It seems like Subeta staff made changes to the guidelines, to be stricter, and now they are using that as an excuse to..., dare I say it... be lazy and not do the needed legwork to ensure that they guidelines that they set are followed.

Change the rules to be less strict! Stop forcing us to have a written story to win, when you are admitting that you can't be assed to read the story if it isn't something you personally are interested in. :| There was a time when we could win the spotlight with just a beautiful profile and a themed treasure chest, what was SO wrong with that system?

The talk about fanpets make me wonder exactly what someone would think of my pet if they were judging it for the spotlight. lol Creator Destroyer is both a fanpet of the website Nation States and an OC. Though I have her profile set up to be more like a brochure page on my nation. There's not much on NS to base a pet idea on besides what headcanons you yourself make up. It's a site to role play being in charge of nations.

I kind of feel like the spotlight moved too much into the perfection idea. Even if you don't have to it seems like you need to have the flashiest coding, the best art, most expensive items, award winning writing... That's why I wonder why my pet Princess Butterball has been stuck in whatever queue for over a year now. Her profile is just plain simple, it's free coding I got from another user. The overlay is just an edited photo I took of my cat. The story is just a silly little blurb I wrote on how I view her personality. Now I know that because of site screw ups I had to fix her profile a few times. Other than that I only touch her TC to add things when new items are released or I stumble across an old item.

THIS.

I enjoyed the old spotlight because it was less strict and you could also see Pets I really enjoy very much - the ones with a fancy Profile and a nice themed treasure chest that gives the imagination to the viewer. They can either see an own "story" in the treasure chest or, if it consists of rainbow Items on a Spectrum Pet, see the connection.

ALSO, I've just re-read the Spotlight rules and I just can't ignore one of the points listed.

"While we do not expect all art to be up to Subeta's standards, poorly done or sloppy art will take away from the overall cleanliness of a profile and could result in a pet not being accepted. This also holds true for graphics or photographs that are of poor quality or not attractive to the eye. Any additional art or graphics should elevate the pet, not take away from its overall presentation!"

Sooo, this makes me think that someone who loves to draw their Pets and they enjoy it so much that they want to use it as artwork on their Pets' profile but they just CAN'T draw properly (for whatever reason) would never be able to win because they "cannot elevate the Pet" with their sloppy art? Rejecting a Pet for sloppy artwork (something the artist is for sure proud of because they show it on their Pets' profile) is just the same as saying "the new Pet xyz looks ugly". It's like a slap in the face and totally ignoring any feelings the artist might have for their work.

I think that rule was talking more about things like transparent images with dodgy pixelated white edges, or images that are super low quality with lots of compression artifacts, or images that have been stretched into oblivion or look distorted and weird because they haven't been placed right on the page. I kind of consider these aside to someone's skills as an artist, as you can still make a thoroughly charming page based around an amateur drawing, and you can still display professional art terribly.

But as a more relevant note pls do something with the pet spotlight it is depressing to think about ;^; It's one of the biggest achievements you can get for your pets and it feels kinda bleh, left behind and forgotten. This is a pet site man, where's the love?

Sure, the rule does also mention graphics and photography. But it also mentions art as an own part, that's why I interpret it as "artwork".

Quote: "[...] poorly done or sloppy art [...] This also holds true for graphics or photographs that are of poor quality or not attractive to the eye. [...]"

This means they also see bad artwork as reason for rejection. At least that's what I see in that rule. They first mention art, then say that this also applies to graphics and photographs and that art and graphics should be at a certain level, but they don't need to be Subeta standard.

Ahh yeah I forgot the above point in the rules says about what I mentioned, doesn't it :v Now I think about it, it's a bit of a strange one as I can't say it'd really be a problem to me personally. It's how the profile looks as a whole that's the deal, really. I used to put a lot of art in its own section 'cause I'd have a lot of rough sketches and stuff and those would definitely count as sloppy and poor. Just seems to be a bit of a non-issue compared to the whole "Save and quality issues with art" etc.

Personally to me they should not rate art as itself. In my opinion the Pet spotlight should be about dedication you put into a Pet and this would also apply to something that others would consider sloppy. (I begin to love that word. xD)

Though I can see a problem in badly made graphics like pixelated edges etc (like you mentioned) or too flashy colors that just hurt the eyes I wouldn't see a problem in sketchy artwork, personally. Though I can see how maybe an effect on graphics where some photograph is just presented as blurry picture could be also considered good, if it still fits the overall theme of the Profile. It just depends on the situation to me.

I think the spotlight should focus more on "you deserve to win because you clearly love to work on your Pet and put a lot of effort in it" and not be a beauty contest. :)

At this moment for me it's unclear what makes sense on some detail about a kind of fanpets. I meant fanpets from a character which is an archetype. Get a fanpat from an archetype character more cance to get the Pet spotlight as it still keeps as an archetype, or has someone also the posibility to get more freedom to give their fanpat more depth in his or her persona, than the original character mey have?

I made a desicion for myself. I took out my pets out of the spotlight stuff in order to create profiles the way I want them to be an without forcing myself to please the spotlight guidelines. The only exception will be Commander K. because I'm curious about how long he will take to win - if he will ever win. So well, bye bye, Spotlight. I can live without you.

Although I see your point, not rejecting a pet because the owner put effort on it is the same as having no standards at all. The same point can be made with stories, graphics, TCs, and every aspect of the pet. So what'd be left to be judged? In that case the spotlight would be a randomizer of finished pets rather than a deserved win, as there's no way to tell how much effort was put into something just by looking. It sucks, but I feel winning a sort of competition because "you tried" isn't rewarding at all.

I hadn't even noticed that bit in the rules, but just wanted to mention that the artwork I commissioned for Crumple-Horned Snorkack was purposefully lower in standard (one was drawn by a child, the others done in a child-like style), and that didn't stop him from winning.... while it wasn't the background, it was still included on his profile so I don't think that can really be taken into account too much when they go through the queue.

It's nice to see more pet colors being released, as well as revamps of existing pets. I really hope the needed improvements to the spotlight are still being thought about though. :/

Same. I'd had a burning problem with how the spotlight was run well before the announcement that they would be reducing it to 3 a week instead of 5.

I lost my temper in the comments on that news post if you care to go dig it up; nothing has improved since then and my feelings on the matter certainly haven't either.

I've lost my patience with this.

Pet Spotlight (rejections) The topic got quite a lot of attention from pet people, and it was started in november 2014. Staff joined the discussion in december 2014. news post: 3 december 2014 the pet spotlight changed to 3 times a week. Pet Spotlight Changes! this has been a year ago as well

Is anyone even still going to do something about this? It's been more than a year! December 2014 we changed to 3 days because there weren't enough pets to maintain the 5 days thing. I have usually have about 5 pets in the queue waiting to win (or that's what I think since I don't know in which queue they are in), I had 2 wins in 2015. Yep 2! One in February and one in June. Radja, Street, Linde & Janne have been nominated from around summer last year. Appel has been constantly thrown out for the past 2 years while i don't have a clue what is wrong.

When was the last time we got something for pets? oh right pet leash, change in the treasure slot buying system and more pet slots. That's all I can remember over a time span of several years. Is this a pet site or a wearable site?

Subeta hasn't been a pet site in a very long time. Staff have made that clear by their complete lack of interest/care when it comes to our concerns. Its really frustrating.

I'm just so confused as to why they're giving us so many more pet slots but not fixing the thing we're supposed to use to show them off :( I'll always be a bitter pets-over-wearables person, but I guess pets don't get the site money like CWs and cash shop wearables do. It's really depressing.

I have 55 pets. Not all of them are finished obviously but why even continue to work on them if it'll take another year for them to win spotlight?

My last spotlight win was literally almost a year ago, in April of 2015.. I have like 5 or 6 pets in the queue right now! WHAT is going on???

(meanwhile people have a pet nominated and they win like a week later, and it's not like I wanna be a jealous baby about it but wtf?)

I haven't really worked on any of my pets and I doubt any are nominated (not by me anyway, some are adopted though so Idk if that ends up transfering over? idk) Either way, for me personally, I love the extra pet slots. And for me cw =/= pet slots in priority. I definitely would not have bought even a quarter of the CSC I got if it weren't for the fact I wanted more pet slots. In the last month or so I've gotten 3 new pet slots all CSC ones, and I have one SP slot left to buy.

I have 50 pets and I do want to work on them at some point, but I do agree more needs to be done with the site to better highlight them. They've been overshadowed a lot it feels. Though I do get that a lot more people are dumping their money into CSC for CW's and that's what's presently driving the cash flow into subeta.

I still want to see more done with pets though. [sub]and more pet slots. all the pet slots[/sub]

I just realized who you were dressed as lol I am not surprised btw [sub]he's my favorite too[/sub]

I'm counting months. Commander K. is nominated now 15 months. All other pets I have taken out of the queue. Commander K. I just left there for my own perverted fun to see, how long he will rot there. :D I haven't won any spotlight at all yet as I don't see the point. In the past I had hope, but my hope got ruined. Not active with my pets anymore at all, this is one of the reasons. Love my pets, but I am tired of wasting time and sP/CSC on them. We should consider an achivement for ignored pets, rotting in the queue for more than 1 year :P Guess the simple reason why the staff doesn't care is, because it does not bring enough profit.

I am guessing this is why we are getting silence from staff (well, this and the fact that staff as an entire unit has been pretty bad at communicating lately):

And I am sure that is very busy right now with Masq. planning. But if there is time to revamp pets, there should be time to revamp the spotlight too. EVEN if it's a small change (like bumping it up to 5 winners a week so people aren't waiting LITERALLY OVER A YEAR to see their pet win)

I wonder if there are cults or groups from and for users who just like to share their creativity about their pet pages with each other, without to be emotional dependent for nominate the pet spotlight.

Don't get me wrong. I have my understandings if somebody is frustrated when he/she is kicked out without feedback, or wait for a long time.

I think it's just pity if many users lose their creativity because they don't win the pet spotlight.