target niche (was: Re: "natural" photos?)

Ron Gatrelle gatrelle at tils-ttr.org
Sat Feb 2 00:45:27 EST 2002


----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Quinn" <ento at satx.rr.com>
Subject: Re: target niche (was: Re: "natural" photos?)


> Hi Rudy, Actually the Lep Soc is the organization with the niche target
> audience, scientists. Certainly that's who the Journal of the Lep Soc
caters
> to. NABA, on the other hand, is going after every man, woman and child in
> North America. Mike Quinn
>

This is utterly untrue.  Totally false.  Blatantly in error.  The
Lepidopterists' Society has always been (and IS) the most wide open
cosmopolitan organization available to those interested in  butterflies and
moths in North America and the world.  The vast (the word here is vast)
majority of its membership are totally non scientist, amateurs, and
avocational lepidopterists - and engaged in every leps activity imaginable.
There should be a flood of about 200 posts on this list serve to second
what I have just said.  Especially from people on this list serve who are
in Lep. Soc. leadership - like Don Lafontaine, Larry Gall, and on down the
line.  If the current leadership of Lep. Soc. are so politically spineless
that they would let such a false picture of  _ our_ organization go
unchallenged and not strongly corrected - then _we_ the members have voted
for the wrong people!  This is outrageous.

Compared to the Lepidopterists' Society, NABA is a closed club for only the
right "kind" of people.  Yes, the Lep. Soc. Journal has always been a
science lbased publication - and it has gotten too dry in recent years.  I
will be the first to say that.  But the Lepidopterists Society is so much
more than that single publication.  The News is fun, entertaining, average
person stuff.   Part of the problem is that the new generation of lepsters
have been fed such intellectual oatmeal for the last 10 years that even the
simplest of things (like knowing a scientific name or two) are now
considered way beyond their scope.  There is a reason many of us use the
term "dumbed down" relative to today's lowering of the bar.

There was a time, and not that long ago, when all the ammeters _knew_ what
was being talked about in the Journal articles.  That was largely because
the popular Field Guides and books of the 50's, 60's and early 70's
actually provided the new comer with some information about what the heck
was going on.  They let us know from the beginning there were such things
as speciation, population dynamics, biogeographical evolution and much
more -  and how it worked and why it was all important.

Further to falsely represent the Lep. Soc as targeting or catering to
scientists also slams all the regional societies that are about the same
things.  Southern Lepidopterists Society, Ohio, Utah, Kentucky - all of
them.  Now will any one in these societies stand up?  Tomorrow Mike Quinn's
computer should be bogged down and in need of a reboot due to hundreds of
irate emails from all the lepidopterists in this world.

Ron Gatrelle
No college edu. butterfly amateur.
and very proud 35 year member of The Lepidopterists' Society



 
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