I was going to write "people who never stop promoting their books", but I changed my mind. Or didn't I?
I am one of those weirdos who still tries to deny the existence of FB, but I would also guess a lot of action has moved that way. I'm not a CA member (or even an American), but I can only say how I have highly valued the excellent help I have received from people on this forum, not only for USA trips (3), but also for herping Peru and Malaysia.
I've also been disappointed by people I trusted, but if you're seasoned enough I would think you learn to judge a person's approach quite well. And, yes, that has resulted in me being much more protective and careful than before, so I may only help a minority of obvious "good herpers".
While a certain someone relentlessly bragging about having thousands of records might deter people who yet have to enter their first record, I'm afraid there's a lot of "don't care" in this world if you look at database projects. Another thing might be that people rather use more comprehensive portals instead of one that focuses on a single fauna group (as we have noticed down here).
I think this thread might be beneficial to get stuff off your chest, but not to change anything. A grumpy old men debate is hardly going to harvest good people/posts, right? I think Robert raised some useful, more constructive points. I am quite sure that the enthusiasm of many starts ánd persists mainly because of people posting pictures here. Brian, you can just as easily post pics from Flickr.
Brian Hubbs wrote:too lazy to set up their own sites for herping.
Off topic - I call this the "gardening version" of herping. I'm not saying it's not a lot of fun or even the basis for research if you want. Yet, to my mind laying out some "habitat bait" is more lazy than working non-managed or even "unknown" territory. I have no trouble confessing that's why I laid out my boards. But of course Brian most likely refers to people who are too lazy to do either.