RunninWideOpen wrote:Isn't there anything that can be done legally? If someone were to compile a all the seperate incidents that people reported on this forum, can we report the company for it?
I think there is little anyone can do legally. Perhaps someone more familiar with Florida laws can offer legitimate advice.
jeffreys-res wrote:RunninWideOpen, that's a pretty good idea " about the images ". I know for a fact if you upload and host the image on your own server in a directory by itself and add a robot.txt file and call it for SE's not to pick it up. They won't
Doesn't exactly work like that. Besides, many crawlers can choose to ignore the robots file.
megcornell wrote:And as for the website business, would it be feasible to add a sticky or a website section on "selecting a turtle" and then listing our info on the blocked site about ill turtles, poor customer service etc etc? We should probably discuss all hatchlings because most come from deplorable care and go to uninformed owners, a horrible combo. That way we're not posting all over the place about how evil said site is, which by the time we post, most people have already bought their turtles and are here asking why they're sick, so it doesn't do any good to rant at that point.
Maybe we could even find a few rescues/organizations (maybe breeders????) that we think do a great job and actually link to them and support the good care they give turtles.
We could also have a sticky or post about what you can do to contact authorities about that site, sort of a compilation of the info people have picked up so far- numbers to call, company names, etc. That way when people get angry about yet another ill turtle they can do something about it, call someone, add a complaint.
Also, their customers must do research to find the site, maybe if our site popped up too they would look here in their pre-buy stage and we could deter them? I'm not sure how people come across that site, it does seem like it must be more premeditated than buying a chinatown hatchling.
Just my ideas, it just seems to get this site nowhere to every now and then have this flurry of anti-that website posts.
There are number of ways to do it and I like your suggestions. However there does need to be some work/research done to really make this effective (any volunteers?). It might just be as simple as a good/bad breeder list as previously discussed. It could be supported by legitimate testimonials or some other measure.
We decided to ban all breeders after the first incident in 2005. The argument was that breeders would just attract more breeders. The majority of the forum members back then were new keepers... just like many currently active members are relatively new. They still choose to go the route of buying a hatching instead of adoption/re-homing. I'm not against that, yet I did not want this site to contribute to that cycle.
And I think many of the problems on this site are cyclical and we try to deal with it. We address things the best we can but not everyone will always like the solution.
RunninWideOpen wrote:I like the idea of promoting adopting turtles over buying turtles. I did find this website before I bought my turtle, but I didn't see anything suggesting adoption. Maybe I missed it? I had never even thought about adoptions before I joined the forum.
I still think the good/bad breeder list is a good idea anyway. A lot of people want babies, and babies often aren't available at rescue places. I found my baby boxies by going to a good/bad breeder list on another reptile site.
I completely understand where David's coming from concerning the evil site though, it really frustrates me as well....I certainly am tired of hearing all these stories of sick turtles from that place. I'm not tired of helping the poor people who were fooled into getting these turtles, just tired of hearing of more and more incidents. To be honest, I almost bought my first turtle from that place. I'm so glad I didn't.
Steve, if you are interested in an anti-turtle-sale banner I'd be willing to donate my time. I do have some graphic design experience.
Adoption info is on the main site, though I add the link whenever it comes up for somebody.
Putting them on a bad list will not shut them down. It does not mean those turtles won't die. I'll make a few, you can make a few and we can spread them out. I'm not sure how I'll add them to site (I have a no banner policy
). Anyone who knows about AdSense knows its pay-per-click. So feel free to click on their ads.
) and will not take any further action until they receive a legal notice, so that was pretty useless.
