Since its launch in 2001 The Crab Street Journal has always been a free and open resource for land hermit crab keepers. I believe knowledge, science and research should be available to everyone. I don’t want to gatekeep what I know. I want to expand my knowledge by working with other like-minded hermit crab keepers. We (first Vanessa and then me) have always shared our knowledge and research so that others may learn and care for their pet hermit crabs better than ever before. Improving the lives of hermit crabs has always been our mission and it remains our mission today.
There are no ads on the website for this reason. Yes, you may see pop-ups and notices from time to time about deals in our online store but we do not serve ads as a way to make money. Ads are intrusive and annoying and if you are in the midst of the emergency and trying to find information I don’t want an ad slowing you down. Making money has never been what this is about for me and it still isn’t. I had hoped that someday the online store would at least make enough money to support the site 100% but that has yet to happen. In the 20 years or so that I have been the owner of CSJ I have spent thousands of my dollars keeping the site online and making it the best available for hermit crab owners. This is my passion, my joy, my way of leaving my mark on this world. Hermit crabs will be my legacy.
It is important to me that everyone understands where I am coming from. Not only is plagiarism and copyright infringement illegal, it’s shitty behavior and it makes me feel shitty when it happens to me. 21 years of hermit crab keeping and endless hours spent researching so I can share what I found. Pouring my heart and soul into understanding land hermit crabs to the best of my ability. To have others claim my work as their own. To see them strip my name, logo, url, and anything that would give me credit, removed. I’ve seen my work reproduced on many websites. Probably a lot more but I certainly don’t have the time to scour the internet every day to track down the violators. It is not my responsibility to do so. In fact, it is your responsibility to ensure you are not plagiarizing or violating a copyright. If you don’t understand how AI works you should educate yourself before using it to generate content. Just like it is your responsibility to know the rules of the road when driving a car. Imagine going to work every day and having someone else show up on payday to collect your paycheck. You did all the work, you showed up every day and did the work and someone else got paid for it. All I want is the respect and credit I am due for all the hard work I’ve put in for the benefit of hermit crabs. I want to leave my mark.
In 2022 I published my book The Complete Guide to Land Hermit Crabs and Their Care: Changing the Mindset of Hermit Crab Keeping for which CSJ was my jumping-off point. That changed my way of thinking about the ongoing plagiarism and copyright infringement I’ve been subjected to. I did not stand up for myself in the past but that has changed. I’m fighting back and taking control of my Intellectual Property. It is my right to protect my work.
I’m being called a bully for doing so.
There is a campaign underway to sabotage me and CSJ. Individuals are claiming no one can link to CSJ or share my content anymore. This is a lie from individuals intentionally twisting my words because they are angry with me. It is easier to justify their plagiarism when they can say Stacy won’t let us share from CSJ so what else are we supposed to do? This is an attempt to further undermine me and my rights.
So let me try to make this clear enough that everyone who is interested in the truth understands.
Encouraged Behavior
Sharing a link to our main page with anyone, anywhere, any time.
Sharing a link to a specific guide or article that you believe would help someone and their hermit crabs.
Please share our site! Why would I have a website that I didn’t want anyone to visit?
Sharing links means the specific link will always point back to the most current data. If you copy and paste parts of the data and I revise it, your copy and paste is now giving out old information. Nearly every page on the site has a share button which makes it very easy to share links directly to anywhere on the internet.
Downloading our printable files to share without making any changes to the file.
Share a link to buy my book or other products to support the site.
Share our social media.
Share the memes or informational graphics we post, but don’t alter them or obfuscate their source. Resharing social media posts is the not same as building a website or YouTube channel and copying everything I’ve created and calling it your own.
Example: You can reshare this image. Removing our logo, link, name, or Mary’s name is not ok. Share it as it was presented by me. Let people know to visit our website for more information if you want to be a helpful human.
Create your own memes/graphics/videos to share but give credit where credit is due if the content you are including in the meme/graphic/video came from CSJ.
Here’s an example created by LHCOS, CSJ, Crab Con volunteer Hunter Smith.
Hunter obtained my permission to create this infographic to share on social media. At the bottom he has correctly credited myself and CSJ. He has not altered or adapted the content to create his own version of it.
Tell your friends!
Unacceptable Behavior is detailed in the Acceptable Use policy.
If you have reproduced my work, including my food lists I am asking you to remove all instances of them so that you are no longer in violation of my copyright. Once you have done so please reach out to me and request my permission to reproduce my work. You can email me at crabstreetjournal@gmail.com. Please provide details as to what you would like to reproduce and where.
All I’ve ever wanted to do is help hermit crabs. I did not ask to be put in the position I am currently in but enough is enough. If the shared goal of everyone involved is to help hermit crabs why is that not what we are doing? If you believe in my work enough to want to share it for the benefit of the hermit crabs why would you want to rob me of my due credit? Reproducing my work, diluting my work, misconstruing material you don’t understand and then repeating it as fact or disseminating your interpretation of my work is not benefiting anyone but you.
