Doctor Ron has actively returned and appears to be making an honest effort to get the site functional once more. As must be expected, given the state of the coding (even excluding the muddy bootprints left behind by Rivet), it's not easy, and there have been setbacks, but for the time being we'd advocate cautious optimism - Ron DOES love the site, as we all do, and we believe has its best interests at heart...all we hope is that we can all agree as to what those best interests are.
The main efforts currently focus around basic functions like pet care and breeding, with a few dividends thrown in (you can once more post images in the Forums, and - remarkably, as we would have expected to see it as a paid-for feature - pet slot limit has been raised from 50 to 60 per profile. For those who have not been around since the early days, it used to be 10, with paid subscription - way back when, lol - allowing 20). The downside is that Forum posts - and pet profiles as well - must now be in Textile rather than HTML code (and changed over spontaneously), which has - sadly - caused a lot of lost graphics. (Personal profiles are not - as yet - affected, for which we and many others are grateful.) Apparently it was a necessary, and unalterable, side effect of repairing profile loading and pet care, but as some of the images were irreplaceable, it would have been nice to have some warning so they could have been preserved somehow. Perhaps the across-the-board flipover to Textile was unanticipated, a side effect of the Forum edits and/or InstaCare repairs.
Progress does appear to be fairly steady, with setbacks being promptly addressed insofar as possible, and we applaud the changes overall - it IS a huge amount of work to deal with repairing or rewriting even minor amouts of code here...and an effort is being made to keep members up to date on what is happening, a vast improvement in itself. M.foo - which now requires a separate login, for reasons as yet unknown - and widgets are presently out of action, however.
Given all that, there ARE a few areas which we'd like to see addressed once the dust settles...some gentle pokes and reminders have been tossed upon the waters of the Forums, with no response - even from other members - turning up as yet.
ONE - a return of open fostering. with Pay-To-Play firmly in place (and yes, it's necessary, though discounted levels without FD bonuses would be helpful, as well as something along the lines of Gift Certificates to help friends without FD access), the main reason for its restriction is gone...and with the Widget mode apparently being eliminated, it will be the only way to access nonfriended pets, including our own bred babies on dormant accounts.
TWO - the return of direct member-to-member sales of pets and items. We have encountered a number of double-confirmation trading systems on various sites, many of whom have volunteered to share their code. This would eliminate any possibility of scamming even the greenest players and generate far more site income in the form of FD purchases than the present buyback systems. It would also eliminate the need for a separate Gifting mode, more than making up for whatever bitspace it requires.
and THREE - eliminate the bounty on FooSheltered pets. Direct sales will obviate any need for it, and we have NEVER seen the point in rewarding people for throwing their pets away. It encourages irresponsible breeding, undermines good pet care habits, and flies in the face of everything Foo is supposed to stand for. As it costs nothing and takes up no space to keep babies on a profile (they can no longer even be lost due to neglect, another change we might take a fresh look at), the ability to get rid of them at a profit only encourages bad habits and attitudes toward virtual AND real-life pets.
All of these were Rivet innovations, and were introduced primarily in an attempt to assume control of finances and pave the way for Pay-To-Play. They no longer serve any positive purpose. Let's get back to our original ideals !
(by the way - as we have had to deal with it on another site - anyone who needs help with Textile coding, give us a shout)
About Me
- GOLD RUSH
- Tabby Road, New Furrsey, Foo S. A.
- i am a seven-year-old virtual Cream Persian FooCat (born on Little Christmas, 1/5/10), the mascot and spokesfurson for FooBA4U, the FooPets members' cooperative service site.
interesting...lots of looks, but nobody's talking...
ReplyDeleteI am thinking that many of us have just given up on any real change. We either just feed and take care of our pets or have left altogether because of the economy or simply because they have not found the friends and activities that used to be here. I know more people that have left simply because they have to choose between food or some other necessity.
Deleteyou know i think it's way past time to stop blaming all current problems squarely on rivet alone. alot of these problems existed even before rivet came along and rivet has just become the scapegoat for everything. although Rivet did stink the pre-Rivet and post-Rivet times have not been anywhere close to perfect!
ReplyDeleteas long as Foopets is pay to play it willl never make it! they should go back to using ads like they use and was just recently suggested in the forums.
DeleteOnce the site code is fully functional, we can look at running (selected) ads, reinstituting sponsorship by pet product companies in exchange for using their images in foo products - as we used to - and other potential revenue sources, both member and sponsor based.
DeleteNo, not everything can be laid at Rivet's door, but the same path that left us in their hands - and a LOT of problems CAN be traced to their management - is paved with Other People's Money : and it will take a great deal of work and thought to find a way to get around subscription funding as our main income source.
It CAN be done - but not quickly, and a lot of decisions will need to be made about how the site is run to get that far. As it stands, the site IS making it, perhaps not as we might wish, but it will do until viable alternatives can be developed.
...we seem to be back into "look, don't touch" mode...as no one needs to identify themselves (other than tagging your post somehow at the end so eveyone isn't identically "anonymous" - and as this is not a vanity press, we're here for the good of the site and its membership, not to hear ourselves talk - we really need your input, yea or nay...and other things you see as needing to be addressed that have not been mantioned : thanks!
ReplyDeleteWAHOOOO! No more barbie pink, we're Foo Blue again!!!
ReplyDeleteI am here to say thank you for staying with this. I have some questions and some concerns, I had left a lot of items in the closed accounts with the hope of selling them to use for income in I could ever open them again. Now those things are worthless because of the open market. I wish that there was a way to sell back to the mart, even at a loss, so I could actually reopen my selters as free accounts.
ReplyDelete