Okay when I first joined up in 04 I was kind of a newby and I know I made my share of dumb posts. So in the almost five years I have lived and learned and kind of grown. My breeding operation has grown, my sales have picked up a bit each year, my collection is much bigger than it once was. I am sure if I went back and read some of the stuff I posted when I was first starting out it would make me cringe.
Maybe it's asking too much, but I feel as if you kind of have to pay your dues and it takes time to make a name for yourself. Even if you don't plan to sell snakes but only keep them, are you that qualified to give advice when you are new to the game? Is it too much to ask that when someone who clearly has been doing this for a long time, makes a post they get the bit of respect and courtesy they have earned? If you read something in a book or a pet store owner tells you it's true but someone like Kathy Love is saying something different, could it possibly be that they know better? Is it really necessary to be belligerent and challenge them?
Oh and that professionalism should work both ways. If you see a newby getting hammered for some wrong doing, is it always necessary to jump on the bandwagon? I assure you plenty of people will be along to berate them for their cohabbing or whatever mistake they made. Just because you have been around a while does not make you such a better person, you most likely made the same mistakes and someone set you straight. Always remember they could be your next customer.
It just gets so frustrating sometimes to read some of what goes on in this forum, maybe it is the winter cabin fever thing but lately it seems like there's been a lot of this kind of thing. End of rant.
Great post! I haven't posted much here over the years because of those reasons. What you spoke of in your post has been going on since I signed up here back in early 05.
When I first came here the big controversy was feeding schedules. Back then if you fed your snake more than once a week you were called an evil "power feeder".
I remember Dean "the moderator" getting ripped over this, along with many others. Dean was a self proclaimed novice at the time, but because he documented what he was doing we now have the "Munson Plan". As far as I was concerned he got ripped by noobs that had never "read" what Dean was doing in their cornsnake manual, or Veterans that didn't "believe" or had never tried what he was doing.
Another example... I remember when Vinman came out of the closet with his pork, chicken and beef feedings. It was a blood bath! I thought Vinman was a revolutionary, but you had corn noobs quoting cornsnake manual "scripture" to him. "YOU CAN'T DO THAT!", they told him!
You gotta love the corn noob that can quote cornsnake manual... book, line and verse to set the veteran straight. I believe Kathy Love stepped in at the time and said that Vinman's idea was the foundation of the "Snake Sausage" product. The blood letting was less after that but it showed the essence of this corn community. Which is pack/flock mentality over knowledge.
I'm sorry! I gotta through this in here. LOL What about the time a corn noob ripped Stephen AKA Steve Wagner for selling a "neon" snow for a hundred bucks. That was a classic! That corn noob did a lot of ripping! LOL
I am an out side of the box thinker. I always think to myself "There has got to be a better way". There is nothing wrong with that. Just like there is nothing wrong with I read so there for it is.
I love Rich Z. post! He talks about noobs discovering "new things". What about the Veterans that discover new things? I think there is a lot that gets dismissed because it is "against the grain". It gets subcategorized under the "Crazy Corn" breeder.
I was doing some feeding schedule "experiments" back in 04, but never shared them because of all the "power feeding" BS that was going on at the time.