Website Suggestion - Discovery of Breeds & Traits

[Anita Meredith]

Hey everyone

I would like to put forward the following suggestion for the KittyCats website regarding discovery of breeds and traits.

I would like to see from now on a date against new breeds and traits when they are discovered to make it easy to check the website to see which are the latest discovered breeds and traits. I know new breeds aren't too bad but once a breed is discovered you don't always know when a new colour has been found and as eyes are alphabetical and not just added to the end of the list it is pretty difficult to know which are the latest discoveries.

So I thought that if a date was now added to when a new breed or trait is discovered it will make it so much easier to check which was the latest discovered or even just when a certain breed or trait was found (this last will take time to build as the dates would only be from now but would eventually be quite handy).

I try to keep up with what is the latest discoveries but it would be so much easier if I knew I could just check the website. Sometimes I look at an eye and think "I don't remember this, is it new?" Normally it isn't but if discoveries from now had a discovery date on I would know for definite and not only that, I would know in a minute because I would just have to check the KittyCats website.

Happy to know what other people think about this and if at some point this has already been suggested I apologise for the repeat.

Anita

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Excelent idea

[Tad Carlucci]

The report should not be that hard to produce, and it should be able to back-fill for all past discoveries, too.

I would NOT show the breeder identification, however, until authorized by that breeder. This recognizes that some people may NOT want to be cited, or may NOT want their cats cited, on a public Firsts board.

I would also show several dates.

* There is the first date the trait was listed. That is, the date that, if one went to the Pedigree View page, one would see the trait there. At that point the trait is still in a box and, for some cats, that trait is still not visible.

* There is the first date the trait was exposed. That is, the date that, if one looked in-world or on the Cattery or Pedigree Roster page, one would see the trait. For some traits, this might be some time, or some number of generations, after the trait was discovered. This will always be greater or equal to the date just above.

* There is the date the trait was first produced. That is, the date that the box showing the trait was opened and the trait could begin to be bred. This will always be greater or equal to the date just above.

* There is the date the trait was first reproduced. That is, the date that a box, showing the trait, was produced where one, or both, parents also showed that trait. This will always be greater or equal to the date just above.

This may seem like over-kill, listing all those dates, but the represent a number of factors. The first date, for instance, tells us when it was POSSIBLE to expose and reproduce a trait. But, at that point, it's also possible the players did not check and lost the box for some reason (granted, unlikely, but never underestimate the ability of users to do unexpected things). The differences between the dates, especially between the first two (which are the candidates for "discovery") and the last two (which speak more to "production") might be surprisingly large due to a number of factors (skill, timing, recessiveness, etc.).

Finally, to preserve some of the mystery, I do not think I would even list a trait value until all four dates had occurred. I would consider some time limit on that, like 180 days, in case nobody successfully breeds out the trait. The hold-off time allows those who discovered the trait time to work quietly before "the world" knows what they've done. And the limit introduces a "race" .. if it's more than six months and NOBODY has been able to reproduce it, exposing THAT fact will, almost invariably, start a race to actually do so.

[Easnadh Swansong]

I like the idea of the date of discovery being shown with the traits, and maybe even the collection it was introduced into the pool of traits by KittyCatS, after is has been discovered of course.

[Deer Thistle]

I agree! Would be super awesome if there was an official place with this information however we as a community are trying our best to piece who discovered what, when, and from what collection on both a Google Doc and the forum: http://goo.gl/tDkgd

Here's to hoping our data can be considered for the site too as not everyone checks the forums who is curious about this information.