The Cold Blooded News

The Newsletter of the Colorado Herpetological Society

Volume 28, Number 6; June, 2001

Caveat The Internet, Edited Or Not

by Marty Marcus

Reprinted from Notes from NOAH, the newsletter of the Northern Ohio Association of Herpetologists, Vol.28, No.5, February 2001.

The Internet has achieved a reputation for providing up-to-date relevant information for those of us interested in herps (and a lot of other topics). It has also become, at times, a main source of articles for herp newsletters. Beware, because internet postings are not always current or accurate.

In one newsletter, nearly two pages were devoted to material about the Russian Tortoise, Testudo horsfieldii. I was excited to read, near the end of the article, that there was a shipment of these tortoises in Norway waiting to come to the San Francisco Bay Area and to be adopted out by long-time BAARS member Ginger Wilfong. We probably had enough herps to take care of already, but were tempted to call Ginger and ask her to save one for us. Then I got to the end of the article and discovered that it had originally appeared in the Tortuga Gazette some three years earlier, at which point it was placed on the homepage of the North Bay Herp Society, and from there into the newsletter of the Pacific Northwest Herp Society. That's up-to-date material?

In another issue of the PNHS newsletter, there appeared an article about Rosy Boas, reprinted from the newsletter of the Colorado Herp Society, and downloaded from their Newsletter Exchange Web Site. Near the end of the article it stated that Desert Rosy Boas give birth to 25 babies and Coastal Rosy Boas produce 210 babies. What nonsense! Fortunately, Ann Waldo and I were involved in the production of the newsletter. I may have usurped the editors prerogative, but I changed the 25 to "2 to 5" and the 210 to "2 to 10." I don't know how concerned other herp societies are about providing accurate information to their members, but it ought to be a goal.

CHS Editor's Note: That article is still posted on the CHS web site, and it DOES read 2-5 and 2-10.

In the January 2001 issue of the PNHS newsletter was an "edited" article by Melissa Kaplan, about calculating the cost of electricity. It contains several major bits of misinformation, maybe attributable to Ms. Kaplan, maybe to the "editing" of the item. In looking at the label of a "power strip," she discovered that it stated 15A 125VAC 60hz. To find the number of watts, she multiplied the 15 amps times the 125 volts to get 1875 watts, and promptly unplugged it to save electricity. But a power strip uses maybe 1 watt for the light that indicates when it is on. The 15 amps, 1875 watts is the maximum load that can be handled by the power strip without tripping the reset button.

In the same article, it says that the way to figure your cost per kilowatt hour (KWH) from your monthly electric bill is to divide the total KWH by the total amount of money you were charged. Well, its actually the other way around. You divide the total $$$ by the total KWH. Here in WA, where we've been paying about 5 cents per KWH, if you follow the directions in the article taken off the Internet, you would come out with a cost of about $20 per KWH. Really fuzzy math!

Having been newsletter editor for three different organizations many years ago, I know how difficult it is to get members to write articles for their own newsletter. One of my concerns is that potential writers can now opt out of contributing their ideas in print because there's plenty of material available for downloading off the Internet. I'm not suggesting that the Internet shouldn't be used at all. But readers, and editors, should be aware that just because something is off the Internet doesn't mean it's garbage-free.