RFL Auction

[Liriel Garnet]

I just wanted to share a few thoughts about yesterday's RFL Auction.

First off, we, as a community owe the KittyCatS team a *huge* thank you!!!!!! If you listened to the auction, most of the other breedables offered unique breedable traits in their offerings. Cort emphasized over and over and over again how that would let the winners control the market for those traits. Our KittyCatS team denied the request that they do the same, knowing that it would create an unfair market advantage for people who had the cash to make such a purchase up front, to the point they'd be able to make their 'donation' back quickly and even profit. (Think about how much you've seen tigers or brand new traits sell for in the first few weeks until they become more widespread and you can see what I mean.)

Secondly, that means that those who purchased the cats did, in fact, actually make a donation to RFL rather than an investment where they can easily make back every linden they spent on the purchase. We can buy a cat with similar breeding potential for 790 lindens at the main store, rather than the 300K plus donation these people made for the special cats. So we owe those people a huge thank you as well.

Finally, for those who see the amount raised by each breedable in the auction as a 'competition', please remember that KittyCatS chose to protect their community breeders. I can only imagine how high the bids would have been had they chosen to follow the others. This shouldn't be a competition, it is a triumph for both RFL and the KittyCatS team and community!

[Tad Carlucci]

While one could argue both sides of the issue, I agree with Liriel's comments.

From the point-of-view of the RFL organizers, special, RFL-only traits are good .. for them .. they garner higher bids, more donations for the cause. But they're bad for everyone else. Most breedables have tiny user bases and are struggling for market share; they, also, might see some good for their marketing efforts. Again, that is good for the provider, but bad for their customers.

But for a large, well-established breedable with a strong customer base, such as KittyCatS, introducing new traits at such high cost, and to such a small, select group could well be disastrous. KittyCatS already has a mechanism for this sort of marketing: Special Collections. But in a program such as the RFL Auction, the introduction of exclusive, new traits, through that mechanism would cause far more harm than the short-term gain the company might see.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

As bidder and winner of the first pair of cats I like to say something about this.
My donation was purely based with this charity at heart because indeed we can't earn the money back on our starters and this is how it should be in my opinion.
I think everyone is or sadly will be effected directly or indirectly by cancer in their life.
I was there as well: a lovedone lost his battle against cancer and there was basically nothing more I could do than giving him as much comfort as I could, I hope I succeeded.
But above all it left me empty handed, I wish I was able to create a miracle to cure him but the diagnose gave him just 3 months and he was stubborn enough to make that 6 months.
Sadly by how things went I have no fisical and touchable memories of him left but my thoughts.
So these RFL cats KittyCatS made the past two years are very important to me and represent a memory of him and how we can never stop fighting against cancer.
Back in 2007 I joined Relay For Life in Second Life first as a member of a fundraising team, later as co-captain of a team and later again I had the honor to be asked to be the co-chair for International Relations of RFL, which took care beyond others of communicating information in the different languages represented in Second Life.
Doing this volunteer work gave me the satisfaction of finally being able to do something constructive concerning cancer and the fight against it.
This year I decided to contribute in an easier way and via KittyCatS.
And Liriel I think you are completely right it should go about the charity and not about market opportunities.

EDIT I applaud KittyCatS! for protecting their breeders/ customers market opportunities like they did!

[Serena Stroikavskoi]

I too want to applaud KittyCatS for their contribution to RFL in such a manner. I too have been effected first by my father when it was still a misunderstood disease and recently with my mothers passing. Now my brother also has cancer that he is fighting. I hope everyone does the their part in donating and would personally love to see more of the statues as collectibles with the donations going to a worthy cause. Not only for RFL but also for other charities.

If they ever do the traits on RFL I would hope they would keep it to the vendors, with maybe a higher price tag. I know I do my part with donations throughout the year as well as during drives. So I think it would be an idea to even do a traited kitty with a donation and even an option to donate in someones honor as I know we also have some that are going through treatments and such that can't afford to even donate.

I know I would love this concept and would buy quite a few kitties (collections and regular traited) to set up something like a raffle every month with the proceeds being donated to this and other causes.

[Sanura Snowpaw]

I am so proud to be a member of this community and seeing you all say thank you for not introducing "special RFL traits makes me even prouder. Yes, putting in special traits could in theory garner a higher bid from KittyCatS but there is no way to say FOR SURE that it would.

I am so glad that KittyCatS did NOT bow to the pressure to put in special traits as they respect the community they have helped to build and create more.

Kay, I have to admit I am slightly jealous of your wonderful custom pair and I can NOT wait to see them.

Serena, The first time KittyCatS released something for RFL they actually did have new traits that could be collected from that collection and for a few months those traits were NOT in any other starters afterwards they put them into the regular starters. Which is unlike how we normally see collections released they put the new traits in the starters as well at the same time unless they are limited edition traits like the fruit or gerbera eyes.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Hmmm,... and even if this was a 'competition' gosh what did KittyCatS win with ease design wise XD
Okay this is a totally subjective observation ofcourse but still LOLZ

I'm so proud of KittyCatS! they are just awesome to bring so much efforts for charity \o/
Can you imagine what a pain I will be for Callie when we design the cats that is truely efforts for charity to deal with this picky customer without getting payed for it