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TOPIC: [Meta] Can we have more pinned posts about mycology?
You suspected that this discussion might lead to a few fights, and you weren’t wrong. A fairly new user is complaining about how hard it is to find information about mushroom foraging in one consolidated location. We should really have a single thread for this, they write, especially since it’s dangerous for newbies who are doing it for the first time.
The first response is from a long-time member with over 5,000 posts:
bring_a_ruler I totally understand where you’re coming from with this, but there is actually a lot of information on this forum about avoiding poisonous mushrooms. It’s everyone’s individual responsibility to be prepared and safe when foraging.
The person who started the discussion pushes back. I’m just asking why it’s not easier to find! The tone is hostile, which explains why all the other veteran users of the forum start to show up, alternately pacifying or pugilistic.
The kind replies pretty much all sound the same:
myco_mouse I know it’s overwhelming at first. But there are lots of books linked in the Foraging 101 thread and you can ask there if anything’s confusing. Writing a thorough tutorial on this would take an incredible amount of time, since the mushrooms available vary so much by region.
Feel free to ask for mushroom IDs if you’re confused!
The aggressive responses, though, are much more interesting to read:
ecotope So…you show up out of nowhere and demand that we do more work just to accommodate your laziness? We’re all outside in nature and too busy to write.
A moderator weighs in on page 3 with a snippy little post:
taiga
ModeratorIf you’re so confident about what this forum needs, feel free to write this post yourself.
By page 5, the thread has descended into chaos. Users construct elaborate rebuttals to each other, criticizing each individual sentence of a post, rejoicing in any grammatical error the opposing party commits.
It is so petty, so unnecessary. You are obsessed.
The discussion dies down on page 10 when the user who originally posted leaves in a huff. The last word comes from an especially combative veteran user: I’m sorry you’re taking the internet this seriously. Enjoy your store-bought button mushrooms!
Celine Nguyen is a designer, design historian, and writer. She is an MA student in History of Design at the V&A Museum/Royal College of Art, where her research considers contemporary web aesthetics and their relationship to our ecological world. Right now, she wants to know: what does degrowth look like for the web?
