After my experiences on AOL's message boards, I am leery about just jumping into an online forum of any kind, be it about Paganism, herbalism, gardening, Tarot... or something more personal, like depression. I read a lot of back posts here before joining or even posting one little thing, simply because I wanted to get a feel for the 'atmosphere'. I wanted to see why people got flamed (which, due to its professional moderation, there is little or no flaming), how 'newbies' or people unfamiliar w/common terms were treated by more veteran members... I also wanted to discover if it was more of a mutual support group or if it was mostly individual questions being replied to by professionals. It's kind of like being a new kid in school, or a new family on an old block...