I miss Waterbug...

[crsublette]

Didn't occur to you that telling someone with fish currently dying to use Google to find info instead of waiting around to play 20 questions over several days was the best chance the poster had to save their fish. That they could find and read info written by fish specialist Veterinarians instead of people in this forum with no training at all. Oh, that is horrible. How could I say such a thing? We have to keep the poster on this site, for as long as possible. They can only find the answers in our posts.

That is the deal with forums...it's about signing up members, about generating as many posts as possible, and giving the most number of people a chance to write stuff. Saving fish, not so much.

2733 posts and some people read insults into how many posts? Wow, not really losing any sleep. Insecure self righteousness in forums is standard stuff.

The deal with forums is to ask questions and get answers on the spot. Unfortunately, the author may never get a satisfactory answer. So, then, it is inevitable and quite obviously they will turn to google without provocation of someone in a forum to "just go google it".

The deal with Google is spending hours searching hoping you will find your answer.

Google searching also assumes you know the correct search terms and whom to read and believe. If the concerned owner does not know what questions to asked, then search on Google becomes even worse due to "information overload".

Where is this internet info written by "fish specialist Veterinarians" ?? Examples of specific repositories involving solutions that would be applicable to our context in this hobby. The best I could ever find was koivet, which was a shame they recently flat out deleted all of their good forum threads, and K.O.I.

 

[crsublette]

It's probably the nature of forums and written word on the computer by e-mail etc that things get misconstrued pretty easily. I have received some pretty rough e-mails in the past from clients, customers, etc then when you get them on the phone they say oh can you help me with a small problem and we resolve it and everyone is fine. I think sometimes you don't perceive how someone is affected by the written word when it is sent out into the internet. In person after the first wince or frown you know you have gone far enough. I try to be careful when writing e-mails or texts because people don't always get what you mean. Also I have learned that sarcasm doesn't work well in e-mails. Because my business is basically customer service and I live off of referrals I have learned to be as nice as possible when I send e-mails, texts, etc so someone is not offended, but that's just me.

Very true. Sarcasm and dry humor does not work well in text and quite often turns to offense.

Unfortunately, some folk are so sensitive, allowing what they read to have a significant impact on them when it should not, even with smiley emoticons. I remember a poster, on another forum, asked about a particular smiley emoticon. The poster wanted to know if they should be offended or not due to the use of a particular smiley emoticon. :huh: The poster had no clue and was looking for something to be outraged about out of something stupid as a simple smiley emoticon.

 

[DrCase]

I only miss water bug when he's gone
If I don't like some ones post I move on to one I like
Lets get over it

 

[Becky]

Guys, please! I have spoken to Waterbug already - as DrCase rightly says, let's move on.