........I think these caresheets need a template to go by, something detailed, and something meant to teach with. Something we feel confortable linking to new hobbyists who have questions about a species. If you want single post breeding journals too so be it but a factual caresheet needs to be at the top of every species thread.
I'm with many of you with respect to using a categories-based template. It's nice to see a strong start on the caresheets so quickly, but we are getting a little disorganized with it already. Templates provide many benefits.
They provide the contributor to the post with a set list of information that they must know before posting. If they can't fill out every section of the template, they probably shouldn't be contributing. A related point is that only people who have actually raised that particular mantis species through at least one generation (Adults, oothecae, nymphs) should be contributing to that care sheet.
Templates are easy for a future reader to understand because they are organized. If they are looking for a particular piece of information on, say, incubating oothecae, they can go right to that category on the template (rather than reading through 3 or more posts of content organized in 3 different ways by 3 different people).
After the template has been completed (or before, in some cases--since we already have some of this in the caresheets section), "approved" follow up posts can be added if they meet an as yet to be determined quality threshold. These would tend to be of the "personal and helpful anecdotes based on experience" variety, or perhaps offer care points that seem plausible but are alternative to the general consensus.
That said, the forum may need help with this because it is a big job. We may be interested in a volunteer or two to help with this. If anybody is feeling particularly motivated to step up, now would be a good time (privately, via PM please). You might be promoted to moderators within this section of the forum. I'm not sure if any of the admins have time to really monitor this in addition to the rest of the forum. The job would NOT require that you are an experienced breeder with any species, but only that you are willing to work with other members who want to contribute content and that you have a knack for knowing the difference between good content and all that, yes, "fluff".
An early step in this would be agreeing on a set list of care topics for the template. Kloned had a draft earlier in this thread.
