Lost our way?

[adamanteus]

I did enjoy meeting your mice and Famke and Lori's turkeys and goats

Indeed. We certainly don't want to lose that aspect of our forum..... But maybe we don't need to start a new thread every time.

[drache]

Indeed. We certainly don't want to lose that aspect of our forum..... But maybe we don't need to start a new thread every time.

quite my thinking as well
it's also nice to find similar matters all in one place

[Stefan-A]

I think what I object to is whole threads dedicated to Pythons or Milk Snakes etc. They should maybe be omitted?

I think they should be omitted, or at the very least they should be kept to a single thread.

[Gijs & Sabine]

Indeed. We certainly don't want to lose that aspect of our forum..... But maybe we don't need to start a new thread every time.

That's exactly what I was going to say, James

[adamanteus]

Great! Let it be so!

[stonyloam]

Hmmmm... Maybe we are a victim of our own success. When I joined, only 16 months ago there were about 400 members, and now there are over 4700. Lots of folks with lots of different interests. The Garter snake lounge does say "...Got something to say that does not deal with Garter Snakes? Here’s the place to say it. General chit chat welcome!". Can't have it both ways. The two most popular threads are not garter related (nature photography and hush hush). It is often a lot easier to start a new thread then add on to a large established thread. Threads that people are not interested in are usually gone from the home page quite quickly. Seems there is two choices, either change the rules or not. ME, I like it (and the folks that visit) the way it is.

[adamanteus]

Good point Terry, maybe we need to look at the wording on the Garter Snake Lounge intro.
As said, it's nice to see and read photos and accounts of these other reptiles, but I think it's important that we remain Thamnophis.com, specialising in Thamnophis.
I just feel that when you log on to the forum, the new posts you see should be predominantly Garter/Ribbon related. That is, after all, who we are, and what distinguishes us from a thousand other reptile forums.

[Zephyr]

I think the reason why there aren't a lot of garter threads are because we do so well at keeping the number of questions down. What I do think we need more threads of are experiences with garters in the wild.

[el lobo]

I agree with everything that has been said. It is just so easy when you have people who have expertise in other areas of herpetology right at your fingertips. But you are right, James. I think there needs to be mainly Thamnophis talk. I mean, we joined this forum cuz were stoked about Garters!

[stonyloam]

Lots of good points, how bout if instead of ALL of the recent posts showing up on the home page, just the recent "garter snake info" posts show, with a button for the "general info" posts. That way people could choose what they want to look at. I'm not a computer guy, but doesn't seem like that would be too hard to do. That way other snakes (except maybe for brown snakes) could be easily moved off of the home page but still accessible to anyone interested. Just a thought. Maybe even an other snakes lounge?