Re: agency uploads index - Kadana is sorry

[Kadana Sorano]

For anyone still hanging around that actually USED this and now will be blocked from doing so, I am very sorry.  When sharing a fun bit of information with my sister, I never dreamed it would have any effect on others on Secundi.

I am of course talking about the agency uploads index, and it's ability (or rather former ability now) to let an owner preview how the baby will look once grown.

I have to say I am quite disappointed with this outcome, as this is something that has been known since before Garney left.. since 2010 atleast anyway.  It's something I utilize quite often when breeding adoptables that don't allow me to keep the entire "litter".

For people who like the surprise factor, it's a simple matter to not look.  but for those like myself who are not overtly fond of surprises.. particularly if that surprise comes in the form of disappointment for having kept the "wrong" offspring from a litter we are limited in number of keeping, then this is a very useful, much used and loved ability.  Granted.. the "choice" to look or not, is rather taken away when the adult images are posted with the baby ones before the baby is grown..  My fault there, as I didn't think to tell her not to do this when I let her know she could find the adult images.

As for agencies not wanting to have people see the grown image before it's grown.. I dunno what to say to this, not sure why it would matter to you as an agency.  But maybe an option for each agency to "hide" the grown images, instead of an over all block of all agencies?  Barring that, you could just wait and upload grown images as they grow.. or do whatever Okibi does, Okibi is the only agency I have ever been unable to find the grown images for the babies before they actually grow up.  I was always under the assumption that they had it "turned off" somehow or other. *shrug*

[Riverwind]

I am disappointed about this, as well, not only because it will make me more wary of what I trade for, but because I was not the first one to post the adult image with the baby, and then as soon as I made my trade thread, it became an issue.

I have removed the adult image from my trade thread so anyone who still wants the "surprise" and has not seen the adult image yet can still get the surprise.

I have felt terrible about this all day and I would like to apologize to anyone else who had been using the agency upload page to view adult images. I truly did not expect it to turn into such a big problem, but then again I know I have not been around very often and when I did come back, I was suddenly extra-active and maybe I was wrong about how I thought people felt.

Well...that's all I have to say about that without going over the exact same thing Kadana went over, so I'll just go back to my other sites now.

[Kahlira]

I had no idea it existed until today. I don't run an agency or anything like that. But I don't see what it would matter if the adult image is seeable before it's grown or not. To me, it seems like on PI, where you change the baby to birthday to see the adult image. Why? Because babies are adorable and all, but they're only babies for so long before they grow up. I'm sorry you two feel so horrid about this.

[Ryuukokoro]

I'm sorry you two feel bad about the situation. I don't think it was intentional on anyone's part, yours or anyone's, to make other people feel bad about this.

I can understand as a collector of a shop you wanting to see the adult image before they grow so you know which ones of a breeding you want to keep. Especially for some shops, like mine, where the babies don't show the full markings of the adults. However, this way of viewing adult images ahead of time was kinda a secret that wasn't known to most of Secundi. I think you will find that most people had no idea about the agency uploads index. In that way, you had an unfair advantage to others who had to wait patiently for breedings to grow to find out what the adults will look like. And yes sometimes not knowing can be a bit disappointing when the baby grows and it's not what you expected, but that's part of the game of breeding and collecting adoptables. (For example, I can't tell you the number of times I did a Feli breeding and thought hard on which baby to keep, and then the adult didn't come out like I thought and I wished I had kept one of the other babies instead! Also I can't begin to tell you how often a Quin came out not at all like I was expecting....)

As a shop owner, I personally would prefer my fans not to see the adult forms of my shop until the babies are ready to 'grow.' It's a fun little personal feeling to know your fans will be keeping the baby on their page, viewing it occasionally, waiting for the proper day the image will be updated with the 'real' adult image. It's kinda like when you give a friend a Christmas (or other holiday) present ahead of time, knowing they will be keeping the pretty wrapped box until the proper day arrives and they get to open it.

The ponies on PI are a bit different than this situation, seeing as they are automatically generated by a computer with all pre-templated markings. There's not much surprise there. Adoptables here on Secundi on the other hand are works of art, at least, that's how I always felt! Many of them have pre-templated markings yeah, but a lot of them are unique and individually drawn. Long hours of work goes into coloring adoptables. Even the Okibi, which aren't that good compared to other really talented artists here, take me many hours and hours of work to color. I think some shop owners feel like that time and effort are more appreciated when someone has to wait and wonder for their bred adoptable to appear!

Either way, I hope there's no hard feelings about this situation. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion on the matter and when it comes down to it, it's just colored pixels on a screen. I hope my different view on this isn't offensive, just offering an opinion from the shop owner's point of view.


(PS: The reason the Okibi adult images aren't visible ahead of time is because I usually don't get around to uploading them until the last minute when they're about ready to grow. ^_^; )

[TheLeet]

Riverwind, I kinda feel bad for pointing it out on your trade thread now. It was honestly the first time I had seen someone post the adult image along with a kitten (I generally don't look at all trade threads) and I was just seriously surprised that such a thing was possible.

As a collector, I personally very much enjoy waiting for babies to grow up. It adds an element of surprise and I don't think I've ever been disappointed with the outcome. Sometimes they grow up super awesome and sometimes they grow up a bit "meh" but they never turn out terrible for me.
But that's just my personal preferences and from a collectors point of view I honestly don't care if others check out the adult art before their babies grow.

As an agency owner I feel a little weird and sad about it, though. Colouring a whole baby stage is almost twice the amount of work for me than just colouring adults and I feel like I might as well not bother if people are going to look up the adults anyway. Like that whole baby colouring was for nothing.

[Winged]

I'm sorry you both feel bad about this now, i never wanted to upset anyone over this. Until yesterday i had no idea that this index existed, and that some (few) people used it to look up adult images. I've never seen an adult image posted with the baby before.

I can understand why someone would want to look up the image, particularly before choosing which one to keep from a litter. I may have used this myself. However, for me part of the fun is waiting for the baby to grow to get the surprise of the adult image. True sometimes that can be a bit of a disapointment, but most of the time i don't find that any turn out terrible.

From an agency owner point of view, i agree with Leet that i would be a bit sad about the adult inage being looked up before they grow, as that's not what i intended. I also think that the ponies on PI are different because they're automated and not hand drawn (or digitally coloured) individually, so there's no individual work put into them.
However, this has made me think for when i (finally) get around to reopening Gliders breedings, i may do away with the egg images. It is true that the don't show the adult colours and markings very well at all.

In reply to Kadana's point for each agancy to have the option to allow the adult image to be hidden or not, i think that if Silv wanted this then it would be a perfectly fair way. After all, the only upset that could be caused by someone looking at adult images would be to the adoptable owner or colourer i'd say. But i'd say that's Silv's decision, and the knowledge that there is an agency index would have to be well known to avoid giving an unfair advantage to some.

[Riverwind]

Oh, no...I wasn't saying that they were terrible, just that it would be nice to get the same satisfaction with both the baby and adult images. Everyone that I've come across so far are awesome colorists, especially you, Leet. It's just that when there is a litter where you can only keep one baby, and you have to trade the others away before they are grown, then I would want to make sure I have the best one. Don't get me wrong--I totally understand how you guys feel about this, I just hadn't thought of it that way before now.

Also, I know this isn't the case for most agencies, but for Masayo, where you can add extra colors and such to fit your liking, the agency upload index would really be needed. I'm remembering a litter I colored a while back where Kadana used Kah's Boo, and they had me add an extra color to each of the babies (red and cyan I think), and they agreed that one of them would get the red baby and the other would get the cyan one (not sure who got who but that's not the point). Well, on Masayo babies, mutations don't show up until they are adults, and I just happened to use the extra colors for the wings. So how were they to know which baby had red and which had cyan without knowing what the adults looked like? Well, that's when Kadana first told me about the agency upload index.

So, I really do understand how you guys feel about the babies not feeling as special if everyone looks at the adult images beforehand, but I also know that in some cases, the agency upload page is kind of needed. And, as and agency runner, I wouldn't mind if people looked at adult images.

And...I didn't realize that most people didn't know/didn't use the agency upload index, as Kadana had told me that it had been here ever since Garney was still here. So, I didn't really think of me as having an unfair advantage, because, well...if there were some people who didn't know about it, that wasn't my fault, and I didn't think it was my responsibility to be sure that every single person on Secundi knew about it. Especially because most of you were here BEFORE I was, anyway.

[Pinkshadow]

I missed something again. I never knew it was possible to see the adult ahead of time

[Winged]

Don't worry Pink, i think it was only a handful of people that knew about the index so you didn't really miss anything

[Ryuukokoro]

Also I would like to point out that the agency index was never intended to be a place to view Secundi images that aren't readily available to the public. Sil never built that option with the thought that people would use it to view adult images of babies. The purpose of that folder is to keep a record of every image uploaded to Secundi, so that if someone accidentally saved over a previous adoptable (like if an agency owner accidentally messed up ID numbers and gave two files the same name) then the original image would still exist somewhere in storage and wouldn't be lost forever. It was never intended for the regular Secundi players, it's a 'behind the scenes' kind of thing.

[Wildfilly94]

Also I would like to point out that the agency index was never intended to be a place to view Secundi images that aren't readily available to the public. Sil never built that option with the thought that people would use it to view adult images of babies. The purpose of that folder is to keep a record of every image uploaded to Secundi, so that if someone accidentally saved over a previous adoptable (like if an agency owner accidentally messed up ID numbers and gave two files the same name) then the original image would still exist somewhere in storage and wouldn't be lost forever. It was never intended for the regular Secundi players, it's a 'behind the scenes' kind of thing.

I agree, while I know its not your fault that others didn't know about this, I really wish I had. I work very hard coloring babies and adults, and sometimes I like to surprise people with added things to adults, and it kinda brings me down that people could see those adults like that and ruin all the hard work I did to create surprises. I don't mind if other artists are okay with letting people see adult images, but I know that if I have an option to hide my adoptables' adult images, I'm going to do so. Its art to me, not just pets, and I feel like Leet; theres no reason to even make a baby AND adult image if people could just look up the adults. I may as well just be rid of baby images that way.

I understand with some adopts how you can sometimes pick 'the wrong one'. Ive done it many times with many adoptables, but I still get something beautiful I can live with. I like the surprise because its just like real pets, you get to watch them grow and change. I know my rl kitty symon has changed so much I actually had to have Leet redo his Feli version. XD And hes STILL getting darker.

No hard feelings, I just wish I knew this forever ago so everything was fair and square, and those of us that want to keep you on your toes for growing could still do so.

[Saturnalia]

Wild pretty much summed up my view, too. I don't blame anyone who knew about this for using it, though I had no idea. But, with my Miniwyvs, for instance, they are eggs at first for a reason. I am all about randomization and surprise and that sort of thing-- it's part of why I run mine the way I do. (Not that they're agency anyway, yet, but still.)

We each have preferences-- liking surprises vs. not, for instance, but I think that those running the agencies also need to be able to run them according to their preferences, too, so eliminating this makes that easier. I, for one, am sort of glad that a 'secret' that only a handful knew about it evened out, now. (Again, not blaming anyone who did know about it! I just think it's easier and less hard feelings are likely to come up this way.)

[Rosedawn]

Slightly on-off topic:

Is there anyway I can retrieve some baby images of pets I have? Or is that now locked now that we can no longer view this page?

[Ravvana]

I never knew about this to check adult images. I do like the idea of having a baby art archive of some sort, though (or that component made public if it exists). I love me some baby art, but I keep forgetting to save the images to fawn over later. And since artists spend probably as much time on babies as on adults, it would be nice for them to have more exposure

[springacres]

I never knew about this way of checking adult images either.  In fact I don't remember the last time I DID check adult images... probably back when The Kennel was still around?  Anyway, I used to just do it by fiddling with the URLs.

For baby images, I usually just copy/paste the image URL into the pet's description box while it is still a baby, then add the image BBcode to get it to show..  THAT does still work for adult pets - just confirmed it.

And Riverwind - that preview was actually what convinced me to offer on that kitten in the first place.  I'm picky about sleepy-posed adults and I always get confused about which lying pose as a kitten translates to which lying pose as an adult.  Having that preview helped me decide :3

[Kadana Sorano]

I'm sorry, but I have to object to the term "unfair advantage".  I had an advantage, yes this is true, but I in no way see it as unfair.  For it to be unfair, it would have to have been available exclusively to me, and others could not have used it if they chose to do so.  The ability was there, anyone could have used it if they chose.  No, everyone didn't know about it (now) but at one time there were atleast two of us (myself and Indigowulf) who were posting brag threads or boarding area threads with our babies along with the grown up images.. before the babies were grown up.  Also, there has been several people in the past I have explained how to find the grown up images to, and quite a few more for whom either didn't want to learn to look themselves, or just didn;t have the time to look themselves, for whom I searched for their baby to grown up images for them.  Spending MY time to do this, with asking nothing in return, because I was being nice.  So to be told I had an "unfair" advantage now, as if I was somehow cheating, or exploiting a bug without staff knowing, relaly uosets me.  I have been so upset that I was afraid to come post the last day, because of what I might say and later regret.  I love Secundi, I love my Secundi friends, and I don;t want to inadverdantly burn any bridges.. But I have feelings, and keeping them bottled up isn;t good for a person.  So what am I suposed to do?  Avoid Secundi for fear of angering/annoying/hurting people I care about and losing my friends, or just keep my mouth shut and hope I can defuse the pressure building some other way, where it won;t affect my Secundi family?  I just.. I dunno what to do, but I am very hurt right now by this.


And for the record, to my knowledge, THIS thread is where it started http://www.secundi.net/forum.php?topic=1523.msg34192#msg34192  please note, this thread has over FOUR HUNDRED views.

No, it doesn;t specificlaly say "hey you can go to agency uploads and search out grown images ahead of time"  But Garney did tlel us how she personally "coded/labled" pup vs adult images, which led soeone else (god I forget who now) to the realization we could search out adult images, and that someone DID share with me, and.. I swear she posted somethign somewhere as well, but I can;t find it now, so maybe she just had it on her user page/profile thingy for a while, or my search skills are just fail as usual, I dunno.

But the point is, the ability was there, for everyone to use if they chose.  A "choice", it wasn;t being forced on anyone.  I made my choice, and it did just as much harm to others as other people choosing NOT to look harmed me.  Which is to say none at all.  But now nobody has a choice any more, because some people don;t want the choice, everyone loses the option to choose.

As an adoptable shop runner, you also have a choice, and you don;t have to let people see grown images.  Ryu doesn;t with Okibi, and granted it may not have been deliberate on her part, but I had always THOUGHT it was deliberate.  I never complained, not once.  This was her choice.

As fpor pets being works of art, vs PI ponies etc.. Yes! Absoluterly!  Which is why I want to see the adult.  if I go to an art gallery to pick a picture to take pride of place in my sititng room, am I going to go in and see a bunch of unfinished paintings, and say "hey this looks like it might turn out awesome, lets get get it and then lt let the artist finish it"?  um, no.  I am going to go in and say ":aww it's a shame these aren;t finished yet, I'll come back later when they are done and pick one out to decorate my home with and admire it for years to come"

Even if the adopt in question is free, I will want to make certain the pet I am keeping will be liked and loved, not regretted.  yes, even if it is just pixels and has no feelings to know it is a regret.

If we could wait for all babies to grow before choosing which to keep, it would be differant.  but some we can't.  And Leet, I;m sorry but my sisters kittens are a prime example of where this ability to view adults comes in good.  If she hadn;t showed the adult image, spring may not have offered for the kitten, and then there is a chance when the kittens grew that my sister would have "lost" one when the system yanked extra's from her account, then someone would have gotten the kitten eventually anyway in your rehoming efforts (which I don;t mind btw and do find fun!) but would THAT in turn have been completely "fair" to River?  When she DID try and rehome it herself, but no one wnated it as a kitten, and now its an adult and someone gets it and she gets nothing in return?

I know people didn't like seeing the adult images ahead of time, because some of my older posst have garnered people telling me so.  I SHOULD have warned her not to post the adult, I simply didn;t think to do so.  But this said.. in the past I have only been able to home some of my babies (not just talking of Feli now, but Gryphions and others as well) because I was able to send adult images to prospective adopters before the baby grew up.

I shudder to think how many pets the system would have yanked from my account because they were not traded away, if I had not been able to show adult images to people ahead of time.  So many of my pets were adopted simply because of this ability.  Which means, there ARE more people who knew this was possible.  It is not my fault if most of the people (that I personally knew used this) are either left Secundi for good or are inactive at this time.

To say I was using an "unfair" advantage is akin to saying I was cheating.  This is very.. hurtful, to put it mildly.  It isn;t like I hacked Secundi, or used a "bug".  I did nothing that plenty of others did as well, and that atleast a couple of the founding members/admins/moderators knew about.

[Ryuukokoro]

I'm sorry you got your feelings hurt in this situation, Kadana. That wasn't my intention. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. A secret feature that isn't posted openly anywhere on Secundi's rules and is being used for ways that it wasn't intended, I personally feel, does classify as an unfair advantage if some know about it and not others. But that's just my opinion, I'm not stating it as fact. And I'm not saying it's the same as cheating, just that things are now fair with everyone having the same opportunities.

The thread you linked with 400 views is over two and a half years old, many people who are here now never read it. Those who did might have forgotten. You've said you've done brag threads in the past showing adult images ahead of time, but I myself have never personally noticed any of those threads (I will admit I don't have time to check every brag thread). I don't know if other mods and/or agency owners have seen those threads or not. It might not have occurred to them that they had the right to object to this until just now. Maybe they didn't think there was any way to turn the ability 'off', so they didn't object. And yes, it was a choice for people who knew about the agency index to use it or not, but it was never a choice that was intended to be an option for people. As I said, Silvanon never coded Secundi with the intent to let people view adult images. It's not supposed to be a feature that Sil gave and later took away from the people, it was simply a mistake that was never supposed to be available which has now been fixed.

You use the allegory of viewing unfinished paintings before making a purchase, but a baby image isn't an unfinished painting. If that was the case, it would definitely make sense to let people wait until the 'painting' was finished before deciding whether you want to accept a sale or trade, or not. But a baby image is more like wrapping paper than an unfinished painting. The purpose of a baby image is to hide the final product for a certain amount of time until you get a surprise reveal later and you get to see the results of your breeding! It's a lot of fun for us shop owners to think of our friends holding onto the baby image and waiting to see what comes out as a result.

I'm sorry that you feel like some bred adoptable pets will have a tougher time being homed now that people cannot see adult images ahead of time. This is true with Quin all the time, there was never an option to see adults before they were ready. Hopefully now that people know for sure there is no way for anyone to view adult images on Secundi, maybe people will consider being more open to trades and the possibility of surprises when baby images grow to adults.

Another possibility just occurred to me: I think you will find most shop owners on Secundi prefer the adult images to be secret until growing, but for those shop owners who don't mind people seeing ahead of time, maybe the followers of those shops could just ask for the adult images to be posted in a thread so everyone could see them before growing, or maybe to be privately pm'd to someone rather than posted. That would be the same as using the agency index, but without the secretive nature of a hidden folder.

[TheLeet]

I have been so upset that I was afraid to come post the last day, because of what I might say and later regret.  I love Secundi, I love my Secundi friends, and I don;t want to inadverdantly burn any bridges.. But I have feelings, and keeping them bottled up isn;t good for a person.  So what am I suposed to do?  Avoid Secundi for fear of angering/annoying/hurting people I care about and losing my friends, or just keep my mouth shut and hope I can defuse the pressure building some other way, where it won;t affect my Secundi family?  I just.. I dunno what to do, but I am very hurt right now by this.

I am sorry that this is affecting you so much. I care a lot about secundi, too and I somewhat consider it to be my "home on the internet". Many people can have horrible arguments on the internet and not let it get to them at all but I never understood that.
I know that keeping you feelings bottled up isn't exactly healthy but since you asked what to do, that's what I'd do. Stay on secundi and just forget about all this. You wouldn't be the first person to do it and you have the advantage of not even having seriously upset anyone. So you only have your own feelings to worry about.
I'm horrible at giving advice and I keep deleting and re-writing everything and it still sounds wrong but I just want you to know that there's a way out of this and that you won't have to lose any friends.

Apart from that, I pretty much agree with everything that Ryuu has said and I'm afraid I really don't want anyone to see the adult Noms/Feli before they grow up.

[Silvanon]

*pokes head in*

I think in this case "unfair advantage" simply means that access to the folder was not distributed equally, since not everyone was aware of the folder.  That doesn't mean that those who did use the folder did anything wrong.  If anything, the guilt is on me, for not restricting access to the folder and simultaneously not telling everyone it was available.  My actions caused the unfair distribution of advantage, and for that I apologize.

[Rosedawn]

Kadana hun,

If it makes you feel any better reading through this thread, and from a fairly objective standpoint, I don't think anyone here is upset with you or in the belief that you did anything wrong.

I can see your feelings have been hurt by that phrase "unfair advantage" but I honestly don't think anyone meant it in a way to say that you were somehow cheating them or cheating the community or being sneaky. You are so loved in this community, and even someone as on the fringe of the community as I am can see it.


On a side note and I know that this is NOT the intention, but with you 2 being sisters, when it comes to those agencies that you have to make decisions on before they grow, you can always hang on to one they are unsure about until you can see that adult image.

I know that is also a bit like cheating the system but if you are utterly TORN about something this is something you can do. I know I've had to hang on to an FCFC before for friends because they weren't sure. And right now Crystal is hanging on to a few of my LHs because I was hoping to trade with a few of the other breedings that were meant to come out around the same time, but then life got crazy for PM and Wild and they got delayed. This way I haven't lost out on those trades and I got to see which ones I really couldn't live without.

[Riverwind]

Well I for one have had the chance to cool down and I definitely see everyone's point of view. I am not going to allow myself to be hung up on this any more than I already have been. I love my friends on Secundi, as if they were my own family (and I guess in a way they are). And I would like to say that mostly, Kadana and I were upset about the words "unfair advantage." But now that it seems to be cleared up, I would like to say that I am glad that no one is overly upset about it (other than Kadana now, of course).

And on a last note, I totally agree with you, Rosedawn, about your idea to have someone else hold kittens that I can't choose between and then trade later. But I'd already thought of that and I decided that it would seem like cheating to me. But, my problem was not with the fact that we can not use the agency uploads any more to look at adult images--as I said earlier, it was the word choice that I did not understand. I admit, I was a little sad about the option being taken from me, but I was not basing my complaints on that part of this situation.

So...I hope there are no hard feelings towards either me OR Kadana. She will need a little more time to calm down, probably, but I'm sure all will be well soon. And I'd like to once again apologize...to Leet and any other agency owners/runners/colorists that I may have offended by ruining the surprise...to Silv, for using the agency uploads in the first place...and to everyone else, again for ruining the surprise and causing such a fuss about this.

<3

[TheLeet]

No hard feelings

[Goddesss]

Slightly on-off topic:

Is there anyway I can retrieve some baby images of pets I have? Or is that now locked now that we can no longer view this page?

I have known about this since the thread that Kadana posted a link to from 2010.  I have used it to look at adult images but it is also a great way to go back and get baby images you may have forgotten to get or maybe you got the pet after it was grown and didnt have a chance to save the babies image.  Maybe we can have a place on the pets page that gives access to or displays its other stages?