I have wrestled with the problem of curating what is presented to newcomers and presenting some consistency. The issue is valid. When someone is new they can be overwhelmed by the different answers and half of them are off base. The newcomer has no way of effectively filtering through the answers and the people who are giving the wrong answers are just repeating what they heard with the absolute best of intentions. Everyone does the best they can and if they new they could do better they would. But until they know it, they will spread what they know.
Rating competency by years in the hobby is misleading. It isn’t the number of years that you have, but what you do with those years. A person who takes all the information, tests it, challenges it, and continually places themselves in the learning mode will be further along in four years than someone who has gotten really good at doing the same thing for 20 years. The list of names of decades-old keepers that are holding the community back is longer than the list of decades-old keepers that are moving it forward. As soon as someone brags about how long they have been a keeper or breeder I am immediately unimpressed. You will notice I mention my years only in my bios to lend credibility for those who have nothing else to go off of, and whenever a breeder starts using their years as a reason why their opinion is best. Number of years is a vanity metric that is misleading, but if that is the dueling weapon of choice then I have no problem stepping into that ring. Other than that, what I say stands on its merits. Someone who has done the same thing for decades and is comfortable with those methods will resist anything new. Skeptical is appropriate, but you can easily cross into that being simply a facade for fear of change.
One approach I have implemented to control the variety of advice to beginners that has had somewhat acceptable results is to decide what the accepted baseline husbandry that will be presented to beginners will be on this platform. This would be the techniques that are in the resources section and the administration team has agreed is the method they are most comfortable and experienced with. It doesn’t have to be the latest in thought. These are beginners and, if you start them off right, they have years to establish themselves and figure out the lay of the land and then make decisions for themselves. A beginner needs it black and white and simple. The greatest gifts you can give a beginner beyond that is let them know that chameleon husbandry is dynamic and that they will hear many other ideas and approaches. Let them know that it is okay to implement the “Chameleon Forums” basic approach (whatever that ends up being) while listening to the debate of alternative methods. If the team here is most comfortable with hydration being misting during the day then that is the basics taught. While the chameleon is being hydrated by day misting the newcomer can be exposed to cup drinking, night fogging, and that Chameleon Academy chart that throws much of it together and tells you to check for the poop! I think the greatest thing we can do for newcomers is to get them started in a way that works and then encourage them to understand the pros and cons of every other approach. The goal, after getting the chameleon to a happy place, is to create a keeper that has the mind to, one day, be part of helping us figure out better ways of doing things. Too often, beginners have the sense that husbandry approaches are rites of initiation into a digital gang that they have to defend. If you create a Chameleon Forums gang than you preside over a digital echo chamber exactly like Facebook groups and Reddit where ideas that threaten the ruling party are eliminated. That said, Chameleon Forums has stood the test of time to not become this so, of all the communities, this one remains the most relevant. You can have an established beginner husbandry protocol and still encourage discussion of other approaches on other threads. As long as you make it clear this is just the starting point you never have to worry about the myriad of other opinions and approaches out there. And if you keep learning yourselves and understand all those other approaches then this forum will be the place where they start and where they come back to discuss what they have learned out there. With that kind of open mind approach to mentorship you can get them started off with a firm foundation, allow them to go into the world to explore (which they will do no matter what), and also let them know this is a safe place to bring back new ideas that will be evaluated on their merit.
The problem with this approach is enforcement. People who have memorized a set of care parameters from whatever group they “grew up” in or have their favorite husbandry ideas will be put out if they are restricted from spreading their husbandry opinion. Even when you announce what is going on. So this isn’t perfect either. But, that is why a good, unified admin team is necessary.
And, finally, the best practice is the help teach. People love helping out. With an established Chameleon Forums beginner guidelines they can memorize that and help teach with the team. And they can be encouraged to challenge the thoughts in threads outside of beginners coming to ask for help. That way the information never gets old.
Rating competency by years in the hobby is misleading. It isn’t the number of years that you have, but what you do with those years. A person who takes all the information, tests it, challenges it, and continually places themselves in the learning mode will be further along in four years than someone who has gotten really good at doing the same thing for 20 years. The list of names of decades-old keepers that are holding the community back is longer than the list of decades-old keepers that are moving it forward. As soon as someone brags about how long they have been a keeper or breeder I am immediately unimpressed. You will notice I mention my years only in my bios to lend credibility for those who have nothing else to go off of, and whenever a breeder starts using their years as a reason why their opinion is best. Number of years is a vanity metric that is misleading, but if that is the dueling weapon of choice then I have no problem stepping into that ring. Other than that, what I say stands on its merits. Someone who has done the same thing for decades and is comfortable with those methods will resist anything new. Skeptical is appropriate, but you can easily cross into that being simply a facade for fear of change.
One approach I have implemented to control the variety of advice to beginners that has had somewhat acceptable results is to decide what the accepted baseline husbandry that will be presented to beginners will be on this platform. This would be the techniques that are in the resources section and the administration team has agreed is the method they are most comfortable and experienced with. It doesn’t have to be the latest in thought. These are beginners and, if you start them off right, they have years to establish themselves and figure out the lay of the land and then make decisions for themselves. A beginner needs it black and white and simple. The greatest gifts you can give a beginner beyond that is let them know that chameleon husbandry is dynamic and that they will hear many other ideas and approaches. Let them know that it is okay to implement the “Chameleon Forums” basic approach (whatever that ends up being) while listening to the debate of alternative methods. If the team here is most comfortable with hydration being misting during the day then that is the basics taught. While the chameleon is being hydrated by day misting the newcomer can be exposed to cup drinking, night fogging, and that Chameleon Academy chart that throws much of it together and tells you to check for the poop! I think the greatest thing we can do for newcomers is to get them started in a way that works and then encourage them to understand the pros and cons of every other approach. The goal, after getting the chameleon to a happy place, is to create a keeper that has the mind to, one day, be part of helping us figure out better ways of doing things. Too often, beginners have the sense that husbandry approaches are rites of initiation into a digital gang that they have to defend. If you create a Chameleon Forums gang than you preside over a digital echo chamber exactly like Facebook groups and Reddit where ideas that threaten the ruling party are eliminated. That said, Chameleon Forums has stood the test of time to not become this so, of all the communities, this one remains the most relevant. You can have an established beginner husbandry protocol and still encourage discussion of other approaches on other threads. As long as you make it clear this is just the starting point you never have to worry about the myriad of other opinions and approaches out there. And if you keep learning yourselves and understand all those other approaches then this forum will be the place where they start and where they come back to discuss what they have learned out there. With that kind of open mind approach to mentorship you can get them started off with a firm foundation, allow them to go into the world to explore (which they will do no matter what), and also let them know this is a safe place to bring back new ideas that will be evaluated on their merit.
The problem with this approach is enforcement. People who have memorized a set of care parameters from whatever group they “grew up” in or have their favorite husbandry ideas will be put out if they are restricted from spreading their husbandry opinion. Even when you announce what is going on. So this isn’t perfect either. But, that is why a good, unified admin team is necessary.
And, finally, the best practice is the help teach. People love helping out. With an established Chameleon Forums beginner guidelines they can memorize that and help teach with the team. And they can be encouraged to challenge the thoughts in threads outside of beginners coming to ask for help. That way the information never gets old.
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