You Make a Difference!

Beman

Social Media Manager
Staff member
So lately I have been thinking a lot. For the regulars we see a lot of bad things on the forum. Some of the Newbies are now becoming familiar with the heartbreak threads. For many of us it causes us to want to pull away. At least that is how it has been for me the last few months after dealing with my own heartache.

I think it is important to remember that with most of the hard threads it is not a keeper trying to kill their cham. It is lack of the proper knowledge and understanding of the animal and its husbandry requirements. Many are given and find the wrong info.

Quite a few people here have made comments to me about the time it takes me to redline a help form or provide the extra links and explanation to things.
Do I have tons of extra time, No. So why do I do it?
Because it matters! For the newbies coming here it matters. It is the difference between their Chameleon thriving and dying.

Am I highly experienced? NO, and I am the first one to admit that. I have only been in the hobby 1 year but I know my basic husbandry for Veileds and Panthers. I don't make an assumption that everything is fine in a thread. I look for outliers that could be causing the issue. Because they are here asking us for help and when we don't dive deep and ask the questions but we tell them something is normal their cham is the one that suffers. Then when their cham declines and dies they suffer. But they came here and we said it was fine.

I have come across two help threads where there were mirrors right next to the chams. One I could clearly see in a picture and the other I asked the question. Both threads neither of these things were considered. One was told repeatedly oh its normal behavior.

So what I ask of my fellow members. Don't give up. Dive deep and don't give an answer to someone saying it is ok without getting the proper feedback and information. Give of your time and knowledge. Because you make a difference and you matter to the people coming here for help. Sometimes it is easy to feel like our time was wasted but everything we share is here in the forum for others to read as well. While we may think we have done nothing but wasted our energy we could actually be helping 10 lurkers that have not had the courage to make an account.

The more we help Newbies get their husbandry spot on the more chams we save. In turn hopefully these newbies stick around and do what we have done for them.

To all of you that have taught me and continue to teach me. Thank you! You matter greatly to me. To all of you that continue to share of your time and knowledge. Thank you! You matter to everyone coming here seen and unseen. We SAVE Chameleons here. That is what we do. I hope you all know how important you are and the difference you make for others.

chameleon_vector_287898.jpg
 
So lately I have been thinking a lot. For the regulars we see a lot of bad things on the forum. Some of the Newbies are now becoming familiar with the heartbreak threads. For many of us it causes us to want to pull away. At least that is how it has been for me the last few months after dealing with my own heartache.

I think it is important to remember that with most of the hard threads it is not a keeper trying to kill their cham. It is lack of the proper knowledge and understanding of the animal and its husbandry requirements. Many are given and find the wrong info.

Quite a few people here have made comments to me about the time it takes me to redline a help form or provide the extra links and explanation to things.
Do I have tons of extra time, No. So why do I do it?
Because it matters! For the newbies coming here it matters. It is the difference between their Chameleon thriving and dying.

Am I highly experienced? NO, and I am the first one to admit that. I have only been in the hobby 1 year but I know my basic husbandry for Veileds and Panthers. I don't make an assumption that everything is fine in a thread. I look for outliers that could be causing the issue. Because they are here asking us for help and when we don't dive deep and ask the questions but we tell them something is normal their cham is the one that suffers. Then when their cham declines and dies they suffer. But they came here and we said it was fine.

I have come across two help threads where there were mirrors right next to the chams. One I could clearly see in a picture and the other I asked the question. Both threads neither of these things were considered. One was told repeatedly oh its normal behavior.

So what I ask of my fellow members. Don't give up. Dive deep and don't give an answer to someone saying it is ok without getting the proper feedback and information. Give of your time and knowledge. Because you make a difference and you matter to the people coming here for help. Sometimes it is easy to feel like our time was wasted but everything we share is here in the forum for others to read as well. While we may think we have done nothing but wasted our energy we could actually be helping 10 lurkers that have not had the courage to make an account.

The more we help Newbies get their husbandry spot on the more chams we save. In turn hopefully these newbies stick around and do what we have done for them.

To all of you that have taught me and continue to teach me. Thank you! You matter greatly to me. To all of you that continue to share of your time and knowledge. Thank you! You matter to everyone coming here seen and unseen. We SAVE Chameleons here. That is what we do. I hope you all know how important you are and the difference you make for others.

View attachment 250620

very well said. There has been many times that I read a thread then dive into the posters older threads to get more info just to come back to the current thread to find a bunch of people giving advice without asking questions or enough questions ( granted I often do the same). While I find it awesome we all want to help I think we all need to slow down a little and get all the info before giving advice. But this is also why the community is awesome because we all come to the threads with different knowledge and a different view where we can spot things others may have missed.
 
So lately I have been thinking a lot. For the regulars we see a lot of bad things on the forum. Some of the Newbies are now becoming familiar with the heartbreak threads. For many of us it causes us to want to pull away. At least that is how it has been for me the last few months after dealing with my own heartache.

I think it is important to remember that with most of the hard threads it is not a keeper trying to kill their cham. It is lack of the proper knowledge and understanding of the animal and its husbandry requirements. Many are given and find the wrong info.

Quite a few people here have made comments to me about the time it takes me to redline a help form or provide the extra links and explanation to things.
Do I have tons of extra time, No. So why do I do it?
Because it matters! For the newbies coming here it matters. It is the difference between their Chameleon thriving and dying.

Am I highly experienced? NO, and I am the first one to admit that. I have only been in the hobby 1 year but I know my basic husbandry for Veileds and Panthers. I don't make an assumption that everything is fine in a thread. I look for outliers that could be causing the issue. Because they are here asking us for help and when we don't dive deep and ask the questions but we tell them something is normal their cham is the one that suffers. Then when their cham declines and dies they suffer. But they came here and we said it was fine.

I have come across two help threads where there were mirrors right next to the chams. One I could clearly see in a picture and the other I asked the question. Both threads neither of these things were considered. One was told repeatedly oh its normal behavior.

So what I ask of my fellow members. Don't give up. Dive deep and don't give an answer to someone saying it is ok without getting the proper feedback and information. Give of your time and knowledge. Because you make a difference and you matter to the people coming here for help. Sometimes it is easy to feel like our time was wasted but everything we share is here in the forum for others to read as well. While we may think we have done nothing but wasted our energy we could actually be helping 10 lurkers that have not had the courage to make an account.

The more we help Newbies get their husbandry spot on the more chams we save. In turn hopefully these newbies stick around and do what we have done for them.

To all of you that have taught me and continue to teach me. Thank you! You matter greatly to me. To all of you that continue to share of your time and knowledge. Thank you! You matter to everyone coming here seen and unseen. We SAVE Chameleons here. That is what we do. I hope you all know how important you are and the difference you make for others.

View attachment 250620
Yes all this ❤️ I know this is something we have talked about and now that I have less to deal with and setting up my computer again I can finally get back to fixing forums

We are here to save these guys after all that’s why we are here and keep coming back. I help ppl on Instagram as well not just here on the forum so I spread myself tin at times
 
very well said. There has been many times that I read a thread then dive into the posters older threads to get more info just to come back to the current thread to find a bunch of people giving advice without asking questions or enough questions ( granted I often do the same). While I find it awesome we all want to help I think we all need to slow down a little and get all the info before giving advice. But this is also why the community is awesome because we all come to the threads with different knowledge and a different view where we can spot things others may have missed.
I do agree with you. After a year of seeing all the horrific threads I feel like if we can help those that come here in the beginning with new chams get the right information and it be thorough correct info rather then them getting pieces then we save chameleons. We then make this a place where not only are people educated about the husbandry of their awesome new cham but for them to feel secure that they were given a real education.

I know there is the search function. I am very educated in it as I got Beman on impulse and then spent morning, noon, and night searching for pieces of the whole husbandry picture for over a month. It took me a full month to get myself mostly set up but I still had no idea the ins and outs of things. I was still confused. And at the time my first post was scary. I had members fighting with each other in it. It made me back away and start the search process again.

For me it is personal. If I could have had one person say no you need to correct this, this, and this kindly to me it would have been so helpful.

What stresses me about giving pieces of feedback is that if no one else comes along to add more then that person is left with pieces and does not even know it. Same with saying something is totally normal when it is not. Some times it requires us to dig deeper. I do not think asking questions is harmful. 95% of the people coming here for help are happy to respond.

My approach is red lining an entire helpform and then I welcome anyone to come along and pick out anything I may not see or miss. I also tag people in when I have no clue or if it is something I know nothing about I stay out of the thread as to not cause further confusion to the OP.

I just think we forget how valuable we are to others. While I love the social family aspect of our community I love that we are in the position to help others. :)
 
I wish we could avoid the members fighting and telling members to use the search function. I know it gets monotonous answering the same questions all the time, but reacting in a friendly manner will generally get better results.

All in all we have great members here and it is what makes the forums special.

:)
 
I wish we could avoid the members fighting and telling members to use the search function. I know it gets monotonous answering the same questions all the time, but reacting in a friendly manner will generally get better results.

All in all we have great members here and it is what makes the forums special.

:)
I agree. I love our members. I think we have a great group with big hearts. I think it is easy to forget what being new was like.
 
One more comment...I think we also need to watch that comments we make in threads aren't so harsh that they chase the person away by being too negative because that's not going to help the chameleon.

Great thread...so glad you started it @Beman!
Yes, I agree and have also typed before thinking.... I think because we are so passionate it is important to remember that our words impact others.
 
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