move, pop-up or jump out on you. And you will be able to vote on them to let the ad producer know whether or not you enjoyed the ad or hated it.

If you want to know more, take a look at the about about section.

What recipes may I post?

Any. All. We want them all. Recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Recipes for food or drink. Recipes for food of any, all or no nationality or ethnicity. Vegetarian food, vegan food, meat-lover's food. If you have a recipe, we would love for you to add it.

When can I post a recipe as mine?

This is a difficult question to answer, and we will leave it largely with in your own judgement. The rules of thumb we like to go by are pretty simple. They are:

• If you have changed two or more significant ingredients.

  By "significant" we mean a major ingredient in the recipe. Not just adding salt and pepper to taste. Again, use your judgement on this.

• If you have significantly altered two or more steps in the process.

  Again, use your own judgement on what constitutes "significant" here.

• If you cannot remember where you found it.

  You've been making it so long that you can't remember where you got it. You've undoubtably altered it in some way. It's yours.

• If it was passed down to you by a relative.

  Unless, of course, they want to claim it as their own.

• Finally, when in doubt, make it a community recipe.

  You can still share it, people can still find it, you can still get reputation from your photographs of it, but you won't get reputation from the recipe itself.

What is a community recipe?

A community recipe is one which the poster does not own, but still wanted to share. A recipe cannot be copyrighted. The instructions might be. As long as you change the wording of the instructions, it is okay to post a recipe you did not originate. However, you really should not get reputation for that recipe. To show that you did not originate a recipe and are just sharing it with the community you can make it a community recipe. This means you will get no reputation from votes on the recipe. You may, however, get reputation from votes on your images of it. And votes on it can still give you ribbons.

What images may I post?

Only images that you have taken and therefore own the copyright to. Images taken from other people or off of other websites will be removed. All reputation granted from them will be lost.

What is a "vote"?

A vote is a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down". The votes you see for each recipe are the sum of the votes up (thumbs up) minus the sum of the votes down (thumbs down). When you are logged in and viewing recipes you can choose to vote them up or vote them down. A vote up means you really like the recipe. A vote down means you really don't like it. When voting on recipes, you should only vote for recipes you have prepared and tried. When you vote on a recipe, you are announcing to the Fridge to Food community, "I tried this recipe and I loved it!" Or you are saying, "I tried this recipe and I hated it!"

When browsing the image gallery you'll have a chance to give individual images an up or down vote. Image votes carry a little less weight in reputation (see next question). You can choose to vote up images that really entice you to try the recipe, or ones that you feel are really representative of the recipe. Or you can choose to vote up images that you feel display both excellent cooking skills (the food looks delicious) and excellent photography skills (the image is well taken). It's all up to you really.

What is reputation?

You gain reputation when other Fridge to Foodies vote on your images or recipes. You gain or lose reputation as follows:

• +10 for a vote up to a recipe you posted
• -10 for a vote down to a recipe you posted
• +5 for a vote up to an image you posted
• -5 for a vote down to an image you posted

No reputation is gained or lost from votes on community recipes. However, reputation is gained or lost from votes on images posted to community recipes.

What is a tag?

Tags are simply another way of organizing or sorting recipes. They can be used to denote a recipe's origin or ethnic background, any allergens in the recipe, any special diets the recipe is okay for or any other feature of the recipe someone might be interested in searching for.