The staff recently received a PM from a member that was concerned about another thread. And part of that PM included the words, "I'm not sure I like the direction that BPnet is taking".... which leaves the whole staff sort of scratching their heads and going, "What the heck is that supposed to mean?" As the site grows...it WILL change. It's inevitable. The best we can do is to try and guide and direct these changes so that the core mission of our community (to educate and support those new to the hobby) continues to be met.

To me...this thread is indicative of the fact that the direction of the site IS changing somewhat. And I don't mean socially speaking....but I mean in the way that we educate our new members. In the past...when our core group was much smaller and consisted of only a handful of truly experienced folks....we were able to keep our advice relatively consistent and along the same track with each other. We broke things down to the most basic and simplest of methods that were proven to work. This worked well for our site because then the "newbies" felt like they had a trustworthy source of information and didn't have to constantly try and guess which answers were right.

As we grow...we bring in more and more people who don't do it "our way"...but their ways are still just as valid. The trouble with this is...how is someone totally new to the art of keeping snakes supposed to figure out which method will work for them? And THAT is why some of our members seem a bit militant about defending the advice we give out. It's not that we are critical of the way others choose to keep their snakes...it's because we have tried for so long to keep things as simple as possible for the beginner.

This is a sort of "growing pain" we have to go through...this transition of being able to support a single simple method to teach beginners....to being able to accept the expression of other methods. We do NOT need to argue about it. Doing so only adds to the confusion of the beginner and may very well cause them to look elsewhere for advice.

Try this...when you find yourself facing advice you personally would not give. DON'T address the person giving the advice. Instead, address the person seeking the advice. And don't tell them who to listen to or not listen to....just simply explain your own method of feeding or housing or whatever and WHY you do it the way you do. Rather than trying to force your personal thoughts to the top of the argument-heap....allow the advice-seeker to make their own decision after carefully weighing what each person has to say. If they are going to be successful at keeping snakes (or any animal, for that matter)...they'll need to learn to do that, anyhow.

Sorry so long winded...y'all know how I can get sometimes...