Dear friends,

during the last couple of weeks I noticed that the tone on this site has become rougher. In particular some people behave extremely rude to newcomers to the site or to the hobby that don't do everything right from the beginning.

I don't like where this is going, and I'm afraid that it will cost us many members on the long run.

We all have been new in the hobby and made mistakes. Some were lucky, some were less lucky, but I'm sure everyone had a lesson to spend to learn how to keep care of our fish. Remember that some newcomers are even given bad advice from stores that just care for the money they make, not for the fish. Remember that not everybody has the possibilities (space, money, ...) to separate fish in overcrowded or badly mixed tanks even if it was overdue.

I'm completely aware that some people repeatedly refuse to take advice from people on this site. It makes me angry, too, when I see how people treat their fish. Yet, I believe that it helps nobody if we start insulting and yelling at each other, particularly not those fish. If newcomers leave the site because they're being insulted here or do not feel welcome for other reasons, they'll continue to keep their fish in bad conditions.

I sincerely ask everyone to be more polite on this site. Please stick to constructive and moderate (!) criticism: By giving positive examples, by showing how responsible cichlid care works, we can make a difference. On the long run, this will influence many more people by the positive "multiplicator effect" (see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiscal_multiplier)

Take care!