soooooooooooo, why no forum links

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:16 pm

this has been playing on my mind for a while now, how come we cant post links to other crab forums. i mean, so what if it diverts people away from this site, the more info on crab care the better. i made a forum a while ago and it is a dead zone. y not have a sister forum section with all the other peoples forums on crab care???

MacandHunter · Post by **MacandHunter** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:37 pm

There is really no need to have a bunch of sister forums as it can just make things more confusing for newbies who have to search the net for crab information. Also, the HCA worked hard to get it's members without posting links in other forums.

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:40 pm

but it shouldent be a members race, it should be about an even wider amount of crab care knolage

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:47 pm

i agree with brad completely. our forum is the best of the best, but why not add other forums to help newbies? it could really help the world's hermit crabs

~tess

brad873 · Post by **brad873** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 5:49 pm

"we love hermit crabs" is out moto, so why not pair up with some other forums to expand the knolage of them

MacandHunter · Post by **MacandHunter** » Fri Sep 21, 2007 6:05 pm

I don't feel teaming up with other forums will help much. I would love if HCA, LHC, HCAddiction, and CSJ all created one big forum but that is out of the question. Making other smaller forums, or adding dead forums to a sister site list really wouldn't be of anyone's benefit. All the information you could need on crab care is here at the HCA, and if you feel that something is missing we can all work together here.

troppo · Post by **troppo** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 3:03 am

I agree with Mac, not because we're both mods but because it is just that HCA has worked so hard to be the number 1 crab care site and hasn't relied on anyone else, that we shouldn't really think of piggy-backing on HCA's success.
Quite a few members here have crab-care forums of their own and the best way is to work hard to get your forum somewhere.
Also too, another reason why forums may not be allowed to be advertised here is because of differing ideas of crab-care which may or may not reflect HCA's standards.
I'm not saying this to be mean or anything, even if I had a forum as well, I'd feel terribly guilty about gaining members from a site which has worked so hard.

Christa · Post by **Christa** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 10:08 am

As we say in our Site Rules, the HCA is a site to share hermit crab care information, not a supply of members to be farmed.

I've been in the online crabbing community since 1998 and since then I've lost track of all the little crab care forums that have sprung up, overnight, with the same subforums we have here, namely General, Chit Chat, Memorials, etc. They usually get to 20 members, and sometimes maybe even 200, but then sort of peter out or get absorbed by another site.

I'd elaborate more but I'm not feeling well right now... so type to you later!

hc!
Christa

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Sep 22, 2007 11:45 am

Christa
Hope you feel better soon.

There is a site called webrings. I'm not sure how it works. But when you go to it, it gives info on a number of crab sites. You can preview each site briefly and if you're interested you can look at the site as a guest. If you like it, you can join as many sites as you want.

I did join two other, smaller sites for supplementary information. One of the sites seems to have mostly people who are new to crabbing and sometimes I use my abundance of knowledge and experience (gleaned from this site, of course) to help them out. But I'll give web sites for things like shells and food, most of which places belong to members of this site, like narnar. But for some reason I never advise them to actually go to HCA. I really don't know why-I guess I just feel like I want to keep things separate.

So I'm not expressing an opinion either way, just disseminating information.

However, one more point. Helping out a crabber is helping a crab.

Post by **JediMasterThrash** » Mon Sep 24, 2007 6:35 pm

There is a difference between "more crab care" and "more crab forums". There are numerous crab websites that provide information without having a forum, and I don't think there's usually an issue linking to an article from another care-information website (don't quote me on that though).

So for the arguments like "more crab care", "wider amount of crab care knowledge" are satisfied by other care sites, not just care forums.

Most of the 1st degree knowledge about hermit crabs comes from few dozen experienced crabbers, who are distributed amongst all the major forums. But most of these crabbers have their own forumless crab website to propagate their specific brand of crab care and tell of their experiences and research. So differing methods and ideas can all be explored.