Pedigree Anonymity (2)

[Petronilla Whitfield]

I think that the posters dismissing the likelihood of pedigrees being used to “out” alts are being naive. Just to be clear—I have no alts involved in KittyCatS, nor do I care myself who might use alts. However, I have been in SL for more than five years and have seen the kind of inquisition-mentality manifested by those intent on discovering which avatars are alts. I don’t share it, I don’t claim to understand the rationale behind it, but I have seen it fuel a good deal of nastiness. Making public the previously private information about kittycat transactions is an invitation to poisonous gossip about who might be whose alt based on the number of kittycat transactions between two avatars.

If KittyCatS decides to implement this change and show both breeder and owner in the pedigree, I hope that the change is not made retroactively. I think it would be a breach of trust--not illegal, not against the TOS—but a breach of trust between the company and its customers.

If this change happens, I would hope that KittyCatS chooses a date in the near future, and then splashes all over the website, message boards in the Main Store, and in group chat that the change is coming, so that everyone knows that kittycats born after X date will show both breeder and owner in the pedigree.

[BabyDoll LaFontaine]

Hello!

I think showing who bred the cats can be both good and bad and I'm on the "give us the choice" wagon here. For instance, I bought two fantastic cats the other week to try to breed out a twinkle shade so I could get it into the line I'm working on. Well once I was done with mom I sold her off and kept a couple of her babies, and then was asked who the breeder of mom was... I tried to help find the name of the breeder but I don't think we did. She really was a great cat.

I'm fairly new to the whole breeding thing but I could see this going two ways. I've made a ton of mistakes with the breeding because I'm learning as I go and yes I'm using some great kitties made by others who have been in this longer than me. So why would someone buy my kittens who I've made mistakes with when they could just go to the people who bred the parents and buy straight from the source?

On the other hand, when I breed my perfect little kitty I would like to get some recognition for it too! So clearly I'm on the fence here, but ready to roll with whatever you choose to do. A choice is always nice!

BD

[Nikka Nateas]

I love the new way of showing cat info of who the breeder was and who the owner is. I would hate to take credit for someones work )

[Corvi Fairelander]

Alrighty, I have read all 5 pages of the thread, and I can see both sides, mostly.

We ALL buy and sell kitties. Even line breeders like myself are going to need to buy kitties to inject new blood into our lines. I know I get very frustrated when I get a hidden trait not showing in the ped of a kitty I bought and I go to the person I purchased the kitty from to ask if they could please look in their ped to see where it came from, and their answer is "I dunno" and either refuse to tell me, or don't know, who owned that line so I could contact that person to find out. Whether this new system will help with that, is unknown, but the extra help would be nice.

I didn't read the thread Sanura mentioned that has now been removed, but I gather the gist of it was that some people feel that a kitty that comes from a line from the same breeder is somehow worth more than a kitty who has not been line bred. This is just ridiculous. ALL lines are going to have to bring in fresh blood at times. Otherwise the line stagnates. I am a line breeder. Anyone who knows me knows this. Now I can take my one line and make pointed softies on cocoa&whites from now till next christmas, however, unless I buy a kitty to put into that line, it's NEVER going to change. I'm always going to JUST get pointed softies on cocoa&whites. I'm not going to get a tail, I'm not going to get eyes, etc etc etc. The point I'm trying to make here is, if someone won't buy my kitty because I injected new blood into a line? that is SOOOo their loss. However, if someone has bought one of my kitties and has sold offspring from it, and that person who bought the offspring has questions, if the owner of my sold kitty doesn't know the answer I WANT the offspring owner to contact me to help fill in gaps. I want to help other breeders as much as I can.

I've noticed over the last 4 months in particular, a lot of misinformation being tossed around. I do what I can to help correct this misinformation and I think having this new system on the peds will help with this. Why? Because it gives new breeders one more option, one more name they can contact to ask questions. Anyone who has Offspring from any of my kitties are always welcome to IM me or even if you don't have offspring of my kitties (lol), you can still IM me and I'll help with ped questions as much as I am able to. I just think it's nice to have as much information and as many names for people to GET that information out there as possible.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

One of the reasons I prefered so far to obtain a cat from a breeding line from one owner is because I can ask this breeder questions of what might be hidden in the kitty as the breeder knows this line very well and bred the kitties over a longer period of time and knows the eventual surprises.
I'm not sure if that is elitish because, and I take a recent example, I wanted to obtain the Tapestry Organica eye but I didn't need an ody belini hidden because I owned that eye already.
If I obtain the Tapestry Organica eye by the initial breeder he/ she can tell me if something more recessive was hidden etc. etc.
A lot of money can go around in kitty traits and I just don't like surprises so much certainly not if it was a costy trait.
It isn't to say I will never obtain a cute kitty with more than one owner in the pedigree but when it comes to spending more than say 1000L I start to be wary because I want to make sure I obtain what I think I obtain.
An open pedigree visable for everyone would make that so much easier because we can just know what is hidden in a cat and ask the breeder of a cat questions.

[Susannah Luminos]

i LOVED being able to see who bred which cat and so on. the new system is/was fabulous. it helped me immensely, the little bit of time i could see all the information. trying to remember who has which cat i may have given away or sold at auction was a benefit for my bad memory. i clapped at my screen when looked and saw the new way. it's a HUGE YES for me. i've never seen anyone trying to be an elitest in KCS. all the cats are wonderful, to my eyes.

[Kikii Littlepaws]

Past pride? Sorry to say that I'm absolutely not past pride. When I get a kitty from a project pair that has turned out with all the things I was hoping for, I'm quick to post that kitty's stats in Addicts. That definitely means I'm not past pride.

As to the information being redundant, it's actually not, imo. Unless you assume that the current owner listed on the parents & grandparents is the breeder. Which is fine, if you want to make that assumption, but sometimes people give away cats. I know I do pass along my lovely kitties to friends the moment I get a boy and a girl I want to use to continue their line...

It's not just about pride, but also showing appreciation to the breeders I've bought amazing cats from. A way for the kitties that I breed to still show their "credit" - that my kittens are great because I bought kitties from other breeders, and worked their beautiful projects into my own. I also really love to bring cats to auction and be able to tell the person I bought a cat from "Look, this is your great-great-grandkitty! Look at all the awesome things your cat did for me!" I think it tends to make them feel good, and that's never a bad thing, imo, either.

Lastly, look at all the work that gets done to maintain the dominance lists. How much easier does it make it to track down where something new came from and how dominant or recessive it is when you have all of that information available to you?

[Isaura Simons]

I am relatively new to KittyCats, started in October. I do have other breedables. But I do not sell what I breed. I do it all for fun and only own a handfull of cats. That said.

When I go shopping I look for the traits and the cat's pedigree. That's all I really need to know. Do I ever go back to the same seller to buy something? No. If I really wanted to I would look it up in my purchase history. Yes, I am happy when I finally get the traits I want all in one place, but I'm not about to ask for a branding. Showing on the Pedigree who owned the parents never bothered me, but in all honesty I never really paid attention to that. On the other hand, I know it would bother me to see the breeder name.

[Saga Felix]

I have suggested many times that the pedigrees should be anonymous, and at the same time made publicly accessible - and I stand by that.

This new thing that we can see BOTH owner and breeder is directly opposed to what I think would be best, so obviously I don't like it at all. It just adds to the whole issue about who bred what and who "only" bought their cats and hence are not "as good" as those who were lucky and got gold from some starter...

So yeah, I breed a line of 9-traited kitties that I bred ALL the way from the starter. Does that make me a better breeder than the one who bought one of these cats from me to breed it with something else? NO!!!!
No-no-no-no and NO! Why should I get "credit for my breed" because I had a starter that gave me stuff that was good enough to keep breeding on? If my starter had been crap, I'd have discarded it and bought something better off the 2nd market. -Oh, and then I would not be as "good" a breeder because I can't track my lines back to the starter. Sorry, but I have nothing but *Rolls eyes* to say to that.

That's the issue. People judge people based on the names in the pedigree. It causes unnecessary drama and heated discussions - and while it is of course convenient and desirable for many people to be able to track everybody's breeding and buying from pedigrees, I really do think that there's a whole wormpit of potential privacy-issues and grief that can come from this. We've seen just a bit lately - adding more names is not the solution - not at all.

-Saga

[Igor Novikov]

Stating the breeder name is how it works in reality, as well as with a lot of other breedables. It is what an pedigree is, essentially. And sooo useful for a lot of reasons which people have stated.

After all, the arguments FOR the breeder tag is about breeding, while the arguments for not having it, is not (snobby people, alt privacy etc).

But sure, let's just not make it retroactive.