- Going to make a quick clarification so you do not think I have an issue with people's pet topics and their choices. I meant in the context of the Spotlight only. I do not believe that drug and sex oriented pets are necessarily acceptable in the realm of the Spotlight due to the maturity rating of the site. However, what you do outside the Spotlight is a-okay with me. I likely won't encounter them and if I did, I have no qualms with leaving a page I do not finding appealing.
I really do not know where you are getting the idea that your pet must be "good." I have looked at each Spotlight winner for years and I have seen a wide range of winners.
I will completely agree that there are issues with the Spotlight. I've said that multiple times and offered feedback here and other places to try and see the Spotlight turn back into someone good. I would very much like to see people's pets be given some indication on why they were rejected or at least help facilitate a group of users who can provide assistance or feedback to such individuals. Truthfully, I'd like to see many things but right now, I'd love to just see ANYTHING.
- In a nutshell, yes. Subeta has a lot of problems that need to be fixed with the Spotlight but so do other users attitudes. The negativity is just as much an issue as continuous rejections. I will say this, I rarely see anyone on Pet Spotlight Support who say they have experienced multiple rejections, and sometimes another person's eyes can be beneficial. This could because they're apathetic to now, but I don't really know tbh. I see that there are problems, and I would very much like to an overhaul. Bring some freshness to the Spotlight or at least foster more community involvement.
It went sour for multiple reasons but I know why I'm ticked. Every single time a Spotlight thread gets created, someone will enter the conversation and say "End it."
I've experienced rejection after rejection with multiple pets of mine, and had other people look at the profiles to see what's wrong. So much for having some of my more worked-on pets win. :') I don't like spreading negativity and anger about it, so I just.. don't say anything or look for help anymore. It might just because people have given up? I don't look for help anymore because it doesn't mean anything; when the staff don't tell us what the problems are and others can't find the issue, there's just so much you can do before you cease to care.
At this point, I just make pets and work on them without care for spotlight at all. It's not really worth all the hassle and anger for the five minutes of fame and the shiny trophy.
In regards to the "good", I'm really not sure how else to explain it to you. There is a very clear quality requirement on Subeta that's not at all present on Neopets. The Neo Spotlight is about effort, the Subeta Spotlight is about being "good". I'm not exaggerating when I say that anyone could win the Neo Spotlight as long as they genuinely tried. On the other hands, if you're not good enough at making profiles, coding, art, or writing you have to pay someone else to do it if you want to have a chance at winning the Subeta Spotlight. I vastly prefer the "effort" model over the "quality" model. Does that make more sense?
I'd like to see a new winner on weekdays, amended and clarified rules, individualized feedback, a queue that moves in a somewhat similar fashion to the CW and pet overlay ones, and a gallery of past winners. Hoping for that borders on delusional though, so I can totally see why some people would prefer to get rid of it.

- What Subeta is looking for is cohesion when it says aesthetically pleasing. If you want to use neon yellow, use it moderation. That sort of thing.
I believe that has a free coded profile that is running amuck that I have seen multiple people use but just change various layout parts (ie, background pattern, font size or color). Those pets have won the Spotlight prior. So no, you do not need a fancy profile or pay someone for it. Next, custom art is not a requirement as many pets when with basic site models. You do not need to be good at coding as there are multiple resources here and elsewhere to assist in that if you go down that road. Last, the writing portion is something that is a requirement but I have seen pets win with a paragraph.
Pets do not have to be "good," they just need to be cohesive and follow a handful of logical rules. I actually would like to see some of the requirements changed to allow more flexibility, like a pet must have 5 out 7 requirements. Those requirements can range from a tc to a story to graphics to art. I like the idea of customizing your pet for the Spotlight so that a wider range have the opportunity to win.
In hindsight, I can't help but notice that the collective subeta knee-jerk reaction to anything is to cull it. Perhaps that's why users here are so quick to jump on the "kill it, kill it!" bandwagon. Monkey see, monkey do... (to elaborate, ex: see every board involving the shoutbox.. and the whole "no one does stuff for the Atebus shop, we're just going to kill it it").
Anyways, first I'd like to endorse more Rock and Roll pets. I won't be seeing their profiles because I'm guilty of never clicking/never looking at pets these days but knowing there's more out there is a pleasing thought.
Ah, but yeah the spotlight still needs help. It has for a while, it probably will for a while longer (while, a period of time probably longer than soon) but hey maybe one day. I'm still supporting the ability to remove a trophy/renominate a pet after a period of time. I think that'd get more fresh blood in the mix (pet's with new names/ideas/profiles/stories, etc) (not to mention people like me who keeps IDs for life and, historically speaking, swapped names around and would find great appeal in the ability to remove a trophy that's no longer relevant and so on).
Finding means of reducing the unwritten pressure of having a load of pretty art and a swag profile would probably help the more simpler pet person (like myself, in regards to layouts and what have you) feel more like they had a chance and less like they have to find a BNF artist/profile maker to showcase their idea. More about the idea, less about the stuff you commissioned and so on.
And not a single one of those things are required on Neopets, that's the point I've been making. I prefer it that way. I liked winning because I made the effort for my pets, entirely by myself. I drew the horrible art and wrote a not-so-great story. But I tried and I got shiny trophies to prove it. Since the day it was implemented I've wished the Subeta Spotlight was like that.
This sums it up very well. I've never liked that the Spotlight feels very "pay to win", if that helps you understand my viewpoint. I liked working for it and winning myself, entirely, without help from anyone else (as that was strictly not allowed in the Neo Spotlight; the art and story had to be entirely your own).
I think it's bullshit that we, the players, are basically getting pissed at each other over our attitudes regarding the spotlight when it's staff that has dropped the ball and staff that deserves to be the brunt of our frustration. I FIRMLY believe that if and when staff does change the pet spotlight, be it a large overhaul or a minor revamp, many player's attitudes about it will change as well.
tl;dr it's all about cause & effect (subeta staff's lack of action is causing player's poor attitudes)
This is how I feel every time users start getting snippy with each other over anything subeta related.
We haven't had a dedicated staff member for this in a while, which has proven to be difficult. We've had quite a lot of big programming projects come up--especially right now with the ongoing errors.
We'd hoped to have this wrapped up sooner (I know, I know) and switch to the 5-per-week schedule when the new spotlight was released. I realize it's a bit of a bandaid, but here's a couple things we're going to do right now:
We've said this before, but based on feedback, we've got a lot of ideas on how to make the spotlight a bit more practical, inclusive, take some of the burden off of the queue with user feedback, as well as adding tags or a similar feature to help us give you guys a quick heads up as to what might be the problem (credits missing, broken images, etc.) We really really want to do this! But the programming isn't available right now.
I know it isn't a perfect solution, but I hope changing to 5 Spotlight wins per week will help give you a bit more faith that we really do want to get this up and running. The Pet Spotlight is something that's been huge for me personally, as a crazy pet person, and I hate seeing it causing all this strife. We're listening, I'm sorry we haven't been as responsive and timely as you would have liked, but trust me this is something I'm passionate about and want to get off the ground as soon as we can.