shellysmom said:the OP here is a simple request for people to help animals. It is absolutely not appropriate for people to ambush this poor person with their never ending conspiracy theories about the true agenda of animal rights organizations. And,
IMO, it is not appropriate for people to ambush Tom when he posts simple information that some people find controversial. That's why there's a DEBATABLE section on the forum. So both sides can willfully engage in the discussion.
Ambushing is extremely rude, especially when it contains obvious insults to the person posting. That is NOT why people post things like this, so try to be a little nicer. It it really that hard to do?
You can apply whatever label you wish (ambushing or whatever)...but when someone posts something with questionable credibility (in this case, a petition with a sad, heart-string-tugging video that may or may not accurately depict the true nature of the facility it is targeting), I do not feel it is inappropriate to call out the validity of that. Whether or not it is "debatable" is irrelevant to me; its up to the moderators discretion to move it if they choose. But I will not stand by and allow such questionable information to continue until I know more about what is going on. And likewise, Eric and Tom are just offering different perspectives on the issue. This isn't America where some redneck is hoarding box turtles in their backyard. This is another country, another culture, different laws may apply, and yes, while we may not personally agree with keeping a large number of sea turtles in a confined space (again, it's hard to tell exactly how large the space is and how many turtles are in it...Hmmmm?), this is not too far of a stretch from a tribe of Indians catching and roasting two dozen redfoot tortoises tied to a log over a fire. There is simply more than one way to look at this, and sadly many people (whether by ignorance or deliberately) lack some perspective on some of these issues. They just see a sad video about turtles, and jump on the band wagon without really looking at the facts.
And again, I personally question the effectiveness of petitions at all, regardless of the cause or its credibility. Some of my posts were offering suggestions for people who genuinely want to help with these issues. I apologize if I don't end every post with a smiley face and sugarcoat every sentence, but that is just how I am.
If you want to help save sea turtles. great! I don't think Tom, Eric or anyone else is against that objective. We are merely just calling into question the means the OP suggested, while offering alternatives. (and Tom and Eric weren't the only ones offering other ideas either!)