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Wanted to add to the above post since I'm on a bus and didn't get the chance earier... The other side of it. I totally get where people are coming from when they're frustrated over what's offensive and what's not. Especially as a creator, having people be outraged overly seemingly artbitraty or trivial things after you put so much work into your content. One of the problems I believe has arised in recent years is the 'trigger' warnimg culture that is oversensitive, reactive, and demanding of an environment devoid of 'emotional triggers.' This 'trend' is toxic not only to the very people with anxiety that it is supposed to protect, but anyone with mental illnness in general and any subject of offence including racism, sexism, etc. Here is an article about it: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/ I believe there is a very big difference between content that is offensive by nature due to insensitive depiction, and nonspecific content that is 'triggering' to people with anxiety regardless of nature. Being triggered by the mere sound or sight of the word 'violate' is an example of something that has gotten way out of hand. It hurts people with anxiety by trapping them in a bubble where they cannot be exposed and learn coping mechanisms that will be required once they leave the bubble. It hurts other people without anxiety by creating a 'walking on eggshells' feeling. It again hurts people with anxiety by creating resent towards them by the eggshell people. It hurts anyone else with other issues because the resent spills over onto them, too. Jimmy. who has been avoiding the trigger word 'violate' for a year, gets fed up and no longer has patience for Billy, who's sister comited suicide. Jimmy tells Billy to 'get over it and stop being a snowflake' when Billy asks that mental illness not be joked about. Maybe Billy's sister wouldn't have comited suicide if people had been more sensitive to her issues and taken them more seriously. A lot of people with mental illnesses feel stigmatized and ridiculed. So that's my case against the triggers... And back to my case for taking offensive content seriousy: The reason why those 'Mental' and 'insert specific culture' pets are offensive is because it creates an alienating environment for the people it represents. It turns them into a joke, a stereotype, or an object. This perpetuates a mindset that tells other people not to be respectful towards them. Mostly anything that is generalized/stereotyped and can be a source of controversey or ridicule for an afflicted person fits this category. Topics like adoption, obesity, mental illness, disability, race, religeion, etc. have the potential to be offensive. These are real problems. But again with the anxiety, I suspect it has a huge role to play in the confusion and controversey over 'offensive' content. As someone with anxiety and bizzare triggers (the sound of chewing and phone calls can induce a panic attack), I'm well aware of how devestating it can be. I'm highly aware of where the line is crossed with this and of how difficult it might be even for people who have anxiety to know these boundaries. Having anxiety is not easy, but it is inappropriate to get mad at or blame others and create an environemtn where they need to tiptoe around your anxiety. The proper way to handle anxiety is to find coping mechanisms. I wear earplugs under my hair (people don't even need to know) and can still have conversations over dinner without hearing any chewing. Mental preparation is needed, too. The person with anxiety needs to cope with their problem. The world will not change for them. Anxiety can be a serious, debilitating issue that needs to be treated, not sheltered. I know this is easier said than done, but there is no other option. There's been times when I've not had earplugs or am unable to leave the room. I've asked family and apologized for the trouble, I highly appreciate when they're willing to do this for me in times when I really need it. This is a rare, very last resort, though. It's a matter of "Please help me with this problem I'm trying to cope with," not "You need to stop that because you altering your life is easier for me than treating my problem." It's not appropriate to demand other people avoid doing what they normally do because of your anxiety. I do not like to call my issues being 'offended' either. I am not offended by the sound of chewing or phone calls. Certain words bother me too, but I wouldn't say I'm offended by them. They cause panic attacks, not moral unrest. I know the word 'offended' might technically be viable by dictionary definition for anxiety triggers, but it just doesn't sound like the right word to me. Anxiety triggers are a very different thing from being offended by the 'Mental' pets on Marapets. Going on protests and acting entitled to a world free of anxiety triggers is unfair, unrealistic, and damaging to everyone. If loud noises are triggering, wear earplugs. Clapping is not alienating like making fun of someone with a mental illness, and any harm it causes can be avoided with sound blocking items (I combine earplugs with lawn mower muffs) or other coping tricks. If your coping mechamisns are failing or unavailable, don't make demands, get help. Overall, I think a trend in recent years to be 'offended' by unusual things has caused a lot of resentment and confusion about what should really be censored or avoided. This is just my opinion on what should and should not be avoided. It's a really complicated situation and there are a lot of other factors to consider.

I dom't agree with it being a matter of intent. I could joke about cancer with the intent of cheering up a cancer patient, I'm still in the wrong for being insensitive to a serious problem. Most 'offensive' things only affect certain people. It's a matter of having empathy for serious topics and treating them with properly. For many people, mental illness isn't a joke. I have PTSD and get flashback. I've been told I'm mental and to 'just stop being crazy" by my closest family. It's alienating when people make trivial jokes about something that's so devastating and out of your control. It says to me 'I don't mind laughing at your expense, Mental illness by itself is a joke." i don't mind more sophisticated mental illness jokes that show some insider understanding of it. Just 'haha its crazy therefore funny' is shallow and Family Guy level unclever. I'm disappointed by the crazy/mental pets on Marapets. I think it's tactless and shows a level of either ignorance or insensitivity to anyone struggling to be taken seriously. You can not intend to stomp on a dog's tail, that doesn't mean you should keep doing it. If the harm is unintended, don't continue to stomp your foot knowing the dog's tail is under your shoe. At that point is is in fact intentional because you know the consequenses and choose to continue. As for cultural themed pets, racism has a deep and disturbing history of dehumanization. The thing I don't get is... There is no reason to do it. Whether it's the crazy pets or cultural themed pets. You could very easily name them something safe. Find a movie character that has the 'crazy' you want and make it a parody. Like Madete Moody from Harry Potter. Call it Angryeye Aggry. Make tribal markings into more of a fantasy elf or pandora-like thing. Bam. No longer a problem. With a little creativity, you can have the 'cultural' pets too. I believe Neopets did this with their island pets. Taking a few minutes to think of a non offensive way to name things will show your players that you are an educated person and don't want people to feel like serious issues don't matter, it will go a long way.

Sure thing and thank you! I love the idea of the soap being a treat, we could totally turn that into something rabbits would like =D And the quest thing sounds good for the chicks, we don't have a feature for that yet, but I'd like to add them at some point.

These are beautiful! Thank you so much for offering them! I would love to use them on leporidae.org if that's alright? I tentatively put you on the redits page: http://leporidae.org/credits (can remove if you'd rather they not be used). I am not 100% sure what item uses they will all have, but I'm thinking the windchimes could serve as a predator detection when we implement predators to prevent them from attacking your rabbits. The flowers will fit perfectly into our flower garden (which can be a deciration item later). The soap I am thinking maybe can be used to clean up human avatars (if you apply dirt or other items that could be removed with soap). The chick I am not as sure, could be no idea if we'd be able to use that one. Let me know if you'd rather not they go to use on this site. I hope someone can get some use out of them.

I agree, I think that would be overly complicated, though I can't say for sure since I've never seen it in practice.

Very surreal design, jakdacrowe. My latest thing is a background. m

You can still use IDs for your pet species, right? You would just have to add some discernable text in dropdown manus if you were creating a search by species feature. Unless there's another code you have in mind that would be trouble with non unique species names. I don't know of any sites off the top of my head that do non-unique species names. Mine has unique names for species, but not individuals. I'm not sure if there's any point to allowing non-unique species names unless players are creating their own species' (which is a cool idea btw).

Heheh, fair reasoning. I see where you're coming from. There were always people (I noticed) on Neopets who weren't all into the well named thing. As someone who loves it, I'm not sure how to say why, but yes the value and specialness was something I liked. It was different from just having a lot of points or other assets you worked for because anyone who worked hard could have that. But only you had the one pet out of millions with the name 'Dragon' that everyone else wanted. It felt special, it felt unparalleled, it felt... glorious just looking at the perfect simple spelled out next to your one in millions pet. I don't get that sense of satisfaction from having expensive stuff or high placements on leaderboards personally, it doesn't feel 'special' enough. I see the setbacks of that system though and am wondering how else pet or other sites can replicate this same feeling of acheivement in a less obnoxious way? Surely there's other features we can do a similar thing with to offer that sense of value to players who really liked the unique naming thing (i know it's not for everyone, though, and isn't necessary). Also would love to hear more feedback about what other people enjoyed about it.

What does everyone think about cron jobs? When should you use them? When should you NOT use them? Is it better to avoid them when alternatives are possible? How can they be avoided? When I started my site, animals were aged up with a cron job. I found this to cause many problems because it was a large amount of data to update and, when it failed, this was a huge deal for players. I recoded the site to handle aging with dates. That eliminated the problems we used to have with aging. I'm now wondering what else would be better off without cron jobs? I have to recode our shops (for other reasons) and wondered if I should recode it in a way that doesn't use crons. Though, it's not such a big deal when the shop cron job gets skipped. Has anyone else had experiences with dealing with alternatives to cron jobs? What things should and should you not use crons for?

This has been a huge toss-up for me too. I just love the competition and value of unique naes, but on the flip side of it, it kinda sucks not having the ability to name them whatever you want. I guess it depends on the kind of game you want. Unique names might be better suited for petsites, and anything names for SIMs. I'm looking forward to what anyone else has to say about this, if there's any ideas on how to deal with naming of pets.

I don't know of any places to research this, but it would be an interesting subject to read up on if anyone knew of any scholary articles or other insightful info. One good trick is to make the name unique so it won't have anything to compete against in search engines. I named my site Leporidae (knowing this) and it never comes up first in searches because leporidae is a real word rather than a unique name. So yeah I'd go with a unique name if you want to make it easy to find. Making it easy to remember and spell is important too. Some casual players will just give up and go do something else if they can't remember how to spell the name of the site. I also look at Pokemon for naming ideas. Some Pokemon names are nothing special, but a lot of them actually have pretty creative etymology. Here's a page with a bunch of Pokemon name etymology: https://pokemondb.net/etymology Using etymology, mythology, and other relatable things in a unique name is a good way to make it memorable to players. I like to think about the underlying themes and concepts, then write down all the words (nouns, adjectives etc.) or even stories, myths, or cultural things that 'feel' like they represent the concepts in the game, then look them up in the online etymology dictionary. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pair then find a way to combine maybe 2-4 words in a compact, attractive way that will be easy to recognize and remember. If you come up with something that makes people go 'oh, that's clever' you know you did something right. Aside from that, I'm not sure what else to say about names. They could be anything you want, really. These are just ways I like to name things (except for my actual site apparently lol).

Thank you bunches! I love the ability to transfer adoptables, and that making topics gives you more than posting replies—hope this is used properly and boosts activity.

Awesome! Thank you for the update!

I did one a while ago and decided against entering, but since you need more I'll submit that, just sent it =3 Good luck everyone!

I hired Chutkat to draw a few buildings. The finished products were gorgeous, done in a timely fashion, and layered and designed to the criteria I had laid out! These are amazing pieces of artwork and I am so happy to have had the opportunity to hire such an outstanding artist! Will definitely want to commission more in the future (if Chutkat is still available then).

Ooh, that's so cool! What breed? Here's another commission WIP to stay relevant.

This sounds like a great idea! Should encourage people to get their adoptables leveled up.

I love seeing everyone's beautiful work! Also would love to see the finish products if you guys ever want to post them. Here's my latest one, doing a lineart commission of someone's bunny.

Thank you for this! Super helpful ^^

Good idea! This would help for artists and anyone doing freelance work for sure.

Welcome, ilrak, hope you enjoy the forum and look forward to seeing you around!

I don't name my host anymore, but I am keeping an eye out for one! I have two friends looking for cheap or free hosts to develop a site on, though. Something that you can use PHP, mySQL, and imagemagick on.

Unicorns. They would probably do more good in the world (healing powers, etc. as opposed to fire spitting lizards of doom). Would you rather pet foxes or pet kangaroos be common?

Purple. Would you rather dye your hair blue or green?

War