Selling Cats Without Enabled Pedigrees

[Illuminatra Resident]

Hi Breeders and Addicts Alike,

I wanted to open this topic, because I feel for those of us that breed, buy and sell cats (mostly all of us lol) that this is a very important thing to discuss. I have noticed more and more that many breeders that sell their cats on the secondary market fail to open pedigrees. I visit countless amounts of markets and individual stores on a weekly basis and just click on cats that interest me because of their cuteness, etc and am just shocked at how many people do not enable the pedigrees.

If you sell your cats at auction, enabling the pedigrees is not only a requirement but it is part of that culture. If you don't enable a pedigree, the auctioneer will not auction off your cat. If I hear from a seller that X cat has a certain trait in the background that I am after, how can I be completely sure of that unless a pedigree is enabled? When I see sellers that constantly fail to enable pedigrees, I think "what are they trying to hide?" Now I realize that the process of enabling pedigrees of a few if not several hundred cats is quite a process, but if one is trying to sell their cats that should not be a problem.

I think that owners of secondary markets should really consider pushing the use of pedigrees. Obviously it would be quite difficult to force everyone to do it, especially if there isn't someone running around checking but I think it would help all of us. We wouldn't have to worry about buyers being taken for their money (whether purposely or accidentally) and we would be able to choose the cats that better meet our breeding programs. The pedigrees are there for a reason and they are wonderful. I love seeing how a cat was bred, and love being able to see the parents, grand parents, etc.

How do you all feel about this?

P.S. For those you who are new to KittyCatS! and want to learn more about pedigrees and their usefulness, here's an article from the website that may assist you. http://kittycats.biz/help/article.php?id=60

-Lumi

[Emilia Darkwatch]

I totally agree Illumi, I wouldn't buy a cat if I couldn't see the pedigree either and it puts me off bidding on such a cat completely. It would really be great for the community if there was more support from places with bid boards stating it as required when putting a cat there, and even giving simple instructions to people on how to do it, if they are new and not familiar with it

[Morgan Northmead]

I am new...how DO I enable pedigrees? I try by clicking on the box at the upper right on the pedigree page..is that all I need to do? Is that a permanent "fix" or does it disappear when I log out? And, how do I check pedigrees for cats I don't own? I know I can see up to grandparents for my own cats, but is there a way to go beyond that?

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Hmmm...I keep trying to "enable in-world pedigree link" but the checkmark always disappears when I move away from the cat...it is never there when I go back to that cat's pedigree page. It is frustrating to try to do something and not have it seem to "take".

[Illuminatra Resident]

(02-26-2015 12:48 PM)Morgan Northmead Wrote:  I am new...how DO I enable pedigrees? I try by clicking on the box at the upper right on the pedigree page..is that all I need to do? Is that a permanent "fix" or does it disappear when I log out? And, how do I check pedigrees for cats I don't own? I know I can see up to grandparents for my own cats, but is there a way to go beyond that?

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Hmmm...I keep trying to "enable in-world pedigree link" but the checkmark always disappears when I move away from the cat...it is never there when I go back to that cat's pedigree page. It is frustrating to try to do something and not have it seem to "take".

Hi Morgan! Welcome to KittyCatS! I hope you are enjoying your kitties! They are so much fun!

Once you enable a pedigree it will stay enabled, unless you un-check the box. To view another cat's pedigree that is not owned by you, you just click on it. The stats of the cat will appear in Local Chat. If there is a pedigree enabled, you will see a green link under the stats of the cat, before you see information on the cat's parents.

The pedigree that you enable will stay enabled, unless you un-check it or you sell it to someone else. Once the cat is owned by someone else, they would have to re-enable the pedigree for viewing.

[Ivy Norsk]

I completely agree about the usefulness of pedigrees and certainly can't imagine an auction cat without one available.

I think Morgan is a perfect illustration of why we shouldn't get too upset about the lack: there is no good overall mechanism for letting people know to do this. People are new, they don't know everything, there's a learning curve to KittyCats regarding sales as well as breeding. In addition, the requirement that we have to tick a box for every single cat separately guarantees that some cats are going to slip through the cracks unless people are very methodical all the time about how they set their kitties up for sale.

I don't think people don't enable pedigrees because they're trying to hide something because I don't think there's really anything to hide. A pedigree can't hurt, it can only help.

[Ra Elman]

A Global ENABLE on the Pedigree Page (http://kittycats.biz/pedigree/) would be a Nice NEW feature. Doing them one at a time is c r a z y but doable for now.

if there is a way to do this now PLEASE let me know

[Songdog Woolley]

I agree that a mechanism to enable all the pedigrees at once would be Very Useful! I breed 99% of my cats in the cattery, and have trained myself to enable the pedi the first time I open a new kitten's pedigree - an ingrained habit is the only way I can prevent myself from being a total disorganized flake!

[Kayla Woodrunner]

Also just a heads up. If you check the box in the cattery but you're still not seeing the link when you click info on your kitty inworld, trying changing the kitty from box to image and back. Changing it is like "refresh" and usually fixes the problem and you should see the link then.

[MsMagick Resident]

I third ... or is it fourth?... that request for a way to enable them for all cats. I usually enable them when I first look at their pedigree page, but it's easy to forget.


Also, re: Best Practices & Pedigree Links:

If you include the pedigree link in the description on the Marketplace, later it will have expired. I'm including screenshots of the kitten's pedigree instead. (This is only for boxes.) If anything else works or is preferable, I'd love to know.

Thanks,

M

[Tad Carlucci]

The issue with a global enable is that it requires a network transaction (from the Mothership to Second Life) for each cat. If your Pedigree has more than a few cats (which is virtually universal), checking or unchecking the option will run afoul of bandwidth throttles put in place on the Second Life side. This throttle should last a few minutes but, the last time I triggered it, it required a region restart to clear it.

Technically, one could work around the throttle by pacing the transactions. But, I imagine, very few users would understand, and most would complain, when it took hours (or days) for a single check, or uncheck, to take effect. This, by the way, is the reason the current implementation can take up to five minutes, per cat, to take effect. As was pointed out, above, changing the prim mode, cycling through the Cattery, or any other operation which results is a fresh copy of your cat bypasses the current traffic pacing slowdown for the option.

The only implementation of the feature which I can envision is an option which only effects new cats appearing on your Pedigree. That, of course, is no help at all to those who currently have large Pedigree rosters. For them, the only way to make use of a global option such as this would be to pass all cats and boxes to another avatar, and back, and, then, it cannot work for no-transfer (starter) cats and boxes.

All in all, the current system is the best we can have.

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As to the request that the Pedigree link be made permanent rather than expiring after a short while: while I fully support the suggestion, the current restrictions reflect a management decision and, while I don't fully understand nor agree with the logic behind it, I also cannot envision a compelling argument for changing it. This seems to be a case where the experience and philosophy of the management trumps public opinion.

My experience, with a competing product, which allowed full, public access to their entire Pedigree-like family tree database was, while it did not appear to cause any problems for them, it did cause a significant number of problems for me as I was often accused of somehow breaking into their systems to obtain the information I was collecting when, in fact, I was simply using their public web interface (and, at that, only doing my information collection by hand rather than using computer systems to automate the process). In fact, I've occasionally been accused of similar issues with KittyCatS! when I make use of the limited information provided here. So, I view the restrictions more as limits protecting us from others in the community than as a systemic requirement; which, as I said, I don't fully agree with, but cannot see sufficient cause to argue against.

But, who knows, perhaps, with enough requests, a change would be made.