it may have been a bit, but I'm frustrated with some of the reactions and people not giving Keith the benefit of the doubt. If they were in the same situation, they wouldn't want to be treated how they're treating him. Sure a business owner should stick with what they say sounds good, but sometimes it isn't practical and this is one of those situations. People are saying he lied 10 months ago, he'll lie again and not raise limits, which is absolutely not true. it's the constant negative attitude that is frustrating. I get why people are upset, and I get why people don't exactly trust him, but maybe they should at least give his most recent comments a chance. people are just going to get more and more upset if some upset users are saying nothing will ever get fixed, so other users believe them and think maybe there is no hope. Keith is from what I can tell working on a way to transfer old shops and galleries over to the new ones and is working on solutions for people who are way over the limits. This should relieve a lot of stress for people when it rolls out, because at least they don't have to deal with the tedium of moving thousands of items by hand. There are probably a few users who will encounter problems because the sheer number of items they own is too much, and I'm sure this will be addressed accordingly. Again, certain people are saying they'll just give up on the new shops midway through and that only promotes the panic of truly concerned users. Also Keith mentioned that they made it so and will be able to raise the limits. so once they have some real data, they can raise them. I'm sure it will be much clearer when this rolls out fully, but knowing and will be able to do it gives me certainty that the limits will be changed, because unlike Keith, I really fully trust when she says she'll do something.

Signed.

I refuse to move my old gallery items to the new ones when the new system is released. Apart from the pain of moving so many items, I do not want to re-create categories all over again let alone have multiple galleries to hold all items.

- yes to everything you just posted and I completely understand your frustration, but I can also understand frustrated users too. Negativity doesn't help but it is hard to be positive when you feel you've been let down repeatedly. It's hard to give someone another chance if you feel you've already given them many and they didn't take them. I can see where those feelings come from. Most users (myself included) don't know any staff members well. It does make a difference when something comes from someone you know and trust. To me it's just a shame that better communication and better trust didn't happen before all this because it would have made things easier all around. I, like you, would like users to be more optimistic and give staff more patience and more support. Keith has posted that he is working on improving the transfer methods (and has implemented a few improvements already from what I've seen). And I also saw where Keith said that Amber and Ariel will be able to raise limits without further code changes. These are all very positive signs to me. Let's hope everyone is able to work through this and get back together in the end.

I do feel bad for users who have a good sized collection and won't be able to display it after the changes. it would take a lot of effort to collect all of those items and sort them if indeed they were sorted. I understand why they're upset and frustrated, but the users who are just upset and not exacerbating the problem aren't the ones who are bothering me. I do think a warning ahead of time might have helped, but I also sorta feel like maybe it is for the best that they're getting it done instead of giving people even more time to worry about it. I don't know which would be best, I can see both sides of that. I have also seen his posts and he is actually communicating more than he usually does. He has even mentioned that the minion zoo is on the road map with minion battling further off (though I'm not sure we'll ever get a fully functional minion battling) but I think the transfer methods are some of the most important things we can get right now. I just hope people can give it a chance instead of acting like the change has already happened and ruined things.

Do you think I've acted unfairly in any way? I agree I'm persistent, but I've tried to be principled as well.

I don't know, I haven't read all of your posts. I can't think of anything in specific you have said, so I doubt it. I believe you really would like your gallery to stay put, and I admire the dedication. I think it's probably better to move on from what's been said in the past and move on to accepting this change is going to happen, what can be done to make it better and what can be done in the future. because maybe there is a way to separate galleries from shops so they can have a higher limit in the future? This doesn't necessarily need to be the end game for shops and galleries.

April 15th is my birthday! It's like you guys are planning a reverse parade for me. Shucks.

In all seriousness, don't you guys feel like you're just being extremely premature on this? Things are still being planned and implemented, things have been stated as only changing further down the pipe, limits will be expanded as they get a feel for the new shops' server loads... Things might be a little goofy at first and you might have to shove a lot of stuff into storage before your gallery's back to its former glory, but some peeps in this thread are acting like Keith and Co. are cackling and rubbing their hands together at the idea of ignoring the userbase and making your Subeta life hard.

Real talk: what are you trying to prove with the e-walkout? What are you protesting? The change has to happen either way because the bloated shops are the reason there are constant 502/504 errors. The site not working PERIOD is vastly worse than an item storage/showcase getting truncated for now. And this is a problem that can't be solved by just buying more server space or upgrading the farm.

Are you demanding more transparency with the process? A detailed explanation of the coming switch and recode? They've done plenty of that so far with what little has been trotted our and proposed. And at this point, the shop system as it stands is a leg with gangrene. It's gotta get lopped off. And we're getting a prosthetic that might be clunky and limiting for now, probably upsetting or annoying to transition to, but we'll get used to it and upgrades will come that will only improve our experience with it.

As an aside, I'm really sorry, but someone buying a protest banner ad for the site you're threatening to leave is kinda funny.

EDIT:

Please remember this is a game.

Happy birthday!

I think we're being proactive, not premature. A petition demanding that Subeta not take our pets away -- that would be premature, because Subeta hasn't given any indication that they'd do so. This petition is in response to an actual change that has been announced and is scheduled to be implemented. What's premature about that? You say things may be "goofy at first", but we had been told they wouldn't be goofy at all -- that galleries would be treated differently from shops when this change occurred. That's what the petition demands, not that zero changes take place, but simply that galleries are given the separate consideration that we had been assured they would be.

Nothing at all. It's not about trying to prove anything. But if you've read the comments and the feedback thread, you'll see that some members have threatened to leave Subeta over this. Other members haven't threatened to leave, but say they will stop purchasing CSCs because they will no longer have space in their galleries to display their purchases.

It may be that some of these complaints are idle threats, but not all of them will be. You say, "please remember this is a game", but it's also a community -- the members that may leave are part of the forums, part of the economy, and part of what makes this game work. The act of sitting out on Friday is a symbolic attempt to recognize the potential loss. It's a symbol, not a proof.

Here's some "real talk" for you: Why do you try so hard to discourage people from standing up for what they believe in?

That is one ugly banner, isn't it?

if you look at it in a certain light it kinda is. But I also was using some dark humour at the same time.

I strongly dislike the amount of discouraging I'm seeing on this thread. It's bordeline bullying at this point. The term bullying is over used but i feel the need to really use it here. People are being so negative, if you disagree with this topic/petition just dont post here please.

If you happened to be pinged here than i'm also sorry, just delete the alert and dont feel obligated to post an opinion that's hurtful to our personal opinion.

The banner by the way is utilizing a medium via the site because in no way shape or form do we dislike this site. We are so desperate to get our voice heard because we love the site so deeply. We love getting away from the real world to enjoy mindless shopping, game playing and sometimes enjoyable conversations. Part of that enjoyment stems from galleries and being able to display what users work so hard for.

I know it's not my place to say this, but i feel like i should. I'm sorry for all of the criticism and negativity you're receiving. I still plan to not be here on the 15th. My husband does as well.

I dislike that people think we hate this site in some way. Thanks for getting the word out about it, even if it's not being so well received by the community.

I believe that had this changed effected something, such as doing away with HAs you all know that there would be a massive uproar and petitions would be exploding in all directions to oppose it.

Your original post was quite long so I'm only quoting part of it here to let you know which post I am referring to. I share a lot of your same sentiments and agree with a lot of what was said in this post. I failed to communicate this properly in the news post. I made the mistake of posting my opinion there where many were angry and feeding off of one another's outbursts instead of having a calm debate like everyone here. Most people have their minds already set, but at least others can feel comfortable voicing their opinions without feeling attacked or forced to defend themselves like I did.

Looking at 's post about user suggestions, I think some of those are awesome ideas to give items purpose. Expanding on the minion collection idea, it would be nice if we can have the option to have them publicly displayed on maybe the profiles like you can with stickers. Maybe make custom widgets where people can create a collection, add the widget to the profile mapping that collection and then people can view the whole thing like they would the wl. Don't know if this could be done but just a thought.

This is what is needed!!!!! There NEEDS to be new coding done! This whole SITE needs to seriously be recoded from the ground up. If this site was taken down for a month, two months, three, whatever, just to recode everything and make the entire site work properly, then this is what should happen!!!! If this will allow users to have an infinite amount of unique items in galleries, fixing everything that may be broken, and finishing off promises that were made years ago! If it changes the look of the site, I'm beyond caring. I just want to see the galleries unaffected by limits, the wardrobe working 100% AND the SB staying. As long as that happens, I don't honestly care what happens to the site look, style and navigation-wise. As long as it's clear, crisp, concise, easy to navigate and our sidebar themes (default and unlocked) stick around (who knows, maybe some new default themes could come out of this?!? Luna, maybe?) that's what's most important along with the galleries, SB and wardrobe. Everything else that's important on site that all users love need to be fixed. This whole site needs to be fixed and not keep having patchwork done. It's as bad as a patchwork quilt - nothing goes together, they're just pieced together. Staff thinks that the shops are the primary issue that causes all these errors. What if they're not? What if there are more underlying issues that are causing these errors but they're not being found because focus is being put solely on shops/galleries?? Then what? More patchwork fixing will be done.

This site just needs to be fixed. Permanently. Take it down and just re-write everything and then have a fabulous grand re-opening! Something exciting! Maybe that could even include a couple of new pets and colours and great new items! Anything! The patchwork fixes that are being done right now, however, just may not work or keep things going in the long run and scheme of things.

I am posting this in the Site Feedback thread, too.

that's what the shop change is, it's being recoded from the ground up. except there are going to be optimizations and limits in place because you cannot have unbounded things on a site and expect it to work when something gets too big. Doing everything at once isn't practical, fix what is causing the site to not work for everyone then move on to other projects that need worked on.

If you just work on individual "projects" instead of looking at all the coding as a whole, there's a high tendency of missing things and it would render more upset and annoyance from players (I can just see it now: "The shops/galleries were recoded and there are STILL errors?!?"). I'm no coder, but I can certainly say that when I do do basic coding, there are easily errors that can be missed when you just try doing patchwork. To avoid any potential upcoming upset, just do this.

I think there would be much more potential for bugs if everything was rewritten at once instead of just shops and galleries. rewriting everything is an incredibly huge task.

I understand WHY this is being done, but something I loved about this site was that there was no limit to my gallery; that I could hoard and show off all my things, and satisfy my inner hoarder. Maybe if galleries were made differently than shops?

Keeping the vault is great, but it just... isn't enough for me.

It's not so much discouragement as it's offering dissenting opinions on a matter that a lot of us feel is being dramatically blown out of proportion. A lot of people in this thread are claiming to be speaking on the whole of the community, so people who aren't a part of this effort are piping up to declare that, no, they aren't. Others are commenting to correct or clarify. No one's trying to discourage as much as they're trying to defuse.

You're making a divisive statement about the state of the game. You're gonna get people who feel differently and wanna say as much. Like you said, this is a community. One portion of it makes a ruckus, people are gonna weigh in. When you make big public statements like this or protest something, you gotta be prepared for this side of it.

Same goes here. This isn't bullying and that's a pretty strong accusation to make, given that that kind of behaviour is against TOS. This isn't a matter of, "If you don't like it, don't read it, just ignore it," because there's a lot of misinformation flying around, first off. And simple disagreement (which is all I've seen so far? Everyone's keepin' pretty civil) isn't hurtful. It's just disagreement. Those happen when you have strong opinions one way or another. And when those exist, people are gonna debate the merits of it. That's what's happening here.

This is about making your voice heard, so people are doin' that. Folks who feel this is overreaction are voicing their feelings. None of this is an attack on anyone.

Also, , have you ever played any other online game before? MMOs or the like? Because patching is kind of par for the course. A game being taken down for an entire month to recode everything is a disaster and is never an option. Too much loss of revenue, loss of goodwill, loss of interest. With how much people are upset at just the 502 errors taking the site down for minutes or hours, hhhhow could an entire solid month of downtime ever be viable? THAT happening would make ME upset! I gotta pet my e-pets, man.

Also, for clarification, the banner ad is funny not cuz of its looks, but because someone spent real human dollars on a site they're threatening to cut off purchases on or just leave entirely.

- given all the uproar, I just wanted to say that, while I worry about the dangers of giving personal information on some other site, I very much respect what you are doing and how you are going about it. You are voicing your opinion in an obviously heartfelt way and inviting others to join you. I admire you for doing what you think is right in this way. We have different opinions about some things on Subeta, but to me, that is a good thing. And respectful discussion of those varying opinions and peaceful actions as a symbol, in the long run, make the community stronger.

- I agree with you that feelings are running strong about this change and there is a lot of negativity on both sides. I, personally, see good points on both sides and originally chose to post here because the discussion was being done in a respectful manner. I personally, would like to see that discussion continue in that way. Some comments got a bit out of hand and that bothered me as well. Also wanted to say that I do recognize that most people posting are doing it because they care so much about Subeta and we share that in common.

- some of us would very much not like to see the site down for months. Many would find new things to do with that part of their day/week and then would possibly not return. Also, as one with a computer degree who worked in software development for years (for the Bell System - which at the time I started was still the telephone system for the entire country), I can tell you that all big software projects, no matter how carefully done, have bugs and problems that need to be worked out with testing. Also, redoing parts of a system, when done well, can be better than trying to redo the entire system. (Please note the words "when done well" and "can be".) I helped write the software for the first release of cellular telephone in the US. We certainly didn't (and couldn't have) rewritten the entire telephone system to do that. I don't know the Subeta programmers, nor have I seen the Subeta software. But I can say that from reading posts from Keith and grelca it seems to me that they know what they are doing and how to do it. Part of the problem is that Subeta is a small site with only a few programmers and no way to do stress testing except to have the users help out. There are other issues unique to Subeta and what Keith himself has acknowledged they tend to do well and where they tend to need improvement, but I don't want to address that here. Personally, I am optimistic about what I am hearing so far about this change. My one concern is, as is yours I think, what the ultimate limits for galleries will be. It may be that galleries will need to be made separate from shops in the end. But for now, making this change to keep the site running has to be done. You can just leave things in your old gallery for now until everyone has more information about how well this will really work. I will say that I expect there to be errors after the new code is introduced because new code introduces new errors. What will matter to me most, is how those errors are addressed, and how well/quickly they can be fixed. I do agree with you and others here, that something appropriate needs to be done about large galleries. I understand all the work and time and love that have been put into them by so many users.

and : Thank you for the kind thoughts. Wednesday's my long day at work, so it helped to get some encouragement today.

kbbob:

Sure you can. You don't think that Walmart, Google, or the IRS are crippled by their enormous databases, do you? Large databases can be managed in a number of ways, and there are people who do that work for a living. But Keith has already said he won't consider their suggestions over those from people who have "seen the Subeta internals". But the number of people in that category is so small that of course novel solutions won't be considered. When you have the same people designing the "fix" as designed the other site features, and refuse to consider in bringing in a fresh perspective, then your potential for new ideas stagnates.

The petition promises to "work constructively to find other ways of resolving the issue that the proposed gallery ceilings are intended to address." I imagine (but can't prove) that Keith is reluctant to take us up on that offer because he can't see the other ways of resolving the issue that outsiders can see. He and Grace have a way of thinking about code and structure, and without including outside perspectives which other people have generously offered, he can only see solutions which are inside his box.

I remain convinced that there is a solution that practically everyone would find satisfactory -- including you and me -- but that solution won't be found if the site owner insists on taking outside input "with a grain of salt".

No, that's not what you've done. You've called me out for using change.org (remember the 'don't you feel silly for using it for a game instead of for human rights?' message?). Then you called me out for taking out a banner ad to promote the petition.

Those aren't dissenting opinions on the matter, since they have absolutely zero to do with Subeta itself or the question of limiting gallery sizes. They're opinions on the advocacy methods.

You're not saying, "I disagree with your opinion." You're saying, "You shouldn't post your opinion on change.org" and "You shouldn't commission a banner ad for this", and that's not dissenting from my opinion; you're trying to discourage the ways in which I've expressed it.

You're comparing a browser game staffed by 30 people to multi-BILLION dollar companies with massive workforces behind them. I've worked for a game company in the past (Meteor Games, founded by Adam and Donna of Neopets fame) and know the inner workings of server loads and databases of this nature as well. What we have now is not viable and cannot be solved by increasing the hardware. The issue is coding that's buckling under the bulk of what it's managing and that's what's getting changed. Stress tests have to happen on a small scale before they can be expanded. That's what's happening.

Also, being selective about people who have zero insight into how your job works isn't even remotely unreasonable. People who know zip about coding or maintaining an online service are offering advice that is impossible and stomping their feet when they're told as much. Technical fields like coding and mathematics have concrete rules and solutions. There is no outside-the-box that doesn't end up flawed or held together with floss, spit and fervent prayers.

Think about all the bad advice on computer problems you've ever gotten from people who have never even touched a computer. (Parents, yuk yuk, amirite.) Now magnify that by a thousand. That's what Keith is hearing.

EDIT:

You're comin' down on the site's admins for their methods, dawg. What makes yours off the table for concern or criticism?