i see your point Jen and (although i'm no angel by anyone's standards) i have to say, there are plenty of times we could be nicer. the thing is that most of us get fed up with having to address the same issues two or three times a week (i.e. breeding VT mutts, appropriate male to female ratios, or "what can i keep with common semi-aggressive fish X?"). so when someone lashes out or over-reacts... a certain frenzy comes over us.
unfortunately, we're not much better than the fish we keep in terms of being cool-headed.
in the months i've been an active member, i've found that the vast majority of the people on the receiving end are pretty antagonistic themselves. for example, our darling friend wwstar who likes to call names, violate our position as a "family-friendly" forum, and disagree violently with fairly knowledgable recommendations. although there were indeed two or three members who sank to his level in both the betta and livebearer threads, Annistasia and Tokis-Pheonix
at no point merited the sorts of responses they recieved. frankly, my rule of thumb is how one responds to Annistasia--she's a nice, level-headed person and if you respond to her disrespectfully, thumbs down!
anyways, what i hear from the established members is that it'll all be better once summer is over. the hot-heads will cool off and idle hands will back in school instead of on the keyboards.
a side note on my use of the term "VT mutts": I personally feel strongly against the breeding of the cheapie bettas of
unknown lineage that one gets from Walmart and the like. I especially feel that one should not breed the veiltails considering the vast number of them already dying a slow death on the shelves. However, if you have a quality VT with known genotypes and desirable, transferable characteristics--have at it if you have an established means of getting the fry to good homes (not if you just think you might could get some LFS somewhere to take them in).
I have three and I love them to death!
