Controversial Topic #3: Replies to "Newbs"

Serpwidgets said:

Sure, there are groups formed. I think it would be crazy to try to say there aren't. But I also would have to say it's a good thing that members of a community like each other.

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Yep! Otherwise, I'd have been SBLOUNSKCHED from the gang a long time ago.

However, what makes this board different from every other forum I've been a member of (a lot of forums, on a lot of different topics) is that when there is a disagreement about any issue here, there is no "everyone must agree with the group" mentality. The "senior" members will post an entire spectrum of of opinions that contradict many of the other people who are supposedly of the "same group" as themselves. :cheers:

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Well, yes and no. I will, on occasion (and far more often in chat than on the boards), see elements of 'groupthink' regarding a particular issue or person. I recently opined this about a particular (I'll be civil and refer to it here in public as a "Coterie-Onanism") situation in chat a couple of days ago , and I'd say the response I received was lukewarm. It was as if I showed my dog a card trick. Don't get me wrong, though. I knew I'd be able to opine without being chastised.

With the exception of being referred to as an "enabler", that is. :grin01:

regards,
jazz

zwyatt said:

If they appear to stick together, it's probably because they've been learning about this hobby together and from one another for the last several years.

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I've been to a dinner at Tinley, I have formed friendships here, and in turn, learned from and taught others. But that does not correlate to willingness of the individuals in said group to help out noobs, which seemed to be kimbyra's point. And that was what I was addressing.

I think the important difference here is to discern that there are 'groups' formed, but not cliques (at least by my estimation).

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There are going to be inside jokes that not everyone is going to understand (and may even be the butt of).

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No doubt! Zach, if I said "Oooooooop!" to you, would you know the appropriate response?

And yet, "inside jokes" are a defining characteristic of a clique. Please, expand on your response before you're ousted from the inner circle.

regards,
jazz

jazzgeek said:

I've been to a dinner at Tinley, I have formed friendships here, and in turn, learned from and taught others.

regards,
jazz

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Yep dinner in the lounge! Does that make us a Clique or a Gang? I too have made some friendships here and some I have met personally, I think I am a better person for it. So YES there are some here I feel a bit tighter with. Doesnt stop me from trying to answer newbie questions. And the tone, grammar, and general willingness of the person to listen all effect how and if I will respond. The l33t sp33k and other nonsense dribble some of the younger members of this board use is not the proper way to be taken seriously. Just more of my opinions so. Please Carry on.

Josh

jazzgeek said:

No doubt! Zach, if I said "Oooooooop!" to you, would you know the appropriate response?

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Well...uhhh... I feel so unwanted here...

jazzgeek said:

Please, expand on your response before you're ousted from the inner circle.

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Well, this line was fitting. After I read you're response to my quote:

If they appear to stick together, it's probably because they've been learning about this hobby together and from one another for the last several years.

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I realized I didn't really finish my thought. I meant to say that having learned together for the last several years, they have learned what works and what doesn't. As such, the advice they give may seem to just be an echo of what their "buddies" have said and appear cliquish, but it's just that they've learned the same lessons over the years and have many of the same experiences (so their advice/etc is going to sound the same. :shrugs: Any better?

Much better. You may remain in the Gang Zach. You are hearby reinstated to grand Poop on...or is that Poobah? The one thing that I can say about this group is that it doesn't really seem to matter if you've been in it for a while or not. If there's a get together, all are welcome. No one cares if you just got on the forum or been her a hundred years. Lets keep that wonderful thought in mind! I find it's true of most reptile people.

Serpwidgets said:

....to read posts that are written as if the person was typing while wearing boxing gloves.

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jazzgeek said:

How can you do that?

regards,
jazz

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Dang, beat me to it.

zwyatt said:

As such, the advice they give may seem to just be an echo of what their "buddies" have said and appear cliquish, but it's just that they've learned the same lessons over the years and have many of the same experiences (so their advice/etc is going to sound the same. :shrugs: Any better?

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A little bit. Again, I was referring to the willingness of a 'veteran' to answer a noob's question - which, imo, has nothing to do with whether or not they've befriended a stadium full of people here on the boards. It's more a matter of tolerance of the factors I cited above.

Another thing to bear in mind is that (praise be to the deity of your choice) corns are a very forgiving species in terms of husbandry compared to other snakes. This allows a lot of latitude with certain husbandry practices (one man's sports section is another man's aspen) - but I cringe and want to spay/neuter the offender of certain other husbandry practices (cohabitation of juvies which result in "unplanned" clutches, causing prolapsed organs by squeezing a snake like a tube of toothpaste, etc....).

Is that a function of "shared experience"? Nope, it's a function of experienced, passionate individual keepers seeing those who shouldn't be allowed to breed within our species keeping and sometimes breeding their "pets". But I think that creates a massive base, guttoral reaction (among those who are devoted to this hobby) of outrage...which thereby creates a more cohesive core group.

In the rabbinical tradition, here's the "on the other hand".....the razor's edge of this is when that group ends up "hating the sinner and not the sin". I've seen that all too often here, and am guilty of it sometimes myself.

Then I remember that I was a noob once.....and heeded the advice of my research. And therein lies the difference. If a noobie is simply looking for confirmation of what s/he wants to hear, there's gonna be trouble in Cornsnake City.

Sorry about the soapbox mode. I was just riffin'.


regards,
jazz

To defend myself a little, even though its probably not really needed, what I was responding to was the term "groups" that was insinuating a clique that excluded and trivialized others, not a group of buddies and fellow herpers.

Also, I was talking about a 10 year old in my post, not a 13 year old (someone else said 13 I think), and that really makes a big difference. I have seen someone post that even claimed to be 8. Ya can't expect an 8 year old to post like a 25+ year old.

All I'm trying to say is we can't expect everyone to be able to post well, and "search", and research, etc., because everyone is coming from a different place, and a different level of interacting on the net/in forums.

We should be able to expect, however, average adults to post well and use their noggins on the forum. The lazy/rude/obnoxious/attention seeking ones are the ones that get my goat. Surely no one has to have patience for them, but then I'm slipping over to the other topic... oops.

MohrSnakes said:

A+ there! Hijacking the threads to unrelated topics sometimes seems like a new members duty. I love it ( :grin01: ) when my for sale ads are hijacked with statements like:

I saw you are selling an albino. Man, I wish we had albino corns in Mongolia. One time I saw one in a pet store. They are cool.

And then someone else takes it from there and my for sale ad has turned into a talk about albino corns! :twoguns:

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Oh my god..... :uzi: That has happened to me nearly everytime I place an ad :sobstory: ....I eventually end up deleting it. I enjoy meeting new people on this forum, but I wish more people would utilize the Private Message function. Really no complaits here.....I mean, as someone else put it.....it just snakes.

Chris

jazzgeek said:

A little bit. Again, I was referring to the willingness of a 'veteran' to answer a noob's question - which, imo, has nothing to do with whether or not they've befriended a stadium full of people here on the boards. It's more a matter of tolerance of the factors I cited above.

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I guess I've got a little more air clearing to do

IIRC, none of my comments from two posts back were spefically addressing what you had said about willingness to help (unless I quoted you, did I?). I can't remember now who I was addressing. And my last post was just trying to clarify what my previous post meant. Confused yet?? :grin01:

Anyways, I agree about willingness having nothing to do with how many friends you've got. Each individual can only take so much drivel before they plug their ears/eyes to it.

:-offtopic

Just an observation. In about 24 hours this thread has 69 posts and some of them are paragraphs long. Interesting how the thought of new people to the site and how they behave and the questions they ask can make so many other people talk. :shrugs:

Billybobob said:

Members here have no obligation to ansewer newbies questions nor do we have to spoon feed the newbs the answers that they are looking for.

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Are you sure about that?? hehe, just pulling your chain, I know that it is a place were exchanges (wherther snakes or words) can take place and it is not a MUST for "elders" to give us (noobs) the answers we want/need. It is up to us to firs do the research

Billybobob said:

I have yet to see a newb say thanks to some one that has told them about the search function or the FAQ's, normally they will respond with something like "well if you know the answerer then why not just tell me". But I don't look at all the post.

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Now, that I do not agree with!
Whilst surfing the new members introduction section and supplying threads and suggesting to use the search function, a lot of them have said thank you and said they would use them and read the threads. Now, come on, I know we just arrive all wet behind the ear and sometimes ask stupid questions but some of the reply I saw was "use search function" and that was it! I am sorry but even if you are having a bad day, a slightly longer answer, i.e.: "you will find a lot of answers by doing a search". Also, we do not all know the terms and keywords. Some other short answers telling to use the search function was including the keywords to use which is nicer but very short.

Not everybody knows the Forum's etiquette but I think was discussed at length in the "has any1..." thread therefore I will not go on about it but I totally agree that the way you ask your question(s) make a really big difference in the answer. I cannot be bothered to decifer a post if it is in the "sms" language, even when I send sms, I try not to abbreviate my words and if I do, it is really because I am in a hurry and you cannot do that with your snakes!

Personally, I have always experienced answers that have been kind and informative and have always been glad/thankfull for the answers I got which helped me understand and to take better care of my snake(s).

shed'n my skin said:

Serpwidgets - nice snake
Corncrazy - yep
Hurley - yep
Susan - yep
J/K of course but hopefully I've made my point

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Hillarious :roflmao:

shed'n my skin said:

Maybe there should be a tutorial 'how to post on CS' kind of etiquette thread when you first join informing you of the search function etc... just a thought.

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Yes, that would be a good idea but when I suggested the etiquette sticky, I was told that it should be common sense. Some people do not realise that and that creates frictions which could be avoided if there was one :shrugs:

Roy Munson said:

I'll express my own opinion on this sub-topic: hijacking. Many new members don't understand how rude it is to barge into someone else's thread and start demanding personal attention. I can be a little patient and understand that they might not be savvy to the way this kind of discussion board works, but sometimes they get downright snippy when alerted to their egregious breaches of netiquette. :shrugs:

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I agree with that 100%
If I ask a question in someone else's thread, it is related to the initial thread which could also be handy for the "thread creator", now, if that is hijacking, I apologise to who ever I did that to.

Serpwidgets said:

hi ppl teel me wut color my sanke is plz???///

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err, 'tis maybe albino but then again could be a sunglow...:roflmao:

Anyway, you guys are all great eventhough sometimes I can't follow what you are talking about.....LOL

newb questions

Something that really pisses me off is the so called experienced people on these forums getting mad at a newbie for asking newbie questions.
They come back with smart ass answers like "Do your research" "Use the search function" "we're not going to waste our time answering THAT question, we answer it almost daily" and other arrogant crap like like. I see it every day.
That crap just isn't right. Get over yourselves people. If you don't want to help, just don't help. There is no need for the condescending replies to almost every newbie question.
They are doing their research. They find a place that is about corn snakes so that ask questions about corn snakes.
That is doing their research.
The search function is useless unless you put in an exact phrase to get the links that will help. This is usually hard for a newbie to do. They might not know how to word a question properly.
I still draw blanks on searches.
Not to mention the simple fact that 90% of the posts here are hijacked and you end up with 3 pages of useless information attached to each topic.
At least if a person asks a question, in their own words, they will know exactly where to look for the answers (their own post) and will be pretty confident they will be getting current information.
If someone asks a question and you don't want to go through the effort to help, DON'T go through the effort to chastise either, just move on.. let the people who actually care answer.

hmmm

I'll express my own opinion on this sub-topic: hijacking. Many new members don't understand how rude it is to barge into someone else's thread and start demanding personal attention. I can be a little patient and understand that they might not be savvy to the way this kind of discussion board works, but sometimes they get downright snippy when alerted to their egregious breaches of netiquette.

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One problem with the statement above..
I see it done more by the supposed experts and long timers here then the newbies.
For some reason this seems to be overlooked, though.
Oh it was so-in-so or what's-his-name, they have been here for so long we don't want to say anything bad about them.
It is bull. It's the longtimers not the newbies hijacking posts.
And man you talk about getting snippy when confronted...holy cry babies Bat Man.
If it is one of the "biggies" on the forum not only do they get indignant and refuse to see they were doing exactly what they preach against, but you also have to put up with all their little cronies who think they can do no wrong.
Go back and look...it is almost always the supposed experts and experienced keepers that do the hijacking.
Remember when the 13 year old posted and everyone came on and hijacked her post?
She got tired of all the crap that had nothing to do with her post so she deleted the whole thing.
Everyone got pissed at her when she did the smartest thing of all. They hijacked HER post. They were arguing back and forth about their own opinions, which were completely off topic to her question so she ended the argument.
I commend her for that. Very mature for a 13 year old. "My post made all these people act like spoiled brats so I will just delete my post."
great move so what did all these so called experts and adults do? They called he immature and blamed her for the removal of the edit function.
They probably still don't see they were in the wrong.
Simple fact...If they hadn't hijacked her post with their own juvenile pissing contest she never would have seen the need to delete her post. It WAS NOT her fault.
It was the "longtimers" who created the problem and then they had to act like spoiled brats and blame the 13 year old for their own stupidity.

Jimmy Johnson said:

Something that really pisses me off is the so called experienced people on these forums getting mad at a newbie for asking newbie questions...

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I agree with much of what you wrote Jimmy. There are definitely topics that make for awkward searches. And I agree with others that the FAQs need to be organized and presented differently.

But I do not agree that coming here and asking questions equals research, at least not in all cases. I argued this very sub-topic with a new poster not long ago. To paraphrase that poster, his o.p. was: "I'm getting a new corn soon. Can you list everything I will need?" My argument was that he should have done a little research, come up with his own list, and we could have evaluated it for glaring omissions. It ended up with me performing one of my good cop/bad cop routines (or maybe that should be good Dean/bad Roy), and I actually gave him a complete list just to demonstrate that despite the fact that I can be a jerk, I always strive to be at least helpful. When I started in this hobby there was no public internet. You had to go buy a book. Now there are more and better books, and TONS of online info. Posted questions should be reserved for refinement of the data a new keeper has already collected. Just my opinion.

And one of my biggest pet peeves remains the old refrain: "Ur sposed to be here to help us! Thats wut this forums for!" Don't tell me why I'm here, and what this board is for.

:-offtopic

Roy Munson said:

It sucks that I can't participate in an Iron-Man competition either, but I just don't have what it takes. :shrugs:

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I AM IRON-MAN!
Has he lost his mind?
Can he see or is he blind?
Can he walk at all,
Or if he moves will he fall?
Is he alive or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?

Oops, did I just hijack your thread? :awcrap: I saw a thread the other day where people were quoting song lyrics and I wanted to play but couldn't think of anything cool. But when I read that about the Iron-Man competition that song just popped into my head and I had to share! :shrugs:


So, since I got that out of my system I will say this . . .

I have been on this forum over a year now. It has provided me a wealth of info, and my snakes have better lives for it. But, these days I hardly even read the questions, let alone answer them. Mostly I look a the pics, and for some reason today I have got sucked into this section!!! For the most part I think more experienced people are VERY civil and kind to the newbs questions. Every now and then someone gets pissy, but from what I've seen it's usually understandable. It's usually in response to the tone of the other poster tho, not in response to a question for information. I agree that when I was new here I asked a lot of pretty dumb questions, but frequently I didn't even know what to do a search for. There's a lot of terminology a person might not know, just for example, a newb's search for "bedding" might not come up with a lot, but if they asked a question about about bedding they might get responses with terms like "substrate", "aspen", etc. and then could do a more informed search.

Oh, and one more thing . . .

I saw controversial topics 2 & 3, but I cannot find controversial topic 1!!!

Where is it?!?

I even tried the search function . . . :grin01:

Jimmy Johnson said:

One problem with the statement above..
I see it done more by the supposed experts and long timers here then the newbies.
For some reason this seems to be overlooked, though.
Oh it was so-in-so or what's-his-name, they have been here for so long we don't want to say anything bad about them.
It is bull. It's the longtimers not the newbies hijacking posts.
And man you talk about getting snippy when confronted...holy cry babies Bat Man.
If it is one of the "biggies" on the forum not only do they get indignant and refuse to see they were doing exactly what they preach against, but you also have to put up with all their little cronies who think they can do no wrong.
Go back and look...it is almost always the supposed experts and experienced keepers that do the hijacking.
Remember when the 13 year old posted and everyone came on and hijacked her post?
She got tired of all the crap that had nothing to do with her post so she deleted the whole thing.
Everyone got pissed at her when she did the smartest thing of all. They hijacked HER post. They were arguing back and forth about their own opinions, which were completely off topic to her question so she ended the argument.
I commend her for that. Very mature for a 13 year old. "My post made all these people act like spoiled brats so I will just delete my post."
great move so what did all these so called experts and adults do? They called he immature and blamed her for the removal of the edit function.
They probably still don't see they were in the wrong.
Simple fact...If they hadn't hijacked her post with their own juvenile pissing contest she never would have seen the need to delete her post. It WAS NOT her fault.
It was the "longtimers" who created the problem and then they had to act like spoiled brats and blame the 13 year old for their own stupidity.

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I'm not familiar with the thread you reference. It sounds like the 13y.o. handled the situation properly, imo. For the record, I never said that "newbs" are the sole perpetrators of hijacking. But your statement that it is not the newcomers who hijack posts, but the longtimers, is not really accurate. Both may be guilty of it, but the newcomers certainly do their share, if not more, of the hijacking.

But I see your point. There was a recent thread where a new member had a question about PUR-foam viv decorations. In the o.p., the poster mentioned that they were keeping multiple snakes in the viv. Of course, this instantly turned the thread away from her original question, and centered it squarely on cohab warnings. I ended up doing the research that the original poster probably should have done on their own, and provided an answer. It was the best I could do to help.

peep_827 said:

Oh, and one more thing . . .

I saw controversial topics 2 & 3, but I cannot find controversial topic 1!!!

Where is it?!?

I even tried the search function . . . :grin01:

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"He was turned to steel, in the great magnetic field..." Thanks a lot, Mary. :grin01:

I think I posted topic 1 in general chit-chat. It was about supplements.

dean

My words

I see it done more by the supposed experts and long timers here then the newbies

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Your words

But your statement that it is not the newcomers who hijack posts, but the longtimers, is not really accurate

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If you will notice I said it is done MORE by the so-called experts then the newbies.
I did not say the newbies did not do it or the longtimers were the only ones.


/////////////////////////////// CORRECTION

It is bull. It's the longtimers not the newbies hijacking posts

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oops I will edit this here...I see where I did say it is the longtimers not the newbies a little farther into my post.
It is wrong to insinuate it is done by only one group and not the other.
I stand corrected
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Now, I completely understand your point about posts where people simply come here and say "tell me everything". I have seen it and you are right, they aren't doing research they are being lazy.
But, the problem seems to be that some people just don't differentiate.
They jump in with both feet no matter what the question.
We all have questions from time to time. If we don’t have questions we have become stagnant in our care and understanding of these animals we have chosen to keep and breed.
There was a post in either this thread or your controversial topic #2 thread where someone stated they had learned everything they need to know over the last year and a half. Yeah right.
That’s the kind of attitude we really could do without. We always have something to learn.
We can never know everything there is to know about corn snakes. Too many things change and too much new information is brought forth almost daily.

I have read several responses like “We are not obligated to help anyone”
This is true...None of you are obligated to help anyone but none of you are obligated to be rude or attack someone for asking a question you feel they should have learned on their own, now are you?
If you don’t like the question, move on to something else. Simple as that.
Why respond?


now to the topic of this post and #2 in the series....great posts and great topics of discussion.
Once again I would offer rep points if the system would allow.