during the past year I have been spending a lot less time on the forum, primarily because of life's busyness
I've been dipping in, reading a few posts here and there, whereas I used to read every single one
because of my sparse attendance, I don't feel qualified to identify a trend, but I noticed a few things that bother me
I am aware that some other forums are primarily places where people can show themselves off, and there is certainly an aspect of this here - we all want others to compliment us on our wonderful animals, especially because neighbours and family may not be as enthused as we'd like them to be
there is an additional aspect to this forum though, and that's education
new members usually come for one of those two reasons - they are either already into garters, and now that they have found us, they can show off their critters and commune with like minds; or they just found a garter, ran over it with their lawn mower, or it turned up in their basement, and they want to know how to take care of it
then of course there is the hybrid scenario of the new member who's had garters for years, never gave them proper husbandry, and they came here because they can't figure out why their garter is suddenly having seizures
so this educational mission is in my mind an important part of this forum
I'd like to point out that there are a number of reasons why a person would not take care of their animals, and one of the possibilities is that their previous sources of information seemed trustworthy even if the info was wrong, and that they're not necessarily idiots
with that in mind, I think the forum could be a better educational resource, if we just welcomed newcomers and supplied them with correct info, rather than jumping down their throats for not being enlightened already
to model:
"most people's experience show that it's better to provide a temperature gradient, and you can do that by . . . ", rather than "you idiot! You fried your snake", or something like that
I do understand that we also get the occasional member who is a genuine donkey's butt who has immense experience and can tell us all that while he is not following any of what we would recommend, his garters have all been thriving for their full 5 year life spans
it is very tempting to bash that person, but I think we should first point out that that's not their full life expectancy, and that perhaps he or she could get them to live longer if they tried adjusting some of their set-up
when we bash a person, they may just go away, and we've lost every chance to give their garters a better life. So let's be kind to the people and hope that that kindness will trickle down to their animals, resulting in better care
maybe some of our members need their egos stroked a bit more than the average person - I just hope they're here for more than just that