Pet Spotlight Update!

August 1, 2016, 4:38 pm by

The comments from some users towards the users who were effected by this change come off as rude,inconsiderate,condescending and hateful.You know what other users sound just like this?The ones on Neopets that also supported negative destructive changes and were ugly towards other users.And that is also one of the other reasons Neopets went downhill fast.The next time Subeta goes and implements a change or takes something away, and some of these same users who were rude and condescending start complaining I'm going to be same towards them.In fact I hope some of the other users they talked down to like dogs also treat them the same way.

July 31, 2016, 11:28 pm by

Honestly though this is a slap in the fact to so many users and the fact that people's justified anger at such a big change being implemented immediately without any real warning or discussion is being written off as "salt" is spitting in the face of people who have a legitimate and vested concern. There are people who've spent hundreds of dollars on art and profiles (which you can't always just throw a pet image on, because, surprise, sometimes it doesn't work with the design) who may now have to commission even more art or new profiles just to accommodate this change.

Like there were actual critiques of the pet spotlight system (the wait times, ambiguous denial reasons, the lack of staffers actually going through the queue, the fact that staff don't feel qualified to approve/deny pets) but this is a concern that it seems like nobody was voicing that was just added for funsies lol!

July 31, 2016, 8:35 pm by

Some of these comments, lol. I guess if you're nonspecific enough you can be as personally superior as you want.

Regardless: Too many people are totally missing the point that the original spark for these changes (along with the denial reasons) was several people pointing out how ignored the PS has been for eons. With it's current ruleset.

Too many pets in the queue with the current rules who've been waiting entirely too long to be reviewed or win? Well, we could improve that, or we could improve that AND change everything!!

July 31, 2016, 5:05 pm by

Wow, there's a lot of mean-spirited people on this site. No complaints or criticism allowed, huh? Have the "pet" spotlight all to yourselves, then, so you can go on about how much better your characters are just because they have quad forms. Now I remember why I stopped coming to this site as often as I used to.

July 31, 2016, 3:24 pm by

We've had the Pet Spotlight since 2010. Why is it taking 6 years to decide that pet images/overlays have to be shown on the profile now?

Tbh I'm not taking this as "human characters are not allowed" or whatever. I am just not fond of this change because I'm imagining how many pet profile commissioners will have to be bothered revisiting old pet profiles just to slap in code to show the Subeta pet since not everyone knows how to do it themselves. (I assume this will happen anyway.)

The new rule just seems a bit too picky to me, imo.

July 31, 2016, 3:05 pm by

It's amazing how many people are taking this like "no humans allowed ever"... You're allowed to have as human a character as you want, it just needs one subeta-type representation somewhere on the profile. Literally nothing else has to change about your characters.

July 31, 2016, 10:56 am by

Wow, I've never had anything to do with Pet Spotlight before and this thread is kind of putting me off to even trying to enter. But, it's not because of the change... it's because of how much drama is here.

Isn't the key word "pet" in Pet Spotlight? This new change makes so much sense and I don't see why how displaying a Subeta drawing is an issue. There's even the option of having the pet image display when you hover over an image. If none of the Subeta pets exactly "fit" your character, then you can still create a custom pet.

Despite my hesitation, I'm still going to try to enter one day, and I already have ideas on how to make this work on Frappe, who is a human.

July 31, 2016, 5:05 am by

This entire comment thread was a riot to read at four am. But then again who needs sleep when you've got DRAMA

Anyway, just wanted to commend and other folks (especially staff) on this thread trying to explain the new rules. Y'all are getting so much pure vitriol and spite from people and you manage to stay patient and friendly despite it— that takes a level of professionalism few people possess. I have my own feelings about this change but I think I'm gonna leave them be. You guys don't deserve the brattiness and entitlement people are showing here; thanks for giving us a pet spotlight (and subeta) in the first place.

July 31, 2016, 2:56 am by

And I'm just sitting here wondering what "quad" and "anthro" pets/characters mean...

July 31, 2016, 1:57 am by

As an outsider coming in from previously winning several Pet Spotlights, I would like to give my view.

I am seeing a lot of salt, a lot of talk of "but muh creativity" and "but all the money I spent", and even at least few people over-reacting and acting immaturely and like children, over a simple rule change. As someone who has spent lots of money on pet profiles to enter the Spotlight in the past, this response is not endearing. It is not helping your case. If anything, it makes you guys seem like you have a massive sense of entitlement when it comes to this. But the fact of the matter is that spending money, however much, on a profile you want to win the Pet Spotlight DOES NOT ENTITLE YOU TO A WIN.

You guys are forgetting what the Pet Spotlight is at its core: the PET Spotlight. Showcasing your pets, not your characters! As some of you have even admitted, some of your characters come from other sites than Subeta. This is fine. I understand the frustration of paying for a profile, and then it getting rejected, denied, or having to start all over again from scratch. It sucks, it really does.

However, the whole "I'mma flounce out of the room because I am now required to have a pet image" is just ridiculous. Even with my human characters - see Kuvira - I have ALWAYS asked for an inclusion of a pet image, even if it's a hover image. I also spend money on custom Pet Overlays, because that's the whole point of the Spotlight - to showcase your PET. "The staff should have enforced the rules from the start or clarified"? Well, I say you should have had the foresight and forethought to think, "Hmm, well, it's the PET spotlight, and there are Custom Overlays...maybe I should also ask for a hover pet image to be coded in before paying for the profile commission."

Because that's what I've always done, and because of that, I am not affected in any way by this rule change. I also fully support the measures taken to keep this site exactly what it is - PET site. Not a "character site". A PET site.

As for "but it hampers muh creativity"? You have all the creativity to think of a human character, give them a personality, write up a profile, etc...but somehow can't think of what they would look like as an animal, pet, or anthro and depict that? Seriously?? That sounds like a really weak, and honestly really silly, argument.

July 30, 2016, 9:21 pm by

thank you so very much. I can work with these rules.

July 30, 2016, 8:21 pm by

To ask that pet art be visible for the Pet Spotlight entries, that's fair. If this were a character-building site, then it would be limiting, but it isn't. It's a pet site, where you adopt animals or animal-like creatures. Giving them human equivalents is fine, but if you can't find a way to link your pet art into the profile, maybe the Pet Spotlight isn't for you.

You can still create a beautiful profile and show it off, you just can't have a 100x100 pixel trophy and one day of backhanded compliments from strangers. ;)

Consider Charahub?

July 30, 2016, 6:46 pm by

Okay. I get this is a pet site. I get that you want a representation of the color/species on the page. But when the pet image is so disjointed because it's physical appearance has nothing to do with/ doesn't fit in the story at all, that's just going to count against the profile because there's random art that has no reason to be there other than you want us to have a visual representation. It makes no sense;-;

July 30, 2016, 4:29 pm by

Y'all know you can make your quad pet appear on a hover, right? You can still do human pets and just have the quad appear when you hover over a certain location.

July 30, 2016, 2:25 pm by

- On another board, we were told that we are only getting denial reasons now (as opposed to the well over a year ago when they were promised) because some "spare programming time" opened up. A back-end fix to this, as well as the issue of not date-tracking the entrants, are really the best solutions. But who knows when programmers will get time to care/fix the spotlight again. :/ Guess we can just hope that the backlash here helps staff and programmers consider making some back-end fixes to this sooner, rather than later.

July 30, 2016, 2:25 pm by

July 30, 2016, 2:23 pm by

Man... good thing I didn't spend tons of money on humanoid pet profiles and art... O wait. lol. I don't participate in Pet Spotlight, regardless, but I really feel bad for people like me that don't necessarily care for anthro/interspecies/whatever interactions on Subeta-- trust me, I know plenty of people do. I have far more interest in humanoid types of pets. I just won't be checking the Pet Spotlight anymore. -shrug-

July 30, 2016, 2:18 pm by

I don't understand all the uproar, it is a pet spotlight,so it stands to reason it would spotlight a pet. I have never entered before though I've been working on a story but my story is about my Subeta drawn pet. Then I started to notice most of the winners are custom drawn so would mine even be considered? Is it more about the art or the story?

July 30, 2016, 2:18 pm by

i agree a backend fix such as making their queue page display the pet image, species, gender, and color if they don't already have that (i would suspect they don't, given the "solution" they've put forth) would be a far better solution for everyone.

but of course that's ~~work~~ and while im pretty sure it wouldnt be too intensive to make, it probably won't happen. if it does, being that it's backend for staff we probably won't directly hear about it.

July 30, 2016, 2:15 pm by

- Oh yeah, I know they can probably still see the owner and pet names. Like, there are times where they cannot avoid that, and as such, bias is possible (not even going to try and dispute that). I just thought I remembered them saying that they were trying to limit bias that way. But the owner/name part aside, it does make me wonder to what extent they can see official information about the pet. Can they see the official overlay, species, color, and gender outside of the profile? I think that the staff seeing it while judging is far more important than other people seeing it while viewing the profile when a pet wins. I mean, I personally don't really look at the official winning pet to compare to the profile (I mean, I look at the overlay displayed, but I don't care if it really matches the pet's profile). If this change is more about the judging aspect, they it should be correctable on the back-end/judging pages. If this is more about pet spotlight aesthetic, or constricting what types of entrants are nominated/win, then that is a really big issue here that needs to be addressed beyond just "you have to have a pet image."

July 30, 2016, 2:07 pm by

yeah this argument to me is 100% about profile creativity being limited and as someone who enjoys original profiles that makes me a very Angry Web Designer, being forced to place in elements that may just look really bad or out of place

ah pretty sure they can see the owner name on at least some of them. sure, they could hide .owner_name, but some people more experienced with profiles may make their own owner name class to do something different with. besides, the pet name has to be visible. most people are generally aware of their friends' pet names or characters anyway.

July 30, 2016, 2:01 pm by

- Yeah, there are definitely some pets where it is harder than others (Chris is awesome BTW, I swear I have seen him before... and I always just assumed the animal-creature over the humans shoulder was the "pet," but that just shows how little I know about Persona 3 LOL). And it seems that pets like this were the reason that the judging staff didn't use to care too much about it. Not really sure why they are changing it now. Maybe a happy medium would be to make it a "and/or" requirement. You can have a "pet image" and/or meet some other requirement that doesn't involve a visual image, but is more than just the pet species/color text. I know that staff have said the reason for requiring the image was to deter against misrepresenting the pet (people lying about what pet they have), but that is really a weak reason (I figured that was just an excuse that sounds more official than just "we don't want only human characters anymore").

Actually, now that I think about it, years and years ago, I thought we were told that staff could not see the owner's name on the profile to not bias judgement... and that they could only see pet species/color on the profile page, which is why it was important to have the official text on there. Is that still true? Because simply making it so that the judges can see what the pet species/color/overlay is on the back-end while judging could definitely help with the misrepresentation part. Like, the staff can clearly see that the pet is supposed to be a blue kumos on the judging page, but when they go to the profile, they see that it is a gold rreign displayed. If this is really about stopping misrepresentation, then something like that should be good enough, right?

July 30, 2016, 1:58 pm by

Oh I intend for the pet to be submitted to spotlight once I work on the profile and correctly zap him. (Also it was accepted but I am not using it because it would state Crappy the Custom Nightmare Tigerean which is not the intended form) Also the 2nd part wasn't directed at you, I thought I put a hr line inbetween but I guess I didn't. My point was that if I finish up the profile and upload the story and nominate it with it stating Crappy the Custom Nightmare Tigerean then it should be declined. There is no connection of cute poop emoji creature to scary black tiger.

July 30, 2016, 1:54 pm by

you don't submit the pet that's getting the overlay when the overlay is submitted. if it would be accepted for that experiment, it will be accepted regardless. (though i'm not sure it'd be accepted at all tbh)

July 30, 2016, 1:52 pm by

Thanks for the clarification because I honestly only checked after reading the original comment in question. I understand how that is furstrating but I am going to guess it was a oversight.

However in terms of the whole misrepresentation which I did agrue for, you guys have to give staff more credit in terms of common sense when it comes to the overlays. I am a user who uses custom overlays and have had them denied in the past. In that regard they give great feedback as to why it is denied and we usually work together to get something approved. I have a custom overlay of a Poop with a face for my pet Crappy. It was approved but currently Crappy is nightmare tigrean, do you think my custom overlay of a poop with a smile is going to be ok'd? No it won't but it will be ok'd as an overlay for the Common Experiment which is just a black melty blob with eyes. Some of these things are just common sense things. Same with with my custom overlay for Sperm. It is a custom chibi xotl because logically a frog like pet should have a tadpole like chibi but we don't, but logically it makes sense.

When it comes to those types of things yeah dog overlays fall over like 3 species: Ruffie, Kumos, Telenine. But it is not that hard to get the connection between the two. Dragons could fit a number of species .etc .etc.

July 30, 2016, 1:50 pm by

Also: the idea of adding a requirement to a feature that you then have to turn around and encourage a large portion (if not the majority) of the people using that feature to literally hide as much as possible is just lol as well.

And of course it was the old thread, I figured. But it speaks to either/or the care that goes into making such an edit/announcement/how easy it is for staff to overlook something that's unnecessary for the profile to function quite well/as hidden as staff is saying you can make it.

Several of the other examples have minor coding things that (likely/hopefully) weren't there when they won, so guessing they just weren't checked but it's still a silly thing to overlook, even if minor.

And on the finalest mostly unrelated note (I swear, make myself just get up and walk away heh) Admin post feed -really- needs news comments exactly for situations like this. They could at least be highlighted at the top of the news comments :c

July 30, 2016, 1:45 pm by

oOPS i screwed that up

chris for realsies

dang my inability to edit news posts

July 30, 2016, 1:44 pm by

believe me i was pretty clear on what used to be rules, and the people who used to approve PSL entries are trigger happy af in trying to find reasons to deny.

besides, the "pet" image is shown on the news post when the pet actually wins the spotlight. why be redundant and have to show it on the profile too?

i should also note that all this is coming from someone who actually enjoys making anthro versions of my human characters for overlays. it is something i've done before, have commissioned others to do, because i like doing it. but there are some (a lot, actually) of profile ideas that won't look right if you have to incorporate an overlay into it. [url=http://subeta.net/pets/chris]my pet Chris[/b] for instance, has a gorgeous overlay by jag that i'd love to show off, but it just doesn't work with the type of profile i wanted him to have. it hampers that kind of creativity, the thinking outside the box type that gets you really interesting profiles.

(not that Chris would win anyway because he doesn't have a "story" to speak of in that profile -- and i accept that! but he was just an example of a profile a pet image really doesn't work on.)

July 30, 2016, 1:42 pm by

Final thought before I lol my way to do something else: One of the things mentioned in the thread was the increasing standards of the pet spotlight. This goes against that, hard. Even if it's 'just' a little more for someone with means, it's still more. And for someone without as many means it's a lot more. Old winners don't need their trophies taken away, but the night and day between them and even getting approved to win now (part of why the queue was backed up was staff passing on pets they were unsure on) is crazy.

And attaching a 'pet'/anthro image to a character that it doesn't fit or have any place with in that person's mind just to win a contest sucks. 'Just don't try to win the contest' is also an incredibly shitty answer for those already in queue/working on pets and putting time, effort, and again - money, into winning said contest. Not to mention achievements/on site prestige, however minor some may argue it is.

It's always been a stylistic choice. You can have Steve Rodgers the human, or Steve Rodgers the human with a cute dog/Kumos overlay. But it's very much a style. Steve Rodgers with the cute overlay is never going to be quite the same no matter how well it's hidden.

July 30, 2016, 1:40 pm by

- The pet spotlight thread wasn't completely re-written, it was the old one edited. I'm currently finding a new pet to replace it with.

July 30, 2016, 1:38 pm by

Of course they stealthly removed it... Did you expect them to make an announcement for it? xD

Is funny that they didn't think to change it before the announcement tho, but I guess they forgot!

July 30, 2016, 1:36 pm by

I want to like/love your post 10000x because it is so true. So I can have a dragon overlay for my pet Irion because I like the bloodred Irion more than the bloodred Endeavor. Yeah, totally not misrepresentation. But who cares! At least it isn't a human! 8)

July 30, 2016, 1:34 pm by

- Well yeah, but that is because they are saying that the pet representation follows custom overlay rules, which are quite open. Really, the custom overlay rules have very few limitations, and as such, the images used on the pet profiles then also have very few limitations. So putting the "subeta pet picture" on the profile somewhere is (hopefully) not as limiting either. It sounds like they just want the fact that this is a pet profile to be acknowledged through some form of "pet" art, which is defined quite loosely due to custom overlay rules. Or at least, that is what I have gathered from the comments by Rah in this news post. As I am not a staff member, I can only look through the comments here as a way to try to understand why they made this change... though, for all I know, they were just re-reading their own rules and went "Oops, we should probably actually follow the things we said were rules" and then made this change (which, let's be honest, is probably what happened).

July 30, 2016, 1:33 pm by

Why do I get a feeling that will shortly be 'had', lol.

July 30, 2016, 1:30 pm by

they stealth removed Cryptozoology, who has no overlay

July 30, 2016, 1:30 pm by

LMFAO HOLY SHIT

come on staff if you're going to be shitty and show obvious favoritism about who you pick despite not following your own rules at least own up to it everyone fucking saw that cryptozoology was there all day and that it has no overlay

July 30, 2016, 1:30 pm by

Which of the example pets in the remade pet thread do not have a subeta pet or custom overlay equivalent? They all have some form of anthro or quad representation.

July 30, 2016, 1:28 pm by

Yuupp.

Dat stealth edit tho.

July 30, 2016, 1:24 pm by

the point of "representation" for proper color/species is moot when you can literally have a kumos and upload an overlay of a basset hound. now what is it? is it a common kumos? cream kumos? bloodred kumos? a telenine? a ruffie? montre? experiment 333??? and any of the colors that any of those come in?

frankly its a little bit of a double standard claiming it's for " proper representation" reasons when a quad character will literally get by pretty much no matter what

July 30, 2016, 1:19 pm by

- True, but they have decided that pet art is another way they want that representation, which was required before (but not enforced). Hopefully a staff member can acknowledge to what extent pet art must be shown (like, would a 50x50 pixel be enough, or are size requirements in place, etc.). People are creative, so I am sure they can find ways to meet the requirement. People have been working ways to limit the impact of the name/color/species/gender/owner text for a long time. This may just be another thing that needs working in.

I mean, I can really see both sides of this (both for and against). I am just one of those people who will work with it either way. Shrug

July 30, 2016, 1:12 pm by

You guys, you can still have as much humanoid and non-subeta characters as you want enter and win the spotlight. It literally needs one extra image somewhere on their profile. This is a pretty small change. Nobody said you can't have pets win that aren't their own unique non-subeta-inspired characters. There isn't anything to hamper creativity, you just need one extra code to add a hover image or something. You already need the pet gender, species and color on the page, so you're already including subeta-unique information to your non-subeta characters. It's not that drastic of a change.

July 30, 2016, 1:11 pm by

pet representation is achieved by listing the pet name, gender, color, and species, all of which were 100% required before this change.

July 30, 2016, 1:09 pm by

holy shit im laughing youre right

good fucking show subeta

July 30, 2016, 1:08 pm by

Technically, the requirement for a pet representation has always been in the rules. Really, this is just the staff not reinforcing it for the longest time. So this is more of a "we finally are going to do what we should have been doing for a while" change, not necessarily a rule change.

I like to think of the pet image as a form of "credit." We have to credit if someone made the profile. We have to credit if someone made the art. Now we just have to credit the pet whose page we are using to show off all of this stuff. If your profile already shows off that pet through art, then you are already crediting. Awesome! If your profile doesn't, because the story is about a humanoid, and the pet is just a vehicle for showing off the character, then you need to credit the pet whose page you are using. Kinda makes sense. The fact that it has to be an image does not mean it has to be official art. It does not have to "match" the humanoid. It doesn't have to be easily seen. It doesn't have to be planned in the profile art/coding. I am sure that staff understand that people choose pet species/color combos for different reasons. As long as it is there, they will be happy. Maybe it is annoying to you, but they are just going to be enforcing a rule that was always there... kind of like when you are filling out paperwork and they ask for your phone number. They never plan on calling you. You never want to hear from them. But you cannot submit the paperwork without it. If you really want to be entered, find a way to slip it in somewhere.

The changes listed here aside, I still hope this is just the first step towards further change. I am happy to have denial reasons, but there are plenty of other issues that also need to be addressed. Commitment from staff to judge the contest, add new coding (date stamping to remove randomness in the queues is really needed here), and loosening of rules to allow more people to enter are still on the list of "Needs Improvement." Hopefully this is not just another "patch" that has to keep us at bay for a few more months.

July 30, 2016, 12:50 pm by

And for the subeta cherry on top (the final facepalm? the ? name tbd) not all of the example pets selected for the remade thread - not even touching who was selected - have overlays showing!

Win. Just win.

July 30, 2016, 12:49 pm by

I totally agree with your case. I honestly do not see how this required overlay will fix the issue when the custom overlay can look nothing like the original pet.

July 30, 2016, 12:39 pm by

congratulations that aspect of my post wasn't supposed to sound serious or be a ""reach"" for something. it's meant to point out how ridiculous everyone being about the word pet.

July 30, 2016, 12:36 pm by

**edit: And yes, I know it's 'just art'/'just an overlay'.

Not everyone can art to their own standards. That's time/money outlay to design and purchase something you never wanted in the first place/wasn't previously -that- required.

July 30, 2016, 12:35 pm by

Why why why would you take people's gripes that the system has been ignored and non-functional as an opportunity to turn the system on it's head?? Oh subeta. Sweet summer child.

At least you hopefully-maybe fixed the gripes (technical was only part of it, staff attention/time has to keep up too).

But really, pets as vehicles for human characters/showing off and liking human characters has been a thing for this for so long. Subeta even created a side project for it. I honestly know this is over-cynical and misplaced but it seems like staff preference is at play here, lol. Which would have been fine from the beginning but has 0 place this far into it.

sigh

July 30, 2016, 12:35 pm by

Well considering that I have "characters" and not "pets," I guess I'm out of the spotlights for good. Oftentimes, the pet image itself is based solely on my character's personality, and has no real bearing on the design of the character itself. Similarly, three of my pets aren't even characters - two are entire worlds that I am building (you have no idea the amount of effort I am putting into them), and the third is for the races that live within that world. But I suppose now that effort doesn't matter if I don't have the pet image on the layout.

It used to be that just having it written somewhere (i.e. Aimsir, the male Experiment ) was enough. I've had two pets win that had absolutely no pet art whatsoever - one didn't even have art at all, just a banging story.

I thought this "award" was based on creativity, not how well you can relate your ideas to x pet. I'm extremely disappointed in this change.

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