I quite like the idea of categories, maybe not strict categories that pets are submitted under, but something along the lines of, “I’m looking for pets with big TCs this week!” or “Since it’s Survival we’re showcasing Sweetheart&Graveyard pets!”

Another theme I’d really like to see would be something like, “This week I’m focusing on pets whose users have independently created their profiles!”

Using that segue, I’ll add that recognizing users who have, from start to finish, contributed the entire effort to their profiles does not detract from users who have admired others’ work and happened to have the money to commission profiles and see their ideas come to life. But it would be really nice to see more spotlight winners who really are just the hard work of the owner. They’ll look a bit more rough around the edges, but that’s the point!

I suppose you're right, with the way they currently work there's no "snapshot" or record of what the pet looked like when the pet won. That was mostly just wishful thinking on my part ;) I have also noticed that a lot of the old winners link to broken coding and you can't see what made the pet a winner in the first place. It's too late for previous winners, but with the new system do you think, would there be a way to "archive" a pet so that it could be viewable in the future as it was when it won, even as just a still image?

Also another thought! Do you think there could be a way for winning pet's trophies on their profile to link back to the news entry for their win? I think it'd be fun to go back and see comments people left on the winning entries, as well as giving people a place to add comments that would be seen by the owner even if the win was a while ago. I know you can comment on user's profiles, but there are some pets I feel are well served by a community discussion about the pet, especially if it's a tribute to a person/character or informative, like I've seen with pets dedicated to bringing awareness to certain communities.

I think it would be neat for the trophies to link back! I will add it to the list of suggestions :D As for the snapshot, I have been told that it will not be implemented right now but was also told we can visit that possibility when the new pet profiles come out (which as the news said is not soon xD).

I have only finished a pet, and I never felt very encouraged to work on a new one. I feel like the process is almost "obscure" for those of us who are only getting interested in it, and the way there's not even an estimation of how long until my first pet is either rejected or put in the winning list made me lose interest in working on my other pets. I feel like it might have been almost a year since my pet was nominated, and I have no idea just.... how long I'm supposed to expect for at least a feedback. It's so out in the open..... personally speaking, I don't feel like working on a different pet any time soon because of that :(

I think the real question is, what can be done to get people to be interested in the pet community in general. Interest people into getting, and taking care of their pets, and you will interest them in the spotlight!

A lot of things have been improved! Most items released can now be used for TCs and wearables, which is amazing! The minion game lately has been top, and given that minions are 100% associated with pets, that's very good! The few pets that are released are very nicely drawn (LOOK AT THESE QRYKEES) and the revamps done are very good.

However, the main issue with the pet community is that, with how little artists Subeta have, it can take forever for the pet you want to be revamped. We have two, three artists that do pets? Add to everything else they have to draw, and while it's understandable that we get so few pet releases, it's a little sad at times.

Aeanoids are outdated to the point they they don't have the last four colorfills released - they're a fairly niche pet, but they have their absolute fans and it's kinda heartbreaking to go and see how much love the common-posed one would need.

Speaking of pet-related content that should be added, the pet aspect of the Subetapedia should be finished pronto, as it gives people good guidelines of what pets are like. I've used the Subetapedia a lot more than you'd think, and while I'm 100% pleased by the content itself, man, it would be so great if the remaining pet entries were added! I mean, this project was started so long ago!

Man, I could talk about this for days, but really, if Subeta really showcase love for its pets, users are gonna do it tenfold!

from the first post, "Pets in queue over X months go to top of queue." is there any news on this, or is it still just a suggestion?

i don't have any pets in the queue now, but previously i had two that were submitted and won in under nine months, and one that sat around for at least double that. (i think she was in the queue for two years? because i pulled her from the queue in '17 and she was renominated shortly afterwards, but i didn't write down the day she was nominated to be sure.) i'm not saying i want a first in/first out deal, or that waiting in general is bad, i just... don't think extremely long waits in the queue are like, great for making people want to participate in pet spotlight.

I had one entered and turned down for... I forget exactly, not enough story? I felt cheated, since I actually have a huge chunk of writing in there. I haven't felt like being turned down again for something that I spent time and effort to make nice.

"Do not ask for pet spotlight nominations. Any threads created asking for nominations will be locked. Asking for nominations in the shoutbox could result in a temporary ban from the shoutbox."

This is a cruel rule. I don't talk to other users about my pets, and clearly no one randomly visits my profile and decides to nominate the 1 pet I would like nominated (it's okay if no one thinks it's good enough, but I'm not certain that's the main problem). The only way I've ever had a pet nominated was to randomly plug/talk about it in a pet thread. This makes me feel bad inside and it doesn't even always work. Plis no.

The "Don't ask for PS-Nominations" makes it really hard for people that are not very social in the forums or the SB. I am lucky, I am often in the SB and talk a lot about art and pets there, which makes it a bit easier but still sometimes it take ages until someone nominates a pet.

I think a page that displays finished pets or even a froum thread were people can post their finished pets would be helpful and also could help to encourage people to finish more pets cause then there is a chance people also nominate them.

Another thing that was mentiones is, that people at least should do one aspect of their pet themself I think should be a way to go. I understand that not anybody can draw and some have issues with writing or not that talented with codeding.

But I thing everybody can learn at least basic coding, even I was able too and I am not really good with it, I also write and I am no native English speaker but there are allways people willing to have a look on what I have written. Some stuff only need some effort and I think to deserve a PS at least own effort should be put in one aspect of the pet.

Looking through the suggestions, I do like the idea of the pets that've been in the queue for however many months to be pushed to the top :) And if there was a page for all pets that have the nomination on but haven't yet been nominated, then that'd be brilliant! It always feels like you have to get your pet into a conversation in the hope someone will head to their profile and maybe click the nominate link!

If the trophy linked to the news post then that'd be perfect, as we could then still post a "congrats" message on that news post even days / weeks / months after the spotlight (at the moment if I don't spot a friend's pet on the day they get the spotlight, I never tend to go back through old news posts to add a comment). And removing the trophy when the pet moves from your account is definitely a logical step - when pets change owners they usually get a fresh new look than the one which won the spotlight, so it's sensible for the trophy to be removed.

I can understand the desire for the owner to have done at least one thing (art / story / coding etc) towards the profile themselves, as sometimes it can end up feeling like they have just splurged a lot of sP to buy every element of the profile. I have previously commissioned profile art / coding and even stories (for pets that I just couldn't get my brain around writing the story for), but it is a much better feeling when you get a spotlight win when there's at least something you have done for yourself. I know not everyone speaks fluent English (or can write a story), and certainly not everyone can code, so maybe rather than a strict rule that you have to do it, maybe make it strongly encouraged somehow?

I'm not a fan of there being a restriction on the number of pets one person can have in the queue. I can see the reasoning for it, but the way I personally work on my pets means I end up finishing several at the same time (and there's been points where several of mine were in the queue together). I'm not too sure on the multiple winners idea, as it could 'dilute' the feeling of your pet getting the spotlight and news post that day if you have to share that day with others!

(and as a side note, the (not so) new rejection reasons are so much better than just having to guess - it's helped a lot when I've not been totally clued up on the rules which might have been tightened since I started working on that particular pet!)

i personally don't really like the idea of making it so people have to have done something on their pets' profile to be eligible ;;

mostly because i just think pet spotlight should be about having fun and enjoying the pet aspect of subeta and some people just really don't care/want to draw/write/code and i think that's totally valid!

secondly how would you even define it? would editing a profile template count as putting in work yourself? using art drawn over a base? adding an ha of what the character looks like?

i think we should be making pet spotlight more accessible rather than restrictive

i'm fairly neutral to the limiting the pets one person can have in the queue at any one time stance, but if we keep seeing winners from the same people maybe it would help to make the cooldown longer? like a month or so maybe

i also like the idea of skewing the win chance in favour of pets that have been in the queue longer because like........ one of my boys has been in there for like 3 years and i can't edit out a broken link from his profile bc it would yeet him off the queue lmao

I deffffinitely don’t think people should have to contribute a “creditable” portion of their profiles to be eligible, that’s just kinda crappy cuz someone who commissions work might have come up with the entire idea themselves, but didn’t know how to execute it.

FIFO (first in first out) is something my brain loves to see after working in foodservice for so long, lol

Please please feel free to edit that link! It will just put you in the re-review queue and I can yeet it right back. Since the current system is random, it really shouldn't "reset" your chances!

oh bless that's rly good to know lmao hopefully rng is kind to me and my son won't be stuck in limbo for another 3 years 😂

I agree with and . I think in the past, people have suggested going to the threads in the forums for logging your pet's progress and announcing that they're finished, with the idea being someone on that thread will see the finished pet and nominate them. But the reality is that there could be plenty of pets going unnoticed because 1) the pet goes unnoticed by other users on the forum, 2) the user isn't aware of this suggestion for getting nominated, or 3) the user just doesn't use the forums.

It's a weird rule to begin with, since besides asking-without-asking in the example above, I wouldn't be surprised if people are asking their Subeta-playing friends to nominate their completed pet offsite. I've also wondered how many users--if it's even a multiple number--need to nominate a pet before the pet goes to staff for approval. Basically, I'd like some more transparency about the whole process lol.

My best guess about why pets need to be user-nominated to get a shot at the spotlight to begin with is that it does cut down the amount of work for staff. If nominations could be self-submitted, there's no doubt that staff might get a bunch of incomplete submissions to weed through. But if CWs can have a volunteer council of people, why not the pet spotlight? I'd be willing to dedicate some time as a volunteer looking at pet profiles that are self-submitted, and then more or less approving them to go to the next level before they get added to the queue. I'm sure other users would be interested in doing the same. I think the idea of a page of completed pets for users to look at and nominate is a fantastic idea, too.

Another idea could be to let the pet spotlight be self-nominated/submitted, and have a three strikes rule for egregious cases. For example, if someone submits a blank profile, it could get rejected without any punishment, just because I could see someone submitting a blank pet on accident. The second time results in a verbal warning, and the third a formal warning. After that, if the same user continually submits a blank profile, they're blocked from self-nomination.

In cases where a user is clearly working on a profile, but it's missing key things, there could be a cooldown period after their first rejection--say, a week to a month--to both give the user time to correct the issue, and give other pet profiles a fair chance to be reviewed.

Also... yeesh, being stuck in the queue for three years is kind of ridiculous! There needs to be a way to make the queue more timely. Given that some of the pets have potentially been in there for years, does the queue need to be reviewed and culled? I imagine at least a couple users whose pets were in the queue may have quit.

It's one user, for the record.

I'd actually love to do that, if only because OCs are my passion. I spent years doing positivity and character analysis blogs, because OCs...man, just. OCs. They're all good and valid!

Thank you for clarifying! I had a suspicion that it just took one nomination, but if it's that low... what's really the point of requiring nominations to begin with lol.

But I agree entirely - I've spent a lot of time doing the same with creating/analyzing/critiquing characters, and it's a big passion of mine. It'd definitely be a lot of fun to do something like that more regularly!

Just wanted to touch on a couple things. There is a 1 week cooldown on nominations. So if someone has their pet nominated and they are rejected for any reason, they do have to wait. I honestly wouldn't mind self-nomination but I would steer away from warnings, I think a better option if they keep nominating pets that are not ready would be to extend the cooldown period each time. But honestly the unfinished ones take no time at all to go through. It is pretty easy to see an unfinished or severly broken one (some people even nominate frozen users where you can't see the layout because it is so broken). It is just a click to kick them from the queue.

Your pet only needs one nomination to go into the queue. I don't even think multiple people can nominate because the text changes from "nominate this pet" to "this pet has been nominated." It literally goes straight to the nomination queue, then gets moved to the win queue or rejected once it has been reviewed.

Yes there is a CW council of volunteers but they do not work on the queue. They work on ideas to make things better.

We don't need just new pets, we need new users. I love seeing people who have never submitted a pet show up on the list. LOVE IT.

I also would love the win queue to not be random tbh. I know it has to be frustrating for people to wait. Maybe this is something that can be done but it will still have a period to get through all the old entries because there is no time stamp right now to tell us when the pet came in.

So self-nomination and non-random queue would be great starts :) cooldown extensions might be a good idea too.

I also agree with and . Not asking for nominations is a horrible rule. I've never had a spotlight win and only one nomination (years ago? that I never heard anything more about) because I don't interact much. I have social anxiety and keep to myself, even online. I've only completed 2 (and a half) pet profiles in my 12.5 years on Subeta because I have no motivation to win spotlight. I don't expect anyone will ever browse my pets to nominate because I don't advertise them anywhere. I whole-heartedly support a self-nomination or any of the other suggestions mentioned that could remedy this for unsocial butterflies like myself.

Yeah, the no asking for nominations is a little silly; but I don't think anyone really wants to live in a world where everyone just spams the pet forums for nominations.

Excuse u I always need more new pets. :P