Ok so after having had some pretty heated arguments of late regarding certain controversial species/topics, I have decided to start this thread.
I am totally sick of people that think they are above others in the hobby. Show me which of them have some sort of special qualification in taxonomy??? As far as I understand it, they basically follow certain 'taxonomy rules' (some of which have changed over a century), so who says that some of the 'rules' currently being followed are not going to someday be seen as incorrect or inconclusive?
I personally don't post things without researching as much as I can and then making my own mind up as to what I think.
I have spent many hours researching the whole P subfusca thing and as much as I understand just how much there is to describing a species taxonomically (if that's a correct term), it just doesn't sit well with me to sit and look at two P subfusca's that
look seriously different in size and colour (with all due respect to taxonomy rules) and accept that they are the same species!
Is a miniscule extra black spot on a ventral leg segment also not a 'colour difference' at the end of the day, yet colour is not an acceptable taxonomic difference?
Irrespective of wether I am right or wrong, I am surely allowed to have my own opinion having researched as much as I possibly can??
Which brings me to why I started this thread, who thinks that our site should go in the direction of closed minded, condascending, sometimes rude and disrespectful responses or wether we should be a
forum which the Oxford dictionary defines as follows:
'Definition of forum
noun (plural forums)
1a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged:
we hope these pages act as a forum for debate
an Internet site where users can post comments about a particular issue or topic and reply to other users' postings; a message board.
2chiefly North American a court or tribunal.
3 (plural fora /ˈfɔːrə/) (in an ancient Roman city) a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business.'
And here's a link to the
Wikipedia Internet Forum
description.
Of particular interest to me is this:
'Rules and policies on forums
Forums are governed by a set of individuals, collectively referred to as staff, made up of administrators and moderators, which are responsible for the forums' conception, technical maintenance, and policies (creation and enforcing). Most forums have a list of rules detailing the wishes, aim and guidelines of the forums' creators.'
And in particular, this:
'Forums prefer a premise of open and free discussion and often adopt de facto standards. Most common topics on forums include questions, comparisons, polls of opinion as well as debates. It is not uncommon for nonsense or unsocial behavior to sprout as people lose temper, especially if the topic is controversial. Poor understanding of differences in values of the participants is a common problem on forums. Because replies to a topic are often worded aimed at someone's point of view, discussion will usually go slightly off into several directions as people question each other's validity, sources and so on. Circular discussion and ambiguity in replies can extend for several tens of posts of a thread eventually ending when everyone gives up or attention spans waver and a more interesting subject takes over. It is not uncommon for debate to end in ad hominem attacks.'
So what does everyone think, should tarantulas.co.za be more of a rigid forum (where people are possibly afraid to post incase they get shot down for inaccuracies, forum
etiquette, inferior knowledge, or be 'frowned upon') but with very little
spam, a bit more like a concise dictionary style?
Or should we rather be more relaxed, open-minded, easy going and friendly (with the risk of long-winded threads with fair amounts of
spam [which we should maybe define the paramaters for] but where nobody feels
silly or
inferior)?
Please feel free to post
anything (within acceptable social standards) you like in response to this post without fear of it being deleted or edited and let's see if we can improve our forum overall! :spider:
Topic Author
