I think it should be a rule....

[BrandiR]

That you should only be allowed to chastise someone about their pet care practices if you are also going to offer suggestions/advice.

"What the crap is she talking about," you ask?

I fairly often on here see threads started asking for help. Usually, the poster receives several answers to the original question. But they are often also met with mild hostility without an offer of what they should be doing differently. Sometimes it's blatant, and sometimes it's disguised as an innocent question, but very obviously a dig. For example, there was a thread in General BPs recently where the poster wanted to know what to do about a BP that had been bitten by a boa. Many people posted asking why they were housed together. It's a legitimate question, sure. But why ask it if you don't have anything of substance to offer? If you don't know enough about the topic to offer something he/she can use, then do you know enough about the topic to criticize?

There was another thread in the Care-something section about a snake that had died. Someone "innocently" asked, "Is this the one that was housed with the _______?" That was it. No offer of condolences or anything.

What is the point in doing that? I'm not opposed to expressing concern over someone else's practices, but you should tell them point blank that you think they are doing it wrong, tell them why, tell them how to do it "right", and then answer the question they are asking if you can. If you are just replying to a post to make someone feel worse about a bad situation, that isn't very nice.

I screw up about every five minutes, more often on a bad day. I can take criticism over what a screw-up I am, but only if it's combined with genuine concern and desire to help me.

I'm just saying that I think some of us could be a little more compassionate and help solve the problem before jumping right to, "Well, you stupid jack ass, what did you expect??" I guess I think you should buy the right to question someone's practices and the currency should be input related to the question they are asking.

Off-Topics and direct requests for opinions are different. Those are fair game.