something that has been bothering me lately.....

[kc261]

I'm one of those people that does not have tons of experience, but I will post replies to people asking questions where I am basically just regurging what others have said. To clarify, this does not represent the majority of my posts by any means, but I have done it.

I don't think I'm one of the people that are being referred to though, because I do try to be very careful about how I do it. For one thing, although I don't have years of experience with hundreds of BPs, I do have experience with a wide variety of animals, and some of that applies. I have researched the topic of BPs quite a bit. I have a very good memory for what I have read, so I am unlikely to have read something, misremember it, and then post incorrect advice. If I have any doubts, I either don't post, say in my post I'm not sure, and/or go check (and post a link showing where I got the info if it applies). I also pay attention to the source when I am reading, and keep a vague count of how many times I've seen something posted, so I won't end up regurging something that was said one time by a clueless newbie.

Most importantly, when I'm posting about stuff I don't have personal experience with, I try to make that clear with phrases like "I don't have experience with this myself, but most people recommend..."

While I agree 100% that book learning (or forum learning as the case may be) is not the same as learning from experience, I don't believe that makes it invalid. Daniel makes an excellent point about giving advice without knowing the concepts behind the advice. However, I think it is equally possible to knows something works because you've done it, but still not know WHY it works, and it is to have heard something works, but not know why it works. And, depending on where a person read a particular thing, the concept behind it may have been fully explained.

Many newbies can be "dangerous" (using it in quotes because I'm not referring only to stuff that would actually be dangerous to a snake, but also just misinformation) by acting as if they are experts when answering a question that they themselves were asking a week ago. However, as Connie pointed out, if they have just gone through this particular problem (like getting humidity up in a glass tank, for example), they may in some ways be better equipped to answer the question than someone who hasn't had a BP in a glass tank for years. It would be better if they made it clear in their post "hey I just fixed that problem last week, here's how I did it", but even if they omit that part, it doesn't invalidate what they have to say. Sometimes I've seen some of the very experienced keepers post things that could be "dangerous" because they meant it as a joke and to them it was obvious it wasn't meant seriously. But to a newbie, it might not be so obvious.

I also feel there is an advantage to relative newbies answering some basic questions. Let's be honest, everyone gets tired of answering the same questions over and over again. And also, no matter how many FAQs are posted, there will still be people who ask the questions, and/or need help with fine tuning something. So if a relative newbie gives a good answer and saves someone else the trouble, that's a good thing. The more experienced people will be left with more time to help with the more difficult questions.

To get back to the original point of this thread, it is unfortunately mostly pointless because there will always be people who will ask for advice, then react defensively if it isn't what they wanted to hear and ignore it. And more than 99% of the ones who will do that on this site will never see this thread. It is making for an excellent discussion though.

I think the best we can do, as the bp.net community, is to be as careful as is reasonably possible with the tone of our replies. I believe I've seen somewhere a sort of mission statement for bp.net that says that first and foremost this is supposed to be a site about helping newbies educate themselves in how to care for their snakes. So we should start with the assumption that anyone posting is a newbie who doesn't know better, but does want to learn to take care of their snake in the best possible way. Of course, that won't always turn out to be true, but start with that assumption.

This will cut down on the newbie being overwhelmed with posts that can sometimes come across as "you are an idiot, you shouldn't be doing that", and will instead tend to make the replies they get have a friendlier, more helpful tone. Also when the newbie replies saying "why can't I do that?" it will help us read it in the tone of an honest question seeking information instead of a hostile or defensive tone which may mean something closer to "I'm going to do it anyway".

Whoops! Didn't realize how long this had gotten until I saw it posted.