What we have here is something that should be familiar to anyone who has ever joined a club, attended a church or otherwise participated in any sort of voluntary association. The group is formed; everyone is excited about it. Enthusiasm and dynamism is compelling, and membership grows. Participants have varying levels of commitment to the group or cause; some enjoy the camaraderie or the development opportunity, while others are quite serious about the underlying goals or values of the group. All of this is fine.

Then differences begin to appear among the members, cliques are formed, adversarial situations start to bubble up.

And when, God forbid, someone goes slightly off-piste (or is perceived to do so), ungracious words are said, people get bent out of shape, and invariably someone decides to take his marbles and go home.

This is why we have so many Protestant denominations in this country. Lacking a strong governing authority, this is how we humans behave. Knowing this, I think it’s pretty clear how we should react. You're annoying; I'm annoying. Let’s move on and forget about the stupid sh*t.

@David,

And thus begins the voyage to planet Dogmatica. Intolerance, zeal begetting orthodoxy, and the closing of the collective mind. Sorry about your experience. I have only posted a few times but I read daily and enjoyed your comments.

What is so interesting is that there is no consensus, and tremendous variation among the Dr. Harrisses and Mark Sissons of the world to name only a few. Paleo knowledge and nutritional science are evolving as they should. Does anyone believe that this is THE LAST WORD? That we humble practitioners should be so rigid is sad.

@Thor

If so offended, why not ignore them here and get on with your life taking a bit of comfort that you avoided the opportunity to be offensive?

Regardless what the membership thinks of the quality of the post by the OP regarding bean protein, I will agree with Patrik and state the the initial answers were completely out of line and not very conducive to a welcoming environment. And I'll also agree with Patrik that it seems to be an overlying tone with a few specific individuals.

The owners/admins of Paleohacks are very good at moderating and adjusting questions as they see fit, and we are not to assume their jobs as we are simply guests at their house.

I guess I can call myself "new paleo", as I have been around only for couple of months or so. I read, I think, I research... I am not a baby, I can figure out stuff. If something is posted that does not agree with general consensus about paleo diet, why not comment with short "you realize this isn't paleo, right?" or something similar. why attack? And there are many people who get into healthy eating slowly, in stages, and many times it's still choosing "lesser evil" - like beans instead of bread or so. I personally never liked beans, so I just skipped the thread all together, being only slightly surprised with it being posted.

To be honest, I'm quite certain a good portion of this community still doubts the possibility that somebody could be unable to eat meat or seafood, despite wanting to.

I began those series of questions in the hopes of finding the closest Paleo solution for a friend and colleague of mine, who lives with a good deal of metabolic and dietary restraints, not by choice, but as the result of disease and thyroid complications.

I'm pretty disillusioned with the community at this point, and don't really participate anymore. If any of the questions are "harmful" to newcomers, I'm sure they can be easily deleted. The group-think just reeks of Internet-nazis though. Yes, I just Godwin'd Paleohacks.

Thanks for setting up PaleoHacks Patrik, up until this point, it has been an amazing resource for me, and through others I have learned a great deal. Best of luck to you, and everybody else with your dietary goals.

I'm one of the least dogmatic people, but green beans is pushing it and might give the impression to new paleos that green beans are a good source of protein. Perhaps if the question had been asked with more context "Hi, my friend is tied to veganism because of X, but they want to make their diet as evolutionary appropriate as possible using vegan sources. We were thinking about beans and wondering which type would have the best protein ratio."

Because honestly, as the question stands, it does look very out of place on this site. If it were asked the other way we could get into issues of what really is the most "paleo" vegan source of protein. Arguably it's the very unpaleo fermented bean products of Asia, which as least have fewer antinutrients.

But instead I was left with...what do beans have to do with paleo?

With that, I will now edit that question with David's later comment. I hope no one minds :)

We are sick and tired of these candy ass questions about the protein content of peas, smelly sunscreen or cysts on your butt, for heaven's sake!

Look, if you want to follow a Peleo diet and behavior, then eat meat, lots of it, get out in the damn sunshine an take off your shirt, and stop complaining about you petty little aches and pains. Paleolithic humans were too busy recovering from multiple injuries from the hunt and were constantly avoiding sudden violent death to be concerned about a sunburn on their nose or a boo boo on their knee.

Man up! Go hard or go home!

Paleo seems to be taking the course of another "Food Religion," Macrobiotics, with dogma, high priests and heretics ....

I used to run a website for many years concerning the Dave Matthews Band, which had a message board system ("old school" in comparison to this one) that had around 20,000 subscribers, roughly a few thousand of those who were considered "active users."

There came a point when discussions veered way off-course, having very little do to with the band or absolutely nothing at all. We termed it "nDMBc," or non-Dave Matthews Band content. On the one hand, I thought it hurt the solid discussion of things band-related. However, I also saw the value in having it as long as it was kept separate in some manner so that people coming to the site were not confused by the vast array of topics. We wanted to keep it easier for people to find discussions they would want to read or join in on.

We solved the problem first by having folks put a small "nDMBc" at the beginning of their topic of discussion, so a quick scan made it easy to determine what was relevant to those wanting to discuss the band and what wasn't directly on topic. Later, we found it best to create a separate category of discussion with the same name, given that it had grown to some popularity (including discussion on sports, politics, etc.). It actually became a worthwhile section to check out, given that we had some very cool, smart people who had some highly entertaining discussions.

I'm not sure if any of this offers a solution to what's happening here. I guess my point is that we were able to resolve the issue and everything came out positive in the long-term.

When the Paleo equivalent of the "Council of Nicea" meets in the future lines will be drawn and heretics will be declared. I'll be laughing my ass off ... Would Jesus Paleo?

I also thought the responses to that question rather unhelpful! Never did get an answer....!

The issue becomes confusing the people who don't understand paleo/primal yet they're on here asking questions trying to learn and see, ohh, green beans are protein.. This is not what we want.

the Non-paleo tag might be helpful... But then again it's like discussing wheat products on a gluten free site and labeling your post w/wheat

I don't see a benefit to having discussions about poisionous food unless it involves the quantity of poison, the validity of poison or the ways to counter said poisons

You don't ask allergic people the nutritional content of their allergy. That's why he got jumped on.This isn't veggiehacks or nutritionhacks.. Anyone want to set one up? I'll happily ignore those posts there

I definitely agree that some people here can be quite aggressive and dogmatic. I recently posted a harmless link to some self-described "paleo" cookies, which included some not-totally-orthodox ingredients. No endorsement; just a link in case anyone was interested. I got slammed with negative comments and down-votes, until I finally asked Patrik to delete the whole thread.

Let's have FUN with this thing and LEARN.

Looks like Melissa edited the original question into something perhaps odd for this website but fairly reasonable, so I'm not quite sure what the fuss is about. The answers that still exist actually don't look all that aggressive:

• Rob Wolfe isn't the paleo authority. Ok, he's not.
• Google it/something about protein combining. Ok, yeah, googling it would be a good idea given that this is a website for people who by definition avoid beans.
• How are green beans not paleo?
• They have lectin! (I would have thought generally inedible raw was the answer, but ok)
• Answer from melissa that is perfectly reasonable.

So... I guess this is over and done with?

Thank you for this pertinent question. I agree entirely. It is especially galling when people give health comments with dogmatic certainty.

I posted a question a few weeks ago saying I had the flu and asking for advice on what to eat. One answer said, "you wouldnt have gotten the flu if your vitamin D level was at least 70." When another post asked a question about a coworker with eyeball pressure, that same person answered with a certainty only a diety should claim, and said the coworker could "heal herself."

How silly.

Haze the newbs! that's what I'm getting... ask a question get attacked. Answer a question. get scolded. I'm just like "well, excuse the hell out of me!" I thought that is what a question/answer forum was for! its not like I'm saying "eat donuts, you all are dumb!" We're all asking and /or answering based on our own knowledge and experiences. If everyone already knows all the answers, and thinks you stupid for asking, then, absolutely! Herd mentality in full force!

Honestly, reading the replies to Dave's post was sort of upsetting, especially since he runs one of the 5 or so blogs I read. I don't really know what else to say.

Yes, haze the newb's. But, it does ebb and flow. It's just flowing right now because of the controversy that came out of AHS11.