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There's a lot of serious herpers out there that would like a serious place to discuss, and leard about, the animals we keep.
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I agree with that but...
I think that may be part of the problem.
The majority of this sites regular users/posters are fairly experienced when it comes to the animals, the individual degrees differ of course but Fauna is not a site that, as a whole, seems to attract or encourage neophyte keepers to post here. Not that there's anything specific to deter them...
Consider for a moment the average new herp owner, probably picked the animal up at Petco or petsmart or their local Mom and Pop place; the real reptile specialty stores are fairly few and far between. When they look for forums to talk about their animals on, they likely don't care about the validity of this breeder's hets or the possibility of sperm retention or the morals involved with venomoids and hybrids. They want to know if their corn snake will like reptibark and why their ball python isn't eating.
If they arrive at a site where the majority of the discussion includes some certain basic premises are assumed rather than stated, they might be intimidated *just* enough to deter them from posting their more basic husbandry/biology questions.
I love to talk herp specifics with people who really know what they're doing; both talking about my own experiences and knowledge and getting better information about the species and groups that other people have focused on but there's a tendency for conversations to drift when the majority of the participants already know most of or all of what's being discussed.
I can't speak for anyone else but... I deal with enough "What do I feed..." "Why does my lizard..." "How hot should..." sorts of questions that I'll often ignore them unless I'm either bored and in a really pleasant mood, think that there might be some interesting debate or if the question is clearly of a more advanced caliber and likely to spark some discussion rather than simply the repetition of the answers to commonly asked questions. The first response to any of those more basic queries is usually going to be 100% accurate which leaves me (and others) with nothing to add. All of this makes for short threads that dissapear from the "View New Posts" option that many of the more frequent users will be utilizing.
I liked the idea that was broached a few times about some of the "regulars" posting generalized care sheets/informational mini-lectures that might answer those basic questions and introduce some of the slightly more complicated nuances of herp keeping at the same time, it just never seemed to really pan out with people following through too well. I have a few care sheets I've knocked up for herp society newsletters or in response to other message board posts that I intended to placew in the appropriate forums here, I'm sure many MANY others have the same intentions; we all just need to follow through.