WHERE OH WHERE IS THIS COMMUNITY ???

[Kayla Woodrunner]

I think Kittycats has a great community. I am sorry your friend the auctioneer did not have a great experience but that is about business, not community. I don't sell a lot of my kitties but I still think Kittycats is great. Community is not the same thing as making money which is what business is about. There are people out there who make lists for free about the dominance of traits, who give advice when you ask for it and who pat you on the back when you have a kitty even if it is all genesis traits. When you have a problem, Kittycats is great about getting back to you within 24-48 hours most of the time to fix it, sometimes within hours. They have this great forum to post in. When there is a charity auction, a lot of people turn out special and give time and money to raise money for other folks. I breed other breedables and the support and community is nothing like Kittycats. I can't even find info on all their furs, there is no forum to chat in and it is very very hard to meet people to talk to about the breedable for advice and even to figure out the breeding schematics.

Now business is about making money. It is about advertising and letting others people know you have a product. An auction is a product. I go to one person's auction -- why, because if I went once or twice, and then after that she invites me to come if I am on when an auction is about to start. Even though I have never bought anything. I bid but I always get outbid. (However, I won a nice raffle for $500k so it created positive reinforcement for me to show up even though I don't ever win an auction). i don't read the auction list. so like in RL, an auctioneer builds up a following over time. They send out announcements to the people on their list to let them know an auction is coming up. I saw one particularly successful auction where I got not only a notice from the auctioneer just before the auction but also one of the person who had kittys for auction. When I showed up, I had to look around for a chair since more than one person was sending out notices to different invitational list, there was 3x more than the normal amount then I usually saw at that particular person's auction. You said your auctioneer was new -- did they know to friend everyone who came to an auction for the first time? so they could invite them again? Did they ask people who had things up for auction to invite friends? Does the place that she holds an auction at, do they send invites out? How is she as an auctioneer? Was the time bad? I know someone who had a breedable for sale at an 8am auction. It didn't sell. It went for sale at 5pm auction, same place, same auctioneer, same day even. It sold for over $1000L. 5pm was just a better timeslot and more people came. Those are the questions to ask when asking why an auction did not do as well. Because answering those types of questions can help improve the outcome of your next auction.

Also just to put things in perspective, if someone tells me I have to spend money to be considered a good member of a community, I join a different community. Money should not define the worthiness of a community. If money becomes the defining standard of a community, then greed runs rampant and people start acting weird in order to get what they think is their share of the money. Kittycats has a number of different communities within in it. I only started selling recently but most of what I participate in, we show each other our pretty cats and say congrats; give advice and feedback; and get creative together. I am ecstatic when I make a sell but it does not define my Kittycat experience. My most recent sell was my Abbie black bengal and it was only my 5th sale so I was very happy. However, a lot of things make me ecstatic here; the nice people (Kayleigh and Tatiana who responded above among others), having kitty babies, learning to take moving pictures of my babies.

One defining kittycats community thing comes to mind. One person who posted recently had a RL cat who passed and she was trying to make a SL memorial kitty like her own kitty. I love the way people reached out to her, gave her sympathy and also helped her find an SL kitty. I think someone gave her the kitty. That to me is what community is really about. People being nice to each other and helping each other out. I'm sorry your friend was unhappy that people didn't buy. However, the more she reaches out, participates and makes friends, I think she'll find Kittycats is a great community even though you are very unlikely to get rich from it.