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Laid Back
This isn't a homebrew question, but I notice how much more laid back and friendly this place is than the other I left recently. I joined another site last year and didn't really have any problems for a long time. Lots of great brewers on there. As time went on, more and more non beer topics came up. I go to a beer site to read about BEER, nothing else. On top of this, I found quite a few people with SERIOUS attitute problems. I also expressed my opinion about somewhere I went and was endlessly flamed because, as I found out, you are NOT to have any negative feelings about shops, regardless of what the service was like.
My main reason for leaving was the attitudes. At least here we can talk about beer and nobody gets flamed for giving their insight.
I don't go back to that place anymore. I even contacted the owner who basically said he didn't give a flip about the flame wars. What a piece of work.
While brewingkb isn't as big, it is more friendly.
Hopefully we can keep that friendly atmosphere. I've run several forums and flame wars do crop up from time to time - you have to nip them immediately.
As an aside, we are actually growing really quickly for being so young. We are getting about 10 new members per day - we just need them to introduce themselves! (hmmm...maybe I'll start a thread for that).
I think it depends on what it's over. I've seen people post comments that DESERVE it. But when you express your opinion... "I don't like this particular yeast, I think it sucks" and 15 people write you back and flame you... that is totally unnecessary.
I liked my former hangout, LOTS of really smart people, but ATTITUDES. I'm too old (well, 33) to deal with kids and attitudes from people who have been at it longer than me.
When I come here, I want to talk about brewing, that's it. I don't care about someones car breaking down, their restoration project, or the last camping trip. Beer is the topic.
Another thing I like about this place, NO CLUTTER. You can build a nice web site with simple HTML, some cgi scripts (or even SSI), and have a good clean layout with plenty available.
From reading the forums I have noticed we have a lot of new brewers here. I get the impression that most users have been brewing for less than 6 months. I think it's good to have a mix of long time, apprentice, and new users all together. This is how I learned.
I haven't looked over the profile section, but I think it would be nice to have a section in our profiles so people can tell where they are from, favorite beer style, give some tips and techniques, etc.
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