Information Sources

The flame wars seem to have dulled down to a quiet roar and I sure hope that trend continues. It's not good for people and especially not good for the animals!

Iguanas are the most abused of all the reptile species and there are so many folks just looking for good info who get scared away by all the politics. That's not good for anyone. Especially not for those sweet little green iglets dumped on the world from those mass farms and sold with tiny little aquariums and very bad directions from petshop clerks.

Let's try to keep politics off the boards and buried in emails so newbies and/or first-time rescuers get info, not irritated! There are far more polite ways to disagree with advice given or received.

I'm a relative newbie to iguanas so I'm looking for advice more often than giving it. I worked as a surgical vet tech for 15 years and know more about health issues than husbandry. I've only kept igs for 6 1/2 months excepting short-term rehabs of post-operative iguanas whose keepers didn't feel they could handle administering meds or liquid diets. I usually took herps home from surgeries and kept them a few days or weeks until the care regimen was finished or at least simplified. That sure doesn't make me any kind of expert.

I promise I will try to sit on my hands and just curse at the monitor if politics rears its ugly head, anyone want to join me in that pact?

Let's try to keep politics off the boards and buried in emails

... Lets try to let Webslave make the determinations about appropriate versus inappropriate posts on his own message boards...

He is not a man to stay silent when he feels something is reacing an inappropriate level and when he asks for a matter to be dropped... it gets dropped.

promise I will try to sit on my hands and just curse at the monitor if politics rears its ugly head, anyone want to join me in that pact?

Not I.

There is a very important aspect to the... "politics" involved when making a determination about which sources are credible and which unreliable. When someone can be proven to have motives diametrically opposed to those which sane people hold to be true, the information they give all becomes highly suspect.

For instance... Kevin Eagan (however it may be spelled), Kaplan, Liz Palika, Henry Lizard Lover, Jennifer Sworfield and several others of similar ilk all ripped one another apart and made some really negative statements about one another. Everything from "fixing" prolapses with bolt cutters to freezing animals in order to take pictures of them. This removes a signifigant aspect of credibility from all of them involved.

I happen to like iguanaden's information, I find it to be reasonable and well evidenced, unlike that of several of his peers. I also happen to be able to look at the list of individuals who wrote the website condemning his information and realize that they are all collective individuals in "The other" camp on some major care issues.

The fact remains that there isn't a single well known iguana website avaliable with someone who actually has decent credentials and some signifigant measure of credibility as it's major informational source, it's very important to realize that and analyze Why that happens to be the case when making personal determinations about what is or is not an appropriate part of the reader's care of their own animals.

If one really wants decent information, they need to start hitting research libraries and reading the conclusions to field reports, not crappy books sold in pet stores or crappy websites created by the authors of crappy books sold in pet stores. When an open group of people are asked on a message board to make a reccomendation for internet informational sources however, the credibility of the authors involved will come into play.

Would you preffer it if the credentials and dependability of assorted websites were NOT called into play, allowing potentially negative information to be spread to naive individuals?

Seamus, take it down a notch. People just want to conversate without all the drama. She didn't say stop fighting, she just said try to keep it to emails. If we want these forums to go anywhere, we can't attack every comment. Its hard not to sometimes, but be the bigger person. Thanks.

Tony Alles
www.reptileguru.com

Seamus,

I'm going to have to side with Tony and others on this. Disagreement is OK. The appearance of a personal vendetta is not. The disagreement against what someone has said is OK. The disagreement against what is said, because of whom said it, is not. Attack the facts, but not the source, please.

We have quite enough contention in the BOI, so I would prefer to have it left out of these discussion forums. There is nothing anyone can say about herps that will cause the world, as we know it, to end. So there is no reason for anyone to get their blood pressure to the 'pop' level and get everyone else going off as well.

I think everyone needs to just tone it down a bit.

I agree with Eyespy.
I too will try to keep to the husbandry and keep the politics out of it, I too was a vet tech, for mostly canines tho. I have bred and trained German Shepherd dogs. I am not so skilled in iguanas LOL, though I am getting there by just having one and reading, reading reading.
I would love to swap info and stories.
I also like a good debate, just not ALL the time. Geesh.
Would love anyone who wants to to share so we can all learn and teach together

Rozann Lamont