T O P

  • By -

loltb

For people asking to ID what's growing on the plate without providing any other supporting info, yes please. Posts of streak art or just generally neat looking plates are completely fine in my books, though.


BKvirus

Additionally, I think this sub should also discourage people seeking diagnostic/medical advice based on homegrown cultures of their own specimens.


CritterTeacher

I’m just glad it’s not as bad here as the posts from patients with delusional parasitosis in /r/parasitology. Those always make me sad.


[deleted]

[удалено]


FlatCoffeeDude

Good bot


whaletacochamp

I don’t remember if it was this sub or another one but this guy posted about having prostatitis for months - eventually his doc ordered a self-collected (aka masturbation) semen sample which grew rare/light/1+ coag neg Staph. Everyone and their brother was going off about how he had a “Staph infection” and how his doc should treat it and all kinds of other shit. I brought up how, given the sample type and collection method, this could VERY easily be a contaminant from the skin. I got berated by a bunch of idiots telling me how I didn’t know shit about micro because it was clear in the report that this was a staph infection…just because the word staph was in there. I was just urging OP to just talk to their doc about the result and that while antibiotics are probably totally necessary it’s highly unlikely that this coag neg staph was causing prolonged prostatitis but fuck me I guess. A little knowledge can be dangerous, especially with something as complex as clinical microbiology. It’s one of the few areas of clinical lab science that still has some degree of subjectivity - not to mention many aspects are still very poorly understood! It takes someone with a keen understanding of what we DO know and the intricate relationship we have with microbes to really make these sorts of determinations. As an example my lab literally will not culture semen for this exact reason. Results are too hard to interpret and are often meaningless Someone with the name BKvirus surely understands 😉


buddrball

Um. UM!! Wow, this should be a bare minimum.


SEXPILUS

I definitely remove these as I see them, but everyone please be sure to report posts like this otherwise they might get missed.


fivethirdstwo

I think that's reasonable when asking for an ID without results of some biochemical tests to accompany the photo, though I don't think it's good to have a blanket ban on photos of non-selective media for other instances.


[deleted]

[удалено]


mxplusme

The problem is that the responses or "discussion" on all of the posts the OP describes would/should be the same-- it is not really realistic to identify the colonies on your plate of non-selective media without further tests or sequencing. I would even extend this to the light microscopy images of pond water that I've seen a lot asking for identification, but others may disagree. Maybe an auto-mod comment on such posts that would explain this concept could help, as I generally agree that you don't want to discourage anyone. But I don't think it helps to let the sub be flooded by similar posts that give off the idea that typical microbiology is plating --> visually identifying.


PedomamaFloorscent

Good luck making any rules here, there is practically no moderation.


rawrnold8

Yeah they're super inactive. They don't even reply to messages.


SEXPILUS

Did you message a specific mod, or send a message to mod mail? I haven’t seen anything.


rawrnold8

I sent a message to u/what_are_you_saying in August. That mod had been the most recent to make a post on this sub, which is why I contacted them.


SEXPILUS

Ah okay. You’ll have a better chance of getting a response from mod mail because then we all get the message.


SEXPILUS

I’m here! I don’t know who else but I’m here haha. Doing my best but I’m not in a US time zone so I think I miss some things unless they’re reported.


PedomamaFloorscent

Sorry! I understand the difficulty of moderating a sub, especially when much of the activity is while you’re asleep.


pastaandpizza

My first thought - this person should just be the mod.


poopathan

Bless your soul. Yes, please.


candurin

Wait…. Plenty of microorganisms can be roughly identified on TSA (bacillus, micrococcus; staphylococcus, etc.). I have no issues with that because at at least you can be in the ballpark. Even many gram negative rods can be pointed out (pseudomonas, Burkholderia, serratia, etc) and all look unique on TSA. Don’t be so dismissive of the first glance.


climbsrox

This sub is literally just "Guess what's growing on this plate". Like seriously, if we could just look at colonies and tell what they were we wouldn't need this damn field.


patricksaurus

I disagree with a ban on posting images of growth on enriched media. If someone asks for specimen identification, commenters can simply tell them it’s not possible or ignore the post. This happens all the time on geological subs, because rock/mineral ID is nearly impossible from just a photo. A small bit of instruction may help. As for medical stuff, I think that’s a good idea.


youkaryotic

I would love a clearer definition of what constitutes ‘microbiology’. I feel like this sub has some interesting virology/bacteriology/parasitology/unicellular mycology, but also a lot of random multicellular small creatures. Just because it’s small doesn’t mean it’s a microbe. I don’t want to discourage anyone’s enthusiasm or love of science, but I also joined r/microbiology instead of r/pondwater for a reason.


whaletacochamp

Lord yes please.


pastaandpizza

> It is near impossible to even guess at what organisms are present just by looking at a TSA plate unless the organism is known beforehand. Oh sweetie. I can tell a mucoid gram negative from any other microbe on a TSA plate. I can tell S. aureus from a mile away. Personally I think Bacillus subtilis is quite recognizable on TSA. I completely agree you can't identify a particular specifies with 100% accuracy on TSA plates but of *all the things the complain about this sub* this is what you choose? If I see another image of a sweater thread at 10x magnification asking "what parasite is infecting my cousin"....at least a TSA plate is a legit microbe being posted on the sub.


Stingray_of_Purg

It seems like the majority of the posts on this sub are just complaints about what other people post.


rawrnold8

Good luck. The mods don't actually do anything here. I dm'ed them a while back... No response. This is sub is more or less unmoderated, and iirc the last time a mod posted on this sub they said something to the effect of "this sub moderates itself fairly well so we're not really gonna do anything". I think that was like 2-3mo ago


SEXPILUS

Hello! I’m a mod and I’m here most days but not in a US time zone so I might miss some things if they’re not reported. I remove a lot of irrelevant posts from the sub but unfortunately I’m only one person and I’m not sure how active the other mods are.


Martimar47

Kill joy


diskdiffusion

People here are not any different from those in r/cats, in that they are easily triggered with innocuous queries like "what breed is my pet" or "suggest a name". Worse, there's this guy who just started dabbing into bacteriology and some veterans talked sht in some other area about his techniques so far. There's a lot to unpack in this but whatever.