Kathy Koch writes, wisely as usual:

<< There are also LOTS of "non-legitimate" subscribers out there
 lurking and learning.  We're not going to kick them off for learning but
 Lactnet is designed for the helpers, not the helpees. >>

I'd even go a little further.   A great thing about Lactnet is that the
helpers, who need to talk to each other to help better, maintain this as an
open list so that the helpees -- many of whom are potential future helpers of
others -- can lurk, and read the archives, and learn.

My personal experience was many months of lurking silently; followed by at
least a year of reading regularly but posting only about topics on which I
had special knowledge (in my case Jewish stuff) that was of help to others
who needed it even though they knew a ton more about lactation than I did;
followed by the phase I'm in now, when I mostly post questions -- sometimes
suggested to me by the cases of moms I help (yup, I got sucked it to that too
:)  ), occasionally by my own experience but addressing wider issues, and
sometimes by posts of others.    That way I can stir up greater wisdom from
more knowledgeable folks, and both get the benefit of it myself and also help
others get the benefit of it.    Anything that gets my teachers -- and you
wiseguys know who you are! -- teaching more is a good thing by me.

But I don't discourse on stuff I don't know about, and I don't (mainly:) post
my own troubles.   I don't need to do either of those to learn; and neither
of them is going to help anyone else learn.

My .02 --

Elisheva Urbas
editor and bf critic in NYC

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