Dear KittyCatS Resident

[Tad Carlucci]

Please confirm each of the following are true:

"There is no bias in the system toward newer breeders. All avatars have an equal chance that the next box produced will be a Special kitty."

"There is no bias in the system toward newer breeders. All avatars have an equal chance that the next box produced will be a special size."

"There is no bias in the system. All boxes produced have an equal chance of being either male or female."

There are a number of people who hold these false beliefs.

I am getting tired of people waving a single data point (or ever a dozen) at me as proof that KittyCatS has a bias against those who have been breeding longer.

What makes this difficult is that there actually was a point where KittyCatS actually was unintentionally biased against some breeders; so I cannot make the blanket statement that there has never been bias anywhere in your system.

But it would help if you would confirm that there is no bias is the selection of size, gender, or whether a box will be a Special kitty (such as the World Cup specials currently in production).

[Kayleigh McMillan]

Lol sounds so obvious to me they are not biased o.o
Do people really write you such?
That would really be such negative way of doing business and ultimately bites it's own tail I consider KC way too smart to even consider doing this.

[Tad Carlucci]

Of course, it would be a terrible idea. But it's not about what KittyCatS does, it's about what they're perceived as doing. And, you know how people are .. "It took me three tries, and she got it right off!"

The problem is I am not KittyCatS Resident. No matter how much I try to explain, it comes back to "Well, you can't really know, can you? Because you're not the programmer."

[Callie Cline]

l suppose it won't help for me to say it either, but i will.

there is absolutely NO bias. to do such would be

1. unethical
2. wrong
3. stupid as far as business
4. all of the above.

just so everyone knows... when i breed, i do NOT get anything special treatment either. which is why some know me as the "genesis breeder".

i can understand things not seeming "fair" at times, as with random thing that is what happens.

on the skill part, plus random, it can happen less as knowledge and skill are required.

i know when things seem "off" it's human nature to think, "is it fixed?" etc. that's what we humans do.

i can assure you Tad, there has NEVER been a bias and NEVER will be. i will not answer it from a tech side as i'm afraid if i tried, (not knowing code) i'd mess things up terribly in my explanation.

just rest assured we would NEVER do such a thing EVER. end of story.

[Tad Carlucci]

Thank you. It's no me who needs assurance. But it helps me to be able to point at on official statement to back up what I'm saying.

[Kayleigh McMillan]

(06-24-2014 08:22 AM)Tad Carlucci Wrote:  ...

What makes this difficult is that there actually was a point where KittyCatS actually was unintentionally biased against some breeders; so I cannot make the blanket statement that there has never been bias anywhere in your system.

...

Tad, I totally overlooked this you said.
What was unintentionally biased that you've noticed?

[Tad Carlucci]

This is a fine point. Many won't see it as an issue because few (if any) breeders, generally, fall into the effected class.

When they do special offspring which also gave a new trait value (Lucky Irish Clover, for example), those breeders who are working on values more recessive than that new one (which could be quite a number, if the trait is relatively quite dominant) have NO change of receiving it.

As I said, it was unintentional: it arises solely from the very fact that there is a dominance order to trait values. There is little KittyCatS can do to correct it. They could introduce it as a new most-recessive, which is an unacceptable solution; or they can have special offspring without introducing new trait values. So, the World Cup specials CAN NOT show this bias, but the Saint Patrick's specials do.

Now that they are giving at least a week's warning of special offspring, and running the program for at least a full week, those of us who might be effected can re-arrange our breeding programs to avoid it.

To date, this is the only systemic bias I've been able to show in KittyCatS.

[Mari Halderman]

This is what people dont' get about random, lets use a coin flip. You flip a coin, its 50/50 heads/tails, that means there is also an infinitesimally small chance that that coin will end up tails 100 of 100 times. That is how random works, its random!

[Winter Phoenix]

What if I slip you an extra $20?

Like the doorman at that exclusive club who will let me in

even though I'm not wearing any pants?

Just... curious

[Tad Carlucci]

(06-26-2014 06:08 PM)Mari Halderman Wrote:  That is how random works, its random!

The issue is not that it's random. The issue is that people don't like random. They want patterns, rules, reasons, causes, someone to blame.

This has nothing to do with intelligence or education. It's simply that our brains are wired that way. For most things, doing that works. So we want it to work for everything. And, when it does not work, we tend to pick and choose the facts until they fit a pattern, follow a rule, have some reason, or can be blamed on someone else.

One of those picked-and-chosen facts is that none of us (people like Callie, me, many others) wrote the programs. So, when we say it's not done, out statement does not fit the chosen rule (that is: the program favors someone else and is cheating ME!). So our assurances fall on deaf ears.